Why do people like First Person Shooter so much?

Norik

Norik

[14] Master
The genre of first person shooters has gained such a popularity for such a long time and so many people like it so much that it's ridiculous. WTF!!! So, in order to find out, it made this thread. Let's first analyze what people say arround the internet as their reasons for liking them.

It's realistic: Even tough some FPS are realistic, that's not a vast majority. In fact, no more than two or three franchises out there offer realism, like Call of Duty. But what's realistic in Halo, Gears of War, Doom, Brink, Resident Evil and so many others? Absolutely nothing more than having to reload yor ammo! Sometimes they don't even get the physics right. I've seen fighting games way more realistic than a regular FPS.

It's easy to play and requires no much gaming ability: This is also a huge lie. Is it intuitive? most of them are, but they're not easy to play. You must hide, change weapons, and avoid being attacked by up to 16 enemies with infinite range. Piece of cake! Les't see how your dad does online. Some even say that they could be played in an Atari VCS controller due to the lack of controls needed, but again, this isn't true. You would be missing granades, angle rotation/3D view adjustment, weapon change, melee, run, and a game specific operation; Uh, and pause. FPS require as much gaming ability as any other genre.

You can't do it in real life: This one's really stupid. "...FPS are better than any other kind of games because you can't do that in real life..." Say many fans of the genre. But... can you do what Siegfried does with a huge mutant Zweihander? Can you stop an alien invasion as in Star Fox? Or can you Slash evil ninjas and monsters like in Ninja Gaiden? I don't think so! But many have read this argument before and have said that they mean that it could be done in real life, but it would lead to being chased by the police, getting serious wounds, and several other problems; soooo.... it could be done but it shouldn't. But again this is not the only genre in which such thing happens. Examples of stuff that could be done but shouldn't can be seen in many games, like Dead or Alive, GTA, even the sword mini game from Wii Sports Resort. So in less words, you can't do it in real life, just like several other games.

It's immersive and deep: How the hell is a game in which you just shoot around deep!? What kind of immersion can it have beyond learning hiding places in maps to troll online!? Do you want a deep and immersive game? Go play Soul Calibur or Final Fantasy VII!

Those four are the main reasons why people think they like them, but they either also happen in other games or are just stupid and have no thinking behind them. And talking about thinking, the following are random opinions of people who have replied to this question in other boards and sites like Yahoo Answers:

"because they have a brain" This one's really stupid and has a lost of ignorance behind it. It's funny how he talks about a brain but he doesn't even use capital letters or a period in the end of his sentence. But anyways, being smart has no relation with liking an specific kind of game, it's just like music. It's not like smart people have specific likes and stupid people have others (even tough it has been said that music affects the level of mathematical thinking).

"Could you think of a better kind of game?" Oh hell yeah. In fact, I could think of several better games. I think I don't even need to continues in this point.

"Why do you like MMORPG and such? All you do is roleplay." Why do you like FPS? All you do is shooting at a target, it couldn't be more simple, and eventually tiring. Comments such as this one annoy the hell out of me., and it doesn't really answer the question.

"It's the online play that people like. The fact of socializing and playing with new people, of making new friends" And again, this can be done in several other games. In fact, It can be done much better in an MMORPG.

"Blood and gore!!" Have you ever played Ninja Gaiden or Mortal Kombat? Do you consider Halo or CoD Blood and Gore?

So well, that's basically it. You have plenty of base material to discuss.
 
i think its because of the fact u can't do that crap. you can learn martial arts and fight like in tekken (but not nearly to the same degree), but i guess its something about getting shot and having no reaction i guess...
 
In general, I think what is important is the First Person perspective which makes it easier to trick the mind into thinking that you are the one carrying out the actions as opposed to a character. Using the example of wielding a zwiehander, in Soul Calibur it is Siegfied wielding it not you. In the case of say... Crysis, it's graphically more like looking out a helmet.

To get what I mean compare Mirror's Edge in both first person and third person perspectives (ignore the bad 3rd person animations, it was hacked to make it 3rd person).

third person

first person
 
I'll give you my thoughts on this, as I am still semi-new to the shooter scene. I come from an RPG, JRPG, and Fighting Game background (Final Fantasies, Star Ocean, SF2, Chrono Trigger, etc). My first shooter was Golden Eye, but I never played a shooter after that until Gears of War 2. From then on, I've played quite a few of them (All of the Halos, Crysis 2, MW2, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Black Ops, Homefront, Borderlands). And I find that when playing shooters, it presents more of a challenge than the other types of games (Minus fighting games against other people), and the adrenline rush from shooters (If the system is put together well) is very satisfying when you blow the head off of some douche that's been trying to pick you off for several minutes.

They're different than the other genres I played and I enjoy playing them because they're exciting. Some have good combat systems and multi-players, some have crappy multi-players but good campaigns (Halo, and Crysis 2 for example). Some of the stories in the games are very well written as well. Homefront has an extremely well thought and put together story written by the producers and directors of Red Dawn for example. Others have trash stories but good game play. It's a personal preference if you enjoy them.
 
norik434 said:
It's realistic
You can't do it in real life
It's immersive
Click to expand...
These are dumb reasons and irrelevant to popularity.

norik434 said:
It's easy to play and requires no much gaming ability
Click to expand...
This might be true actually. Is there an initial learning curve more gentle to new players than point and click? Nope. You say need to be able to take 16 guys. You do not. You can still play the game and be bad and have fun. You just pick it up and play. No need to do offline reading or go to the 8wr of CoD to learn about game mechanics. Intuition is all you really need.

Let's talk about FPS depth though. There are certain things you do need to think about. Like where to go. Run in a direct path through an open field? Bad idea. There are safer paths to take. Is there someone behind you? Check, every 8 seconds or so (Unless you aren't playing with a mouse loool). Also if you're chasing some body and they know it, consider you might not want to follow them. Some smarter players will intentionally lead you to their team.

Depending on the game, weapons, class, etc, directly encountering an enemy player is about 50-50 in neither player's favor (CoD specifically in mind). Sometimes you can't avoid this, but it would be smart to avoid direct confrontations. So choose to flank or run away if you have the chance. Never put yourself where the enemy thinks you're going to be. Don't snipe out of the same window twice. This is my entire game plan on a very basic level and can generally be applied to all FPSes more or less. Aim is a pretty important skill, but having a solid game plan will let you compete with players that would otherwise out class you.

This is just talking about what I've learned from playing CoD and CoD2. I haven't really touched anything past Modern Warfare. Quake will give you more mechanics to think about. Aiming rockets and minimizing/maximizing rocket damage is a big deal and skill of its own that "modern" FPSes do not exercise. There's also rocket jumping. If you are able to rocket jump in Tokay's Towers to the BFG that is a pretty big deal IMO.

Anyway, to me it sounds more like you're blatantly trying to knock FPS as a genre. I personally don't play much anymore, but it's a perfectly fine genre. My only complaint is it's so popular on console, so no body uses a mouse, and everyone thinks they're hot shit or something. I guess you could say using a pad makes it a different game entirely and it's me who needs to adjust, but yeah, I'm just not going to play it.
 
I don't think you guys are being fair, to say halo players haven't worked as hard as us is ridiculous they put just as many hours in as we do

I still think "its fun" is the reason why its so popular
 
Good point.

As far as my post goes, I'm just talking about how easy it is to get into the shooter genre compared to fighting games. It's harder to get over the initial hill in fighters imo, whereas with shooters the progress is constant and less "bumpy".

I used to play Halo semi competitively (if such a term exists) before I started with SC, and it is quite a bit of work.
 
First of all, Resident Evil isn't an FPS.

Secondly, I like FPS because of the team aspect. We're all working together for a common goal, be it objective or not. It's a big reason why I could care less if someone "steals my kill". As long as they're dead before I'm dead and I can go in, capture the flag, intelligence, point, or whatever. Or I can just go about my merry way, killing or damaging someone else. We win, what's the big deal? Mind you, not everyone plays the game for the team aspect, that's just my own reasoning because the people I've played with over the years have made pretty good teams. Everyone has their own task, etc.

Also, there must be some skill required. Have you ever tried to combo rocket jump to a specific point in a TF2 map? Maybe it's just me, but fuck, that shit isn't easy. D: That and strategy is very important when you want things to go well. Will one strategy always work? Unfortunately, no, but you adjust, adapt to what the opposing team is dishing out at you. It's the same thing in fighting games, HOLY SHIT WHO KNEW. xD

I agree with Lasercakes, as the game is just a different way of playing. It does get frustrating when you're dying every 2 seconds and you aren't used to the first-person aspect. God, I was so fucking dizzy when I started playing them years ago. Learning shit like frames and all that doesn't really apply. It's trial and error, and the information you come by while playing.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. :D
 
norik434 said:
Yes, but still, why do they have such a huge popularity? There's games that are way much more fun than that...
Click to expand...

That's up to interpretation. Not everyone likes fighting games, especially since they take determination and practice to get to the point where you can do well. For the most part, FPS's don't have as big a learning curve to do moderately well, and if you're bad you still get the thrill of being in a gunfight. Even if you do suck at the games, there's the social aspect of it that isn't found in fighting games, so you can suck at the game together.
 
Mirror's Edge was great, it feels like you and Faith change souls. I've never played a FPS that interesting. But FPS games lack something. I don't know exactly what that "something" is but I think that's the reason that Japanese developers won't make FPS's. You can't see your character, you can't see freely like in real life. I heard that in ARMA 2 you can look around while running forward. But even that's not enough so I think TPS is better, Mirror's Edge is an exception.
 
Wooooah. No. The success of the FPS is a simple concept of easy to learn/hard to master and the fact in these games you will have small moments of victory of a kill even if you are 3/20 KDR.

Now we all know why they're easy to pick up: simple controls and objective, point at opponent and click till they fall. But they DO have a lot of depth beyond reactions and map lay out. Efficiency on the battlefield goes beyond KDR and score, a lot of people don't consider good teamwork like aiding another group by flanking their combatants instead of pushing forward and hoping one of you makes it further. Sometimes pulling a suicide mission to pull a fire so that a team can run in and wipe out multiple targets on the distraction, etc... There's a lot of nuances to team work that go beyond getting a kill. Who you kill, capitalizing on key opportunities, knowing if when to hold or advance, controlling enemy movement to your advantage, etc... There's also solo strategy such as maybe passing up an easy kill as to not alert an opponent of your position. Or maybe you realize that an enemy camper is not being efficient in their location so you ignore them so they can continue to have low affect on the match and you don't run the risk of exposing your self on a low priority target. There's so much you can do with set ups and there's a lot of decision that can be made. It's not all KDR. You can have 20/2 and realize that none of your efforts were shooting the people that were mowing down your team or that you weren't helping the team advance to gain better vantage to help them get a good score too and maybe even offer you return cover. You see this a lot with bad snipers who aren't shooting priority targets, they just assume that KDR is good and they're not harming the team if they're not giving up points by dieing...but they fail to realize the team is fighting with one less man and may be losing at the front lines because of your lack of participation. Sometimes simply tying up the efforts of combatants is good strategy. If I can harass and get 3 people to try and shoot me, that is 3 people not getting kills against my team and aiding theirs. I could go on and on...(shit like ammo management)

There are however shooters like COD that shit on depth and balance and are largely successful because anyone can do well in that game and be complete ass. But that's not the genres fault that's just an incredibly poorly designed game in terms of depth.
 

This shows some serious steps on how to play Gears. This doesn't apply to all of them, but hell I like the way this shit is explained.
 
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