FPS Games are for casual gamers!!!

[famousringo]

mrstickball said:
Any game can be "hardcore".

Many first person games (like Halo 3) can be played, and enjoyed by the general populace. When I took Halo 3 to a 5th quarter, post-football party, we had about 50 kids lined up to play it. Most of these people never played H3, owned a X360, or anything. Maybe 3-4 kids had played it before. Many just "knew" the game was alot of fun, heard about it, and wanted to try.

However, on the opposite end, some Halo-nuts spend hours a day on LAN parties and online multiplayer. They are hardcore.

The most important elements to a game being "hardcore" or not involve the fact if the game..........Has alot of replay value. You can play FPS, RTS, RPG, Sports, or any other game casually (once in a great while), or hours a day. World of Warcraft has 8m+ people. Some play for 5+hrs a day, some play an hour a week, and mainly play to socialize with friends and distant family (I have a 40 year old female co-worker that plays Everquest with multiple family members as a way to stay in touch with them).

IMO, there were alot of N64 games that were great games for both hardcore and casual audiences - like goldeneye, Super Smash Brothers and Star Fox 64, playing hours on end with a few specific people, and once in awhile with casual gamer friends.

 I think you're on to something here, but a lot of games which are considered 'hardcore' are story-driven action titles with very little replay value. Titles like heavenly Sword, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil and Metroid Prime which take 5-20 hours to play through once, and are then often hung up on the shelf for months afterwards.

 Of course, this could simply be another case of "What the hell is hardcore, anyway?"