• Ten Steps to Making a Successful FPS

  

  Written by Zeromage 30 Comments
  Last Updated:: November 23, 2008

  With the release of “Left 4 Dead” for the Xbox 360, First Person Shooter (FPS) fans have come crawling out of their closets in as great of numbers as the zombies that attack you in these games. What’s the appeal of the first person shooter that makes these gamers keep coming back for more? In this list we’ll go through the ten steps needed to make a FPS that some gamers call “amazing” with sheepish predictability. The steps are fairly simple and are used in most, if not all the FPS games that have been released since Doom 1. Once the awareness of the predictability becomes more conscious, then maybe gamers will expect more out of these types of games.

  10. Lots of Guns

  The first step in making a FPS is obviously having loads of guns. Everything from rifles, to machine guns, to shotguns can be used. If you were just left to your hands, you’d have no chance against foes who apparently have an unlimited amount of ammo (one of the reasons below). The days of hand to hand combat are not merely a past time for the FPS, but a no-time, as if there was never a world where weapon technology wasn’t a privileged mode of existence. It’s sort of like an animal finding his food. The super fan of the FPS has the same impulses when they see a big gun lying on the ground.

  9. Zombies or Aliens

  How many games do we need where we have to battle against endless hordes of Zombies or Aliens? It’s either zombies who can barely walk, but for some reason need 20 shotgun shots to kill, or aliens who graphically all look exactly alike. What’s with the obsession with killing zombies and aliens? For one or two games, the idea can be kind of fun, but after the third or fourth game you play it becomes tired. Whatever happened to fighting totally random and unique bad guys like flying turtles, or octopuses who shoot rocks at you on dry land? When did video games become the play of marketing? When did video gamers stop realizing that they were being played?

  8. Extremely Dark environments, to the point of not being able to see what’s going on

  Ever since Doom 1, FPS games have almost always evoked brooding aesthetics not only in theme but in appearance. You don’t even know where you’re going in some levels in these games, but you’re at least comforted in knowing you have a big gun to randomly shoot in the dark at enemies you can barely see. It helps to have a mode on your TV that brightens up your screen. It also helps to have glasses when playing these games. If you don’t have either, expect to walk around these games like you were a blind person. Cashing in on the conditioned spookiness of the dark never came so easy for video game makers as it does in the modern FPS.

  7. Have a hero who talks like he has gotten a testosterone injection

  The FPS games all have the same heroes. They all sound like they were injected with testosterone before being dropped off by their spaceship. They all sound like they’re talking with either tobacco in their mouth or a cigar hanging out. You certainly would need a testosterone injection to be walking around in worlds full of zombies and aliens specifically out to destroy you, all the while having the balls to smoke a cigar or chew tobacco. There are of course a few exceptions to this predictably overt insistence on manhood, like the Metroid Prime series that luckily had the likes of Retro creating it, meaning that they actually cared about making a creative game. Unfortunately these games are few and far between.

  6. Have the Hero take on the entire army of zombies or aliens all by himself

  You get dropped off by your space ship on a hostile world all by yourself. There is an entire planet full of zombies and aliens ready to take down. Everywhere you go, these zombies are out for you and you only. You have no help besides the extra-large guns and med packs randomly sitting on the ground in convenient locations. How is it be possible to destroy an entire world of zombies or aliens all by yourself? Well, you could be a SUPER ELITE GENETICALLY MODIFIED SOLIDER!…Or you could be a SUPER ADVANCED SPACE MARINE who has spent their entire life battling zombies and aliens from other planets. Who needs Ambien when you have ideas like these for a new FPS?

  5. If you’re battling zombies use a rifle or shotgun, and if you’re battling aliens use a laser

  You start off a FPS with your hands, then you quickly find the random big gun laying on the ground. You pick it up ready to shoot some zombies. Soon though, you get sick of guns. You want something different. You want something better to fight some aliens with. What’s better than guns? Lasers! Zip, Zang, Zing! Green light comes out of the laser! It strikes at long distances! It’s the technology of the future! Shoot things with different blasters! Find different blasters to shoot at the same things! Find blasters that shoot different colors! Find things that shoot at you with different shooter colors.

  4. Put lots of graffiti on all the walls in an urban area

  When you’re battling zombies, you’re almost always in an urban area. To prove that the area is really urban, there is always graffiti on all the walls that you’re passing by when killing zombies and even sometimes aliens. Yes, you’re fighting in a dump where gang warfare has previously ruined the city. The graffiti never spells out anything other than the appearance of urban poverty. The creators of these games never heard of the idea of playing with signifiers, or simply put, showing more than just mere appearance, but then again, game creators these days probably don’t make the games (could this last statement be trying to say more than it’s mere appearance?)

  3. Make every barrel and crate on fire or full of explosions

  Walking through the prototypical urban surroundings in the FPS shows an unlimited amount of barrels on and crates. This signifies gang-territory in it’s most simple form. If the barrels aren’t already on fire, you can be sure that they will explode soon enough. Shoot something at it. Go up to it and use your hands to punch it. You will explode along with anything in close proximity. I guess exploding barrels are more interesting than barrels full of bananas. I guess everything has to always appear like its exaggerated and violent in FPS games for gamers to keep coming back for more.

  2. Put random health replenishers in the most convenient places possible.

  Just when you’re low on energy, there is the piece of food or a first aide kit right after the room full of zombies or aliens. The highly intelligent aliens didn’t think to take away the random health replenisher sitting in the middle of the room. They just decided to amass in one room to destroy THE SUPER SOLIDER. Who knows, maybe their logic is one of complete audacity where they feel absolutely no chance at being destroyed, even though they have been getting romped on throughout the whole game. The highly intelligent aliens may be intelligent in some ways, but they definitely don’t realize when their own numbers are down.

  1. Make the Zombies or Aliens in the game act like a deer in a headlight

  So you start off the game, walk a little bit of ways in the repetitive urban area, and see Zombies crawling towards you, or aliens walking towards you. They look angry. They look like they want you dead for eternity, but they don’t do anything to kill you. They stand right in your view looking mean. You probably have a gun pointing right at them and they continue to walk slowly towards you not trying to hit you or having any gun to shoot at you. If they do have a gun, they get off about 1 shot a minute with an INFINITE amount of ammo though (until of course you kill them, and then the gun you pick up from their dead body has only six shots left). I thought these guys were supposed to be a superior race in the case of aliens …or maybe you’re just such a great SUPER SOLIDER that they somehow only know how to walk towards you. The unbounded logical explanations can go on forever, but the game was never designed with higher logic in mind, only marketing logic.

30 Comments

1. #1 Four20 says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 7:11 pm

   Worst list ever. . .why would a Nintendo Fanboy blog write an article about the FPS genre?

   Make this list. . .but about platformers. . .
2. #2 George says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

   The formula works though.

   The games are easy to make, and require little thought because theirs so much else to measure it to. FPS games in the 00’s are as common as platformers in the 80’s and 90’s due to the same reasons. When another genre is cheaper or easier to make, and becomes the fashion, it will be the popular one. And for all the dozens of games like Haze, their are the gems like Halo and RE4. Just like how for all the dozens of platformers like Yo! Noid, their were gems like the Mario Trilogy and Mega Man 2.
3. #3 Anon says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

   I challenge any of you old wizards to play any modern shooter on the hardest difficulty, and then see how convenient the health pack and exploding barrels are. Most of your articles extrapolate very general stereotypes about modern games to the point where you sound like soccer mom’s who’ve played any given modern game for 20 mins before judging it. You also conveniently forget about every 8-bit game that wasn’t a classic, and act as if those days were filled with only amazing jewels of games.

   Honestly, I enjoy the old classics, but I don’t get delusional about how much better they are than modern games. The fact is, it was A LOT easier to turn out a quick crappy game back then, and it was done A LOT.
4. #4 Dylan says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm

   I must say, this is pretty easy to do with all games. A platformer game has to:

   1. Have enemies that don’t make any sense at all.

   2. Feature power ups that also have no rhyme or reason to them.

   3. These power ups have to be hidden in some way that keeps them out of site, yet you could only miss them if you were an idiot. i.e. Floating bricks, crates, ect.

   4. Lives. You’ve got to have lives.

   5. Only one difficulty level. Never mind those who are of a different skill level than you or can’t invest countless hours into video games.

   6. Water, lava, and forest levels. It doesn’t matter that you want variety, they always have to be in there.

   7. It has to appeal to 10 year olds, so make it as bright and colorful as possible.

   8. If possible, don’t put anything new in there that might scare potential buyers. Only Mario can get away with it.

   9. You’re protaganist HAS to be zany or in some way “out there” so that the people get interested. Who doesn’t want to be a floating pink ball?

   10. Make sure you only need the D-pad and two more buttons. One for jump, and one for run/ special move. Evidently you may confuse people if you put in a seperate button for run and your special move.

   11. (Related to #6 in your list) Have the hero take on the army of enemies all by themselves.

   I mean don’t get me wrong. I love my platformers, but if you’re gonna say that FPS’s will bring out the people who call the next one “amazing” with sheepish predictability, the same could be said for almost any game of any genre. Plus #10, 6, 3, and 1 don’t have anything to do with L4D (unless I suppose you count 6 guns as a lot…). As has been repeated all over the internet forever, it’s easy to put any game into a category and name off things in it that are like every other game.

   Love your site though.
5. #5 TheMountain says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

   hahaha…Funny article. esp. #7
6. #6 JJ says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:22 pm

   Please stop posting these lists. They are remarkably difficult to read without feeling as though my brain has been poked by a cow brand. Your obvious Nintendo fanboyism is unbearable, “There are of course a few exceptions to this predictably overt insistence on manhood, like the Metroid Prime series…” It has become clear to me that you are so involved with these age old series’ you have completely been dissconnected with next generation video games. You do not know the first thing about First Person Shooters. When the only FPS you even reference is DOOM 1, it is hard to take this list seriously, games have evolved just a LITTLE bit since then. Leave it to someone who knows what they are talking about.
7. #7 Case says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:59 pm

   I read this list with increasing skepticism. Its such a vast generalization of a few specific franchises of the genre. You must be playing some really shitty old games if you’re still playing games where the AI is bad enough that enemies stand and stare rather than ambush you, hide behind cover, etc…

   Oh wait! You’re only playing Nintendon’t FPS’es! Ah ha! Sorry, Turok:Evolution does not count as a modern day FPS! Fail!

   Also, just to quell the fanboyism, I own a Wii and play a lot of great games on it, but I also own a 360 and the majority of my time is spent playing their games that fit THIS generation rather than being suckered by Nintendo’s ‘casual market’ bullshit slant.

   Get your fail off of the internet.
8. #8 News Writers - Review Writers Needed says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

   Nice post Old-Wizard, i like all steps
9. #9 xino says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

   Fan boy list:/
   all left 4 dead, halo and doom 3:/
10. #10 craig says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:29 am

    Four20 on November 23, 2008 at 7:11 pm said:

    Worst list ever. . .why would a Nintendo Fanboy blog write an article about the FPS genre?

    Make this list. . .but ab

    It’s called Sarcasm.
    but I noticed there was no mention of chainsaws.
11. #11 John says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 4:10 am

    HOLY FUCK. You could not get more ignorant than the author of this article. These traits have not been commonplace in FPS games for YEARS now. This sounds like some shit that was written in 1998. Whoever runs this site should just delete the article, because it is an embarrassment and an insult to the intelligence of the site’s readers. This article has every indication that it was written by someone who doesn’t even play FPS games because it is so woefully out of date and the generalizations are so pathetically inaccurate it is ridiculous. This is what happens when dumbass teenage fanboys are allowed to publish their thoughts on the Internet.
12. #12 George says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:46 am

    Well all videogames have you taking on an army by yourself; or leading an army to attack another army in certain cases. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.
13. #13 Mr. Vorhias says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    You forgot Nazis.
14. #14 roberto says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    awesome list
15. #15 sharpe 334 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    another stab at left 4 dead
16. #16 Big A2 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    “Worst list ever. . .why would a Nintendo Fanboy blog write an article about the FPS genre?”

    Becuase they can, and they felt like it.
17. #17 Gunsn1per says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:34 am

    HAHAHA this is hilarious, #7 is the best! I also laughed when you talked about genetically enhanced supersoldier in your articles (the top 10 cliches, too!!)
18. #18 Andrew says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:52 am

    This shouldn’t be here at all. You seem to have an attachment to the Metroid franchise. Please, make a list about Wii party games or something else that you obviously love. Possibly a JRPG? One on the DS? This list funny really at all and not accurate at all of most of the FPS games out on the market.

    For example, you noted that all of the heroes have been injected with testosterone then they hopped out of their spaceship with a cigar between their teeth. This is not at all true. Take a game like Half-Life for instance, you are pretty much a nobody, just a scientist that has to do what he has to do to survive. He doesn’t speak a word and does not have bulging muscles and a gruff voice a la Gears of War.

    Go blog about something you know about (Wii Carnival Games, Wii Play, Mario Whatever), not about something you have stereotyped by looking at 3 different games.
19. #19 Brian V. says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    Please…stop while you’re ahead. The idiot marathon should be run by more competent fools.
20. #20 Gyb says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:31 am

    How sad of you, people who have no sense of humour to notice the sarcasm in this article, how grey do your life is?

    In other words, you took this too seriously, they said that one laugh a day keeps the grim reaper away. Enjoy you balding head.
21. #21 roberto says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    duck hunt, greatest fps ever
22. #22 UP2IP2 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 3:17 am

    Ok im naming all fps game that the MAIN CHARACTER DOES NOT SPEAK
    DOOM 1 2 3
    BIOSHOCK
    fear 1 2
    DUCK HUNT
    EVERY WW2 GAME EVER MADE
    UNREAL TERMONATE 1-3
    RED FACTION 1-2
    ALIEN VS PREDATOR
    thats all i could remember
23. #23 gamergame says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:20 am

    nr 2 shoud be ” the hero is a white male with a bad shave”
    nr 1 should be “use only gray brown or black”
24. #24 Journeythroughhell says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

    You are so fucking biased. What is up with your retarded hate of all FPS’s? You know, guys, to be called journalists, you have to avoid retarded generalizations and assumptions.
25. #25 Darin says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:12 am

    roberto is right!

    duck hunt is the greatest fps of all time lol
26. #26 Alberto says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:05 am

    Funny
27. #27 avi says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:29 am

    hey dylan, what’s so childish about colour in games?