2010 was a difficult year for gaming. Nothing particularly brilliant stepped into the spotlight – that is not to say they were not good, it was just the lack of anything groundbreaking. More than anything else, the PC was hit hard. Yes, the console generation has been strutting around with their shiny new motion gimmicks, while we sat back and watched the trickle of titles falling into our world.
Thankfully, this looks to be remedied this year in stunning style, and nowhere else is this more obvious than the FPS genre. I am not an expert in music, but it is rather as if all the best artists of the late nineties suddenly returned in this new decade to deliver their music in an entirely new context. In particular we see the return of the deliciously crude-but-fun subgenre, with titles like Serious Sam 3 and Duke Nukem Forever. Meanwhile, People Can Fly, of Painkiller fame, have come up with their own killfest in the form of Bulletstorm, which seems to mash together arcade-style combos in a classical linear FPS, complete with stunning set pieces. The interesting thing is that these games were in their element back in the nineties, when pop culture still thought Wayne’s World was funny, but how they stand up in 2011 is anyone’s guess. Moving on, we have some other interesting upcoming releases, like Brink, and of course there’s always the highly anticipated Portal 2 and Gears of War 3. Outside the genre, there isn’t much to talk about, but there are some truly beautiful screenshots coming out for Elder Scrolls V and there are whispered hints of a release for Black Mesa – A HL2 mod designed to faithfully recreate the original Half Life.
So, as far as gaming goes, 2011 seems to be the year of the Return of the Fast FPS, and it’s going to be, to coin a phrase, freaking awesome.
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