I'm starting to get annoyed that so many developers are shelling out to follow 'industry standards' such as Gears of War or Call of Duty. It's as if these developers are afraid of having an identity and trying something unique, that they feel compelled to copy other games because they think it's the only acceptable approach. Today, I'm going to be looking at my three probelms with shooters today. Those are 1.) the placement of the third person camera in TPSs, 2.) the cover system, and 3.) forcing players to aim-down-the sights everytime they want to shoot. These would be acceptable if if they were superior mechanics but they're not. Quite the opposite actually.

Please remember that this is my opinion and I am not intentionally trying to insult any games or gamers, nor am I just looking for reasons to complain for the sake of complaining. These are genuine problems that I've been trying to ignore for a long time that I've realized won't go away and will only get worse. So I've decided to at least write about in hopes to find more people with my opinion.

1.) I'll start by looking at the camera placement of a lot of third person shooters. So many third person shooters place the camera to either the left side or the right side of the character, as opposed to above the character. Resident Evil 4 was the first game to popularize this trend (I think). Gears of War was the first of this gen. Uncharted later utilized this mechanic as well; the camera will go to the right of the character whenever he zooms in. I don't think there's many, if any third person shooters that place the camera above the character as opposed to the side. This amazes me as the placement of the camera above is clearly superior.

When you put the camera to the side of the character, then the other side is blocked off by the character. This is more of a problem with a game like Gears of War because the camera is already on one side before you even zoom in. Placing the camera above the character allows the player to evenly see each side equally. It also just flat out looks better than placing it to one side. It's more aesthically pleasing to not have the character's head or body block off one side of the screen. I don't understand why developers think that it's better to have the camera to one side, screwing up the balance between the action on the screen. It seemed more balanced to have the character in the center. The only benefit this side camera mechanic gives is it allows the camera to get closer to the character while also not being blocked by him/her. This is understandable if you want a 'cinematic' game but if you want a game with superior gameplay, then the above camera placement is better.

No doubt many developers followed this trend after the massive success of Gears of War and Resident Evil 4. I don't have a problem with some game implementing this mechanic, but when 95% of third person shooters use this, I think it's a problem and I feel like complaining. I think developers are scared that if their games don't follow these mechanics set by the industry standards, then their games will flop. It's sad that these developers are afraid to have some identity and try something new, or old in this case, but it looks like that's the reality we live in. Games that utilized this mechanic this gen include Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand theft Auto 4, Socom 4, the Uncharted series and the recently released Spec Ops: The Line. I applaud games that didn't force this camera view like the Ratchet & Clank series.

2.) Another problem I have with this generation's shooters is the introduction of the cover system. Nearly every third person shooter on the market has the cover system mechanic. Again, Gears of War was the first to popularize this mechanic. Uncharted, later implemented it as well. Then games like Grand Theft Auto IV though it was best to have it and now just about every third person shooter has it.

Now of course many of you are thinking that the cover system is great. Why wouldn't I want it? Well let me tell you about an old gameplay mechanic from back in the day called the 'crouch' button. This allowed your character to, you guessed it, crouch whenever you wanted to! You didn't even have to be in cover. You could crouch anywhere on the map. Of course it was mainly used to crouch behind cover. If you wanted to get behind cover, guess what? You moved your character behind the obstacle (crouch if necessary) No problem. But what if you wanted to pop out and shoot? All you had to do was walk out and shoot! Amazing! And you didn't have to worry about the camera being on the wrong side, because guess what? The camera was right over your head! So you got an equal look on either side of the field. It was a simple maneuver. Simply move your character behind cover, crouch if necessary, & move out when you need to shoot.

It was much better than the shit we have now where you have to get behind cover, press cover button, press pop out button (which usually resulted in the character exposing his entire body like an idiot), shoot, release pop out button, press cover button.  Now compare that to the no cover system where all you had to do was seamlessly walk behind cover. Also, an old school game like SOCOM had a system far better than the cover system today. Not only could you crouch or prone (without pressing a button that made you sitck to it) behind any object you saw. You could also press left or right on the Dpad to make your character lean to the left or right! Amazing! You didn't even have to glue your character to the wall. Just walk behind cover, oh you want to pop out to shoot, make your character lean, shoot, and just walk away. No sticking and unsticking to any wall! And this was back in 02'. Sadly, the Socom developers, Zipper, decided to copy games like Uncharted with Socom 4 and it failed. Now Zipper is shut down. When will developers get it??

I can understand the appeal of the cover system & I wouldn't have a problem with it IF I could still use the old methods. But I can't! You can't just take cover using the tradition methods. Most shooters have the camera on the right side, so if you want to take cover on the left side, you better hope that you can switch camera sides (a feature missing in a lot of third person games) because all you're going to see is the wall. In this case, you're FORCED to use the cover system. Also, most third person shooters don't have a crouch button. WTF! So if you want to take cover behind short cover, you're FORCED to use the cover system. The crouch button was one of the greatest mechanics in a third person shooter. You could seemlessly hide behind anything you could fit under. No additional button pressing required! You could hide behind a bush, a chair, a sign, etc things that a cover system couldn't utilize. Sometimes, you could get behind even smaller stuff if you could go prone. But no, with this cover system bullshit, we're forced to only be able to crouch when behind appropriate objects. It's bullshit! 

Also, a cover system just changes the flow of your character unnecessarily. Back in the day, you could seamlessly walk behind cover and walk out in a smooth manner. But today, you go from walking, to stuck on wall, to back to walking. It's just one of those things that makes the gameplay less free-flowing. The only advantage that a cover system offers is it makes the player look cool as he movers in and out of cover. That's it. It's just another unnecessary mechanic to make games cinematic. I want to list some third person shooters that didn't implement the cover system, but I honestly can't think of any.

3.) And my third and final problem applies to both first-person-shooters and third-person-shooters. It's forcing players to aim-down-the-sites or stop-and-pop EVERYTIME they want to shoot. It's okay for a few games, but every game is doing it. What happened to back in the day where you could just shoot by pressing the shoot button? Now you have to press aim, then you can shoot. Again, it makes the gameplay less seamless and smooth just to look more cool. And it's not strictly the ADS that I have a problem with. It's that they've made it nearly impossible to shoot without it. I guess developers decided that it was better to eliminate the ability to just shoot by pressing the shoot button. They've decided to make shooting without aiming extremely innacurate.

  When you force ADS, it slows the game down too much and makes it feel jerky & clunky to shoot. It's just visually displeasing to watching the camera zoom in and out EVERYTIME you want to shoot someone. It's also annoying to have to make your character stop everytime you wanted to shoot someone. It felt much more smooth to shoot by just pressing the shoot button. No extra button required. No camera zoomage. No decrease in character speed. Just fire the bullets out your gun.

Again, like with the cover system, this makes the game less seamless. (GTA4 didn't require you to aim when you shot, but it still slowed the character down a lot and zoomed the camera in). Also, when you make ADS the only usable form of shooting, you encourage camping a lot. No one is going to want to be caught in the open when they know that if they shoot, their character will slow down, and the camera will zoom in, severely limiting their range of vision. So they stay in cover (using that retarded ass cover system) and wait...and wait. Now back in the day, camping wasn't that useful because someone could easily still move at a respectable speed AND be able to see the entire area in front of them AND shoot accurately. But today, camping is encouraged.

 I respect Halo, Killzone 2, Left 4 Dead & Ratchet & Clank for not implementing this garbage mechanic. They still allow you to shoot accurately while not having to press another button.  

Now I'm sure most will disagree with me but that's only because you've only played modern shooters and haven't experienced the awesome stuff that past shooters.

Tl:dr: Cameras for TPS suck! Cover systems suck! Aim-down-the-Sights suck! 

(My Opinion).

That would be quite a mindfuck of a game.

I like cover systems.

Seems like 100% of the voters agree with everything I said. :D

SAY IT TO MY FACE. I HAVE 51 PLATINUM TROPHIES.

Fixed.

derp

1. Agreed 100%. The problem is compounded in Gears because you can not switch the shoulder that you look over.
2. Somewhat disagree. When Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror introduced me to cover based shooting I loved it. It's a little overused but there are far more prevalent problems.
3. Disagree. You have to scope to accomplish anything while shooting a gun. Run and gun gameplay is fine for arcade shooters but I also like something a bit more realistic.

I also have three major gripes with modern shooters.
1. They're all hybrids. I want full blown arcade shooters with crazy maps, lasers, power ups and all that silly stuff. I also want realistic shooters with accurate weapons, physics and damage. However, we have tonnes of games like CoD and Battlefield that don't do either particularly well.
2. Lack of weapon customization. I want to be able to tear that direct impingement system out in favor of a long stroke gas piston. I want to be able to change out the barrel, replace the stock and fully accessorize (accuracy please) my weapons.
3. Lack of randomization. Why are maps static? This allows camping and makes the game repetitive. Why not randomize portions or entire maps as well as weapon and item pickups?