Thinky stuff: Why so lonely shooter?

For a long time in shooters, we've traversed all sorts of dangerous locales and done everything from saving our Navajo girlfriends, get out/into Hell, and stop evil Nazi forces from world domination.

But why do we always have to do it alone?!?

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In all fairness, I'm not saying it's a bad thing all the time, and certainly in some stories/situations, it's necessary to have the protagonist be alone for things to play out as the game devs want them to.

But when certain games force this "you have to go it alone" feel, damn, it really gets on my nerves. Recent game in question, Aliens versus Predator. I've been getting some time in to single-player, and the Marines campaign in particular - why is it that in the first five seconds of the game, my badass squad of hardcore Marines ready to kick some Alien butt gets decimated save for me - especially when my name is Rookie. Hardly the long-time surviving veteran eh? They might as well have para-dropped me into enemy territory alone in the first place. Why bother with all the extra animations?

Then for the rest of the game I'm forced to traverse dark, Alien-infested corridors alone with some woman communicating/annoying via walkie-talkie, refusing to come out of her hidey-hole to help me in person.

Blasted Bioshock 2 has you running around alone for pretty much the entirety of the game (Little Sisters on your shoulder don't count), save one teasing moment when Sinclair and you are just separated by glass, before he scampers off to hide in a train.


In Crysis why can't I kick butt with my squad of supermen? Why is it that I'm so damn lucky to be the only one not eaten by aliens? And I reckon we'd get the job done much faster if a whole group of super-suited soldiers (alliteration!) cloaked into an enemy base together and leveled it without having to worry about being outnumbered.

In Wolfenstein, I get all excited when I'm thrown in with some French resistance fighters ready to kick some Nazi ass, only to have my heart broken a minute later when they get wiped out as easy as running a knife through hot butter, by some Nazi with a big gun. And I'm the only one who doesn't die ... again. Was I was born different or something? I have a 100 hit points, but all the other good guys only seem to have 1.

Basically, me no likey when I'm separated from my squad/the sole survivor/ordered to do something dangerous alone/dumb enough to be doing something different in a different place from my friends altogether.

Or your spunky hot chick friend/cool badass buddy goes, "I'm going to check in here for a second. You go on ahead." *Slaps forehead at foreboding recipe for disaster*

Which is why games like the Half-Life 2 Episodes are so refreshing. Alyx is by your side pretty much the entire time, kicking butt and covering yours. We need more shooters doing that. It also seems a hell of a lot more realistic than just one guy saving the world.

Rant over.