The first-person shooter (or FPS for short) is becoming the most popular type of game for the hard-core gamer around the world. With games like "Call of Duty 4", "Gears of Wars 2" and "Killzone 2" all proving to be big hits - the hunger for FPS games doesn't look like fading away anytime soon.
The best games boast realistic environments - dropping the players into the harshest of battlefield conditions - coupled with all manner of deadly firepower to enable the seek-and-destroy game-play mechanics associated with the FPS genre.
A growing trend is that the single-player campaign is a brief affair; the story is usually some heroic tale where one person has the fate of their unit, people or world on their shoulders alone. This part of the game can, at times, feel more like a demo for the multiplayer game-play that is really what the designers intended the game for.
All multiplayer FPS games should theoretically be the same as their single-player counterpart; with the added bonus of playing with other real-life players (and not AI bots that follow a pre-programmed design). It doesn't matter how realistic a game is in looks or feel; human players still play to win rather than play within the realms of reality.
Happy Campers.
A bug-bear of all FPS games is "camping" - the devious art of finding a secluded spot on a multi-player level and staying there - all the while picking off opponents (preferably with the obligatory sniper-rifle) with them being none-the-wiser where the kill-shot came from. Unless you're a savvy player and know the level well, kills can be racked up from the unwary walking into the path of the "camper".
Fools rush in.
Team battles in FPS should be one unit versus another but many players don't know one another (or have the means to communicate) so invariably it's a free-for-all and team-work is the last thing on anyone's mind in the heat of battle. Objective-based combat does encourage some forethought to how you approach levels but selfish play is never far away.
There are far too many times when teams enter a chokepoint within a level and gun-play becomes comical - teams standing four-feet apart blasting for all their worth until the last man is standing - or a quick-minded player lobs a well-placed grenade into the fray, picking up a few cheap kills in the process.
Fire in the hole!
The power of grenade-throwing should never be undervalued in a FPS - but they appear to be an afterthought when some players use them - slinging them wildly whenever the moment takes them, even if their own "team" is standing in front of them! The words "friendly-fire" must not be in the vocabulary of quite a few players - casualties are an inevitable consequence of war - in their minds.
Mechanical malfunctions.
A game like "Killzone 2" has incorporated a well-designed cover system, where a single-button press near an object enables the player to utilise some cover from opposing fire (much needed during the single-player experience). Take part in the multiplayer game and the cover option has been reduced (where you cannot actually use the "cover" technique) so you just have to duck down near objects and hope the opponent cannot hit you. Multiplayer is generally about kills but to "dumb-down" the game because of this strips the game of its unique game-play mechanic.
FPS gaming can be fun - if more people played the game as they were originally designed for - too many games look brutally realistic but are played unrealistically in the unending quest for kills and victory conditions.