A new free to play game will allow you to compete online in games like CODBlops without feeling like a noob.
FPS Trainer is the brainchild of Play2Improve, a game design outfit based in Dundee, Scotland. The designers at Play2Improve realized that not every gamer is instantly good at shooting other people in matches online. In fact, the company believes that less than 40 percent of gamers play multiplayer shooters because the rest of us are intimidated by the skill needed to compete. FPS Trainer uses a first person interface with an AI teacher and hints and tips from professional FPS players like Paul “Astz!” McGarrity to help you get better at shooters. Today in Edinburgh, Scotland, you can play FPS Trainer and meet the development team and Astz! at the HMV Gamerbase.
The game is currently free to play through your browser using the Unity Engine and will get you up to an intermediate level. I imagine that FPS Trainer will likely support itself by offering training in specific titles like CODBlops or Halo: Reach for a fee, but that is pure speculation. Currently in alpha, FPS Trainer will have its beta release in January 2011.
Right now, the FPS Trainer is pretty basic. It presents you with the trappings of a shooter, guns ammo, health and armor pickups, and there is a British voiceover which clues you in when you are running low on ammo or when a new health pack spawns. You move around and shoot with the mouse like you do with PC shooters, but I think that this product would benefit from console controller support. It’s pretty good for an alpha build, and Play2Improve stated philosophy is to “release early, release often” so that they can receive feedback and improve the service.
It’s a great idea, but I don’t think that the execution is there yet. Head over to FPSTrainer.com to try it out and let the team know how to improve it.
In addition to making us better gamers, Play2Improve aims to create educational tools with the first person technology that is a hallmark of shooters and action adventure games, such as its IRT Trainer that instructs players how to effectively capture images with an infrared camera.
Source: FPSTrainer.com via Game Politics
