Anyone who read my games that make me sick thread will know that I'm trying to make my first foray into first person shooters as part of my "rehabilitation".

I'm currently trying to play Precursors, as apparently only part of it is first person, and it looks like a game I'd really like. The problem is, having never been able to play an FPS for more than a few minutes at a time before, I'm completely terrible at it. Worse than terrible as it turns out actually; I can't even get to the first save point in the game without dying *facepalm*

I've tried looking at walkthroughs and stuff, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Does anyone have this game, some patience, and an inclination to show a FPS noob the ropes? It seems I really need all the help I can get with it, and I'd really, really like to be able to play the game.

As a starting point, my main issue is that I don't even know what keeps killing me. I just try to walk somewhere, green stuff splats all over the screen, it tells me either my hands or legs are injured, I try to look around to find what's covering me in deadly green splat, then I die.

Any tips?

Green stuff comes from plants all around you. Look to the sides/cliffs of the road you are in, you will see them.
And the first part IS difficult, I had to try few times to get through first area and the dudes coming first after the plants.

I played it when it was first released and it was buggy as hell. It still is since there is no patch. I sucked real hard on space aspect of the game so I quit playing it once I hit the space.
Precursors is not a good starting point. Don't get me wrong it has great potential but wasted.

Thanks for the advice. I see there are actually 3 patches available to download (under the main link to download the game in my GG account), but I haven't installed them yet.
I'll try to find the plants that keep killing me, cheers :)

I am talking about unofficial patches. English version of the game is bugged, look at the reviews for the fixes.

Ah, cheers :)

That first bit is actually one of the toughest points in the game. Which is a bit unfortunate, but there you go.

There is a quick save feature you can make use of to save you from having to cover the same ground too many times. When you reach the human enemies make good use of the cover and grenades. Go for head shots and don't leave yourself exposed for too long at a time.

As good as the game is, it's not really the best game to introduce yourself to FPS with though.

A lot of possibilities there;
Although FPS is not my favorite genre
You could go for FarCry series or Crysis series for smoother graphics.
Brothers in Arms series for squad oriented gameplay.
Stalker series
Bioshock series

If you want online games; Call of Duty or Battlefield series though I am really not familiar with those.

Cheers, Precursors crashed so I'm done it for the day. I have Far Cry sitting in my list of gogs that are on my shelf waiting to be downloaded, so I guess I'll get that going now :)

Crysis looks interesting, but I haven't tried using Window's Live from Cambodia and I'm not certain if it'll let me.

Before those two check out Stalker and Brothers in Arms series.
Stalker is not shooter heavy, some rpg elements, darker atmosphere; overall a more interesting game than those.
Brothers in Arms is about controlling your squad, you are not a one man army in those games. Find, flank, fix. Latest game is the weakest enrty in the series imo; leaves you without your sqaud for a whole level; not cool.

The STALKER games nearly always top my list of FPS recommendations. They've got a similar structure to Precursors (that is the proper Precursors after the training planet), in that they've got a relatively open world, plenty of side quests, NPCs etc. But they're not quite so punishing and generally better balanced. Call of Pripyat is the best one to go for.

The Crysis games do not use Games for Windows Live, they are merely Games for Windows branded. This branding doesn't really mean anything beyond ensuring compatibility and a few other things. Any game that uses Live will specifically say so and have the logo on the box header and so forth.

If you're wanting to know how Live support works in your country you can try one of the free Live-enabled games such as or [url=http://ageofempiresonline.com]Age of Empires Online.

Even if it turns out that Live isn't supported in your country Live-enabled games can usually be played with a local profile, but note that when using a local profile you can't use multiplayer features, buy DLC or earn achievements.

Thanks for the tip, Stalker sounds more appealing to me, so I guess I should take a look at that first.

Wait, what? That was just a "training planet"? Gawd.

Thanks for pointing this out. I also see that Crisis 2 is on sale at the moment (albeit at a relatively low discount). Would I need to play Crisis 1 first to understand it? I ask because I assume the graphics are better on Crysis 2, and that could make a difference to how long I can play it per session. I have two issues with that. The first is that my internet connection is very unstable. I can manage online multiplayer games of Ground Force and Stonghold, but I doubt it could take much more than that. Also, while this may sound ridiculous, most of the people I know who have been heavily into CoD have turned out to be complete assholes. I know that's not a good reason not to play a game, but I find it off putting.

Crysis 2's story should be completely unrelated to the 1. one.

Those are real valid reasons. Online FPS community for those games is not known for elegance exactly.