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The bread and butter of PC games. They're more common than roaches in New York.
What styles of games are out there? How do I choose between them? Is there a particular type of game I would likely enjoy?
How would I know that? I'm not a mind reader. If you want to know what certain types of games are like, I might be able to help. Just stop being so needy, casual reader.
Since the dawn of games on PC, people have longed for something that made you feel a part of the game. Solitaire is fun, but immersive? I don't think so. Minesweeper can be addictive, but do you really feel as if you're hunting for mines in a big gray area? First-person games started way, way back in the day with classics like Doom or Wolfenstein. It's a strange fact of life that most of these games involved shooting things.
I'm not exactly sure why one would imagine guns, pixelated blood, and a first-person perspective going together. Other FPS games like Magic Carpet involved fun particle effects and monsters, but still had a "shooting" element to them even though there was no blood. An exception to this rule is my gaming nemesis, Myst.
What is it about first person shooters that makes them one of the most popular game styles out there today, you ask? Like I mentioned, they're immersive. Nothing can get your heart pounding like a good FPS can. Playing Call of Duty 4 got my adrenaline pumping so hard my hair was actually standing on end. I'm not exactly Sasquatch, but that's still quite a feat. There's something about viewing an alternate world through someone else's eyes that draws all of us to certain things. Some people get this from books, but so far my enjoyment level is highest when playing one of these.
Bad FPS games take you out of your cozy little world and shove you into their universe with all the grace of a ballerina with an inner ear infection. Good ones make the transition before you realize what's happening. You blink, and suddenly what's happening on a screen is intense, personal, and exciting. Imagine winning an ebay auction by fifty cents with less than ten seconds to go. Now imagine that three or four times every minute. That's how good FPS games feel.
Most include elements of graphic violence, but not all. Almost all of them require a bit of visual acuity and the capacity to get an on-screen crosshair to point at what you want with the mouse while moving your player with another hand. This takes some getting used to, but is pretty much a constant skill once learned. Not like riding a bike, exactly - maybe like riding a bike while hurling fist-sized rocks at alien mutant spawn.
A characteristic of most good FPS games in addition to immersion is a passable storyline. Some FPS games don't require a story to be fun, but the truly great ones have got fantastic stories behind them. Half-Life 2, Fallout 3, F.E.A.R, and a couple others really shine in this respect. You can get as much out of the gameplay as a good book, but moreso because of how interactive they are. Feeling part of a big story is a major selling point of not just games, but movies and literature as well.
So what do you get from a good FPS? A thrill, a sense of living something you normally couldn't, and decent ones deliver a good story. All in all, probably my favorite genre of PC games. Need a good starter? Try portal, Half-Life 2, or Halo.
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