[WIRED]21st-Century Shooters Are No Country for Old Men

[Vation]

We’re breaking into an elevated enemy base surrounded by jungle. We have the benefit of cover, lush overgrowth and ancient ruins. But the enemy has the advantage. The approach to their base becomes Hamburger Hill. I die over and over, sniped by a hundred unseen gunmen, trying to push my way toward the goal. The fight starts feeling pointless.

Am I getting too old for this crap?

I’m currently embedded in MAG, the new PlayStation 3 shooter that puts up to 256 players on the same battlefield. And at first, the notion of running and gunning with so many other people is exhilarating. But after all these shots to the head, I feel like this most complex of shooters may only be navigable by younger players with the free time to learn how to handle a hundred human foes.

I’m 37, and I’ve been gaming since the Atari 2600. Last year, at the peak of Modern Warfare 2 mania, I found myself in a hip Hollywood bar celebrating the birthday of an old college buddy. We’re all in our mid-thirties. As usual in a crowd of aging, buzzed geeks, the conversation veered toward videogames — specifically, the prowess of the young punks swarming the Call of Duty servers.
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21st-Century Shooters Are No Country for Old Men | GameLife | Wired.com

[SealLion]

256 players on the field!!!
That sounds like pandemonium.
You'd be getting your head shot off at virtually every turn unless you make some allies pretty quick.
Not only that, I can just imagine the plethora of bullets flying around ( In the words of Clint Eastwood's famous film...) .... every-which-way-but loose. .
It might be exhilarating, but it'd also be fairly confusing as you don't know who's shooting at who.
The next thing that you know is that when your aiming at one guy, behind you, you've got 25 other's aiming at you.