FPS games aren't dying, just doing a bit of repeating

Each year in gaming, a new First-Person Shooter steals the lives of gamers and many “game of the year” nominations. From a crude perspective, the game usually bears the same general formula as “last year’s” hit FPS while being carried by an attractively-named game engine and wearing the disguise of a vague-titled piece of entertainment that may-or-may-not have aliens and a government conspiracy in it.

Every once in a while, certain games spark life to this beaten genre, even when gaining inspiration from even older titles. Metroid Prime let us experience morph ball mode and the screw attack in a whole new way, Bioshock gave us a compelling narrative in comparison to other first-person experiences.

But even when facing these few diamonds in the rough, the future is bleak for the FPS genre. Are we seeing too many games from our own perspective? With a formula as simple and specific as “you see things you shoot, along with the gun you’re using and the arm that holds it,” isn’t it easy to retread old ground?

The video game industry will always repeat itself, and it apparently doesn’t take long to do so. If you like FPS games like I do, you’ll be eager to see some changes (aside from shiny new engines) that take the genre in a new direction. And here are some ways to do it:

• Give us a breath of fresh air - - make up some reason that the character can smoothly move from first-person to third-person perspective.

• Add some mystery ingredients to the game. If we know we are person A fighting battle B for reason C, it can get boring. By making use of the fact that we CAN’T see who we are, why not leave our own identities secret for a good portion of the game? We don’t see that enough.

• The point of a first-person perspective is to experience a game as if you truly ARE the character. What can be more realistic than actual first-person tasks? Doing dishes, scratching graffiti into bathroom stalls, shoving food into your face, watching a bacon double-cheeseburger disappear JUST under the camera. Sounds like a better Wii game than most other third-party offerings.

• Why stick to one character? Games like Call of Duty 4 put you in the shoes of a number of people. What’s exciting about controlling other people, though? In fact, here's an on-the-spot idea for a game that could stand being made based on multiple-character control:

Imagine that you take the role of a parasite that is slowly taking over the Earth (take notes, hungry developers). You can invade the human brain and work your way to another by forcing your host to (brace yourself for the awesomeness) ram their body into the next host. Then, your parasite makes the jump to a different host that has different roles and abilities, which then lets you further the game by finding hosts with specific abilities and access to different areas. And this would be the first FPS that you would run into another person for a (good) reason. I suppose you would either leave the last host's corpse behind, or it would be controlled by one of your spawn. I know, gross.



Oh, and the host you control would walk around like a drunk person, a little more tough, and fun, to control.

See? We can keep this genre alive, and maybe even unique. Unless you want your grandchildren to be playing Halo 18, I suggest we do something, folks.