Not a fan of the almighty FPS genre, and I feel isolated

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

I've been thinking this for awhile, but it really struck me yesterday. I was at a friend's house and we were playing Gears of War (my first time playing it) on his 360. As we were playing, I realized my friend was having a blast, and I kept looking at the clock.

Halo bores me; 007 (some PS2 one) is unexciting; and Hitman: Blood Money struck me as just plain stupid. Yet for some reason, I really like Red Steel, supposedly the biggest Wii letdown.

Now, my favorite games have always been Action/Adventure/RPG (eg. Zelda, Final Fantasy, KoToR, Pokémon, etc.) or RTS (Starcraft, C&C). My friends' interests in games have "matured" moreso than mine. Our conversations have shifted from Zelda sidequests to some stupid new gun in Halo 3. Granted, there will be conversations about games I have genuine interest in, but they are few and far between.

Does anyone else here feel isolated from their gaming friends in this manner?

[daguuy]

Nope. I like everything from FPS to racing to RPG, and everything in between except for sports games.

[project_failure]

I understand exactly how you feel. My passion in video games turned out to be 2d fighters, while all my friends are fans halo and WOW. While I do enjoy fps (good old duke 3d and doom) they begin to bore me after awhile even with multi player. I had a friend who used to love King of fighters just as much as me and we were dead even in skill, which meant hours of play. But he started playing WOW and that was the end of it.

Recently I came across some new friends who also enjoy fighting games. We went to San Diego two weeks ago and played in the evo west tournament.

unfortunately for you the Action/Adventure/RPG genre is mostly single player where every fps (except for Black) has some form of multi player. These things happen.

[Felino]

My friends all seem to crap and cheat in all fps, and just crap there in one spot shooting grenades in trem / and hl2. Its dull watching somone play an fps anyway.

[ValiantVenality]

Thats how i feel with my friends and my Dreamcast. All my friends care about is graphics..... Whenever i ask one of my friends to play Dreamcast they just say "That system sucks. Its old with crap graphics." Then I think to myself "Man what kind of person doesnt wanna play Quake 3 Online Arena, Power Stone 2, or Soul Calibur. Oh ya I know why. All these people care about is seeing realistic sweat on basketball players." I need some Dreamcast friends. O.o.

VV

[Twisted Warthog]

Just to clarify Gears Of War is a 3rd Person Shooter not a First Person Shooter. Ever try the Metroids for the Gamecube? I have to say they are some of the finest FPSs ever made. And I'm sure the one coming out for the Wii will be spectacular too.

[jones]

I have to say I feel this way with strategy games. I've always loved them, but none of my friends really bother playing them at all. In the last few months the games Catan and Carcassone game out on the Xbox Live Arcade and nobody on my friends list plays them. It is kind of annoying, but oh well.

[Valium]

Nope. I like everything from FPS to racing to RPG, and everything in between except for sports games.

Quoted for truth.

By the way, Felino, I see you frequent the Explosm site. Are you a member of the forums?

[Harshboy]

I like a wide variety of games. My Top 3 favorite types would have to be RPG, FPS, and Racing.

The only types of games that bore me are Sports (minus racing) and Puzzle (minus Tetris/Tetris Attack)

Now my favorite games are Zelda:MM (All Zelda games rock, but I liked this one the best), Halo 2, and for Racing either NFSU or Excite Truck.

[bioniclebert]

Don't feel bad. I hate halo, gears of war, and plenty of other shooters. But I love half-life 1 and 2, soon to be TFC 2 and a couple others. (Use steam a lot lol)

C&C Is good, I've been playing Yuri and Heroes of might and magic 2 a lot recently. I like to also stick to classic games, I took out the SNES and played earthbound (among a ton of other things).

Overall, I think videogames now are just trying to wow you instead of give you everything cool they used to have in the earlier generations. They just dont have that.. ZinG! anymore, you know?

I can say that there were games for wii I just had to play. There were no games for 360 that I had to play, and I don't own one because of that. Same for PS3, which I think you would all agree on anyway. So by this I mean that mabye Nintendo has realized what I said in my last paragraph, and is still trying to build on those "Classic moments" and make new ones. Bringing back the ZinG!.

Mabye someday there will be a new game like this. Like as good as Megaman 2, or Earthbound. (Mother 3 plz)

On a side note, ID has just released a TON of games on steam, ranging from Wolfenstein 3D to the DOOM series, QUAKE, and others. (oh yeah and I totally agree on Power Stone 2)

[jones]

An interesting point by bioniclebert. It all depends on perspective. For me the games I have to play are on the 360, whereas the Wii and PS3 are severely lacking in my opinion.

What you said though is my litmus test for whether or not to buy a system. Do I need to play this game or games? I wouldn't have bought a 360 if I had answered no to that question.

I think now is a great time to be into video games. Perhaps the best time ever in fact. There are a ton of different systems for people to buy whether they be portable (DS Lite, PSP), high-end multimedia gaming machines (360, PS3), or a twist on how we play games (Wii).

There are people of broader age range playing all systems these days. I have no problem finding rooms with people in their late-twenties or thirties playing on Xbox Live. It's great to know that just because people are getting older they aren't giving up on gaming. This is largely due to the fact that the game publishers are making games to appeal to a broader range of people than ever before.

If anyone needs evidence of how great a time it is to be a gamer they need look no further than this Fall's lineup of games coming out. I can't ever recall a period of time where I have actually had to make a choice as to what game I want to buy. Usually there is one killer game every month or two at best, which makes it easier on the wallet. This Fall though there is a great game coming out damn near every week! Sure the fall lost GTA IV, but it gained Crysis.

All that said, I like most genres. I used to really be into fighting games (especially SF2), but once they went 3-D my interest wained (the exception here being Soul Calibur). Puzzle games are always a blast and it is no secret that I love racing games. Shooters are something I have started to enjoy a bit more in the last year or so with games like Lost Planet, Rainbow 6 Vegas, and GRAW 2. None are FPS, but they're all a blast. I really like most any genre, although I recently realized (while playing the Blue Dragon demo) that I sadly no longer derive much enjoyment from the Japanese RPG genre.

Time to find some of that Zing!

[Reaperman@home]

every decade or so has a couple genres that dominate and then go away.

Platformers, beat'em ups, arcade racers, shooters and 2d fighting games used to be all the rage--now look at them. They were all cloned to death.

I'm even worse off. I hate much of the current crop of fad genres. FPS, RTS, MMORPG, sports and GTA-clone. I guess gaming's going out for me.

Really the steady string of sim games is all that's keeping me in gaming, but I've noticed a drop in the number and quality of space/flight titles and racing titles by themselves can only hold my attention for so long.

Variety is at an all time low.

[bicostp]

I don't really feel that way, probably because the majority of the games I play came out at least a decade ago. Besides, most of my friends are more into driving and flight simulators, or we avoid talking about console gaming altogether because one of them sold his Xbox and a couple dozen games for $150 two years ago and bought a near-$1000 Compaq for gaming and has been pouring money into it ever since... )

Probably the newest game I pick up at least semi-frequently is Unreal Tournament. (Not 2003 or 2004, the original one that came after Unreal.) The newest console game I have is Gran Turismo 4.

I like pretty much everything except sports simulation games (NASCAR games are OK though), fighting games (I'm awful at fighting games), anime-style games (hate anime), and long RPGs (don't have the time or patience).

[dudex77]

Yeah pretty much no one likes the games I do, but I suppose thats what I get for liking shmups, rhythm games that aren't guitar hero, and 2D fighters. I like most genres but those are my top ones. I really liked rpg's for a while but then I realized I hated them in 3d so that was annoying I like pretty much all kart racing games all other racing is t3h suck to me. I like halo and half life but most other shooters bore me especially gears. I don't know why but the whole HD graphics do the opposite of appeal to me, thats probably why I've gotten into the whole DS thing.

[Twisted Warthog]

Well i pretty much like every genre of games, my top ones though are FPS, Platformers, and RPGs.