I'm really frustrated trying to play shooters on the consoles and being the slowest thing on the screen. I don't own a PS3, Wii or Xbox360 yet (yes, me and your grandma are still not caught up with the times yet) but after trying scads of games on the Ps2 and Xbox, and researchng what people are saying about aiming, reloading and cameras in shooters for the new generation machines - I don't have much optimism that it's going to change.

There have been a few that were okay, and to be honest, I felt of the three the most responsive was the Gamecube. The Metroid games were pretty much flawless in that respect, as was the Resident Evil games on Gamecube. The Punisher was very responsive as well - but the vast majority of shooters on the Xbox and PS2were just too slow, especially compared to the PC. Today I was continuing Black on my Xbox, and was reminded why I stopped playing it in the first place. The character just plods along, no running dodging, ducking for cover. But the worst part was it takes so long to get a good aim on the enemy that you can lose 1/3 of your life just trying to get into position. It was game over when I stepped into a room and someone opened fire on me to my right. I was inches away from a health pack - but was blown away before I could even get to it. I initially tried to turn to return fire - but it took so long that I lost most of my life before I could ever see who was shooting me. Pathetic and irritating.

I played Timespliters 2 on the PS2 and I could live with the speed up until the helicopter fight on the bridge. In this challenge, you must destroy a helicopter with a fixed gun, while in the meantime dealing with enemies flanking you on both sides of the bridge. I never got past it because by the time you get a bead on the helicopter, your are being shot on both sides with high powered weaponry. Trying to fire back meant that you have to get out of the fixed gun, and shoot them with YOUR gun. The fixed gun willnot turn far enough to shoot them. It takes FOREVER to get out of the fixed gun and shoot one direction, and painfully slow turn 180 degrees and shoot the guy behind you. I didn't have that much of a problem, though - because I never was able tu turn around - and I tried many times - I was dead before even getting to 90 degrees.

Like I said earlier - I've heard the same things are going on with the new generation consoles - maybe not the Wi, but I'm not into chucka-stick-controllers. When their sales start to slide and they get creative enough to let you play with a REAL controller, maybe I'll go there. But in any case, I don't see them having serious shooters on the system at any time so I'm not even going to go there for that. I'm watching the other systems, but it looks like the good old PC is still needed to jump in when certain things, like decent cursor speed, is needed. The good news is that at least the PC is where it's at for shooters, but it would be nice if someone along the console chain would consider and optimize this genre of games so that they are playable on whatever system they come out on.

Just shooting off my mouth...