This is an article I recently wrote in Dutch. I translated it into English so more people could read it. That includes you. If you think it's tl;dr, you can just look at the pictures. :P

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The 5 best First Person Shooters of this generation

BOOM, HEADSHOT! Due to my recent obsession with first person shooters, the idea to compile a list of my 5 favourite games in this genre was not a particularly farfetched one. Naturally, it proved impossible to compare, for example, the original Doom to the latest installment in the Battlefield series, so I decided to limit myself to FPS games from this gaming generation. When this generation exactly started is up for debate, so I chose to draw the line at games from 2005 and after. This is why you will also find a ****c Xbox title on my list. I have also decided to name only one game per franchise in order to promote the variety on my list.

The term 'first person shooter' is not easy to define either. But as long as a game takes place from a first person perspective most of the time, and the gameplay revolves around shooting, it's an FPS in my book. A game such as Metroid Prime 3 would thus be excluded from that definition as it revolves around puzzling and exploring rather than shooting.

Finally, I must stress that I have near exclusively taken the single player experience in mind when rating and ranking these shooters seeing as multiplayer is not my cup of tea when it comes to shooting. Naturally, my opinion is based on games I have played. As such, it may occur that your favourite shooter is absent from my list merely because I have not yet given it a try. But above all, my list is subjective and not definitive at all.

And now, The List:


5. Metro 2033 (PC, X360 - 2010)



Developed by: 4A games

This recently released shooter, developed by the Ukrainian company 4A Games, confirms once again that Eastern Europeans are among the very best in the world when it comes to creating shooters with compelling single player campaigns. Based on the science fiction novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 tells the story of Artyom, a young Russian that had to take shelter in the subway system of Moscow along with 40,000 other refugees after a nuclear war swept across the world. In these subways, mutant attacks, faction warfare, hunger and poverty are daily problems every metro inhabitant will have to cope with.

With this in mind, it's no coincidence that the game uses a lot of survival horror elements. Metro 2033 has obviously learned from games such as Doom 3, F.E.A.R. and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. You will often have explore the darkest, most dangerous outcorners of the subway system which isn't a very cheery place to begin with. A mixture of real life guns and fictional weaponry will have to be used to keep the game's many horrible mutants at a safe distance. Other enemies include bandits, and even the nazis and communists that wage a war against eachother just like in the old days.

While the gunplay is not very innovative, a lot of fun, new ideas manage to liven up the gameplay and set Metro 2033 apart from 'normal' shooters. A gas mask has to be worn at all times when exploring the surface. To add to that, the filter has to be replaced constantly to keep the fresh air supply running. The gasmask can even break during battle, so the player has to try and avoid melee encounters as much as possible.

But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this game is its phenomenal presentation. The artistic design is very, very solid, and the graphics are among the best seen in a video game to date: you could say only Crysis tops this game in this area. Fortunately, the gameplay offers enough depth to not only make this game gorgeous, but a lot of fun as well. The campaign lasts for roughly 9 hours and never has a dull moment. In combination with a fantastic atmosphere, Metro 2033 ranks among the very best shooters of its era.


4. Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Xbox - 2005)



Developed by: Oddworld Inhabitants

If there's one ****c Xbox game that never got the attention it deserved, it's Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. In this latest Oddworld game, you play as Stranger, a bounty hunter that needs money for a mysterious operation. You gather the money by catching tons of wanted bad guys dead or alive. This is largely done from a first person perspective, armed with a crossbow that allows you to fire all kinds of bizarre ammunition. Spiders, for example, can be mounted on the crossbow to be fired at enemies, temporarily catching them in a web. Then there's the loudmouthed squirrels that can lure unsuspecting desperados to a location where it's easier to take them down.

This free play****made for a game that truly never got boring. Aided by an open world-like structure (even though old locations cannot be revisited after a certain point), it was possible to work your way down a list of open bounties in whichever order you pleased.

The most unique innovation this game had to offer, however, was the ability to switch to a third person perspective at any given time. While it was not recommendable in battle, it allowed the game to offer numerous platform sequences without generating the same frustration that was ever so present in most other FPS games that contained platforming, such as Turok.

The combination of a marvellous, unique presentation, varied, free and addicting gamepay, an interesting story, and the solution to an age-old FPS problem earns Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath place 4 on my list.


3. F.E.A.R. (PC, X360, PS3 - 2005)



Developed by: Monolith Productions

When the gentlemen of Valve proved to be the masters of the linear shooting genre by pushing first person shooters to new heights with Haf-Life 2, Monolith Productions did not stand idly by. The American developing studio, responsible for the legendary PC shooter Blood, took the initiative to revolutionise perhaps the most important aspect of first person shooters, and one of the few areas in which Half-Life 2 did not excell: gunplay.

The birth of the definitive next-gen FPS became reality with their subsequent masterpiece F.E.A.R., which saw the light of day in 2005. While the game's horroresque presentation obviously tried to appeal to the recent popularity of horror flicks such as The Ring, F.E.A.R. was first and foremost a pure, rock solid and revolutionary shooter. The smarter-than-ever AI offered the player a genuine challenge. With clever maneuvers, respectable teamwork and cunning tactical decisions, the artificial intelligence lived up to its name for the first time in years.

Perhaps the only real downside was the monotony of several aspects of the game. You basically fought the same enemies with the same guns in similar environments throughout the entire single player campaign. Not even the horror elements could prevent boredom from striking at occasions. But even then, the wonderful gunplay was reason enough to spend quite some - preferably nocturnal - hours on this game.

But F.E.A.R. was (and is) not just terribly fun to play: the importance of this game for the genre is considerable. The revolutionary AI made a whole bunch of shooters feel dated almost overnight, and even now there are very few shooters that surpass F.E.A.R. in this area. Even F.E.A.R. 2, the 2009 sequel, was unable to topple the tremendous success of its predecessor.


2. Crysis (PC - 2007)



Developed by: Crytek

Say Crysis, and you say 'eye blinding graphics'. So eye blinding that, upon the game's release in 2007, the PC that could run it optimally still had to be invented. But once you were able to run this so-called 'system hog', it proved to be well worth the trouble. The best graphics of this generation met with incredibly balanced gameplay and innovative game design. While Crysis used the same clichéd concepts as games such as Halo for its presentation and story (tough space marines taking on communist baddies and evil aliens), it went so over-the-top with its technical marvels and dramatic sensationalism that it left the competition biting its bump-mapped dust.



It is too disrespectful, however, to pass off Crysis as a more bombastic version of Halo. Even though its box art would likely fool you into thinking that you're dealing with yet another sci-fi arcade shooter, it still offers a very rich, very deep gameplay experience. While most of the special 'Nanosuit' functions (extra power, speed, armour) were largely irrelevant, the cloak function, and the way it is implemented in this game, was a true enlightment. By being able to turn invisible for a certain time, it was possible to evade guard posts in a Metal Gear Solid-like fashion and take out enemy patrols without even being spotted once. The sandbox-like level design (every level has a beginning and an end, how you get from one point to the other is completely up to you) certainly helped elevate this gameplay to near unreachable heights. At certain times, however, the sheer size of the maps would take some pace out of the gameplay, and the endless jungles would get a bit tiring. The spectacular finale, in which the enemy North-Koreans you fight in the first two thirds of the game make place for - much stronger - aliens, is even more impressive with this in mind.

Crysis is a bombastic, modern 'big budget' shooter, but with a lot more depth than we normally see when we have to engage in virtual combat with hostile aliens.


1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (PC - 2007)



Developed by: GSC Game World

After years of broken promises and delays, 2007 marked the year in which we could finally get our hands on the magical S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. In a very unconventional, near rebellious fashion, the FPS genre was turned upsidedown and mixed with elements from genres such as RPG, survival horror, and open world sandbox gaming. The FPS elements themselves also ****fied as untraditional, to say the least. The realistic ballistics and incredibly clever AI gave arcade shooting fans a real scare, as the usual running and gunning proved to be an ineffective, suicidal way of playing this game. Especially in the beginning, when you are plagued by a permanent lack of ammunition, decent weapons and proper armour, it seemed near impossible to take down a squad of soldiers with superior equipment.

Everyone patient enough to master this game's defiant, unusual mechanics, however, would discover a truly unforgettable adventure. With a mysterious, compelling story, varied gameplay and the most atmospheric world in a video game to date, Shadow of Chernobyl stood out in nearly every area. Unfortunately, the game quickly became notorious for its many bugs and glitches, though those problems were quickly dealt with by numerous patches and what would turn out to be a dedicated and talented modding community.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is important because it raised the bar for subsequent shooters in various areas. Shadow of Chernobyl was, for instance, one of the first games to successfully combine the FPS genre with an open world concept, avoiding the design flaws that ruined other games of this kind, such as Far Cry 2. Moreover, the uncompromising, challenging, non-scripted gameplay provided the increasingly linear, cinematic shooting genre with some much-needed fresh air. Shadow of Chernobyl was a renegade shooter in many aspects, as it did pretty much the exact opposite as big budget titles such as Call of Duty and Halo. The A-Life engine allowed computer-controlled players to behave remarkably natural, making S.T.A.L.K.E.R. very unpredictable, seeing as it didn't need to rely on endless series of scripted events.

The open world concept was implemented even better in the recently appeared sequel Call of Pripyat, but that game would have never existed without Shadow of Chernobyl, which is why you find the latter at number 1 on my list of best first person shooters of this generation.