Videogames and guns, an inseparable bond of bullets and binary code. Since the birth of the medium, from primitive interstellar bullet dodging through to the controversial culling of civilians, the two have enjoyed an unwavering state of matrimony. Let’s face facts, within the non-consequential confines of a videogame, offloading a death-dealing arsenal of weaponry into an enemy's facial features is a strangely pleasurable experience. Who can begrudge the joyful smirk that creeps across ones face when lining up a sniper rifle scope with an unsuspecting skull, prior to the subsequent sense of sadistic glee that occurs when the bullet reaches its desired destination?

Maybe, via the freedom to act out such instances in the digital arena and the undeniable pleasures derived from doing so, we are simply unleashing a deep seeded human instinct that being sane and stable individuals we won’t attempt to re-imagine in the real world. Of course there is the rare exception, but it’s hard to believe that any homicidal gunman has been solely influenced by videogames before partaking in a senseless massacre.
The fact that Doom was a scapegoat for the 1995 Columbine shootings is frankly ridiculous. I think it would be fair to say that it’s not entirely healthy for someone with psychopathic tendencies to constantly immerse themselves in fantasy violence, but for 99.9% of gamers who played Doom and were perfectly level headed, they recognize the title as one of the greatest and most influential FPS’s of all time, not as a catalyst for real life atrocities.
Wolfenstein (which arguably didn’t actually create the genre per se) was the original pioneer of the game type before the later release of the ‘Grandaddy’, the aforementioned Doom. In the contextual time line of FPS’s, few would discredit Doom with anything less than legendary status; the sequel introducing one of the most satisfyingly lethal guns in gaming. The beastly double barrelled shotgun, referred to in-game as the ‘super shotgun’, a personal favourite for many a stopping power obsessed FPS fanatic the world over.
Decimating ranks of imps with shell after shell of searing lead, tearing through all manner of demonic entities with a chainsaw on full throttle or unloading the BFG into a room full of hellspawn; lavish, claret spilling poeticism. John Romero knew us gamers would dive head first into the blood bath, as the conservative pencil pushers were predicting a social apocalypse all of our own.
While the forces of Hades continually ran amok in the form of expansions and sequels, Doom had spawned other entities outside the claustrophobic corridors of Phobos and Deimos. What became known rather crudely as ‘shoot ‘em ups’ were kicking down the doors of our humble abodes all guns blazing…
The shift in genre labelling from ‘shoot ‘em up’ to the ‘First Person Shooter’ appeared to perhaps coincide with the more mature acceptance that gaming gained via the Playstation’s introduction to the market, and the ensuing generations of hardware post impact. Sega, to some extent, introduced a degree of perceived adultness with the Mega Drive, but nothing akin to the three dimensional power and expert marketing force behind Sony’s cutting edge console.
Advances in technology, evolution of the medium and expanded possibilities can often facilitate vast improvements in gameplay. A simple spray and shoot philosophy, inflexible due to technological limitations, gave way to a more tactical, concise approach to the art of armed combat, and we the players revel in being centre stage in these theatres of war.

The crude, disparaging nature of the term ‘shoot em up’ seemed outdated when viewed in context of how much the genre had evolved since the primitive point and shoot ethics of early titles, hence the more reflective and accurately descriptive coining of the term ‘First Person Shooter’.
As fun as unloading a full clip into an emotionless pixelated foe can be, it will never match the exhilaration of watching the lifeless corpse of your friend’s character slump to the floor after an expertly timed head shot, or sending a rocket down the throat of a particularly obnoxious online adversary.
The days of the split screen have to all intents and purposes been fragged by the online juggernaut. With faster more efficient servers, the online multiplayer community has flourished and is constantly expanding, with FPS’s muscling ahead of the competition, remorselessly driven by some colossally popular franchises.
In terms of consoles, the Halo and Call Of Duty series’ have taken online conflict to stratospheric levels of popularity, with Microsoft claiming that 1.75 billion hours of gameplay on Modern Warfare 2 have been clocked up on Xbox Live alone. Friends of mine who otherwise have little to no interest in the wider spectrum of gaming are utterly obsessed with COD, yet anything else other than say, a sports sim they regard with considerable disdain.

In essence, it’s like a continuation of schoolyard make believe. The fantasy playground shoot out between friends is re-imagined in the full crystal clear HD of a game like Modern Warfare 2. The invisible grenades we threw or gun shaped sticks that we pointed at each other in the name of innocent fun, can be replaced by all manner of realistic or wildly elaborate in-game weaponry. The same sense of childhood fun is re-lived and repeated in videogame format.
Though it may seem like a sweeping generalization, from personal experience, it appears that FPS’s are the predominantly favoured genre across the gaming demographic. It has been an anomaly (although of course not completely unheard of) to converse with a fellow gamer or student who will outright avoid playing first person shooters.
Though some will staunchly align themselves with specific franchises, they will invariably tend to follow and re-engage in at least one FPS series. The passionate Playstation gamer may wax lyrical about exclusives like Resistance or Killzone, while their 360 counterpart would inevitably bring out the big guns such as Halo. The fact that Sony and Microsoft promote and back their respective exclusive FPS franchises so heavily, is a testament to their popularity and the companies’ belief in their economic success.


You may well need a bulletproof vest to deflect the ammo-spamming generic clones and lacklustre sequels on the market, which are unfortunately a symptom of the first person shooter’s success. However, we shouldn’t allow the shallow and uninspiring efforts discredit the immersive and cinematic titles that command the upper echelons of the genre.
Whether it’s praying for survival on a god forsaken World War 2 battlefield, pulling off the perfectly timed no-scope with an Intervention in the Afghan desert, launching a grenade into a rabid pack of screaming infected, or simply gnawing the tips of your fingers off in anticipation for Halo: Reach, three words are etched in the mind of any FPS fan...

Lock and load.

(Photo credits: s3rioussam, ehavir)