Mr. H vs. Today's FPS games

In Mr. H's seconds "versus" blog, I'm going to take a look at today's generation of FPS games and their players. I'm going to specifically spotlight the stereotypical angry teenager who has no other concern rather than what their Kill/Death ratio is.

Pictured: Lies

Anyone who knows me and plays video games with me knows my stance on the Xbox 360 and the PS3, I don't play those games because I don't feel as if Microsoft and Sony have the right mindset for video games. Of course, I'll admit that they have some great games like Grand Theft Auto and Prototype, but as a whole, I lost their focus and too fiercely target the inner dragon in the world's 14-year-olds. I always have, and always will be a Nintendo fan. I'll always play their games because I think they're actually moving forward.

I have this shirt

Anyway, what's the reputation that goes with Xbox and PS3 (mostly Xbox)? First-Person shooter (FPS) games, and just FPS games, but the "angry, lazy, no-life, etc." people that play them. Do I believe that EVERYBODY who plays these games fits into these categories? No, not at all, in fact, probably a smaller percentage than people think actually do. Now, I'll cross off anger right away, I don't care what game you're playing, getting angry at video games is surprisingly easy to do. If you've played video games, you've done it. Laziness? Eh, most of the time it's caused completely by the person themselves, not the game. If you don't want your kid slacking off due to video games, take them away. However, if your kid's anything like this guy, I can't help you. No-lifing, that goes with laziness, eat, sleep, breathe video games, don't like it? Take it away.

The question is, why were FPS games chosen to be the stereotypical one? Truth is, all genres have their stereotypes, but none of them branch out further than video gamers themselves. If you have no idea of any video game genre or their stereotypes, I guarantee the one you have or will hear about is the one behind FPS games. Well, look at it this way: When Mario's first platformer game came out in 1985, video games had a squeaky clean image. In mainstream games, there wasn't very much violence, blood, any of that. However, when stuff like Mortal Kombat, Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D came out, parents and politicians threw the biggest bitchfit of the 20th century. Mortal Kombat had things differently, since it was a fighting game, and fighting games already existed prior, and at the time of it's release, it was the only one that had such an excessive amount of gore. However, with Wolfenstiein and Doom, you had guns, full-fledged guns. People don't like guns, kids do, people don't.

Pictured: Evil

We now had an entire genre dedicated to shooting things, violence, and death. As such, when the genre became the most popular around the release of Halo and the first Call of Duty, you know that people were against it were going to talk about it. They had M ratings, and taught your kids how to break pretty much anything with a little throw of your controller.

Wrong type of throw, but it still conveys the same message. (Thanks Andrew)

Anyway, I don't like today's FPS games, I play a game called Soldier Front, which is an older online game that I play primarily to kill time and egg on the easily-upset people on that game. Other than that, I don't play any FPS games regularly. Goldeneye is one of the best games of all time, and Perfect Dark is basically a copy of that.

Copies, that brings up another point. Call of Duty. I hate Call of Duty. Why? Not sure, just do. Sure, if a friend's playing it, I'll play it with them, but I don't like it at all, and I never will. Point being, I think Infinity Ward (company behind it), is in this business for the completely wrong reasons. They're ONLY in it for money. ONLY. I know that every other video game company is in it for the money, too, but most of them at least care about the quality of their games. Now, is Call of Duty bad quality? No, not at all. It's repetitive quality. The 7th Call of Duty game is coming out in November, what are you going to see on it that's new? Maps, guns, and a new storyline. That's it, nothing else. Take a look at my good friend, Mario. Who went from becoming a raccoon, to riding Yoshi, to collecting Power Stars, to hosing down an entire area, and then into fucking space. 

DUDE, SPACE.

Now, Halo's finally doing that in their 4th upcoming game, and that's good. I like Halo, they're doing more than just a war and guns, they're doing a war, and guns, in space, in the damn future. Is it that much? No. But it's sure as hell a lot more than what Call of Duty offers me.

Now, back to Call of Duty, around CoD 4 when their online play became flawless, that's when shit hit the fan, and people started realizing that they've just been enslaved (and were okay with it). Call of Duty gives kids that competitiveness to feed their testosterone, both guys and girls. On an every day basis, people need some sort of competition, whether it's with ourselves or with other people, and we usually get that dose without even knowing it. For those that don't, they have Call of Duty. They need to be the best, and they'll do anything to prove that. It's kind of like that person on MySpace who accepts everybody as a friend. A lot of people who play FPS games will do anything to show how highly-skilled they are, usually by some sort of ranking system that they can abuse by taking turns shooting their friends.

Seriously, I hate this game.

I could go on forever about Call of Duty, but I'm done.

Point being, FPS games of today give us the adrenaline that normal activities don't give. Companies know that and milk us for all of our money by reproducing the same game over and over with slightly more features and slightly better graphics, rather than a completely new twist of their own. That's my main quarrel with FPS games, is that they're stale. There's no more imagination in them, they've reached the limit as far as creativity go, so now all they can do is vary that limit as much as possible, but it's such a  slim branch that they can't do it well enough to prove to me that they can do it at all.

But in this case, my opinion does not matter at all, the only thing that will conquer FPS games in the gaming world is an even more competitive genre. Not happening

Whatever, I'm done. Expect to see a sequel to this blog, when it's one of your main interests, blogging about this is easy.

SERIOUSLY, FUCK YOU CALL OF DUTY