NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

The Nominees:

Star Wars: Squadron

In the golden age of Star Wars games, among the most popular ones available were the Rogue Squadron titles. These space vehicular shooter games let players fulfil the fantasy of piloting the fanciful military vessels of the Star Wars universe, in some of the most thrilling combat scenarios (recreated, or inferred) from the movie series. With EA finally having managed to resuscitate the classic Battlefront games, they turned their eye to the Rogue Squadron games next, and we got Star Wars Squadron. It’s a shockingly well made game, with a bevy of modes, great controls, and some of the most immersive Star Wars content we have received in years (especially if you play it in VR). The game’s launched was marred by a few bugs and glitches, but thankfully, EA and Motive have since been working on patching it up, and today, Squadrons stands as one of the best shooters available on the market, and one of the rare titles that is easily recommended to players of all ages and demographics.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection (PC)

Microsoft and 343 Studios made good on their promise to bring the Master Chief Collection to PC, finally bringing the bulk of the franchise to the platform and seeing it achieve great popularity with an all new audience in the process. Released piecemeal one game at a time, 2020 saw Combat Evolved, 2, 3, 4, and 3: ODST all come to PC. The PC ports were extremely well made, with all the options, bells and whistles, and more that PC players expect, and the games themselves represent some of the best shooter design on the market, which explains why The Master Chief Collection has done so well on the PC as well. And the journey isn’t over yet – 343 Industries continues to work on the PC versions of the games, and players can surely expect many improvements and additions to the games to come, making an already incredible package that much better.

The Last of Us: Part 2

Great storytelling, okay at best gameplay – this has long been the refrain used to describe Naughty Dog’s titles. And while once it may have even held true to some extent, it hasn’t for a while now. Nowhere else has that been as evident as it was with The Last of Us Part 2, a game that represents the ultimate culmination of all of the studio’s learnings of their new gameplay format’s mechanics and styles. The Last of Us Part 2 has been a controversial game for many reasons, but the one thing that even most of its ardent haters have been able to admit is that it plays wonderfully. Naughty Dog have given us one of the best controlling third person shooters this side of Metal Gear Solid V (especially once you have upgraded and decked out all your weapons to reduce sway and recoil), and they have paired those excellent controls and mechanics with incredible encounter design, giving us mini sandboxes for each altercation, offering players a bevy of options and possibilities to approach any scenario, rewarding creativity and out of the box thinking. The Last of Us Part 2 reigns supreme as arguably the best playing Sony in-house developed game of all time, and one of this generation’s best playing shooters.

Cyberpunk 2077

There’s a lot to say about Cyberpunk 2077, but the one thing a lot of people have been pleasantly surprised by is just how well the combat holds up – surely you remember the ongoing refrain that The Witcher 3’s combat was the weakest link in an otherwise superlative experience. Expectations regarding Cyberpunk’s combat were low, but surprisingly enough, CD Projekt RED have delivered a well playing shooter here. The melee combat is definitely still weak, but the shooting part of things (the one that this category is concerned with) plays extremely well. Throw in the range of different weapons, as well as the different possibilities for encounters that the game offers – what with it being an RPG and everything – and you get a surprisingly competent and accomplished shooter, that may not be the best, but is definitely among the better ones in the category that we have seen this year.

Black Mesa

When Valve started up development on Half-Life Alyx, they decided to play Black Mesa, to refamiliarize themselves with what should go into a good Half-Life game. That the creators of the franchise turned to this game to understand what makes their own games tick should tell you just how great it is – Black Mesa, the long awaited and vaunted remake of the original Half-Life game, is absolutely incredible. The original Half-Life game was revolutionary and a pioneering trail blazer for its genre, but being the first one of its kind means that it has since been bettered in almost every aspect by pretty much every game that came after it and built on it. Black Mesa, then, plays like what Half-Life would have been like had it been made for the first time in 2020 – and honestly, there is no higher praise we can give it than that. It truly is one of the greatest shooters available on any platform at the moment, and cannot be recommended enough.

Half-Life Alyx

Valve, however, is not content to just let their fans do the dirty work, and decided to give the world a new, internally developed Half-Life entry as well. Half-Life Alyx is the first new game in the franchise in over 10 years, and to say that it lives up to the enormous hype and expectations surrounding it would be an understatement. With Alyx, Valve set out to make a game that fully delivers on the promise and potential of the VR paradigm, something that no other game so far has been able to accomplish. And lo and behold, they succeeded. If there is one must play, killer app VR game, Half-Life Alyx is it, a game that is so incredible, it’s caused countless players across the world to splurge on expensive Valve Index sets (which you don’t even need! You can play it on a lower end PCVR set if you want) just to be able to experience this game in all its glory. Much like its forebears, Half-Life Alyx has set the standards for any shooter that will follow in its wake, in this case on VR – and we can’t wait to see how Valve will top themselves next. Whenever they get around to releasing a new game, anyway.

Call of Duty: Warzone

The first attempt by the Call of Duty franchise to deliver a battle royale experience was… not the best, let’s leave it at that, with Blackout not quite being the breakout hit one might expect from the pitch of “Call of Duty meets the most popular multiplayer game genre at the moment.” Warzone, on the other hand, is a slam dunk, a home run, a… whatever other sports metaphor you want to use here, honestly. It’s an incredible game, taking the fantastic mechanics of last year’s Modern Warfare and wrapping them up in arguably the best designed battle royale game available on the market currently. It’s so good, we have seen analysts argue that it might be responsible for the slight underperformance of Black Ops Cold War this year, because why bother spending full price money on a new Call of Duty, when the free to play Warzone is giving you all the Call of Duty goodness you want anyway? It’s so good that players around the world continue to make room for it on their systems’ storage, even as its filesize continues to balloon to frankly absurd proportion (we’re at over 200GB and counting at the moment).

DOOM: Eternal

The 2016 DOOM was a sleeper hit that took everyone by surprise, because of how incredibly great it was, and how much it understood the essence of what used to make shooters so great back in the day. So what did id Software do for DOOM Eternal? Give us more of the same, mostly, just amped up to even more intensity. DOOM Eternal has some fantastic weapon variety, shooting mechanics, enemy design, and just non-stop action, and it manages to also address several of the problems that were raised with 2016. It also delves deeper into the lore of the DOOM universe, while including much better multiplayer elements than the original’s disappointing outing on this front managed to provide. DOOM Eternal plays like a character action game with guns – it’s like a finely tuned instrument of rhythmic destruction, and at its best, there is no other shooter, and really, there are few other games, that truly manage to be better than it.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Given that these games are based on Rebellion’s flagship Sniper Elite series, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Zombie Army 4 is a remarkably well playing shooter – since Sniper Elite 4 was, too. Arguably the best one in the series yet, Dead War delivers all the great co-op action that excels with its map design and a surprisingly strong campaign. “Shooter with Nazi zombies” may no longer be the novel pitch that it once was, but Zombie Army 4 keeps things consistently thrilling and fresh, keeping players returning for more, offering enough fun and enjoyment that it’s easy to overlook its not insubstantial number of rough edges in the process.

Valorant

A League of Legends multiplayer hero shooter. It literally writes itself, and sure enough, Valorant has been an incredible hit. Breaking all manner of Twitch and player records (only Riot’s own League of Legends has managed to top it), Valorant is now squarely a fixture of a genre that was otherwise dominated by stalwarts such as Overwatch or Counter Strike Global Offensive. Its bevy of great modes, and refined mechanics, as well as its remarkable game balance and map design, have all made it clear that Riot Games are not a one trick pony – and make us excited to see where they take Valorant, and the whole League of Legends universe, next.

THE WINNER

DOOM Eternal

Really, you probably saw this coming. If you play shooters for the pure mechanical finesse and prowess that they can offer, then there is literally nothing else on the market that is better than DOOM Eternal. It’s like a dance of carnage, blending quick mobility, over the top action, and incredible level and encounter design to deliver a truly potent mix that results in one of the best games of, not just the genre, not just the year, but of the entire generation so far. While Eternal does have some misfires of its own, including some areas in which it represents a puzzling step back from 2016, it is on the whole unmatched in terms of what it offers as a shooter, and indeed, as a mechanics driven game. It’s available on literally every platform under the sun, so you have no excuse – if you haven’t played it already, go out there and play DOOM Eternal right away.

Rather than lead by example, I’d rather add to the problem by combining the two together. That said, I hate positivity, so a top 10 shooters list is out of the question. Instead let’s talk about those games out there that have really dodgy shooting mechanics. Even if the games themselves are good overall, we have ten examples for you of titles with sub-par gunplay.

What are your thoughts? Which features are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments section below,

For more exciting features and top 10 lists, please click here. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

Tribes: Ascend does not address most of these issues. For instance, it does nothing about the multiplayer heavy focus of modern shooters (although one could argue that that has been a characteristic of the genre ever since the proliferation of LAN and the internet in the late ’90s), for instance. It is entirely a multiplayer game, with no singleplayer mode whatsoever to speak of. And it can be argued that Tribes: Ascend falls prey to the modern convention of reusing the same few tired modes for the multiplayer as well. Capture the Flag and Deathmatch both make an unsurprising appearance here, as do some classic Tribes modes, such as Control Point.Even elements from the previous games, such as jetpacks, are present in the game, meaning that it can’t exactly be pointed at as a shining beacon of creativity or originality.

What Tribes does do, however, is return triumphantly to its original design that made the original game such a cult classic back when it was released, and it manages to be fresh in all the ways that matter. In the present day market that is dominated by drab military shooters with the same set of physics, controls, modes, and hell, even similar settings and maps, Tribes: Ascend comes off as a bit of a breath of fresh air.

Tribes puts the focus first and foremost, squarely and entirely, on the shooting. The gunplay is all Tribes is about. There is no needless exposition, no ‘cinematic’ storytelling via garish cutscenes, no explosions, and no plot about a modern day conspiracy involving North Korea, the Middle East, Russia, and terrorists. Tribes is all about the shooting, and it is about making the shooting fun and an experience to be relished every single time, and boy, does it do a great job of that. Playing entirely differently from every other shooter on the market, Tribes is blazing fast. Over time, shooters have changed pace from the slower, much more deliberate arena shooters that dominated PC gaming at the end of the last century to the much more twitch based action shooters that dominate console gaming today, but Tribes is an entirely different beast, that makes every other game on the market feel sluggish by comparison.

It’s ironic, really, how the game goes about it, because the actual shooting itself is actually slower than what you’d expect. Your bullets and weapons usually explode after a slight delay, meaning you can’t expect to just point, aim, and shoot at your enemy. Instead, Tribes requires you to stop, look at your enemy’s trajectory, project where he’s going to be a split second from now, and shoot there, all in the matter of a fraction of a second. Therefore, even though it’s a much slower and deliberate pace than other shooters, it happens blazing fast, and it adds an unexpected element of tactical depth to the game, while also retaining spontaneity and favoring fast reflexes. It is really quite like nothing else on the market, and it is impossible to overstate just how much of a difference this can make on the gameplay. It might seem to be an unnecessary added wrinkle to the tried and tested shooting mechanics that you are familiar with at first, but it really elevates the experience to an altogether new level.

Of course, it is hard to anticipate where your opponent will be at all, and hard to get an aim at him, because of how Tribes handles movement. You can walk and run through an entire Tribes arena, but that is missing the point entirely, and besides, you’ll be riddled with bullets before you know what hit you. No, movement in Tribes is a different beast entirely, one that it might take you some time getting used to, and one that will definitely change how you approach the game entirely.

You see, I mentioned earlier in the review that Ascend brings back the series’ traditional jetpacks; this changes things entirely. The jetpacks let you glide uphill for a limited period of time, and you can ‘ski’ down slopes downhill. All of this results in some crazy movement speeds, and some on the fly planning and rerouting of your character, as you try to dodge the incoming enemy interception en route to the enemy flag.

These crazy movement speeds mean that you have to take your enemies’ movement into account at all times when aiming and shooting, and also your own. It also means that you have to move in such a way while shooting that you yourself never become a stationary target, and hence remain hard to hit. It’s a beautiful game, more psychological than anything else, and it results in Tribes being more satisfying than any other shooter in recent memory.

That Tribes is so incredible is further augmented by the fact that it is a free to play game. Let that be no mark or indictment against the game’s merits. It is probably the single greatest F2P game ever made, and it can go toe to toe with most pay to play games on the market.

The biggest fallacy a free to play game can make is gimping the game entirely too much for the people who don’t play and favoring the people that do, thereby breaking the balance of the game. Tribes walks the line finely, but it often falls on the wrong side. The player who starts playing for free gets access to only three classes and the default weapons, and theoretically, every other class and weapon is within his reach without spending a single penny by devoting (a lot of) time to the game, and earning unlocks. However, unlocking things requires an inordinate amount of time, to the extent that it often feels like the game is taunting you, dangling so many extra weapons and classes right before you, but keeping them just out of your reach unless you pony up and pay.

That, however, is a characteristic of all free to play games, and let’s face it, it’s probably even a necessary evil. A game like Tribes, looking as good as it does, and being as well made as it is, requires not just money to compensate for its production, but also upkeep. Therefore, trying to get some degree of payment from every user seems to be fair, as there really is no such thing as a free lunch after all.

The problem is when Tribes begins to inordinately favor its paying populace. For instance, the first time you pay to unlock any weapon or class, your account immediately gets promoted to VIP status for life, meaning, for instance, you get double experience in every game you play. This puts you at a distinctly unfair advantage if you’re a free user, since the paying players, already having earlier access to all the better weapons and classes, will also get naturally better at the game at a much faster rate. Of course, the argument can be made that the more serious Tribes player will probably be willing to plonk some cash down for it anyway, and it is a fair point, but it is still a generalization, and the fact remains that there will be some portion of its audience, no matter how major or minor, that will feel slighted unless it pays up. At the very least, all the weapons and classes are priced incredibly reasonably, so it’s clear that the developers aren’t trying to unfairly gouge you.

But don’t let my whining about what, as I’ve argued, is a necessary evil for all free to play games distract you from the crux of the matter, which is that Tribes: Ascend remains an incredibly fun game to play. From the extremely balanced out class based gameplay to its high octane, high speed shooting, from the gorgeous visuals to the return to what made Tribes so good in the first place, even some oddities such as the free to play design favoring paying players, or the complete lack of any single player mode or exposition (which might come as a bit of a shock to modern players, ironically enough) can be glanced over. If you’ve been bemoaning the stagnancy that pervades the FPS genre, now is the time to stop. Tribes: Ascend is the game that you have been waiting for.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Franchises like Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Grand Theft Auto, and more recently, Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed have become synonymous with the word “addictive.” Addictive means the ability a game (in this case) has to hook you to it so badly that one cannot stop but thinking about going back to the game and keep on playing it. Very few games can claim to be addictive in true sense of the words. And those that do have that attribute are very tough to put down, and stick out in our memories for very prolonged periods of time.

As an ode to all those games that have kept me hooked for countless of hours and have made me come back to them to get some more of  the best of their parts, you have this feature, listing out the 10 Most Addictive Games This Generation.

BUT BEFORE WE BEGIN, I’d like to bring to your notice that this list concerns only this generation, so games only on the PSP, DS, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and post 2004 PC games can be featured in this list. Also, addictiveness varies with each person’s opinion, so I’m pretty sure that most of you will disagree with the placements, or the choices in general, of this list. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Sit back, relax, and tell us what you think of the list in the comments section below.

10. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Countless hours have been spent on this game, both online and off. The single player campaign offers a really fun and addictive bunch of hours of gameplay, and the online competitive multiplayer is probably the most played multiplayer component in any RTS in the past few years. And I’m not even counting the number of times players (me included) have played the Random Map and other various single player modes. That this game is addictive is a no-brainer, and so is it being featured on this list.

9. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

A Grand Theft Auto game on an Addictive Games List is a no-brainer, even if it’s a handheld iteration of the franchise- and not a console one- we’re talking about. The very nature of the game makes the player come back to Liberty City for more- an entire city spread out before you, and you can do countless amount of stuff- race, steal cars, explore the city, destroy surveillance cameras, complete missions and side missions, buy houses, kill people and cops for no reason at all, trade drugs, play through the countless mini games in the game and then some more. Liberty City in Chinatown Wars is expansive as hell, and feels more open and free than that of GTA IV, even if it is lacking in an entire island.

8. World of Warcraft

By this time, most- if not all- of us have experienced the magical addictiveness of World of Warcraft, a game released back in 2004, that cemented Blizzard’s position as one of the top developers in the industry. World of Warcraft probably is the best MMORPG to have been released till date, and even franchises like Final Fantasy haven’t been able to dethrone it (especially not Final Fantasy XIV). While it may look outdated sometimes, it still has the same level of quality that addicted us, and still has us hooked, so many years ago.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/10-most-addictive-games-this-generation/feed 66 13882 https://gamingbolt.com/top-7-first-person-shooters-this-generation https://gamingbolt.com/top-7-first-person-shooters-this-generation#comments Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:58:12 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/?p=11356 First Person Shooters have become one of the most dominating games on the market, commanding staggering sales and unprecedented reception everywhere. With titles like Killzone 2, Halo: Reach and many others, many of the most remarkable titles this generation are First Person Shooters. As an ode to all these great shooters, we are preparing this list of what are the seven best First Person Shooters this generation.

Let us know how you like the list in the comments section below.

7. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC | Developer: Dice | Publisher: EA | Release Date: March, 2010

Probably the only game that has given Modern Warfare/ Modern Warfare 2 a tough competition. In a segment of the genre where Activision was killing almost every game released, EA released Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which was met with rave reviews, and was, indeed, a worthy competitor of the highly successful Modern Warfare series. It managed to stand on its own, and unlike the Call of Duty franchise, featured very realistic shooting mechanics. With an exciting, thrilling single player campaign, and an awesome multiplayer mode to boasting great level design and spectacular missions (and great replay value), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 proved to be an excellent First Person Shooter, one that will always be remembered as time goes on.

6. Left 4 Dead 2

Platform: Xbox 360, PC | Developer: Valve | Publisher: Valve | Release Date: November, 2009

Valve- the big daddy of the FPS genre, or so the gamers say these days. And for good reason. With title slike Team Fortress, Half Life 2 and Counter Strike having been released under the Valve banner, they sure are quality developers in the First Person Shooter genre. Another one of their awesome offerings this generation is Left 4 Dead 2, sequel to the successful zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. Building upon the praised concepts introduced by Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2 became a fan favourite almost immediately upon its release. With a great online mode, exciting campaign -especially when played co-op- and a gameplay engine that offered nothing but pure fun, Left 4 Dead 2 will always remain one of our favourite games in the FPS genre.

5. Killzone 2

Platform: PS3 | Developer: Guerrilla Games | Publisher: SCEA | Release Date: February, 2009

The sequel to what was probably the most disappointing game last generation, Killzone 2 was a polar opposite of its forefather in every possible way- it was exciting, it was thrilling, it was polished, and it was simply incredible. Featuring the most awesome visuals one can ever see in any console shooter, an exciting, thrilling campaign, addictive multiplayer and an epic scale of production values, Killzone 2 immediately became one of the hottest games in the Shooter genre, and for good reason. Truly Killzone 2 is one of the most overwhelming and awe-inspiring games I have ever played this generation, and for more reasons that one, it stands out as one of the best PlayStation 3 games ever.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/top-7-first-person-shooters-this-generation/feed 41 11356 https://gamingbolt.com/shooters-on-the-kinect-and-move-have-amazing-potential https://gamingbolt.com/shooters-on-the-kinect-and-move-have-amazing-potential#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:08:53 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/2010/06/30/shooters-on-the-kinect-and-move-have-amazing-potential/ Paul Wedgewood, boss of Splash Damage, says he thinks shooters on the Move and Kinect have a lot of potential. While talking to ComputerAndVideoGames.com, the Brink developer stated that he he thought shooters could be done very well on the upcoming motion sensors on the HD consoles.

“I think these motion controllers have amazing potential for shooters, but perhaps not in the way people might immediately think (i.e. controlling motion),” Wedgwood told CVG.

“Perhaps we’ll think about that in the future, but we don’t have any plans for implementation in Brink.”

CVG speculated Wedgewood could be hinting at using Brink’s SMART system. When asked about the said system, Wedgewood said, “The idea is really straightforward. When you’re in combat and you want to get somewhere in the game world, you hold down your SMART button (which doubles as a sprint button) and it will help with jumps, vaults, mantling, sliding, and so on, allowing you to easily navigate any obstacles in your path.”

Your thoughts? Tell us in the comments!