Take Cover!

Ever since Gears of War, there's one thing plaguing Shooter-games, especially if they claim to have a certain tactical approach: a 3rd person view cover system. It works usually like this: your character approaches a conveniently placed object that serves as cover and either automatically or by a button, takes cover behind it which lets you take a look on the nice playermodel and the action behind it.

I have to admit it is pretty to look at, especially in multiplayer, where it just looks much more realistic than simply crouching behond cover in other games. At least when other players do it.

Which brings us to my main gripe with this system: it totally breaks immersion in first person shooters. A prime example of this is Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. To play it right, you have to be "dug in" as the game calls it most of the time, because you will die if you don't. Because of that, you very rarely use the beautiful ironsights, but a rather stupid, zoomed in third person perspective to aim.

Of course, such a system doesn't irritate if the game is confined to the third person perspective, but in my opinion it shouldn't be used in FPS games, especially if they claim to be realistic, like Hell's Highway or the R6: Vegas series (which has numerous other things which make it a bad R6 game, but we'll come to that on a later time perhaps). Not only that it's quite unrealistic to suddenly see yourself from the outside, it also defeats the main drawback of being in cover: you shouldn't be able to see what's going on on the other side of it, unless you risk a peek.

Now this brings me to a feature I'd like to see in a FPS. The very same cover system, but still with a first person view. You can look around with your mouse, use the movement keys to slide along it and peek over the cover, and with a press of a button you aim over it. That would create immersion.

On a last sidenote: I hate how we austrians are punished for stupid german laws regarding the protection of the youth becasue publishers and retailers regard us as a "sub-state" of germany: no blood in most games (even though with some effort you can get internation al versions). It was quite unintentionally hilarious in Hell's Highway *Spoiler Alert* after the mortar attack. The cut to Baker's face after the question "What happened to your face?" reveals his normal, unhurt face...