Right now, first person shooters are all the rage in America. Call of Duty is the stereotype video game these days, and for good reason; the past five titles have easily surpassed 10 million units sold. So there couldn't possibly be anything intrinsically wrong with the genre, right? Well, that's a matter of opinion. I'm going to pose an idea here, and you're free to take it or leave it. I propose that the first person shooter genre is broken, and that each subsequent title that furthers this brokenness serves only to make it less likely that it will be redeemed any time soon. Allow me to make my case before you flame me, if you please.
Bioshock. Halo. Halo 2. Halo 3. Halo Reach. Red Steel 2. The Conduit. Conduit 2. Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 3. Metroid Prime. Metroid Prime 2. Metroid Prime 3. Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force. Fallout: New Vegas. Half-life. Half-life 2. Perfect Dark. F.E.A.R. Call of Duty. Call of Duty 2. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
I just listed 23 games. What do they all have in common? They're all first person shooters (we'll argue definitions in a minute) that have at least "pretty good" storylines, and those are just the games that I've ever personally played or seen enough of to get an idea. Some, like The Conduit, are cliche, but they are executed well. Some, like Call of Duty 1 and 2 and Medal of Honor: AA, are based on parts of history everyone knows. What makes them eligible in my eyes to be on this list is that their campaigns are good. The way they tell their stories is good. When it all comes down to it, true originality doesn't really exist anymore; just about everything is a rehash of something else. What makes a game good is if they do that rehash well.
Now, let's briefly talk definitions. What does "FPS" mean? First person shooter. I will admit, Mass Effect is not a traditional FPS; it's an RPG. Metroid Prime is not a traditional FPS; it's an adventure game. However, in both series, the perspective is first person (at least in combat, Mass Effect is, and Fallout has an optional first person perspective), and you shoot things. Ergo, first person shooter. Both series are, at least in my opinion, FPS by virtue of a "secondary" genre. Think "unofficial" tertiary types in Pokemon, if you will; Charizard and Gyarados as "unofficial" Dragon-types, or Blaziken as an "unofficial" Flying-type.
Now that I've pre-emptively defended myself against the flames that I knew would come from including Metroid Prime and Mass Effect, let's go back to what I mean when I say that the genre is broken. Look at the single players for every Call of Duty game from Modern Warfare on. They're terrible. The storylines are horribly written, the dialogue is terrible, and it just feels like Activision didn't put any effort into it. To a small extent, Black Ops got away from this with the way they structured their campaign, but the actual missions still felt just as lifeless. Battlefield isn't much better.
People tell me all the time, "Call of Duty is about the multiplayer, not the single player." That's all fine and well, but if that were the case, do what Valve did with Counter-Strike: Source; make it exclusively multi-player. I, personally, think that the single player should be the crux of the game with any multiplayer, local or online, as a bonus, but I won't nitpick that much here. Valve set out to make an amazing multiplayer game, and that's what they did. They didn't insult us by throwing some crap together at the last minute and calling it a campaign.
Now this doesn't mean that you can't enjoy these "subpar" FPS games. I absolutely ADORE Unreal Tournament, but its single player is even more insulting than the recent Call of Duty games'. My point is not to bash people who play Call of Duty. I myself am guilty of putting Modern Warfare or World at War into my Wii from time to time. The point I'm trying to make is that these games are stifling what past precedent has proven can be a WONDERFUL genre. First person shooters don't have to be all online play devoid of any respectable storyline, but so often they are. I love that Ubisoft made Red Steel 2 the way they did. There's not multiplayer, local or online, but the single player is SO fully and completely satisfying that it doesn't need it. Now, I'm not saying that a truly good game shouldn't have multiplayer. On the contrary, I think most games should. What I like is that Red Steel 2 didn't need multiplayer, and whether it was intentional or accidental, Ubisoft proved that point.
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