1st Person Shooters
What are first-person shooter games?
First-person shooters are a type of 3D shooter game, featuring a first person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. The primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms. Because they take place in a 3D environment, these games tend to be somewhat more realistic than 2D shooter games, and have more accurate representations of gravity, lighting, sound and collisions.
The following are among the most well known first person shooter games:
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded as having popularized the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and released on May 5, 1992. In Wolfenstein 3D, the protagonist is an American soldier that is attempting to escape from the Nazi stronghold. There are many obstacles such as armed guards and attack dogs that the shooter/player must overcome. Each episode has a different boss who has to be killed in the final mission in order to complete the episode.
Before beginning the game you are asked “how tough are you?” with the highest toughness being “I am death incarnate!”. This is a perfect example of how violent video games influence aggression. This statement suggests to kids playing the game that “being tough” is killing lots of people and being “death incarnate”.
Doom is a landmark 1993 first-person shooter computer game by id Software. It is widely recognized for pioneering immersive 3D graphics and networked multiplayer gaming on the PC platform. Its graphic and interactive violence has also made Doom the subject of much controversy outside the gaming world.
Being a first-person shooter, Doom is experienced through the eyes of the main character. This character is not named throughout the game. One of the game's designers, John Romero, has stated that this is so the player feels more involved in the game: "There was never a name for the DOOM marine because it's supposed to be YOU."
In both Wolfstein 3D and Doom, the player is the 1st person shooter. This allows the player to take control by using weapons and learning how to react to the situations that arise. These games serve as murder simulators. They put the player in the battlefield and teach how to shoot. These games were known to be favorites of the Columbine killers.
Since the release of these games, technology has come a long way. Video games are much more graphic and look a lot more realistic. This can be dangerous because with better graphics it can become more real and better mimic guns and murder. This can further desensitize the adolescents that are behind the controls of these games.
Newer 1st person shooter games that appeal to hardcore U.S. gamers are "Halo 2" and "Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." Both games are similar because they have a player-controlled super-soldier against hordes of enemies. The biggest difference is that in the "Halo" series the player fights the alien races in a far-future universe, while "Call of Duty 4" is set in the here and now. Call of Duty lets the player act as if they are a soldier on the battle field with its realistic graphics and violent scenes. "Halo 2" and "Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." Are both among the top 10 best sellers of all time in the video game industry.
As seen in this video trailer it emphasizes that the player will be seeing war and battle through the eyes of a soldier, but the player is the one conrolling and experiencing his actions.
"The problem is we are programming these people as a society." "You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that." -Jack Thompson
