GameDroid

Once earlier in my life, I saw a light. Not any kind of light but the Light! You know the kind of light Buddha saw when he meditated under that tree and reached enlightenment. Yes, that light. It came from a big square formed thing and it took me by storm and I suddenly realised from that moment on that I would forever be….. a PC gamer.

While embracing this enlightenment, I came to enjoy the gifts it came with named Doom and Quake. Being able to control a character in a first person perspective and shooting aliens while being heavily outnumbered and left for dead made me realise a cosmic truth. I would always be a FPS player. But something was missing and by that time I couldn’t figure it out until it came. The Legend, the Myth, The Messiah of FPS games.

I’m obviously talking about the best FPS of all time, Half-Life. With its fantastic graphics, fantastic story, characters, voice-acting, gameplay and the game never letting you off your character, the future of FPS was bound to be good. And it was…..until now!

The developers of Half-Life, Valve set the standards for how story-driven shooters should be made and it was excellently followed by other companies giving us fantastic games like Deus Ex, Halo, the even greater legend Half-life 2 (highest scored game in history) and many more. By now the FPS genre had become the leading game genre, even introducing competitive games like Counter-Strike and Call of Duty (the first ones), that would hold the torch of FPS games for years on.

But in another part of the gaming industry, an evil was rising, desperately waiting for its moment to strike when we were fully unprepared. You know it, you hate it and you want it and its followers dead…..I mean gone…..no I…. forget it, you know you hate it and them more than you hate Justin Bieber. Or at least close enough the same level of hate. Anyway, the infamous console gaming had arrived!

The market had by now begun to go in another direction, with the new generation being introduced to the great world of gaming, but strangely preferring the consoles to the more powered PCs. The game companies were in panic, they had to satisfy and reach out to the new crowd, but how could they be able to create a game that would be satisfying enough, easy enough and good looking enough for the crowd to be pleased? And would other games follow it?

Later on, the answer would be the plague that still haunts me and my kin to this day. It is one of the least innovative, immersing, competitive, but overhyped and overrated piece of (sorry for the language) shit of a game ever created. Did I mention that it also became the most sold franchise ever and in today’s standards, is the most expensive game with quality that barely reaches half of its price? Or is that every today FPS like this one? Life is cruel, pals, remember that!

I should not even refer it by name, but it is named Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and it has expanded globally. Like a sexual disease you didn’t see coming (use of protection is highly recommended) and plagues the living hell of your live.

It basically spits on the faces of ambitious, hard working companies that works their butts off to create masterpieces that one day maybe will convince the world that games can and are a kind of art.

What Activision and Infinity Ward basically did was to drastically stop the evolution and throw the genre years behind the spot where it actually was supposed to be right now. And I’m going to, with joy, tell you how and why.

It went with a simple word: CASUAL! Yes, it is so casual now that even the most brain dead of humans can play it and dominate with ease. It erased every single aspect of being forced to use your skills to achieve – it means it deleted the feeling of achievement. Don’t give me that talk that it has some levelling and getting perks. What is the point of getting those with little to no efforts? Really, I tried it, I hated it, and I wanted it erased from the face of Earth.

How in the world could shooters become so easy that the only thing you need to do is to keep running and hold the trigger with no aim at all? Have the developers even seen a real gun being fired? Guns have something called RECOIL! You know that thing which in automatic fire sends bullets flying in different directions. Oh, you heard of it! Can you then please explain, why you took it away? Why did you make it so easy that my grandmother could go into sleep-mode with the finger on left mouse button and still be the greatest player?

Don’t be surprised if you actually convince yourself to buy the game and in the first round you get about 50 kills in a row. That’s what the game is about. Get as many killstreaks as you can almost without any tactics, skills or teamwork. And don’t be surprised if you get hit by an airstrike, that’s just an easy way to earn some freebies. And did I tell you it’s a console port? You heard me, a FPS made primarily for the console players. That means, in simple English, that PC gamers got screwed over.

The single player? A very short rail shooter (in MW3, they go literal) with plenty of explosions and bullets hitting the endlessly spawning enemies. It should be just enough that you don’t necessarily realize the linearity and the non-existence of any type of innovation.

It doesn’t end here, pals. Every year they release a new Call of Duty game using the same formula, without any advancement or changes. Just the same old recycled game. No new sounds, gameplay or graphics. I almost forgot to tell the PC gamers that the servers are not dedicated! Blasphemy!

Are we, the true FPS players, supposed to stand like this and just take the treatment? Should we tolerate the screaming premature little kiddies almost giving us a cardiac arrest? Should we tolerate noobtubing and quickscoping? Should we allow it to be CASUAL?

I say NO! We should not allow greedy companies to give us products with lack of any quality and we should not let things become so mainstream that it destroys the holy name of innovation. I could give you a whole book of why these type of games ruin gaming in general but really, who has the time to spare?

So raise your weapons, my fellow skilled PC-gaming FPS players and continue showing the gamer world why we are the true elites and why old school FPS games remain the bests of all time.

For just like the Jews, we are waiting for the return of the Messiah. It will bring us quality in form of a fantastic story and well-wrought characters, memorable moments, and fine gameplay with quality sound and graphics.

We are waiting, my Lord, we are waiting... for Half-Life 3!