Entry level shooter?

[Grimparrot]

I wince to say it, but one of the Halo's seems to me to be a fairly good intro into the genre. Its simple, the controls are not hard to master, and the story is fairly kinda sorta OK.

The Star Wars Battlefront series is pretty friendly also. Personally on the Star Wars front I am looking forward to Force Unleashed. A game with three physics engines, all working together to allow me to pick up parked tie fighters and throw them about muhahahaha...ahem sorry.

The Call of duties are all decent enough games as well. Smooth controls, decent story.

I echo a lot of the other suggestions, but wanted to add these to the mix.

[Noob On Steroid]

If you ever feel like you're ready for multiplayer :

Enemy Territory is a free RTCW stand-alone. It's a fun, arcadish shooter and the ET: pro mod (which was back when i played it the most popular) has "hit sounds" which could help with training those FPS skills.

Basically you have 2 sounds : one for a regular hit and 1 for a head shot. So every time you hit something you get a comfirmation, even if you don't actually kill the target. Pretty nice feedback for the FPS-starting player

[TheHedgeWizard]

Not too sure if it's been mentioned, but QUAKE 4 FTW!