The Problems With Shooters

     A common complaint I hear about detractors of the FPS genre is that "they're all the same", or "they are all gray and brown", or "the only way I get hurt is when jelly gets splattered on my screen!" In my opinion, these aren't necessarily valid arguments, but I believe that they are indicative of the general fatigue that surrounds this genre.

Sponsored by Smuckers

     Unfortunately, there are plenty of shooters that break these stereotypes that just get buried underneath the dross that we have come to expect from the annual Call of Duty releases. These are games that do something absolutely new and different with the genre, but will never be as successful as a Halo or Gears of War. I thought I'd outline a few examples of some older games that break the mold of the generic shooter, and I hope that in the future we will see more games that are as pleasantly surprising as these titles are. So please, game developers, steal some ideas from these games.

Borderlands: Loot

     Certainly one of the more original titles to emerge from 2009's holiday rush, Borderlands expertly blended a Diablo-esque loot system normally found in action RPGs with a solid foundation in shooter action. Headshotting a midget and watching his skeleton dissolve in acid while blue and green shiny guns fly out of his torso is an endlessly entertainingly experience.

BLAMO!

     Although the randomly-generated weapons the game rewards as loot can affect a character's stats in a variety of ways, it never removes the player's skill as a factor. When you shoot an enemy in Borderlands, there are no secret dice rolls behind the game's screen. If you have the skill to headshot an enemy, you will deal more damage. It's this blend of skill-based gameplay and RPG elements that puts Borderlands in a special place in my heart.
     Combined with a killer co-op experience and an over-the-top, dark sense of humor, (and the promise of a sequel), Borderlands created a new hybrid of game genres that has yet to be exceeded.

Borderlands on Amazon!

Shattered Horizon: Three-Dimensional Combat

     Another indie game that was lost in the dump truck of releases in fall 2009, Shattered Horizon took the tired concept of a sci-fi first-person shooter and turned it on its head.

Literally

     A PC-exclusive shooter, Shattered Horizon's main selling point was its zero-gravity combat. Armed with only a rifle and a thruster pack, all of the battles are fought in the vacuum of outer space where an enemy could be coming from the left, right, or even above or beneath you at any time. Taking cover means that you have to ensure your safety from three dimensions. I have played many a match where I thought I was safe in my hidey hole, only to realize there was a bad guy approaching me upside-down from a hallway that I perceived as a ceiling.

     The only problem that the game has is its learning curve. It takes a few matches to get used to controlling yourself in three dimensions as you learn to strafe and yaw yourself onto target, but the reward is well worth it. This is a concept that I really wish a major developer would invest in. Shattered Horizon is multiplayer-only game, unfortunately, but if a triple-A developer or publisher could throw some money at this inventive idea, very good things could come out of it.

Mirror's Edge: Color and Movement

     At first glance, Mirror's Edge is a visually stunning game. The art aspect of this game is nuanced enough that I could write entire articles about it, but I'll keep it short for now. The game uses bright, hyper-realistic primary colors to draw interest to certain objects and areas, something that most artists know how to do instinctively.

     The unique high-contrast color scheme allows the developers to naturally draw the player's eye to certain areas of the busy industrially-themed environment in a way that seems intuitive. You can make your way through the environments without even thinking about where you are going, just how you are going to get there.
     Getting to your destination in Mirror's Edge is the core of the game experience. Vaulting, rolling, leaping, and wall-running from point A to point B are some of the most fulfilling experiences I've had in a game this generation. The fluidity of motion and the gut-wrenching acrobatic feats that Faith performs make sprinting from one kill to another in Call of Duty pale in comparison.

Loogie time

Mirror's Edge on Amazon!

     So there you go. Before you complain about the dearth of original content in first-person shooters, take a bit of time and go and explore some games that everybody forgot about. There is room for new ideas in the shooter space, and just because these games aren't on the best sellers list doesn't mean that they don't exist. So check these games out if you get the time or money, because they are sure to offer you experiences you can't find anywhere else.

Boobies are Better than Bullets

     There have been three major controversies in gaming since its inception. Everyone should be familiar with them as they are normally spurred by a controversial game that leads non-gamers to believe something that traditional gamers must either attack or defend. Are video games art? Are video games too violent? And, is there too much "sex" in video games? These questions are circular dichotomies because they are based on opinions, so never ending in nature as it were. But I offer this, are boobs really that bad?

Don't hate us because we're beautiful...

There's 2 in Every Argument
     Sex in video games has had its fun much like co-eds during spring break. Games like DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Leisure Suit Larry, The Guy Game, and BMX XXX show up every once in awhile and flash us some nips and wiggle their booties until we giggle like 12-year-olds in our uncles' skin bin. Some times these games pass us by as innocently as our memories of college while other times they result in controversies that make you wonder what the hell people are thinking, as in the famous Fox News fiasco with Mass Effect.

     I find it amazing that with all the games that display gratuitous amounts of deplorable violence on a regular basis that skate through the cable news channels, one nipple bared during the Superbowl and congress gets involved. Is the female form really so dangerous to our nation's youth that we should abstain from the mere digital image of it? Is a pair of bountiful bouncing breasts more damaging to a male's mental function than the whole of drugs, crime, and violent decapitations?

Fox News didn't cover this 

Pressed Against the Glass
     Video games, as with all art forms, are a reflection of reality. The making and breaking of worldly events inspire their creators in ways that help develop the medium that we cherish so dearly. Modern Warfare didn't create war as much as Grand Theft Auto created proliferating with prostitutes. Blaming games as a mischief training ground is like yelling into a mirror and blaming the image with a total disconnect of the refection within.
     I can understand some of the arguments about objectifying women as sex objects and find my self laughing at the lingerie that passes for heavy plate armor in some games. But allow me to be offended that anyone who would assume any male (let alone myself) would be shallow enough to treat all women like sex objects to be used and discarded simply because of a few hours spent with a video game. We cannot help the chemical reactions in our brains that turn us into babbling idiots when we see an attractive image of a woman. Furthermore, most men have mothers, sisters, daughters, ect. and we are fully capable of understanding that they are respectable females and are in no way sexual objects. Just because I find something beautiful, doesn't mean I want to treat it poorly and definitely have sex with it. That would make trips to the arboretum very uncomfortable and itchy.

In the Russian Version she actually gets naked.

The Call of Boobie
     So as the bridge across the uncanny valley nears completion, the realism of our digital entertainment will reach the point where the dreams of designers and visionaries will soon shine into our retinas. Those moral crusaders who hold tightly to their beliefs will surely cry out loud against everything from violence to drugs, and crime to nipples.
     The only thing we can do as gamers is to hold our ground with intelligent arguments to the contrary and put our money where we believe it to go. I personally not only buy new games to support developers, but ones that stand with my principles as well. When NFL 2K 5 released at $20 I was all over it. Not only because it still stands as one of the best football games ever made, but I wanted to encourage yearly releases to be 20 bucks. I did not purchase Manhunt new because I don't believe violence to be a selling point. And you can bet dollars to doughnuts I will always buy a game that has cheeky sexual themed fun just because this world needs more of it desperately. I will end my argument with a simple question: If you were walking down a beach on vacation with your family, what would be more harmful to witness? A beautiful woman tanning her naked breasts or a helpless captive being decapitated? Think about it...

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What we know about Borderlands 2's Classes

Official box art: Just as badass as the first game.

If there's one game that I want to camp out for this year, it's Borderlands 2.  The first game was a breath of fresh air to me, and caught me entirely by surprise.  It stayed in my Playstation 3 for months, even usurping the place that the highly-addicting Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 called home.  Mixing a shooter with loot-driven RPG character customization and allowing multiplayer that exponentially rose this effect worked to a perfect degree.  Grabbing my attention immediately, I was able to play through it four times before becoming bored with it, and that was only because all my other players dropped out.  All the classes I played with, and had fun playthroughs with each.  The newest game promises new classes, bringing with them even new crazy gun combos.  Here's what we know of each:

Commando:
Roland, move aside.  There's a new soldier in town!  Armed with a similar turret, Axton the Commando promises to be the perfect entry-level class for Borderlands 2's run and gun gameplay.  This time around though, the turret is much more customizable, offering differing gameplay for each of his development trees, unlike Roland who really only developed it into a support tree class.  With short range, medium range, and defense options, including the oppurtunity to deploy it across ranges (like the longbow grenades from Borderlands 1), this versitile option should be a solid choice for any team.



Opinion section:  He looks much more promising than Roland, who I found to be lacking in customization.  With more offensive options, I look forward to playing around with Axton, as having a turret buddy to go along with my group could only be helpful this time around.  Plus, the name Axton just sounds way more superior than Roland.

Gunzerker:
Offering the heavy artillery this time around, we have Salvador, the "Gunzerker".  Aptly named for his special, he is able to activate his ability and dual-wield any guns in the game for a limited time.  Feel like dual shotgunning?  Done.  How about going a little crazy with some Rocket Launchers?  A little unrealistic, but there you go.  Wanna spray bullets with a Machine Gun and Submachine Gun combo?  You're the boss.  The mixes are wild, but you get the point.  His tree focuses on weapons, surprisingly enough, and survivability.

Like a boss

Opinion? I always enjoy being a tank, getting close and personal with some shotguns, and his ability seems like it would just be an absolute blast (pun unintended). Multiplayer action with Salvador seems limited other than a tank role, but who doesn't want to dual wield guns?  For a single player option, this would be appropriate for sure.  In addition, his short stature makes me giggle.  He more than makes up for it.  Plus Brick (the tank from Borderlands 1) was limited when the enemies got tougher, and his ability was really lacking after the first playthrough, making him almost useless.  This is definitely a step up.

Assassin: Meet Zer0, the resident badass killing machine of Pandora this time around.

Zer0's the one stabbing the other guy through the crotch.
Good thing too.  I would hate for Zer0 to be the guy
getting stabbed

The most unlike the characters from Borderlands 1, he specializes in getting close and dirty with his enemies, by turning invisible and striking with a really cool looking blue (Plasma? Laser?) blade.  His abilities don't really show a preference to a type of weapon, but anything that leaves him/her (not known yet) mobile is the best.  One tree enhances the melee attack when guns are used, and vise versa with sword strikes enhancing gun damage, playing up the fact that you should be slicing and shooting alternately to achieve maximum efficiency.  Pistols and Submachine guns are probably the way to go here.

Opinionized:  Wow Zer0's cool.  Like really cool.  Offering the biggest change up in talents, it's really hard to catagorize him/her just yet.  Zer0 definitely looks to be the most difficult to use so far, so get some practice in single player first before taking him/her over to your friend's games, but using your buddies as a distraction while you get up close would be crazy useful, so look forward to having at least one assassin on your team.

Plus, he's so cool.

Siren:
Sharing the name of the class before her in Borderlands 2, Maya doesn't fall far from the siren tree, especially since according to Borderlands lore, she's one of only six in the universe.  Sharing in Lilith's phasing abilities, This siren plays around with other dimensional powers with great success.  She can Phaselock an enemy, effectively removing them from battle and neutralizing the threat for a while.  Maya's trees all revolve around the effects of the phaselock, offering offensive damage capabilities while one is active, defensive skills such as reviving allies and health regeneration, and controlling abilities, making this Siren a force to be reckoned with.

You WANT this guy phaselocked.
Trust me.

What do I think?  Lilith was my last played with character in Borderlands 1, and also the only character I deemed worthy enough to play through the game with multiple times.  Maya will most likely be that character again.  You will want one on your team. Phaselocking an enemy out of the battle for a while will become real useful when dealing with badasses, due to the fact that they can ruin anyone's day just by showing up.  And controlling the flow of battle is always useful when shit starts hitting that fan.  I'm glad we never have to face sirens, and I'm more glad we get to play as them.





So there you have it.  Look forward to more Borderlands 2 information in the coming months, as I know I'll be sharing it! It drops September 18th, and that date should be circled multiple times on your calender!

SEE?!?!
JUST LIKE THIS