With a few AAA shooters out for the Xbox 360 / PS3, I find myself thinking about what makes a good FPS. When I was 6, I started playing Quake III which had one of the best multiplayer experiences at the time. With new FPS’ coming out all the time, it seems as if many developers are focusing on the wrong gameplay elements. Both Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 are great games, but neither of them nails the idea of a classic first person shooter. Here is a list of what makes a great FPS.

Graphics / Gameplay

Plain and simple, I don’t give a shit about graphics. This complaint is more geared towards consoles, as you do not have an option to turn graphics down for increased frame rates. There is nothing worse than playing a game online that looks amazing but is sitting at 30fps where it just isn’t as smooth as you would like it. Back when I used to play PC games way too much, I would turn down anything necessary to be sitting at 50fps+ constantly. This leads me to my first issue with Bad Company 2. While the environments in the game are amazing, the frame rate is not where it needs to be. For comparison, play 15 minutes of Bad Company 2, and then switch over to Modern Warfare 2. You should notice that Modern Warfare 2 is very snappy and precise where BC2’s controls feel kind of slow.

Playing With Friends / Connectivity

As much as I can’t stand Halo (see graphics section), Bungie made it very easy to play with friends. In comparison to Modern Warfare 2, I hardly ever had issues playing with friends. Whenever my friends and I try to play MW2, we either run into severe lag or issues joining the party. In comparison, BC2 is great as I’ve only experienced lag a few times.

Variety

It’s what keeps you coming back for more. Modern Warfare 2 has a good amount of maps, but no destructible environments. While some may argue that Bad Company 2 does not have enough maps, environmental destruction helps in that regard. I can not tell you how many times that I’ve been defending in BC2 when all of a sudden the building I’m in collapses. With classic PC games such as Quake III and Counter Strike, there were always new community maps to play and in most cases new modes to play (e.g. surf in CS:S or the custom assault maps in UT2004).

As of now, I do not have a PC capable of playing newer FPS’ smooth enough, so in the past two years, I’ve slowly been switching to console gaming. While consoles have their benefits, there hasn’t been a great FPS released that nails all of these elements. If only the game play of MW2 and the connectivity of BC2/Halo could be combined.