The First Person Shooter’s is argueably the most popular genre within the gaming industry and has been for quite some time.

While many other genre’s have generally been able to provide us with unique experiences (a lot of the time at least), the FPS genre has always been flooded with titles that are either too similar to their competitors, or even lack any type of originality entirely. Occasionally however, an FPS comes along that gives us something new and although this is a rarity, it’s always refreshing when the game turns out to be worthwhile.

The game starts with the relaxing setting of a restaurant, but quickly changes when a truck crashes through the window where you and your two dinner guests are sitting. What follows is a chaotic attack of the restaurant by an unknown enemy.

You aren’t alone in the game either. Many times within the game you are assisted by a “Darkling” who can be used to throw at enemies and helps out with some of the more difficult enemies.

You are able to release a swarm of darkness to stun enemies, develop darkness-based body armor, summon a black hole to suck in enemies, and even see through walls. Many of these come in handy when surrounded on all sides.

The games tutorial fits nicely into the story, teaching you the basics of combat while being dragged from the scene to safety. Eventually all hell breaks loose though and Jackie is forced to release the Darkness once again.

As you progress through the games relatively short storyline (approximately 6 to 8 hours), you continue to be pulled in to the gritty and emotional storyline, feeling more and more powerful as you unlock further Darkness powers within the game.

I can say with confidence that the second game is a vast improvement to the first. The new graphical style fits, and the story progression is interesting, intriguing and at times disturbing. Although the campaign was short, I played the full length of the game in one sitting, unable to tear myself away from it.

An interesting game, with an equally interesting combat system it’s certainly one of the best First Person Shooters released this year so far.

The Earth is on fire. Countless alien craft rain down, annihilating the fortunate few and turning everyone else into enslaved abominations. Which is fantastic news. It means that Mass Effect is back.

Choose to fight without troubling yourself with dialogue choices, or opt for the classic fighting and talking set-up. You can even play the entire game as conversations and cut-scenes only. Fans will recognise much, and newcomers will be quickly assimilated. The formula is the same, but the stakes are even higher.

Shepard returns to the Normandy, now once more an alliance warship – moodier, and with a war room to marshal the meagre forces scattered across the Milky Way, which wait to be found with a significantly streamlined scanner. Just try not to alert the Reapers when you use it…

Pretty much everything is improved. The graphics are sharper, and so are the enemies. Levelling up is slightly more flexible, and weapons are vastly more customisable. Mercifully, Shepard can now get many secondary missions simply by jogging past the relevant conversation. And the story is truly epic.

This is a triumphant finale to Mass Effect and it’s the best space trilogy since the original Star Wars films. And Star Wars didn’t even have multiplayer.

In I Am Alive, players will be challenged by both their environment and their enemies. Stamina and resource management are key when being exposed to deadly atmospheres and scaling enormous buildings in search of supplies. The unique combat system requires players to utilize intimidation: cowards are easily swayed with an empty gun, while other enemies will put players to the test.

In the post-apocalyptic action/adventure I Am Alive, players are faced with thought-provoking choices in the role of a survivor on a journey to find his wife and daughter, who were lost during the “Event.” Arriving at his hometown of Haventon one year after it happened, he finds the town in shambles. Buildings are destroyed, toxic ash fills the streets, and society has been torn, causing inhabitants to take all necessary actions to survive.

It appears digital piracy is to blame for I Am Alive’s all-but-confirmed PC snub. Reflecting on the future of Ubisoft Shanghai’s urban disaster game.
Ubisoft’s reluctance to confirm I Am Alive for the non-console crowd has caused legitimate PC gamers to cry foul.
I’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them, but are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play.

Headshots, money, and blink-and-it’s-over rounds. Not much has changed since the last time I regularly played Counter-Strike back in 2004. Sure, Valve and Hidden Path have given the shooter a facelift, but at this early stage in the closed beta, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive plays identically to the now 12-year-old Half-Life mod and its spruced-up Source engine remake. And I can’t decide whether or not that’s a good thing.

Anyone who ever played Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal, or Portal 2 knows that Valve can deliver with the best of them when it comes to innovation in gaming. Strange, then, that the studio would work so hard to develop a game featuring the exact same mechanics — mechanics that have evolved dramatically in the FPS genre over the years. Playing Dust in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is like stepping into the DeLorean, setting the dial to 2000, and flooring it to 88 m.p.h. Is it fun? You bet. Could new elements be added to enhance the experience? Absolutely. The question is whether or not they should be added, and it’s a question I have trouble answering.

On the flip side, every Call of Duty game Activision has shipped annually since CoD 4: Modern Warfare has been a huge letdown for me because none of them have brought anything new to the table. As a longtime fan of the franchise that loved Infinity Ward’s ability to add new gameplay features while maintaining the game’s distinct feel, I’ve quickly lost interest in the over-hyped carbon copies of CoD 4.

HQ has been talking about a follow-up to 4A Games’ postapocalyptic shooter Metro 2033 since last June, but only just now is the publisher beginning to
open up about the title. Today, THQ officially announced Metro: Last Light, saying the follow-up to Metro 2033 will arrive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation
3, and PC in 2012. Though initially operating under the working name Metro 2034, the game’s Last Light subtitle was unearthed by Superannuation last month. However, as the
working title suggested, Metro: Last Light will be set during the year 2034. With mutants lurking the subway catacombs following a postapocalyptic
disaster, humanity finds itself waging war against itself to gain control of a doomsday device that could end life forever.
Gamers will once again be afforded a variety of improvised weapons to fend off the mutant hordes and rival Metro factions. However, firearms and
ammunition will be scarce, as the game emphasizes both survival horror and first-person shooter gameplay. Beyond its single-player mode, Metro: Last
Light will also incorporate a competitive multiplayer mode set within the game’s subway catacombs.
What’s notably different about Last Light is the combat. During part of the train sequence, Artyom was using a single-shot rifle, which dropped enemies
with just one shot. The chaingun made short work of the Nazis, as did the handmade grenade launcher he used while on the train. Beynon says that they’ve
tried to “communicate better to you that your weapons are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.” He says it’s similar to the “Ranger Hardcore”
difficulty option from the first game which upped the damage from all the weapons significantly. As a result, “combat feels a lot more visceral and
deadly this time around,” he says.
With a 2012 release date, there’s a lot of time to go before Metro: Last Light’s release, but what we saw assuaged our concerns that what made Metro
2033 special would be replaced with a more generic, but safer, shooter. With an acknowledgement that stealth and combat needed work, the team at 4A is
poised to find an even larger audience than its cult classic ever did.