What's Your FPS Strategy?

In a first person shooter (FPS) video game, there are many playing styles favored by different people. Whatever style you choose to play with has its advantages and disadvantages. But all styles come down to two basic strategies, offense and defense. For offense you want to maximize your capabilities and for defense you want to minimize your vulnerabilities.

Run & Gun - This type of player usually favors rapid fire, highly effective weapons, maximizing their offensive capabilities. Not much is used for defense here, except the element of surprise. This type of player likes to spend their game constantly moving, relying on their quick reaction time to dominate any encounter they may face when running around a corner or into a room. For those players with great reflexes this can be a very effective style of play.

Stealth - This type of player favors silent weapons when available. They prefer not just to surprise their opponents, but to overcome them before they even know they've been attacked. This player uses as much defensive capability as possible to remain hidden and undetected. Many games offer this type of player the ability to mask themselves from opponents' detection using camouflage or radar jamming.

Sniper - This type of player prefers the long range encounter. This may be due to exceptional prowess with long range weapons or just because they like a slower paced game. This style of play also makes it very important to remain undetected, not by stealth, but by distance. This type of player can be easily overwhelmed by a 'Run & Gun' player if encountered in close quarters.

Camping - This type of player needs teamwork to be effective. In a FPS game, the matches are on a closed area. There is only so much space to work with. With all the obstacles on a game map, there arises natural choke points--common areas that players come through. This type of player prefers to find those locations and let their prey come to them. Camping doesn't require any specific type of weapon to be effective. You can camp with long, medium, or close range weapons, they all work. But this playing style does have the significant disadvantage of being very predictable. Once a camper is recognized, using longer range or explosive weapons should easily remove them from their campsite.

In my opinion, these are the four basic styles of game play exhibited by all gamers in one form or another. Some players prefer to use one style of play for an entire match, while others like to switch it around depending on their situation. No single playing style is better or worse than another. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. The key is recognizing what style your opponent is using and what best to counter with.