Shooters of 2012: The Ones to Watch

This year is shaping up to be an exciting year for new First and Third Person shooters. Last year felt like a bit of a letdown despite a few good releases. The games didn’t experiment enough and stayed too close to the general mould (COD…). Being a shooter fan myself, I decided to take a look at the ones that I feel hold the most promise, especially after a good start with the likes of The Darkness II and Syndiacte.

Max Payne 3 – May
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When it comes to games, Rockstar never fail to deliver and have made some classics in recent years with GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. The Max Payne games were some of my favourites with an intriguing and sinister story of a cop in search of revenge. Max Payne 3 follows on from this, with the player stepping into the shoes of an older Max, this time swapping the streets of NY for the favellas of Brazil. With bullet time set to return, some interesting shooting mechanics and a new take on multiplayer, this is one to look out for come its release.

Everything Ubisoft is Working On
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Well, not everything, but Far Cry 3, Ghost Recon and Rainbow 6 Patriots all look fantastic and are set to be major releases for 2012. All a follow up of some sort, it seems to me in name and concept only as each one seeks to reinvent the series that started it. Far Cry returns to a tropical island paradise inhabited by armed militia, but this time there’s more emphasis on the protagonist and what he is going through, as well as how the setting reacts to your actions. The characters, most notably the insane militia leader, all seem to have a lot more depth to them and are not just there to give you missions or pose a threat.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier is similar in many respects but puts more emphasis on team work than it did before. You can point out targets to allied troops to then take them out all at once without drawing too much attention. There are also plenty of gadgets and toys to play around with, meaning you’ll have to be strategic about each mission.

Finally, Rainbow Six Patriots is perhaps the one I’m looking forward to most (though it might not be till 2013). The last two iterations in Vegas I found good but a little slow. Patriots seems to have upped the speed, and more importantly puts meaning into each action you perform.

The story goes that a wave of terrorist attacks have gripped the US and you are sent in to deal with them. How you do that is up to you as the player has to make tactical decisions as how best to sort out a situation. The scene shown off was an innocent man strapped with enough C4 set to blow up the Golden Gate bridge filled with hundreds more innocent people in a matter of minutes. Throwing him off the bridge seems like the only option…

Spec Ops: The Line – Spring
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I’m not 100% convinced this is going to be a great game – in my eyes it could go either way. But if the amount of publicity the game is getting, as well as some of the trailers and images I’ve seen are anything to go by, it definitely holds promise. Set in Dubai after a sand storm has completely ravaged the city, you play a soldier sent in to find a previous team who’ve gone off the radar and whose Colonel has supposedly gone insane. The environment itself looks to be one of the biggest stars with sand being as much a menace as the enemy forces, covering sink holes and pestering you during storms. With a dark story inspired by Apocalypse Now, an interesting and unexplored environment and some stong gameplay, despite a cheap name, Spec Ops could be the shooter of 2012.

Aliens: Colonial Marines – Spring
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James Cameron’s Aliens is in my eyes one of the best sci-fi horror films of all time. If developers Gearbox can successfully recreate the same atmosphere and sense of dread that the film did along with some stellar shooting action then I can’t see why this wouldn’t be the best shooter of the year. Having said that, Aliens vs Predator wasn’t fantastic, but hopefully the developers have taken the criticism on board to build a better game. From what I’ve seen, Gearbox have invested a lot into making this the best Alien experience possible whilst also staying faithful to the source material.

Halo 4 – Autumn
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I can’t really see Halo 4 reinventing the shooter genre, but let’s face it, who isn’t excited? Little information has been released so far other than the fact that it’s the start of a new trilogy set on a new planet. Both Master Chief and his AI advisor Cortanna are present, and so far that’s about it. From the short trailer the Chief has learned how to use a jet pack in his isolation in deep space, so one can expect the return of something similar to the armour abilities of Halo: Reach. The game is no longer in the hands of Bungie, the creators of all the previous games, but before you light your torches, Microsoft isn’t holding back, having created a team of some of the best people in the industry. Game on!

**UPDATE**: 343 Industries have revealed new footage showing off the games beautiful new graphics engine as well two multiplayer maps and a new look for the Chief.

Worth a mention: _Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, Prey 2, XCOM_