What Gamers Expect from Shooters

I've played lots of games in my lifetime, some really good, and some really bad. I feel that as a gamer, I know what I like and what I don't like in a shooter. Here's a list of items that I think gamers expect from developers of shooters.

1. Health Packs
No more health packs. Health packs are so early 2000's. Give us regenerating health in every game. The Call of Duty series has this down perfect at least in my mind and were one of the early adopters of the system with the release of COD2 for the XBOX360. I feel that like myself, most gamers are limited in the amount of time they can play, and can't spend hours and hours replaying a scenario due to having no health packs either on hand or anyone within their reach in game. Health packs were great back in the day, but have grown tired. I was reminded of this last night while playing the demo for F.E.A.R 2 last night.

2. A Basic Cover System
Cover is an absolute necessity now and should be in every single shooter in some form or another. Once Gears of War came out, most gamers fell in love with the cover system, and the cover system was extremely well done in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune as well. For the life of me, I cannot understand why both Treyarch and Infinity Ward have neglected some form of cover in their games. Treyarch did use cover in the Quantum of Solace video game version of the movie, and it was well done. I cannot understand for the life of me why it wasn't used for World at War. A cover system would be a perfect fit for the Call of Duty series. The cover system in Brothers in Arms Road to Hell's Highway worked perfectly and made a difficult game a bit easier thanks to being able to duck into cover.

3. Online that isn't just an add-on to the Single Player Experience
We've seen far too many games that just tack on an online experience to a shorter single player experience to hopefully help the game sell better. Online gamers on PC, XBL, and PSN know what games are great online and flock to those games. COD4, Gears of War, Halo 3, and Resistance 2, among others have a great online system in place that keeps you playing well beyond the time you finish up the single player experience. I truly think that Halo 3, Gears of War 2, and COD4 have revolutionized gaming on XBOX Live and have truly found a way to hook gamers in. I have friends who haven't played the single player in most of the above games and just concentrate on the online features. Adding in XP, new maps, and other multiplayer tweaks
keep gamers coming back for more. I'd love to see more companies develop rich online systems to keep gamers interested in shooters. Multiplayer is expensive to develop, but there's a great payoff if it's done right.

4. Give us Online co-op in every game in some form.
How much fun was it the first time you went thru Gears in co-op mode? It was so much fun for me that I played thru it 3 times. The co-op mode in COD World at War is great as well, but perhaps the best game of the last few years for Co-op is none other than Left For Dead. There's nothing more fun than hopping into a game with four of your friends, having the bejesus scared out of you, and killing a shit ton of zombies in the process. I love online co-op and actually prefer it to online versus. It's a good opportunity for friends to get together and just have a good time. I'd love to see every single player campaign in every shooter setup like Gears of War and Left for Dead, but I'm not sure that's possible, so I'd settle for some form of co-op in every single shooter I play. I was disappointed to learn that Killzone 2 will feature no form of online co-op, especially when Resistance 2 did it so well.

5. No game should come out with less than 10 hours of singleplayer content
I've paid $50 and $60 for far too many titles with a single player experience that can be completed in well less than a day. 10-20 hours is a sweet spot at least for me as far as a single player gaming experience goes. Money is tight for everyone right now thanks to the economy and there's nothing worse than dropping $60 bucks on a game only to complete it in little to no time. Game developers are bitching about used game sales and rentals, but is there any surprise to anyone that games end up in the used game pile at EB and Gamestop just a short time after they're released? A great majority of gamers still don't have broadband and rely on the single player experience to make a game worth the money it costs.

Well that's five items that I expect from developers. Please feel free to add your concerns in the comments section and please Digg me if you enjoyed the above piece. As always, thanks for reading.