I often find myself browsing game news lamenting the fact that most new releases or big reveals seem to be another FPS. Every studio is looking for their CoD killer or their ticket into the FPS market. I find that kind of mentality to be toxic to the video game medium, a medium that is truly pure creation, a vivid dream made reality. Instead we have developers trying to just slightly tweak the status quo, a technique that masquerades as iinnovation, killstreaks become pointchains.

Alternatively, there is a partial light in the overbearing darkness of FPS clones. Alan Kertz the senior game play designer on Battlefield 3 said recently "You don't kill CoD by trying to be CoD, you kill CoD by being a better shooter." Even though this statement is hope bearing, and is the kind of thinking I believe to be conducive for creativity, it still has some of that same mindset described before. Why try to kill CoD? Why not just be the better shooter? Competition is healthy, and it breeds better games, but instead of coming to the table with "here's how we can beat CoD" with all the preconceived notions that entails, why not just come to table with "here's how we are gonna make our shooter completely bad-ass, here's what separates us from the pack. " Maybe I'm wrong and there is no way to separate those two ideas, to prove how new and innovative one game is without calling out competitors by name like a WWE pre-fight verbal throw-down, but I'd like to think there is, and it's how the classics that stick with us are made.

To slightly switch gears now for a moment, and flip the inspector's eyes back to us the consumers, I feel we are also to blame for this recent stagnation on the video game scene. Multiplayer is currently what sells, and while I grew up in the golden era of RPGs that was the SNES and continued into the PS2, playing with my friends has become a big part of my game buying process, and good multiplayer has the same draw as a beautifully told story.

However, when I think of the next big multiplayer game for me and my mates I immediately jump to titles such as Homefront, Section 8, and of course Battlefield. I wonder when my idea of multiplayer became so narrowed. It's not as if its the only kind of multiplayer I enjoy, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Lara Croft: GoL, Plants Vs. Zombies, and Castle Crashers are titles whose multiplayer I loved, and in fact remember more fondly then any match in CoD, BF, or Halo. Perhaps it's because all, save one, of those were made by small developers and released via xbox arcade. Gamers, including myself, seem to look at these as little diversions. A little 15 buck game you play with some friends just to tide you over until that next AAA title that has lines out the door for its midnight release. Instead we should look at them equally, based on merit, and really ask which one we had more fun with, which was the better game. Then we can decide if we like a little variety with our shooters.

I know what some of you are thinking, "there's already a solution to this problem, didn't you play Shadow of the Collosus, Beautiful Katamari, Limbo, Persona, Psychonauts, Heavy Rain?" I did, and I loved them but they are few and far between. In the end, I find my true complaint to be that I'm hungry for new IPs, new ideas. Sadly the business side of the video game world backs the safe choice, funneling cash into the sequel machine. Can good business and fresh ideas coexist?