Another round of FPS games is upon us.
It seems everywhere I look I see Halo 3 this and Halo 3 that. Then to a slightly lesser extent there are a number of other upcoming FPS' making themselves known.
Yes, it's Halo 3, and I know it's a huge deal to just about everyone except me. Seriously though. Why? It's Halo 2 with an extra number and some upgraded graphics. Just as Halo 2 was to Halo, and Doom 2 was to the orginal Doom. (I'll leave Doom 3 alone since there was a pretty significant time period between it, and its predecessor) Sure it will be good, it's so anticipated that its initial sales will likely through it into the stratosphere of gaming records once again. It did it the first couple of times around, thats WHY theres a third one. I just cannot, for the life of me, fathom why all this hype is generated for this game. What is it doing that is so innovative and exciting? Will there finally be a bit of character development? Does the story promise to have depth and meaning to it? So far, it's all graphics graphics graphics. I think it's sad that gaming is becoming mostly about who has the prettiest shinys. While characters, storylines, and everything the game supposedly revolves around takes a back seat. Or, in many cases, just gets shoved in the trunk as an afterthought. I'm leaving out gameplay since there is really nothing to be added to it. It hasn't really changed much since Wolfenstein really. Aside from adding 'strafe' in at some point. Or maybe it was already in there. I can't remember. The weapons change, occasionally you get a BFG 9000, or a Gravity gun, but even then, it's still all run, strafe, shoot, run, strafe, shoot, run, strafe, shoot, JUMP, miss, fall, die, respawn, run, strafe, shoot, and so on and so on et cetera.
Then there is the ever present mass of tool bags on XBL. Self-Professed 'hardcore' gamers (that couldn't define strategy for you with a dictionary opened to the visibly hilighted term itself.) With their ever endearing 'Take No Prisoners' attitude towards everything. Or so they'd have you think. What they won't tell you is that, despite their extremely high pitched, and might I add, obnoxious voices, they're actually male, and they're not supposed to be playing right then, as mommy grounded them for bad grades in math. So confident in their abilities to 'pwn' you and everyone else that ever existed within the next 15 minutes before said parental figure returns home to find this putrid waste of bandwidth doing just that. They will sit there shooting wildly at everything, should a hit or god forbid, a kill, occur from this, they will immediately let you know all about their 'skillz' and that these alleged 'skillz' are in fact, quite 'mad'. The worst part of all this, as well as the saddest is: it's not just the 7-13 crowd doing this, there are full grown men that act this very same way online.
It is this group of gamers that make me hate online multiplayer. Specifically FPS such as Halo, as thats where they are concentrated most of the time. Sure you'll find them in all genres of gaming if there is an online mode availble. I don't know why they stick predominantly to the likes of the FPS, maybe it's the simplistic gameplay. Thats who the industry seems to cater to mostly these days. As long as games like Fire Emblem, Ninja Gaiden, and really just any game that will totally kick your ass unless you learn to be absolutely precise, and think about your every move - I'll be fine. More of that please. Knock it off with all this Halo crap.
....aaand breathe.