Going back to broad strokes genres, this week’s topic concerns the FPS (First Person Shooter), a staple of the overall gaming scene.
A First Person Shooter is the type of game where you play from a first person perspective (big shocker) and focuses around shooting (bigger shocker there), whether that’s other players or NPC enemies. It’s nice for a genre to be so plainly self-descriptive! FPS games also involve the navigation of a 3D environment, and often times incorporate standard concepts that are ubiquitous at this point like ammo management and loadouts of different weapons. This genre was heavily shaped by Doom (the original, released in early 90s), to the point where before the name FPS fully took hold, one term often used was “Doom clones”. Nowadays there are many subgenres and styles paired with the FPS - class-based shooters, “boomer shooters”, milsim and/or tactical shooters, twitch shooters, and others.
Here are some questions and subtopics that I encourage people to discuss:
- What are some of your favorite subgenres or styles of FPS, and your favorite games from them?
- Do you enjoy secondary concepts often associated with FPS games like ammo management and loadout adjustment?
- What genres do you like to see crossed over with an FPS?
- Do you prefer multiplayer or singleplayer FPS games? For multiplayer, Co-op or PvP?
- What are some of your favorite weapons from FPS titles? What’s been memorable?
Also feel free to bring up anything you like related to the topic! If you have suggestions for future discussion topics, leave them in the suggestion thread.
Additional Resources
- List of first-person shooters from Wikipedia
- First-Person Shooter tag on Steam
If I had to pick a favorite FPS… It’d have to be the combination of the Bungie developed Halo games. The story may not always knock it out of the park, but even upon Halo CE’s release the art design, world building, and slower paced mechanical leaning was unique and unparalleled in its execution.
I’ll always be able to go back and play those games. The mix of ballistic and sci Fi weaponry kept things interesting and options varied. The high time to kill for both the player and enemies made experimentation easier and more rewarding. The enemy AI that never seemed to settle on trying the same strategy twice was the cherry on top that made discussing Halo’s “combat sandbox” a household topic in the mouths of video game enthusiasts.
Of all the games that claim a difficulty level that the game was designed for, Halo’s Heroic mode will always truly feel like what Halo was meant for. Challenging, but loose enough that you could mix up your loadout and approach, and make up the imperfections of your plan on the backend through execution. Absolutely an experience where I can say it is fun to lose, because there’s always another cleverly intriguing idea for you to try and solve the combat puzzle with.
And a final shout-out to Bungie for creating some of the only games where it really feels like you’re right at home with a controller in hand. Many shooters can feel pretty good with a controller, but only Halo’s deliberate pace and seamless bullet magnetism make the walls melt away between the imprecision of joystick aiming and my mechanical intent.
And the online community these games bred is its own whole set of five paragraphs I won’t type now. Hats off to Halo.
What I wish would come back is really good COOP PVE. I ran a hugely popular ut2004 Invasion server that we wrote a custom mutator for (Sudvasion). I had a T1 line to my house that just ran the servers. We had a solid dedicated group of people from all over the world playing that 24/7. Was the pinnacle of gaming for me. 18 years later I still chat with some of the community via steam disc etc.
As I am quite inconsistent at aiming well and reacting to stuff quickly, I like shooters that don’t put a lot of emphasis on it and/or offer viable alternatives for the days I’m not in the groove. Overwatch and Gunfire Reborn both fall into this category for me, despite being different subgenres (competitive multiplayer and roguelite with coop options respectively).
Also, I enjoy puzzle games in all forms, so that includes first person puzzles like Portal games, The Talos Principle or The Turing Test
What defined Ego shooters for me wasn’t doom but unreal tournament. Played a lot of it when I was younger. I liked to just mentally check out and play this game on high speed which put me in flow-mode. There wasn’t too much strategy to it. Just know the map, run around and kill stuff with fast reflexes. I was really good at it. Beat all my friends on LAN-parties.
There was ammo but no reloading and that was absolutely fine. Made for some amazing mmmonster-Kills to not have to reload.
My favorite weapon was the flak-Canon with it’s shotgun-style primary attack that suited my jump-around-and-be-on-the-move-constantly Playstyle. The secondary attack was like a grenade and very handy for AOE or when people were following you.
Nowadays I don’t really want to play egoshooters anymore after having worked 8 hours+ on the computer. Stresses me out. Especially multiplayer where I would have to train to be able to keep up.
I’m loving the FPS renaissance we’ve been seeing lately. The Boomer Shooter… boom, low poly gameplay-centric entries like BattleBit Remastered, rhythm games like Metal Hellsinger, and the latest incarnations of DooM and games seeking to mimic it are all welcome additions to the current gaming landscape. Also love experimentation happening by even established and larger developers - Gearbox’s efforts with the Tiny Tina RPGish games come to mind; though I wish they’d do a better job of addressing bugs in those games. I’d love to see more FPS-RPGs come around.
Hell - I’d love to see a ton of crossovers. It’s been a while since we had a truly great FPS platformer. RIP Mirror’s Edge.
