9. No Story
Oh, shooters. As the rest of the industry figures out new ways to tell stories, develop characters and invoke emotion, you toss all of those elements out the window in favour of action. Story is one element of gaming that is quickly evolving and developing into something that puts gaming on the map as an art form. Some of the best stories around come from games like Mass Effect, Max Payne and the Batman: Arkham games. And what do those three have in common? None of them are FPS games. FPS stories usually go something like this: a Russian bad guy wants to terrorise the US by setting off a bomb. If not that exact plot, then certainly something like those details: see all of the COD games from COD4, minus WAW, Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2 - all featured this plotline. Some notable games do try to break this mould: Killzone 3 revolved around recurring characters trying to fight their way off a hostile planet (after Hitler's long lost brother set off a bomb, of course). However, the writing wasn't there enough to support the plot and the whole thing made me wonder what was going on. Same story for Crysis 2: there was an alien invasion, and an evil corporation - nothing ground breaking, but certainly unique for the genre. But it all fell apart as the game progressed: there was an alive dead guy, an evil virus and us working with marines who want to kill Prophet, the hero of the story. If there actually was a story. And don't even get me started on the mess that was Modern Warfare 2. Seriously, could the US not have just told Russia "Alexi Borodin" was undercover? Meanwhile, an emotional masterpice of a war story like Mass Effect 3 comes out. Hate as much as you will, but that game rocked - it was the first time I cried at a game, and no, it wasn't because the ending sucked. I wasn't the only one to lose it in this game, and I won't be the last. Sorry shooters, but you've got some catching up to do.