So recently I tried to convince a friend to play Half-Life 2. If anyone's played the demo on Xbox Live, its pretty lame.

I told him it was considered one of the greatest FPS's of our time. He wanted to know more. I said it had a Gravity Gun. He asked if there was multiplayer. And on and on and on....

I've been experiencing this lately, and after reading that Section 8 preview it was really brought to my attention. FPS's and games in general need to have a gimmick.

Take Timeshift for instance. If anyone remembers that game, it was a pretty generic sci-fi FPS but the thing was, you could control time. If you pitched that game to anyone it'd sound like this: 'its a shooter, but you can control time!'.

No longer can I just say to my friends "its a really good game." Games need something else to draw them in.

Dark Void is the perfect example of a game thats coming up with a gimmick. Jetpacks, hi-jacking alien ships, vertical cover, perfect gimmick.

Gears of War: Chainsaws+Guns. 'Nuff said. (and broken multiplayer, but thats a different post)

My point is: I think some good games are getting passed by people who haven't played any in that series before simply because they don't have good enough or any gimmick. I'm the only person I know who has played Uncharted, and I wish that weren't true. Other people just aren't draw in, a gimmick is needed there.

Gimmicks are necessarily a bad thing. The first Gears of War drew lots of people in just cause of its gore and chainsaws, and it turned out to be a really good game. Resistance 1, also actually was played by my not-in-the-loop friends (not checking IGN every day). Thanks to its awesome weaponry and graphics, it became a highly played game by us.

What are your thoughts on "gimmicks"? Beneficial? Harmful? Comments appreciated!