iRadar: Fine-Tune Your Skills and Be A Better Shooter For Free With FPS Trainer

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Fine-Tune Your Skills and Be A Better Shooter For Free With FPS Trainer

Fine-Tune Your Skills and Be A Better Shooter For Free With FPS Trainer: "

free first person shooter Whether you’re a disgruntled Spartan who can’t handle a Battle Rifle or a freshly recruited Black Ops militant who spends much of the game watching the killcam, there is help available from FPS Trainer.

All you need to take part is a web browser, a PC that can handle the software and an email address. The game is free and uses a series of mini games to train you in the basics of a multiplayer first person shooter environment.

The game is still in development but fully functioning and completely free to play.

Can I Play It?

To enjoy FPS Trainer you’re going to need a Windows or Mac OS X machine (sorry, Linux users) as the game requires the Unity Web Player to run. Unfortunately there is still no Linux version available, though it’s worth keeping an eye on the website to see if that’ll change.

There are no listed minimum hardware requirements, and unfortunately it is not possible to change graphics settings at this time. If you’re interested I’d recommend you give it a go anyway – it’s free after all.

There is one hardware requirement you’ll want to meet though, and that is a mouse. Playing first person shooter games with a laptop touchpad tends to be more hassle than it’s worth.

Play For Free

To sign up for a lesson in ass kicking you’ll need to go to the FPS Trainer website and click Register. You can either register a new account for use on that website or connect your Facebook account for a speedy login.

Input your name, email address, date of birth, sex and finally select an avatar to use. Once you’ve clicked register you can start playing immediately, there are no pesky emails to wait for!

free first person shooter

Click Play and your machine will be checked for compatibility. If you’ve not got Unity then you’ll be prompted to download it, and even if you’ve already got it installed it may update. The game shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes to initialize, and once it does you should see the main menu.

There are several options to choose from, though it’s usually best to start with Practice. Connect To Game will attempt to connect you to any network games that are currently being hosted, though everything was a bit quiet when I tried.

Host will allow you to create your own game for others to join, though if no one is playing you’re going to be on your own for a while. Practice gets you straight into a game with bots and ultimately see what all the fuss is about.

So How Is It?

Despite the game being in alpha (pre-beta) at the time of writing, it’s still pretty good. The look and feel of the game are designed to be ambiguous, mimicking the graphical style of a generic FPS.

free first person shooter

The game honors its roots by defaulting to the classic WSAD control scheme, using the number keys to select weapons and R to reload with E to crouch. You can change the look sensitivity in both the Options screen and by pressing Esc whilst playing. This allows you to set up the game exactly how you want it.

Further expansion for the project will come in the form of changing the look and feel to train for specific games, much like a “skin”. The team are currently formulating a plan for this, but it’s likely to be a paid enhancement (though the game itself will remain free, according to staff).

You’re also free to see exactly what the development team have been up to, and can play the latest (unstable) version by clicking Try out the latest development build at the bottom of the Play screen.

If you really like it you can even donate to the project at the bottom right of the homepage.

Conclusion

If you need a crash course in first person shooter games, then FPS Trainer promises to hold your hand into battle. The game is a promising mix of action and tuition, and future developments are worth keeping a close eye on.

If you need some free FPS games to play, then you could try these. If you’re just after free games then we’ve got a decent list here too.

Have you tried your hand at FPS Trainer? Do you need the help or have you prestiged 10 times? Would you spend money on FPS Trainer “skins”? Let us know in the comments!

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