Sorry Jacob, but your opening statement of 'I believe it started in 2006 with the release of Gears of War' seems massively flawed to me. By the time Gears of War came out the WWII based Call of Duty was on it's 3rd release, albeit the first one was for PC only. Plus right from the xbox launch we've had Halo which is a pretty serious FPS. Add to theis Vegas 6. Seems to me the FPS serious shooter has always been there and judging by the sales people like them. I know I do. They'll always be there, just the targets will be different.

Oh yes I agree that the first Call of Duty and Halo were previous, but I personally had a lot of fun with Halo online simply driving the warthog around doing silly stunts with it, it allowed for there to be a bit of stupidity. Also the WWII Call of Duty games were the first of their kind on PC, with Medal of Honour on console. My main point here is that I feel it is a very tired formula, even the recent Bulletstorm tried to change things a bit albeit not quite that much. Also with the Rainbow 6 games, they add a massive sense of tactics and strategy which do not exist in current shooters which just make to run into a room and shoot anything which moves. This is just my opinion though and I know they sell well. That's my problem though really, I can't see why the market is still so massive when they just get so repetitive and somewhat boring.

I loved the single player missions in call of duty and most other fps games but there to short....way too short. I feel this is very unfair, in fact most games these days are too short

Well yes that is another problem these days, not all games are though but as you say, most games are a bit short. I think though that it is once again due to multiplayer success, so companies focus on that more than a long campaign

Now Halo was a good FPS with no perks making it as skillful as the player was and was an a classic shooter, it was also only an xbox release meaning devoted playstations fans (such as myself) only got to play it round friends, as it was meant to be whether it was online or not. The fact that CoD was released on several ports was a huge plus, it eased itself with a good story and pristene FPS into the gaming world. After a few releases CoD had a damn good name for itself and went mainstream (for me this was with Modern Warfare2) as with everything that goes mainstream whether it's music bands or such, the original game can get lost within the hype, so gamers will feel it necessary to purchase CoD just for the title on the box creating gamers who may not have chosen a FPS, which is brilliant! but of course has its downsides as well. However as with most 'fads' that go mainstream they run thin sooner or later, so either this will happen for the CoD title after perhpas 3 or 4 more releases of the same basic game they have produced, or, they add something new AND creative into the mix. If they do this then the freedom and simple 'mess around fun' that was experienced in games like Halo could easily be created in CoD. It may dampen the 'seriousness' of the series however as with all on going series (metroid LoZ etc) it's hard to change from the original template without losing the original game. So good luck to CoD and other FPS, we need creativity.

It's simply not a game if the multiplayer lasts longer than the single-player campaign. The big game production companies need to realise that there is more to the market than appeasing 12 year olds from the mid-west.

Wow. Talk about an argument based on a straw-man argument. The prevalence of FPS shooters hasn't "spoilt the fun of video games" anymore than the platform genre did for the 8-bit/16-bit era, or "3D" fighting games did for the first gen Playstation era. And that's not to mention the mindless single-sentence dismissal of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I take it you didn't really play it that much? Because you wouldn't get much success on a BF: BC2 multiplayer using those twink MW tactics you started crying about in the subsequent paragraph.

Oh I do wish I had spoken more about Bad Company 2 as yes that does have more tactics involved. I was a massive fan of Battlefield 2 (Not BC2 just to differentiate) but I felt that Bad Company dumbed it down a bit for the MW2 fanbase in an attempt to steal them. I did enjoy the single-player for BC2 more than the multiplayer because I am not a competitive player and thus I came across too many games where others relied on the twitch-based combat which had more than likely been learnt playing CoD, which ruined the experience for me. Also I take it from your post that you also think the general gameplay of CoD multiplayer requires minor amounts of though and plain reflex? MY problem is that too many seem to rely on that rather than the tactics that Battlefield 2 had, which I felt BC2 lost somewhat. Yet I must disagree with the first statement you make as even within all those 8/16-bit platformers there was difference between them, there's Super Mario Bros., then there's Zelda 2 and then there's the first Castlevania and then there's the first Metroid, all very, very different and each just as enjoyable. I will admit that the fighting games of the PSX era were repetitive also, which is why I only really had Tekken 3 and didn't bother with any others until I got Soul Calibur 3 for PS2 even then I got rather bored of that quite swiftly once I learnt that Kilik could beat anyone. I do apologise that I didn't expand more on my problems with Bad Company 2, and I hope this comment helps

Lets not forget about the sports franchise. I personally think its just as bad. Every year a new madden/nfl/nba/ncaa/mlb/nhl 2kXX/20XX is released with only minor changes to gameplay and updated player stats, and people eat that up. They're paying a $65/ year subscription fee for mediocre. Working at a video game store I get questions like "What's the difference between madden 2011 and 2012?". The best I can answer is that 2011 was released a year ago, so less people will be playing on their servers.

You're waaaaay off base there - BF:BC2 is pretty much anti-twitch gaming as far as multiplayer goes. It certainly didn't dumb down tactical gameplay from BF2. You say you didn't enjoy the multiplayer because you're not a competitive player? It seems wilfully-negative in that case to hold up the competitive nature of head-to-head multiplayer gaming as a negative. Your list of examples does nothing to address my point - that one genre of games having prevalence doesn't reflect on the state of gaming itself. If you expand your argument to FPSs, then you've got Killzone 3, Red Faction, Halo, Half Life, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 3, Doom 3, Deus Ex 3 - all of which put as much spin on the genre as any of the 8-bit platformers you name. Hell, you could even stretch to including Portal, or even Fallout 3, as extended-cousins of the FPS genre. I'm not denying that there are plenty of shit FPS games, and that there's lazy overlap in some of them, but it's no different today than it was a decade ago, or two decades ago.

What I meant but not competitive was that I don't enter competitions or clan matches. I have only ever experienced players of BC2 who rely on twitch shooting. That wasn't why I didn't enjoy it, I didn't enjoy it because it felt like it relied too much on luck just as CoD did, that was just my experience of it though, as I am gathering yours has been different. Proper competitive playing gets really tactical as I'm sure you would agree and that gets interesting, but there the majority don't do that, they just rely on the point-and-shoot method which is all to easily offered to them. I have yet to play Killzone 3, as I stated I am very much a PC gamer these days but I did play the original and it felt like pretty much any other shooter. I count Portal as a first-person puzzle game and Fallout 3 as a first-person RPG just as oblivion is. Deus Ex 3 is a difficult one, but I would call it action adventure, I barely relied on shooting in my playthrough. I just feel that since the success of Modern Warfare people want to replicate it, and the massive hype that surrounds it feels misplaced when really it is nothing new. Ok so Red Faction let you blow up walls but only when it wanted you to and Half Life is the only one there really that I would agree with you about. Personally I feel it has gotten worse if only due to FPS hype which has increased to no end and as I said it feels misplaced, I can understand the Skyrim hype, we don't know what that will give us, but MW3 and Battlefield 3, we know exactly what they will give us and it is something I have become really quite bored with as have many others with whom I talk about this sort of thing

Also one cannot compare what Metroid did for platforming to what say, Doom 3 did, or even really Halo. My point isn't necessarily that the prevalence of FPS themselves is bad, just the recent ones such as the new Call of Juarez, the recent Medal of Honor, Homefront and the fact that there's almost a new CoD every year and each one just changes the weapons and perk selection a bit which is nothing major.

You just suck at COD. As Activision said themselves. "Easy to play, difficult to master" You can't expect to pick up the game and easily kill a guy whose been playing COD for years. As for the campaigns. They're trying to tell a story. That's the focus of the story. I don't know what you want. Free roaming? Open world? Go play Skyrim. Those of you saying that COD changes nothing every year obviously haven't played them. Do yourself a favor and go play them before making ignorant comments. You don't like FPS? Don't buy them. Simple. I find it so fucking funny you're asking people to buy indie games instead of the next COD. NEWSFLASH: They're called indie for a reason. They're not supposed to replace AAA titles and they never will. What are they supposed to do you say? Well maybe play them as filler in the dry summer months.

@skinkykushmar Wow interesting comment you have there. I would love for you to tell me how someone can make a single player have near-infinite replay value in a FPS.

These games sell well for the same reason X-Factor gets good ratings. Its not clever, or new, but well produced and appealing to a broad range of people. This isn't anything new. I remember in the 80s people moaning about bad movie-tie in game selling well, and then it was Fifa (before it got good again) always topping the charts despite being shit. In other words, there is usually some brand of crap at the top of the charts - and at least the FPS games now aren't actually bad games. ***** Also, may I suggest in a friendly manner that the author tried shorter sentences, this is a bit hard to read in places.

Yeah I must admit the concept of "Why is this so popular?" isn't all that new, but how else does it change if people don't start asking questions? Though if you play the recent Call of Juarez or even really Homefront, they are pretty poor games on the whole, regardless of genre. I must admit that yes, some of the sentences do drag a bit but I aim to improve as I keep writing so thanks for the feedback

The gripes in the article sound like someone never actually played those games. If rapid fire was so awesome, everyone would use it but the fact is no one uses it because it makes the weapon uncontrollable in most instances. There's no dodging shots with "sprinter" perks either. If someone spots you sprinting, you are likely dead because it takes a few seconds to transition from sprint to aiming. This is all made up bullshit. Both of those games, deathmatch is the mode that is least played. I can admire a good rant against CoD but this nonsense is supposed to compel us to support indie developers? Guess what asshole, I buy both CoD and indie games. This article makes me not want to buy indie games. Go fuck yourself.

It's not COD's fault, it's the people that buy it year after year. It's the console kids that dictate how the game plays. It has to be slow and the delta between good and bad players small because otherwise they go away and they won't buy the game anymore. Quake live is almost dead despite quake 3 being universally acclaimed by PC gamers, why? Today's gamer is totally skill-less and has no desire to improve. The game's skill level comes down to them, they don't attempt to improve. Unfortunately that means gamers who've been around and know the ropes are bored to tears killing droves of near zombie children with reaction time the size of Texas. PC gaming is utterly dead, blame consoles selling more.

Woah calm down Walsh, I actually have played these games, I used to play Cod 4 quite a bit and still prefer it to the later releases. I also have a friend who is the perfect example of what I described, he simply uses the Spas-12 with marathon, lightweight or sleight of hand (which reduces aiming time) and a rapid fire machine pistol for when the Spas runs out of ammo. He gets stupid ratios of about 10-1 without fail, simply because he just sprints and pops out of corners and shoots people in the face and has no trouble doing it whatsoever. I know other people who use other perks but they never get the same sort of ratio as he does regardless of skill, he has said so himself. I even had a go at his build and found the game so much easier. I am also not trying to necessarily trying to make you support indie devs, I just felt it was a correlation really. The Portal developers are no longer indie, yet I still say support them. I also highly recommend Dead Island now I've gotten a chance to play that and they are not indie devs either. I'm just saying that these games are a tired formula that needs to change, especially for someone such as myself who would like to see gaming taken seriously as a medium rather than just as something for 14 year old kids to shout abuse at strangers through. Kishan, I don't think PC gaming is dead yet, I for one stick to PC because there's a wider variety of games out for it, from action-RPGs to weird puzzle games, although I do feel that sadly what you say is true

Also, the only reason modes like Domination are really played is so that people can farm XP so they can get better guns, it used to be different but now people just want to shoot each other for minimal reward as quickly as possible

Holy shit, Nerd alert!

I don't think indie games are the solution. It's a downgrade. The PC used to command the most enviable triple-A games in the industry. You can't sustain a platform off indie and to that end PC gaming has already died with the erosion of platform exclusives and the fact that games put consoles before PC with gameplay. What PC gaming meant in the 90s and early 2000s no longer exists and nothing on the horizon looks to change that.

Well I guess I just have high hopes and once again I must say that I am not saying that you should only buy indie. I just think that people should take ideas from the indie devs who are willing to try new and exciting things and actually make gaming more fun and interesting again, rather than just going on the highest sales figures. I mean Limbo managed to BUY BACK their company from the investors, if a platformer can do that, imagine what something similar but with a larger budget, and thus more features within it, could be. Portal is the perfect example of a great game that came from something new and interesting, but that was because they got AAA funding and was a AAA game itself. Indie will not replace, I just hope that more companies take a leaf from the indie dev's books and try something new and fun. As an earlier comment said, the sports genre is just as bad bar the odd release like Skate which completely changed the skateboarding game. Why not try this sort of thing with other genres, make it so that completing the simplest of actions actually makes you feel good because it's difficult? Also I'd like to add that I did play CoD 4 a lot, and I mean a lot. I got to 4th prestige before I got amazingly bored of it, and the modern "accurate" shooter as a genre

I actually agree with Jacob. I personally don't enjoy first person shooters anyway. I hate Halo and CoD with a passion because I suck at them anyway but never really got into them. Most of the time, I'll suck at stuff but because I enjoy the plot, the graphics and the overall experience I will continue to play the game until I... suck a little less at it. I don't get that with most First Person Shooters. I used to be a massive Medal of Honor fan, but when I played the others games of the series and experienced games like it, I just lost my love for it because it was just the same as everything else out there. These days I even find that zombie games and RPG games are getting repetitive. It'd just be nice if the gaming industry got a flash of inspiration.

MW2 "based on luck"? Hm, no. Rapid fire Mini-Uzi with Marathon Pro is awesome for some levels, but the good players can use this much more effectively than the bad. So if you are dying from a rapid-fire noob, well, you're just not very good, yourself. MW is awesome because it's a fast-paced arcade-style FPS. And just like Arcade games of the past, those with the skills, win. Your allegation that people don't need lots of skill is laughable. Being a very good player, I have no trouble dominating in nearly every match. What MW did that you fail to point out, was give bad players some fun incentives, like perks, unlocks, and killstreaks. That's not a bad thing. Go play Doom or Quake or even CS again...those are hardcore. I'd have a KD of like 40/1 every game. How fun was that for the other players? So I don't mind MW providing other means to excel. Good players will always still win. So to use a British expression, just come off it.

Jacob, I could not agree with you more. You are getting a lot of heat for what you wrote because you dared to criticize something that is very popular--but you were right to do so. Massive brain-dead franchises like COD ARE dumbing down video games. The single player components for both Black Ops and the last Bad Company DID practically play themselves. In the very first level of Black Ops a Cuban police car comes speeding up to you and you are supposed to shoot it until it explodes. The police car will explode even if you DON'T shoot it and the two cops inside will just sit there, not moving, until the car explodes ... It's more like watching a dumb action movie than actually PLAYING a game. To say nothing of the endless handholding both franchises force on you, the intrusive HUD elements, etc etc. The really sad thing is, the immense popularity of those games means that publishers will force those same stupid elements into more and more games (Syndicate reborn as a FPS anyone?) in the hopes of cashing in on some of their popularity. And the whole cycle of stupidity begins anew. Don't let the haters get you down, Jacob. You were right to speak up like you did. Stick to your guns. And don't feel like you have to answer every little shot they take at you either. There's a million of them and only one of you. You said what you had to say in your article. Let your critics whine away.

For what it's worth, the Portal developers are still indie. Valve publish their own games, they're the greatest success of indie gaming, and yes, Kishan, Valve do command the most enviable triple-A games in the industry. Nothing's come close to the Half Life IP and I can't see that changing in the near future.

i agree with OP. i miss the days of rainbow six tactics. i used to actually comunicate with a team instead of having 8 year old kids screaming in my ear. and what is the deal with the best players getting the best perks/weapons? it makes no sense. if you wanna reward good players (i use the term loosly) give them differnt skins. dont give them something that makes them even better, its just not fair on the rest of us.

Nothing more then propaganda. Bashing FPS, as soon as "Indie" developers make a game as successful as the games you mentioned then I will consider a purchase.

Nice article. I started my foray into the FPS genre with an early build of DOD and MOH:AA followed closely by the original Battlefield: 1942,I too have looked back and seen the changes in the FPS genre and I feel that it happened long before GoW. What's happened is that as FPS game mechanics have been slow to progress there has been the need for a baseline to take shape. With the world wide success of COD, the baseline has been set with a small map size, 5v5 format, loads of guns, perks, streaks and presto you got a bread n' butter shooter. I like how you mention the cover system, this shit was introduced by Unreal engine built games but now has started to creep into FPS game mechanics as a standard. I hate that crap, it's even in Red Orchestra 2. Try that game out if you want a tough, steep learning curve, very satisfying. COD 1& 2 were the best FPS shooters I ever played, COD 1 still is the high water mark for me, it was difficult to master, let alone shot straight, COD4 introduced mechanics like perks which were a silly excuse for the same crap hackers were using as advantages. But COD4 is maybe the only decent COD out there for comps, it shoots straight and when you drop perks and streaks out it's actually closer to COD2. I liked DOD:S and MOH:AA too, Battlefield has been a staple game, BC2 was awesome and it looks as though the 'sandbox' shooter is about to open up. Too bad people forget that Novalogic's Joint Operations boasted 64v64 player servers, pre-BF2. Now if only they made MAG for PC, that would have been a treat. All in all, i'm hopeful for the future of FPS games. There needs to be a baseline, unfortunately that has become my once loved Call of Duty. While I can't stand what it's become I also understand why it's so and hopefully there's still room for FPS gamers to expect something more.

What does this phrase mean? "there are still those who do become such close"

Sorry that was a massive typo I completely missed, I believe that was meant to be "so close" or simply "such" either way I meant it to meant that there are those who are extremely similar

oh dear, another one there, meant it to mean*

So you go from criticizing action shooters to recommending indie platformers, instead of recommending alternative FPS? Poorly disguised shill.

No I do not, I simply state that these FPS games should be thinking about how to alter the genre in the way indie developers have with their own genres. I mention Portal which took an FPS engine and made it something completely new. For one I also support Red Orchestra, because it looks like it may have more to it than just run and shoot especially with the suppression mechanic I have read about.

"Twitch shooting" started way before COD or Gears. It started back in the DOOM and Quake days. Your good players were twitch shooters. Reflexes paired with good aim would be domination for others. I started playing FPS on the PC with Doom2 then moved into Quake. Once the half-life series came out and shortly after a mod called Counter-strike thats where my FPS gaming excelled the most. CS was one of the most rewarding and fun video games I have ever played. The stress, tension, and skill to be a great player took a lot of practice. When you move into the competitive scene of the game twitch shooting = life or death within the round. If you dont have the basic fundementals of knowing how to shoot well you let your whole team down during the strategy of winning that round. I played CS as my main game from 1998-2008. A strong decade, 6 of those years competive. When COD came out in 2003 I thought it was brilliant and couldnt wait for COD2. Which was also great. I had a pretty large multi-gaming team that also competed in COD leagues and I played with them for a few matches. But that game just always felt too easy. It was like CS with pre load outs. Always a great pubbing game though. Then finally to the years of what you started with Gears.. I thought Gears was pretty fun, cover system was a cool idea. I dont see how it changed game as of today.. Being a 3rd person shooter. Then to COD4 which they stole the perking/ranking systems from the PC modding communities. Yes it was made better, but still the idea was out before. With MW it wasn't even over the top. It was a great game to play and it had many enjoyable moments for me. But once they came out with MW2 thats where it ended for me. Just too much BS for the 12 year old xbox kiddies and not enough fundementals of making a strong FPS. Where skill will always prevail over stupid load outs. But I do see where they were going. They wanted a game to appeal to as many people as it can and it did. But lost their main hardcore audience withit. Which they wont loose any sleep over. Good business decision for them, I would of done the same if I was sitting on that cash cow. Then you go on to talk about Battlefield, yes it will be a bit more relaxed compared to BF2. But the game will still have a larger learning curve than BC2. One game I am really looking forward to this year. All great games come from indie developers. You have to start somewhere. Like a previous comment above me, there are great FPS games out there today. That are not even remotely close to the easy to learn dynamics of the mainstream shooters. For example take a look at Red Orchestra 1 & 2. Such a damn hard game to play. The average kills from a round in a 64 slot server is about 8. I say we are in the grasp of the best FPS generation to come. All these repeatitive and serious shooters will help that next developer(s) create that amazing game we've all been waiting for. You just have to be patient. P.S: From the content of this article and the non mentioning of Quake, DOOM, Painkiller, CS, Half-life, DOD, TF, or even the earlier version's of COD. Leads me to believe you arn't much of a PC gamer to begin with.

To be honest I did start PC gaming quite late really, used to be a console kid but moved onto PC in about 2005 or so. It's not "twitch" shooting that I feel was the problem, just this sort of "gritty" and "realistic" thing, Gears is not realistic but it tried to be "Gritty" and the second one improved it somewhat but what I was saying was that I couldn't get into the first one whatsoever, it was just quite boring and repetitive I found, but I do seem to be the minority there. This was also my problem with MW2 more so than MW, it was boring and repetitive and as you say, does not rely on skill. I'm not so sure about this being the best FPS generation to come though, I hope that BF3 will prove me wrong but I just have this sneaking suspicion that it really won't be all that different to the also upcoming MW3 simply because, as you say, they are great business decisions. I just hope they use the money made from these to make something a little bit more fun. The reason I mention the indie games is because they manage to make something more fun without the budget pumped into these boring, repetitive shooters. Also I did not include Half-Life because I felt that was a great game which kept me interested throughout, as is the same with CoD1+2 and even CS. I must say I was never a massive fan of Painkiller but it did what it does well and has interesting level design and Team Fortress forces teamwork much more than those I have mentioned. As I said I used Gears as the precursor because after that everything tried also to be much grittier but instead became, in my opinion, rather bland. Also whilst CS does rely on "twitch" for survival, it also relies on team strategy for an overall win, rather than the one-man army approach of well, even CoD: World at War onwards and, in my experience, BC1+2

Wow, ridiculously well written article for video games. I'm even impressed by the comments, only one fanboy who got his feelings hurt and had to throw the F-bomb around (I skimmed some, but that was the only blatant example). I completely agree with you, COD was all about who saw who first IMO. Damn the people who say "oh well you only think x because you are bad." As I grow up and frankly don't have the time to stay good at video games, it is good to see others who have well developed opinions about this. You should also know this is the first video game related post I have made since highschool since they mostly devolve into ingorance (imo). The original post was excellent and so were your rebuttals, I look forward to more articles from you.

I am you're average, shit at COD, bloke and proud of it. At £40 a go I can't afford to take a chance, COD does what it says on the tin, running about with a bunch of anon' temp mates shooting each other. After buying MOH and feeling like I'd wasted my money from the word go, I bought BFBC2 and I didn't enjoy it, no reason sprung out at me, I just didn't feel like it worked for me. So in the end I bought BLOPS bringing my spending up to circa £120 and I just had the feeling I could have saved myself a lot of hassle and money if I'd just stuck to what I was shit at in the first place. #justsayin'

Theres more to gaming than just call of duty and that modern warfare fad shit. i mean let it be enjoyed but not too seriously.

There are alot of valid points on here about FPS. But ultimately for me the genre was ruined especially the cod franchise not primarily by the game makers but by the idiotic people playing them. Secondly the one thing that would of controlled that never seemed to do what the developers said would do. Match you in games with people of equivalent skill or experience. I always ended up in games with people "BOOSTING" or "wasting their money" as i call it. Or people who when you check their gamertag only have achievements for playing cod online. Im sorry but no amount of additions to the gameplay, visuals, story will bring me back as the developers cant change the players who come back time and again to purchase their next money maker.

it all went downhill after, horace goes skiing.

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