Atmospheric Shooters

[-FCM-]

There are an awful lot of them, and they seem to have stolen a lot of glory in the best of 2007 awards. Crysis beat out Bioshock for best PC game over at Gamespot, and it wasn't even nominated for best Xbox360 game, leaving Call of Duty 4 to win. Before I even came to realize how tiring the genre had gotten, I subconsciously buried Resistance as a good PS3 game, because it really can't be that different. Big, otherworldly things appearing in atmospheric foggy battlefields that start killing your teammates in front of you doesn't do it for me, at least not to the point where a fantastic game like Bioshock (which is atmospheric without any of those cheesy blockbuster situations) is completely shortchanged. The only straight-up shooter that is truly unique in my mind is The Orange Box, because it doesn't pretend that controlling a squad and guns shooting creatures that you control that explode or whatever else a developer comes up with, are innovative. Crysis looks fantastic, and the multiplayer for Call of Duty 4, but there really isn't game-of-the-year creative thought behind either, at least in my opinion.

I dunno, maybe I'm just jaded as far as shooters go. Have any of you noticed this? I'm just wondering if it's just me, because usually the industry has caught on with this kind of thing by now (WWII games started getting tiring for everybody) but it's been a good year or so now. I wish people would realize that games like Zack and Wiki, Beautiful Katamari, Super Mario Galaxy, and Mass Effect are just as good if not better than the games that every bro and their bro-ho are good at.

 

[GRColin]

There were lots of good shooters this year and there will be plenty more next year. Ranting about "Shooters" as a game genre is like ranting about "Action Movies", "Dramas" or "War Movies." Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan are both war movies, but they are extremely different experiences.

Shooters is a very large genre that fits all sorts of games. More and more, these games will become hybrids, RPG elements and storylines will replace the mindless killing, but there will alway be room for just about everything. The key is to look at each game individually, not as a "class" of game.

That being said, you should all be buying and enjoying Zack and Wiki. Its a great game and no one is buying it.

Of course, take my opinion with a grain of salt since I work at Capcom and very much want the sales to improve.

 

[dUKE]

i get the feeling you're going to like our best of 2007 awards.

 

[-FCM-]

Not a rant, just some observations and opinions. Or I guess that's a rant...I dunno, rants are usually angrier right?

But yeah the Best of 2007 feature was awesome. I liked to see Puzzle Quest mentioned, and the miscritiqued Assassin's Creed. Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 definitely deserved a mention, as did Forza and Phantom Hourglass and Wiki, and the second page was followed by intensely satisfied nod after intensely satisfied nod. Nice job for sure