Maybe FPS games and gamers have evolved while I was away from gaming and maybe I'm already turning into a dinosaur. Or maybe FPS games are doing the same thing MMO's have done since World of Warcraft was released. MMO's are all being dumbed down to be like World of Warcraft because of it's success. What this means is that we are stuck with a bunch of dumbed down cookie cutter games designed for casual gamers. Whatever the case may be, FPS games have changed and I don't like it all.

I actually started noticing these changes long before I left, the problem just seems to have gotten much worse recently.

Here is what I'm talking about:

1. FPS games are not MMO games. Let me repeat that... They are NOT mmo games. When I load up a shooter, I expect to be able to use any of the weapons immediately. I don't want to level up for weeks just to be able to use a shotgun or whatever other weapon I want. If I want to grind away for hours, I'll go play WoW. Enough with the leveling crap in FPS games.

2. It seems that FPS games are becoming more and more noob friendly (easy) every year. I only needed to play MW2 for a couple of days to notice several irritating things. The helicopter stuff is beyond stupid. Could they possibly make it a little easier for people to get instant kills that require no skill? I remember back on the latest Tribes game (Tribes Vengeance) I was complaining about how they had dumbest down the series to make it easier for casual gamers to play. I had made a comment several times about how a company would one day add a nuke weapon to a game that would instantly kill everyone on the map. Well, that day arrived with the MW series. I told everyone it would happen because of the way companies were adding more and more over-powered weapons and noobtubes to games but no one believed me. Now they do. LOL And its only going to get worse of course. After the way MW2 has sold tons of copies, you can bet the dumbing down of our FPS games will never end now.

These game companies are making FPS games so easy that any noob can start playing and easily kill a skilled vet with no trouble at all. And considering the amount of time and effort us oldschool gamers put into becoming good, that is more than a bit irritating.

3. The CTF in fps games now seems to require very little actual skill or strategy. Which is good because most players don't really play it. They just camp for kills like we're playign TDM. People don't know how to defend the flag, cover cappers, etc... Its the same with other objective based modes as well.

4. FPS games seem to be all about graphics now instead of challenging and fun gameplay.

5. The lack of dedicated servers is annoying. I hope this doesn't become a trend.