Top First-Person Shooter Games Holiday 2010/2011

The holiday season is traditionally the busiest time in video gaming: the big AAA titles and tentpole games come out to entice gamers' hard-earned coin and offer a multitude of gift-giving options to the couch-inclined. If you're a first-person shooter (FPS) fan, however, there's extra reason for good cheer this fall and winter: there are many soon-to-be released games that promise to be excellent. Here's a rundown of my top five picks, arranged by release dates.

Halo: Reach
Release date: September 14, 2010
Platforms: Xbox 360 Exclusive

Halo: Reach is a Big Deal. Way back in 2001 former Macintosh game developer Bungie struck it rich with Halo: Combat Evolved, a refined shooter that proved to the public that the genre could exist in the land of controllers and joysticks. If not for Halo, it's likely many of the following shooters wouldn't exist in their current forms. Now, having created a multi-billion dollar franchise and one of the greatest recent game series of all time, Bungie is bowing out and handing the reins to publisher Microsoft. Reach is a prequel to Combat Evolved, taking place on the planet Reach as its human defenders try to stop an alien onslaught. The spoiler is that involved fans already know from the beginning that the humans lose: creating a compelling narrative in spite of such defeat seems a tall task, but Bungie is a studio that can deliver.

If you didn't know about Reach coming out, you must have had your head under a rock: Microsoft has been marketing this title more than anything it has before (including the last major blockbuster Halo title, Halo 3 from 2007.) But beyond the hype, Bungie's game promises gameplay refinements, a giant leap forward in graphic fidelity for the series, excellent music from maestro Martin O'Donnell, and callbacks to the original game. It's safe to say Bungie will be going out with a bang, not a whimper.

Medal of Honor
Release date: October 12, 2010 (North America)
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

The Medal of Honor series pretty much shaped the World War II shooter genre, but eventually it fell into stagnation. The Call of Duty series solved this by ditching the tired Nazi formula for modern warfare, and this reboot of the Medal of Honor franchise likewise moves up forward to the warfields of Afghanistan (1).

Development of the game is being handled by two studios: Electronic Arts' internal studios are handling the game's campaign mode, while the multiplayer offering is being developed by DICE (the famed developer of the Battlefield series). The game features a system of battle classes, each with weapon loadouts for multiplayer action. It remains to be seen whether this reboot of the series will click with gamers, but the developers' efforts (EA recorded authentic helicopter noises and real Apache pilots helped write campaign dialogue) offer a promising outlook (2).

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Release date: November 9, 2010
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii

Having successfully brought the Call of Duty franchise into the 2000s with Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, developer Treyarch took over from Infinity Ward and is sending the series back to retro by setting Black Ops in the Cold War era, once that hasn't been particularly picked over as a shooter setting. It remains to be seen how much the gameplay might be modified to reflect the realities of the period, but from previews the gameplay shifts from intense firefights to more stealth-oriented missions (3). Treyarch has always been seen as the lesser Call of Duty developer (Infinity Ward's games have generally met with better praise), but it seems on track to make a solid entry in the venerable shooter series .

Bulletstorm
Release date: February 22, 2011
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Ok. Until now we've been talking about sequels of established, big franchises. And while I like Halo, and thus another Halo is good, we gamers like a bit of variety too. Enter Bullestorm, a game that promises to be delightfully and refreshingly over the top. As Giesen Cacho of the Mercury News wrote, "[Bulletstorm is] infectious. Part of it is the solid concept, another part is the over-the-top action and as much as I hate to admit it, part of it is the dialogue. Yes, I know it sounds like it's written by an 8-year-old with a playground vocabulary, but it does match the cheesy comic book style that the developer, People Can Fly, was aiming for" (4).

That mostly sums up Bullestorm, then. Rather than the historical action of Call of Duty or future military sci-fi of Halo, Bulletstorm puts you in the shoes of an exiled space pirate and drunkard fighting zombies and mutants of all shapes and sizes. Dispatching enemies in interesting ways via marked skill shots nets you points, upgrades, and bragging rights (5). If you're looking for a meaningful story or excellent dialogue, this probably isn't going to be the game you pick up. But for those looking for ridiculous enemies and excessively large weaponry, Bulletstorm is shaping up to be the game to get in early 2011.

Bodycount
Release date: TBA 2011
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Bodycount is a spiritual successor to Black, a game noted for the amount of destruction players could wage and its innovative sound design. Ultimately the game didn't have the core replay value, and its largely forgotten as just another shooter only a few years old now, but with Bodycount developer Codemasters are hoping for a "pure" shooter that is refined over what came before (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/codemasters-unveils-bodycount-fps). Players follow the adventures of John and Jane Doe as John heads into a confrontation with a femme fatale that's apparently modeled after Lady Gaga (6). For some people, the chance to plug Gaga full of holes, albeit virtually, might be all the incentive they need.

Described as a "glossy techno thriller", Bodycount has a heavily-inspired arcade style of play. When enemies are killed, they instantly spill out spheres of "Intel", which when collected are used for character upgrades. Players can choose to hug cover for protection, or else just blast through much of the destructible terrain and forge their own paths. All this is wrapped up in lots of sexual banter and machismo, which may be just what players want. Either way, as this list shows, for anyone with the mind to blow something up, game developers have every brand you could want covered.

References
* (1) Reilly, Jim (December 2, 2009). "EA Announces Medal of Honor Reboot". IGN. Retrieved September 10, 2010.
* (2) Varanini, Giancarlo (August 19, 2010). "Medal of Honor Hands-On". Gamespot. Retrieved September 9, 2010.
* (3) Scott, Ryan; Will Tuttle (June 4, 2010). "E3 2010: Call of Duty: Black Ops". Gamespy. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
* (4) Cacho, Gieson (June 27, 2010). "Bulletstorm one of my favorite games at E3". Mercury News. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
* (5) Miller, Matt (June 14, 2010). "EA Shows of the Explosive Power of Bulletstorm". Game Informer. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
* (6) Clements, Ryan (June 11, 2010). "E3 2010: Bodycount Preview". IGN. Retrieved September 8, 2010.