Than the 2010s were remembered by fans of virtual shooting.
About nomination
Shooters are our everything. Network, single, cooperative, from the first, second and third parties. “Meat”, tactical, arcade. Representatives of this genre, along with platformers, form the main backbone of the industry. On the example of shooters demonstrate new technologies and bold ideas, and, damn it, the past ten years have not disappointed a drop. In this nomination, we gathered action movies that will forever go down in the history of the gaming industry.
Few developers can say with a blue eye that they have invented a whole genre with their own hands – and at the same time not be cunning. But Brendan Green really succeeded: PUBG in two counts pushed elbows of large competitors, whose dominance in the shooter market, we took for many years as a given. Curious Early Access Trinket Steam, for several years, has waved into one of the largest IP in the modern industry. It is unlikely that Green suspected that his little experiment would turn into a revolution in the genre and make the “royal battles” the most high-profile trend of recent years.
The idea of the game is so simple that you are even surprised – why had nobody (well, except Kosyun Takami) thought of it before? Move around the map, look for equipment, eliminate opponents; the last survivor wins. The principle is clear from the first match, but it continues to entertain even after hundreds, because the replayability is not based on the mechanics, but on the players themselves. It is they who create epic (or idiotic) situations, which are then enthusiastically told to friends. It is they who decide where, how and when to get involved in a shootout – the game only gives them the tools and drives them, gradually narrowing the safe areas. This is a great game design: efficient, resource intensive and insanely durable.
Those who caught the early 2010s and still remember the fierce rivalry between Call of duty and Battlefieldprobably remember Bad company 2 especially warm. Someone will even say that she was, and even to this day remains the best part of the series – the most breakthrough, exciting, long-playing. And, frankly, here it is not only (and not so much) nostalgia. Yes, Bad Company 2 lacks the scale and depth of the “full” Battlefield. This is in every sense a much more chamber game than everything that we are used to seeing from Dice– but this is what makes her remarkable.
Bad Company 2 is Battlefield in the eye of a needle. This is the quintessence of the series, not stained with seasonal passes, ambitions and marketing. All the best franchise ideas are in place, and all the excess went under the knife to increase the pace of the game and the density of events. After all, we love the series not for huge cards and not for the opportunity to be a commander, but for the feeling of a real battle, for chaos – and here it does not stop even for a minute. Especially in the “Storm” mode, which, in fact, has become the hallmark of the game. Attackers constantly stick to the hell under the fire of machine guns and sniper rifles, and the defenders beat off attack after attack, slowly losing ground … This is poetry. So many things are happening around you that you somehow don’t even notice that there are no more than 16 people in each team. It is necessary to mine the transmitter until the tickets are over.
Eighth place – Titanfall 2 (2016)
Brutal murder Titanfall 2 went down in history as the strangest publishing move Electronic arts. EA strangled one of her most original and unusual projects with her own hands, releasing it exactly between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. The relatively young IP just could not stand the competition with two mammoths of the genre at once – Titanfall 2 quickly lost its relevance against their background.
It’s a pity. Insanely sorry. Titanfall 2 is arguably the best shooter you’ve never played, especially if you love high speed fighting. Respawn entertainment I was able to give a combination of walking skirmishes, acrobatics and titans an excellent dynamic. At one point you rush along the alley and, running along the walls, jump onto the roof to give a salvo from a railgun along an enemy robot. And a moment later – you yourself are already sitting in the cockpit of the titanium, trying to catch annoying pilots like midges. The situation on the battlefield is changing so smoothly, but at the same time so fast that you do not even have time to come to your senses. Add to this a large arsenal of equipment and a whole hangar of furs, and the output will be almost a dream shooter. But … Not fate. It’s good that at least Apex legends from the same developers is alive and well; perhaps thanks to her we will someday see Titanfall 3.
Is there anything to say here? This is Counter-Strike. In one form or another, it will outlive us all, unless it suddenly stops bringing Valve money – and this is unlikely to happen. In the end, for millions of gamers, “Contra” is still the first option, if you want to “stupidly shoot”. The principle and rules of the game remained unchanged from the time of the antediluvian 1.6: the developers simply pulled everything else up to modern standards. Human matchmaking, ladder for serious players, hats … That is, excuse me, knives.
If no jokes, then, in the case of CS: GO, Valve not only achieved its goals, but also exceeded the plan. Her shooter not only retained the status of one of the main e-sports disciplines of the planet, but also provided the company with a stable profit – thanks to the market of cosmetic items. You can treat microtransactions as you like, but it’s stupid to argue that this economic experiment has seriously affected the approach of large studios to monetize their projects.
Sixth place – Bulletstorm (2011)
Poles from People can fly also in Painkiller proved that they can do simple brutal shooters. However, you cannot go far in a meat grinder alone – at least for the second time in a row. Good Bulletstorm It turned out to be much deeper and more complicated than it won a decent fan base (which, unfortunately, could not provide the project with financial success). Firstly, the game has a plot and staging, and not for show. This is a very provocative fantastic comedy that quotes and “Aliens”, and Firefly, and other classics of the genre.
And secondly, the Poles integrated into the gameplay such a simple and seemingly obvious thing as rewards for killing. The more effectively you cut the enemy, the more points you get, and the more points – the more utilities you can buy in the machine. It seems like a completely natural thing for video games, but try to recall which other shooter encouraged your creativity so much? In addition, this small detail instantly changes the perception of level design. You do not see the scenery – you see the possibilities. The armature is sticking out, the bare wires are out, and the ogre is lurking nearby. And now you are building your actions based on which lethal combination will be more profitable. Which of the enemies is enough just to shoot the scrotum in flight, and who needs to be kicked in the ass in a combustible barrel to blow the whole horde at once.
The new order and The new colossus made what many thought impossible – or even completely meaningless. They turned William “BJ” Blaskowitz into a dramatic character, with story arches, internal conflicts and character. Imagine: it turns out that a man who once defeated Hitler’s mech in an honest duel may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. He can hate war. He can get tired of the endless violence and rivers of blood that he has to shed.
Studio Machinegames clearly demonstrated that the “classic” shooters plot is not at all alien. Moreover, it is the characters and production that raise the modern series. Wolfenstein one step higher than other single-player shooters. Scriptwriters are well aware that the plot in the spirit of “cybernazists mastered the secrets of Jewish technomages” is enchanting nonsense. But instead of explaining with a serious face that everything is, in fact, serious, they take this absurdity and go into complete detachment. Rides on fire-breathing robo-dogs, a visit to the moon captured by the Nazis, dialogues and scenes, which have a place in Inglourious Basterds Tarantino … Still, Carmack was wrong at the time. Without the plot, there would be no porn at all.
Worth giving Ubisoft due – she can when she wants. The developer did not abandon Siege when it turned out that the release was not going as smoothly as we would like. Problems with optimization, lots of bugs, bad netcode, lame balance … But take a look at it now! Thanks to the efforts of its authors, who worked tirelessly, Siege is now one of the most popular online shooters on the market.
This is insanely happy, because “Siege” is seriously different from many competitors in the genre. Instead of quickly and thoughtlessly shooting everything that moves, it offers a much slower and thoughtful gameplay – here the game remains true to the roots of the Rainbow Six series. Victory in a match does not necessarily go to the most apt one: positioning, coordinated teamwork and the ability to predict the actions of an opponent play a big role. This gives the session shooter essentially an unprecedented degree of tension. Especially when you are preparing to take the room where the opponents are exactly, by storm – or vice versa, holding your breath, wait for the attackers to burst right into your trap. Thank you, Ubisoft, for not disconnecting the game from the life support device when it was near death. Otherwise, we would have been left without a great competitive projectile.
Second place – Overwatch (2016)
It so happened that when he speaks Blizzard, everyone else listens silently – and this time the whole world listened to them, without exaggeration. Overwatch became a real sensation. This is the first original IP of the corporation for many years, and even in the genre in which it has never worked before (except for canceled Starcraft: Ghost) But, of course, industry veterans did not disappoint. They took central ideas Team fortress 2, flavored them with the proprietary “Blizzard magic” and at the output received such a successful product that they trumpeted it from every box. Even on porn sites.
Why was Overwatch so popular? Because it was made not for “gamers”, but, first of all, for people. Including for those who are new to video games in principle. Colorful, charismatic characters, a pretty visual design and accessible mechanics made it clear to a wide audience that she was welcome here. That everyone will find their type, their style of play. Blizzard always pays great attention to detail – this is what helped Overwatch to win a gigantic fan base. The casual player in it, of course, will be more comfortable than the veteran hardened by ctf_2fort, but everyone will find a place – and a character.
First Place – DOOM (2016)
Well, what else can stand here? Current team id Software rejected the postulates of the founders of the company, but created a game worthy of its big name. To hell with his ambitions, Romero is a shooter and nothing more. To hell with Carmack, with his technocentrism, there is a story, characters and mythology. It’s old Doombut this is the new Doom. It goes back far into the 90s, but uses all the best that militants in the first person have overgrown over the past twenty-odd years.
This is a vulgar, brutal, but at the same time not a primitive game. DOOM makes you master the art of high-speed micromanagement: every second of the battle you need to make decisions based on a bunch of variables. What weapons are available, how much ammunition remains, what demons you have to deal with, is there room for maneuver, is there a medicine chest nearby, etc. Slow down – you are sprayed onto the molecules. Grab it on the fly – you’ll be a nightmare for demons. And few shooters give such a sense of their own power as DOOM.
Do you agree with us? Tell us in the comments which shooters you consider most worthy of attention.
