Cookie Cutter, uninspiring and sequential.

Those are the words that come into my head when I think about gaming for this generation. Look back at the last five years and evaluate what the best titles were. Many of them were First-person shooters that look like they were injected with the blood of Micheal Bay. First-person shooters is bit of a dead horse now that companies like EA and Activision continue to beat until it continues to give them that shiny gold egg. These shiny gold eggs are indeed very shiny but what should be noted is that someone can only have one thing for so often until it becomes sickening to even hear the name, even if it's a shiny gold egg.


For my retreat away from FPS' , I point fingers at the powerhouse series known as "Call Of Duty". Don't get me wrong, I loved the series and it would be a bit hypocritical to say I don't enjoy the odd game of TDM in my afternoons, but COD creates a new game every year. These yearly births of highly rated titles generate two types of people, those who enjoy a shooter that hasn't changed since the creation of the Xbox and those who want some type of change. The change would really have to be large to really awe those who are currently selling their copies of COD to their local pawn shops but change or not, it doesn't stop them from eventually purchasing a copy of the latest, megaton hit to shoot people with their friends. They come home from their local Gamestop or Future Shop with the bag hanging loosely off two fingers. This is a sign of someone who is currently crossing those fingers for that groundbreaking shooter. But after you pop it in and watch that disc slowly disappear into the confines of your console/Pc, you know that you were lied to.

Again. I'm going to blunt, every Call Of Duty is a glorified re-skinned, expansion pack that you fork money for every year. If it entertains you, then great, you're one of those people who still delight in that bread and butter sandwhich. If you're like me who scowl at the new Black Ops II trailer then welcome to the party, drinks are at the back and you can get a honorary membership badge later on.

I don't mean to sound elitist or as if I'm holier than thou, I just want to make the point that FPS's are sort of on the border of being cookie cutter and being a drink coaster. I will say that there are many exceptions that attempt to break away from the horde. Games like Borderlands with their Diablo-isque loot system and RPG talent trees that allow you to customize your soldier of exploration and treasure hunting. Or games like Hard Reset, that resemble Serious Sam, a sub-genre of FPS which basically dips itself in 'A Clockwork Orange' and roars to the phrase, "Ultra Violence". Those shooters are different from the usual," My elite squad of soldiers that outrank me are waiting for me to move forward or else we shoot the same, neverending wave of enemies from that particular spawn point". Apparently there is no ," Sir, awaiting orders!" , it's now a silent protagonist that is the ultimate soldier that should be awarded every medal known to the military. But hey, it's a video game right, but wouldn't it be nice to not always be the guy that is unable to open the door and that your dumbfounded, elite sargeant opens it for you because you can't work a doorknob to the specified military standard.

But whatever, explosion, bang ,boom, scream, rockets, explosion, bullets, patriotism, and a giant heart warming scene where the soldier dies for his country. No matter what the game does, or doesn't too, it will always be slapped with a 9/10. And that's the bottomline, because paid advertisements and over-hyped sequels said so.