You're both wrong though.

Loving the Portal banter. Fair enough if people need to include it on their list, but to my mind opening portals and jumping through them to solve a puzzle does not sound like a traditional FPS.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Loving the Portal banter. Fair enough if people need to include it on their list, but to my mind opening portals and jumping through them to solve a puzzle does not sound like a traditional FPS.

You're right, it's not a traditional FPS. I wasn't going to include it, but saw people putting RPGs in their list, so I thought why not. Perhaps Dante can explain what counts and what doesn't. What is the spirit/purpose of the list etc.

No, just thought the list might have a specific purpose, hence 360 onwards only etc.

If Fallout isn't, neither is Borderlands.

AHA!

BLands is a shooter with (lots of) RPG elements; Fallout is the other thing.

Bloody hell. Hasn't everyone who can actually play FPSes voted yet?
Is this shit being tallied?

I'll stick with the 360 onwards rule, but fuck that one game per series noise.

1. Halo 3. On balance, you just can't fuck with the MP compared to anything else. Also, on balance, probably the most replayable campaign in the series. Scoring, co-op, skulls. Legitimate multi-options for different playhroughs.

2. BFBC2. Campaign was a waste of space. MP is second only to Halo 3. Wish someone would nail Rush mode again and people would play it.

3. Halo ODST. Motherfucking Firefight. Halo's mechanics honed to within an inch of their lives. Lost Platoon and Alpha base (is that what it was called) rinse and repeat. Some of the best first person shooting you will ever do.

4 and 5. Portals. They're in my list, they're amazing.

6. Bioshock. Atmosphere. And sections that did story amazingly well.

7. Halo Reach. Campaign is weak. MP lost pop and took ages to stabalise, but once they had the Title update with anniv, the MP was rock solid. FF with fuller features than ODST.

8. MAG. For a brief while, it was amazing. Lots and lots of enemies, lots of objective. Could get a bit meat grindery, and fell of the radar and also didn't seem to improve, necessarily, with patches.

9. Left 4 Dead. Didn't play it enough, but so brilliant.

10. Far Cry 3. A great playground. Everything works well, and I even think they did the "RPG" lite aspect quite well.

And somehow one of the borderlands misses out.

It was near enough dead when I got into it about 3 years ago

MAG was incredible. As Face says, you had to play it with friends in a squad otherwise it was pointless. We had a full EDGE clan room every night for about eight months that just hammered the rest of the internet into submission. Truly it was the best of times.
Ultimately killed by idiot developers too quick to listen to moaning fuckwits on their official forums.

nothing since has come close

g.man

n0face wrote:

After reading this and the where next thread coupled with my own opinion it definitely seems a game thrives and offers the best experience in the early days of its life.

99% of the time, I'd agree. Reach is the only one that bucks that trend, but it's back handed compliment, as it's only the case because it was a bit shit at launch and got fixed.

Actually, tbf, I'd suggest the sweet spot is a little later into the lifespan for Halo 3. It had some legs on it, and updates and improvements to lists probably put the prime time at about 6-12 months in.

Although your point may well still stand if you're referring to going into a game cold. Being a new player to H3 6 months in would have been a steep learning curve.

Of course the obvious problem is that most games don't have the pop 6 (or even 3) months in.

Come to think of it, I joined BFBC2 very late in the piece. When was it released? I was probably only a few months before the Vietnam expansion. Certainly the lobbies could be a little sparse, but it was definitely playable.

Without reading your post from the other thread, I assume, noface, that part of the problem with coming late is not just population numbers, but player behavior, bad habits and known exploits.

BC2 was fine if you joined us, Cuckoo went from abandoning the tank to top of the scoreboard in a night and that was in Vietnam. Probably not so good solo.

Interesting seeing these lists. I like the split of MP & SP. I'd also be one to put CoD 4 in an SP list. It's fucking spot on for what is a stale theme in FPS. Also gotta throw Halo 2 in an SP list.

As for the banter on Portals and Mirrors Edge they're both in mine SP lists. I am sure Portal 2 would feature in a MP list if I had played the co-op. As CoD MW must feature in it for it's co-op alone.

I know it's a loose argument but even if you did get through ME without resorting to weapons I'd say you're the projectile and the trigger is yourself. Mirrors Edge can be an incredibly fluid mechanic, you're targeting with the crosshair and triggering where to lay feet, hands, grabs etc. It's a shooter because aim, fire. Just the gun (target) and bullet (trigger) are abstracted. Non?

edit: don't get me wrong, it's an fps to facilitate a platformer.