Poll: Too many First Person Shooters

[Grey_Focks]

I think that yes, some of them are just blatant ripoffs of one another, but I still like the genre as a whole. There are enough differences between a good portion of those games that, in my opinion atleast, validates them. Nobody is going to think games like BioSchock, Borderlands, Bad Company, or Brink are similar to each other. All 4 are games in the same genre, but each one is also very different from one another.

I'm a bit reminded of the PS1 era where every-other game was trying to rip-off Final Fantasy, except now it's Call of Duty, Halo and Team Fortress everyone wants to rip-off.

 

[Billion Backs]

Nothing wrong with FPS games.

Hell, I'd rather have a surplus of FPS games with little story then a surplus of the same cliche RPGs. There's a reason you only think of very few titles when you think of RPG games. Most others sucked balls. It's like fantasy novels. There are thousands of them, and you can bet that more then half of them are cliche shit that adds nothing new to the genre. And those that aren't, they just put a different spin on the same cliches.

Also, do look back a few decades and consider how well spread platformers were "back in the day".

Trends, trends, trends.

 

[coolguy5678]

I voted "They are just all to similar to each other" but what I really wanted to say is "There are too many in the Counter-strike subgenre, and not enough (or, at most, exactly enough) in the Quake subgenre." I guess that's partly just my own preferences, though (I hate CS, and I assume I will hate CoD, although I've never played it , and I love TF2).

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

FPS games are popular because they allow us to fantasize about being a muscular marine fighting aliens or a soldier hitting the beach on D-day. They are a good way to relieve stress and you may actually (although it is rare) find a compelling storyline in between all the manly firefights. That being said, I think there need to be more original FPS games coming out as all of them (excluding Valve, of course) seem to be following the Halo mold. How about an FPS game where you are a prisoner trapped in a dirty third world jail under a false conviction? Bah, enough. This thread is making me want to play Half Life again.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

FPS's? What are they? It's 3rdPS's now!
Seriously though, I don't mind at all about the onslaught of first person shooters. If one is good, I'll buy it. If not, I'll just pass it by. No problem.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

There aren't too many FPS games, there just aren't enough great ones.

 

[EHKOS]

There just aren't many unique ones nowadays, and when I play old games like -2002 they FEEL different. So I don't buy many new games, I'm usually in the used/bargin bins looking for gems.

 

[Valiance]

Second Option (I know they are out of order from the poll options) is that they are all just too similar. Again, maybe this links back to kids being too easily amused, but I remember the difference between Doom and say.. Hexen (anybody remember that one?) One was demons and bloody shooty technology stuff, the other was demons and ghosts and bloody shooty mythical stuff (and didnt you start with a pitchfork?) and yet they still felt very different. See kids, thats what we grownups like to call originality. Your generation need to get with the program! With the limits of technology back then, developers were still capable of making discernible differences to games.

This is how I feel too. I have countless older shooters that were all very unique at the time, Hexen and Heretic some of the best. In Hexen, however, you started and actually had three different character classes with their own unique weaponry and way of using items.

In fact, the fighter started with a gauntlet, got an axe (which was still melee, but used blue mana), a hammer (which was melee or thrown, and used green mana), until he got Excalibur.

The cleric on the other hand started with a mace, received a serpent-staff that sucked life out of enemies at melee range and shot green balls of energy at longer range as his second weapon, got gloves that cast some sort of burning flame pillar, until he got some soul reaper weapon at the end.

The wizard, on the other hand, started out with a ranged weapon, and received no melee weapons over the course of the game. First two weapons were rings he put on that let him shoot out ice shards and lightning pillars...Forgot the last one. Maybe he got the soul-eater weapon and the cleric got something else.

My point was that even the class you chose to play, which was a revolutionary idea for an FPS at the time, affected the game. They all used Flechette differently too. Throwing bottles of green stuff or setting them as traps, or having them explode into poison gas instead of a fiery explosion.

~~~~~~

The game in which you start with a pitchfork, well, there's a couple, but the first one I can think of was Blood, yet another more-unique FPS game where you were a freakin' vampire who came back from the dead. And, um, I don't think any other game has used a voodoo doll as a weapon in an FPS. And the flare-gun was hilarious.

But Duke Nukem's pipe bombs and trip mines, Shadow Warrior's katana and severed heads, beating hearts, I just, I fucking loved FPS games in the 90's.

OH, original poster...Have you ever played Witchaven, or Witchaven 2? FPS with poleaxes and flails and bastard swords.

 

[oktalist]

Are there too many action movies? No, there are just too many rubbish action movies. Same thing here. If you don't like it, don't play it. If everyone stops making FPS games then there will be no Deus Ex 3.

 

[Doctor VonSexMachine]

I'm not a huge fan of FPS, except for TF2.
It boils down to whether or not people are going to buy them. Developers will continue to pump out many similar FPS titles because people like them. As it was mentioned earlier, it's easy to just pick one up and play for a while, so it appeals to people who wouldn't otherwise invest a lot of time into gaming - which is the wider audience.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Not really, it's just alot of them have adopted a certain style, which makes alot of them extremely similar, and kinda boring, it has to be said. I tried to get into Bad Company 2, which my brother bought, and didn't have any fun at all, as alot of it I felt I had played before. That's not to say I don't like the genre, not at all, I play TF2 all the time, but it's just too many aren't trying to be different.

I'm gravitating towards different genres, as of now I'm loving Machinarium to bits.

 

[Diligent]

I'd say there are too many FPS games that are doing the war theme. There was an explosion of WWII games, and that has moved on to an explosion of modern war games (now that other companies see its profitable too thanks to COD4).

I was just saying a couple weeks back that I'd love to see another over the top FPS, that has scenery reminiscent of the best looking fantasy games, like Final Fantasy 13. Something to at least spark the imagination and make you laugh, if it's going to be so mindless (may as well be mindless fun).

Then I saw that reveal trailer for Bulletstorm, and my face melted.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Theres not too many FPSs, theres too maney samey FPSs

 

[asgardmothership]

There can never be too many FPSs, most games have guns in them, and what better vantage than through the eyes of your character. It's a more involved perspective. You adopt the role of the character, or sometimes cultivate your own. What is important is that there is variety. It will never become boring to shoot bad guys in a snow/desert/jungle environment, every interpretation is different, every game's guns and movement feel different - for better or worse.

You will behave in combat totally differently in killzone 2 than in modern warfare. Totally different in operation flashpoint than unreal tournament 3. Every game has its own rules, its own interpretation. Seeing through the eyes of the protagonist is one method, and why is it so prevelant?

Because it works.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Are there too many of any other type of genres? Leaving out World in Conflict, since someone argues that that isn't a strategy game and more of an 'action' game, RTS games seem more similar to me then then Final Fantasy's do to each other.

 

[Eggsnham]

I enjoy shooters because I was raised around them. They're fun to me, and sometimes even bring back memories. I like the Tony Hawk series for the same reason.

Anyways, there are too many players that enjoy shooters for the genre to ever die out.

 

[Gh0st1y_H]

You're saying there are too many shooters on an American/British dominated site.

You might as well say the sky is too blue while you're at it.

 

[whycantibelinus]

I think the market is over saturated with most every type of game, it's just because of the popularity of FPS's that it's more noticeable. If you really pay attention to it there are all sorts of shitty RPG's, RTS's, adventure, party, racing, simulation, sports games that come out every month. I mean for christ's sake I just read about a game coming out called Shaun White Skateboarding where the entire environment starts out grey and dull (hmmmm...The Saboteur?) because the in-game world is too concentrated on economic efficiency to have fun. The way you add color and "life" to the world is by landing "sweet ass trix to fight the man, brah!"


Ridiculous.