At the beginning of the week we read Galloway’s chapter on the origin of the subject POV in film, and how games had their own divergent use of the subjective POV with the creation of First Person Shooters. There were a number of films that Galloway talked about that used the subjective POV in creative new ways. These films used the subjective POV to create alienation with a character, to create suspense, and to limit the audience’s perspective. There wasn’t much to say about video games. There is often a 3D space, you shoot things, the gun is visible, players control the movements of the avatar, and you aim by centering something on the screen. These were all features present in quake, but I can’t think of any significant features that make a modern FPS game much different. The list of ‘major’ innovations seems almost silly (and I may have some of the original innovators wrong). Halo had the idea of only allowing players to carry two guns. Call of Duty had quickly recharging health with blood smearing the screen when a player got close to death. Portal has you shooting something other then bullets.
I can’t tell if I am just forgetting some major changes in FPSs or if the genre has been relatively dry throughout its history. Or given the success of the genre maybe developers have decided to just not fix something that isn’t broken.