Howdy folks,

I've been playing a lot of first person shooters lately, and I mean a lot. In the last three months I've played through over ten titles, and four expansion packs, all of different styles from over the last decade or so. Check it out:

Unreal
Unreal: Return to Na Pali
Unreal 2
Medal of Honor - Allied Assault
Medal of Honor - Allied Assault: Spearhead
Medal of Honor - Allied Assault: Breakthrough
Painkiller
Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Call of Juarez
Prey
Penumbra: Overture
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Turok
Crysis: Special Edition
Wolfenstein

It's really interesting to me how the genre has changed over the years, and not just in terms of graphics. First of all, consider the difference in health and how it's tracked. Unreal featured the old numerical value, how much health out of 100. Medal of Honor - Allied Assault had a bar. Eventually you get to the regenerating health system in Turok that seems to have become so popular in recent years, similar to Halo's recharging shield.

The styles of weapon slots also change, ranging from Painkiller, Unreal, and Wolfenstein's unrealistic "grab whatever you can carry" to Turok and Crysis' "you can only carry two, so pick wisely" style, making them much more interesting in terms of tactics. And then there's Call of Juarez's odd inventory bar. But yet, weapon themes have changed little. How many of those games have a shotgun, or a weapon similar in design? Almost all of them, including some of the WWII-themed FPS titles.

I'm really fascinated in how the genre is branching out, too. I've included a Penumbra title in the list because it contains some elements of an FPS, but combines them with stealth and horror gameplay, as well as the old point-and-click adventure style. Call of Juarez pleasantly surprised me with its large areas and some interesting level design, though it left me very hungry for more: a style that Fallout 3 has definitely hit with its wide-open spaces. I want more Oblivion with guns, and CoJ made me want it in a Wild West setting. It's very different from Painkiller's system of throwing as many enemies on screen at one time and then letting you mow through them like a lawnmower.

There's still plenty of WWII FPS titles on here(we'll never get rid of them I suppose, though I do enjoy them so I won't complain), but even how they handle the material changes in each game. Of all of them, Medal of Honor: Airborne interested me the most with its ideas: at the start of each level I parachute into a city and land where I like, then fulfill my mission objectives in any order I want. It allowed for some interesting gameplay that changed each time I played a level, and with the limited enemies, I could clear out neighborhoods and sections when necessary and not worry too much about being shot in the back. It's too bad it had such a poor framerate.

And yet, in Painkiller and Prey, we still have our Doom clones, so our more-frantic titles are still around, just with more enemies, more guns, and hopefully soon more co-op.

I've heard a lot of folks talk about how this genre has grown stale and repetitive, and to a certain extent I can understand: after all, they all boil down to one guy with a gun facing off against hordes of enemies, and you happen to be the one guy. Bu it's obvious to me that there's still some life in this genre and still some things it can do. FPS titles may be pretty big right now, but they're not all the same. Sure, regenerating health and a couple of weapons seem to be the big things right now, but these trends will eventually change and evolve into something else. I for one am excited to see where it goes.