We’ve already highlighted how big a year 2011 is going to be for the gaming industry, with triple A franchises set to blow audiences away across the globe. But arguably gaming’s hottest genre right now, first-person-shooters, is going to put many gamers in the tricky spot of having to choose from a very shiny and impressive line of titles.
The reality is this, people have tastes outside the FPS genre and consequently will purchase maybe one or two of this year’s big gun games, and then save their hard earned cash for the wider spectrum of games. So for the FPS devs it is going to be getting seriously competitive and they are obviously going to be very aware of each other.
So what are the choices most likely to boil down to? Multiplayer and post launch DLC are bound to influence some people, but the fundamental taste of the gamer will ultimately determine which from the star-studded cast of games they will choose to buy.
I’m interested in what you guys will be buying (if FPS is your thing), as alot of these are coming out in the next month or so. First up is Bulletstorm, People Can Fly’s bright and rebellious arcade-like playground of warped gun dreams. Bulletstorm has been marketing itself very well these past few weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see how affective EA’s and Epic’s efforts have been.
Then we have Killzone 3, Sony’s mammoth blockbuster of a game, with its trademark heavy handed-ness and gritty feel. This time boasting snappier controls, jetpacks, Move and 3D support, and mech suits. Closely following, is the hugely anticipated ‘best looking game of all time’ (we’ll see eh?) Crysis 2. New York City is infested with alien dudes and you get to fire up a nanosuit (and the Cry engine 3) to ‘deal’ with this. Crysis 2 is expected to set the standard in terms of top end gaming visuals.
Brink comes out a little while after but shouldn’t be underestimated by any means. It’s crazily cool combination of parkour and intricately customisable gun classes make this a very special game indeed. Set in a kind of dystopian city up in the clouds, Brink promises some of the very best multiplayer action (although notice many of the ‘fresh’ gameplay mechanics such as sliding and climbing over stuff are being done in these other games aswell….Crysis 2…Bulletstorm…) and hopes to deliver a very fair matchmaking system. All sounds good to me.
Not to forget Homefront, which is presented as a harrowing experience of ‘what if?’ trouble from Korea. Shocking cinematics and noisy fire fights set to pave the path. Then there is Codemasters almost forgotten Bodycount. The game that lets you blow holes through walls, crumble entire buildings into pleasing piles, and blow enemies heads off through the ceiling. Oh you remember now? Bodycount is hoping to turn every level into an (almost) fully destructible playground.
A while later we can expect Resistance 3 to continue the ‘memorable’ story of an alien invasion and take a step up, getting bigger and darker. But that brief list isn’t accounting for everything. We’ve got another CoD to stomach, another Battlefield, and more excitingly EA’s secret weapon (pleeeeeeease be TimeSplitters 4 pleeeeeeeeeeease).
But for now, it’s looking busy enough for me so I’m going to be choosing very carefully this coming month-and-a-bit. What about you?