Well, besides the obvious...
The first first-person shooter than I owned was Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. I thought it was alright. You know. You got to shoot Nazis. That's good right? Bit short, but one of the first games I ever finished as well. I do remember one part where one of the interchangeable NPCs gets killed and it was very emotional for everyone. You sure I can't just use a sword? Swords are fun. Halo was another one that was popular at the time, though I only played the multiplayer with friends. Again, didn't impress me much, but I'm hard to impress anyway. I never really felt like I was shooting something unless I was using human weapons. I understood that dual weilding needlers is meant to be cool, but the way it was just "pew, pew, pew" didn't impress me. (Oh no, a blog that noone reads doesn't like Halo).
Fast foward to 2007 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was launched. There was no escaping this one. Infinty broke away from the WW2 setting of past games and fully updated the game to a modern setting. Ergo, Modern Warfare. And yes, I did figure that out by myself, but that's not important right now. What was important about this new entry was it's multiplayer. Infinity Ward had stubbled upon a fantastic formula for online gaming, matching maps with perks and making gaming heaven. Activision was so impressed with its developers that they promptly fired them all once the game was finished. The same team is making the upcoming Titanfall if you were worried about an only multiplayer game being made by people who wouldn't get it. These guys didn't just get it, they invented it. Unfortunatly I only had a Wii at this point so I never got to play this game.
However, years later, my friend and I would get high and he would introduce me to none other than Call of Duty: Black Ops - Zombie mode. If Modern Warfare updated a series that needed it for a long time, then adding zombies to the mix... still doesn't make sense. But yet again they struck oil and zombies became another staple of the series. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to think, "Is this still an FPS? What is an FPS?" Then I realised I was still high and continued to waste two years of my life during which time, the "realistic" FPS fell out of favour, and each new installment to the series looked less like a game and more like a multiplayer map pack. To me, FPS was just another name for shit game (and frames per second because all my friends are film students).
Now the year is 2013. I've played Bioshock Infinite, Half-Life 2 and Borderlands 2. All these games deserved to be played just as much as any classic game like Ocarina of Time and Grand Theft Auto. I've begun to realise that a narrative told through a consistent viewpoint can offer storytelling techniques that other genres don't. I've learnt to appreciate the designer talent behind those at Valve who near perfected the genre. Of course I still do have gripes about current FPSs. I do get sick of the aim-down-iron-sights gimmick. The suck-your-thumb-until-jam-disapears mechanic. And the absolute non focus on furthering the medium of videogames that some developers have. But all genres have the similar problems that are unique to them. RPGs have random enemy encounters and grinding. Third-person shooters are in love with chest high walls. But still, Skyrim and The Last of Us are some of my favourite games ever. So I think that I've had enough of my hate for this genre and am ready to embrace it.
But I'm just a gamer with a personality disorder. What do you think of FPSs? What's a complaint you have about your favourite game genre? Leave a comment!
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