The Oversaturation of the FPS

As I was skimming through a gaming magazine the other day, I surprised myself with a complete and utter indifference to First Person Shooters. There was an exclusive article on a new FPS being developed and I instantly heard a voice echo in my head, "Who cares?" as I flipped to the next page.

Oh, believe me, I'm no hater. I enjoy a good FPS as much as the next violence prone, headshot craving sadist. Maybe I'm just fed up with having no peripheral vision and a gun pointed at everything in my line of sight. Or maybe I'm tired of having an unidentifiable protagonist (and equally impactless cohorts). Could be I'm tired of decimating the same aliens, demons, Nazis, and non Anglo scourge that are reintroduced in every sequel. Perhaps it's the fact that most developers seem to use the FPS as an unimaginative cop-out, pumping them out hastily and thoughtlessly with the pitiable assumption of instant cashcow-dom.

Or maybe the FPS has devolved into a cheap substitute for immersion.

It's an easy enough mistake to make. After all, what's more immersive than viewing a game world from the very eyes of the protagonist? In the process, developers have forgotten to create a virtual world that is both engaging and believable. Lost are the cinematic spectacles of epic proportions, inducing those chills that only gaming can provide. When I'm playing an FPS, I want an experience, and it's the developer's responsibility to deliver.

With masterpieces like Call of Duty 4, the bar has been set high. Give me the thrill of escaping a sinking military vessel while it groans and shudders, the hull bursting and spraying water across my vision as my squad leader barks orders that I can barely hear over the roaring torrent. That is a powerfully immersive experience. It was scripted, but I still experienced it my own way...

I can't help but wonder if it is the very misinterpretation of immersion has led to the deluge of crap that's been released in the past year. Haze, Legendary, Fracture, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Farcry 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Battlefield 2: Bad Company, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Conflict: Denied Ops… This is only a fraction of FPSs released last year. The sheer volume is staggering. Every genre has forgettable titles. It just so happens that the FPS genre has a plethora of second rate shovelware unlike any other. This isn't a new development, but I figured that by now publishers would be tired of greenlighting unimaginative filler over and over again.

Developers need to realize that creating an FPS does not give them a by to ship out whatever derivative mess they've concocted. If anything, it places their game under more scrutiny. The game needs something to set itself apart from the crowd so it won't drown in the cesspool that is the FPS category, and tacky gimmicks won't do. FPSs tend to be very formulaic in nature, and that makes it harder to innovate, but it must be done in order for it to have any semblance of staying power. In short, the game has to convince me that I can't get the same experience by popping Halo 3 into the disc tray. I've played Halo 3. I've played Call of Duty 4. I've played Half-Life 2. Now show me what you bring to the table.

Ultimately, I'd be more interested if some developers focused their efforts elsewhere, instead of shoving FPSs down our throats without any real originality, imagination, polish, or care. I've simply grown bored of them, and I've begun to loathe the multitude of mediocre ones. Yes, the FPS is popular, but gamers are starting to get bored. Either do something truly unique or leave the genre to the people who do it right, yeah? Maybe I just need to take a short hiatus from killing things from the perspective of my own jaded eyes.