E3 2010: Just When I Thought I Was Out…These Shooters Pull Me Back In (Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops)

By my slightly exaggerated calculations, approximately half of the games I saw at E3 were first- and third-person shooters (the other half: motion-controlled dancing/exercise/party games). I play a lot of titles in the genre, and many readers who've been following me over the years know I'm a big fan of the Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty series — some even going so far as to call me biased toward those franchises.

Those people would probably find it amusing that I actually went into E3 very ho-hum about seeing Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Why? Well, Halo 3: ODST is barely a half a year old. Gears 2 wasn't that terribly improved over the original. And modern combating is the new World War 2 — an overrepresented genre that's on the verge of most gamers' "enough already!" breaking point (see this morning's piece on the new Medal of Honor for more on this topic). I don't personally know anyone who's trigger-itching to play a new Call of Duty….

E3 did push me over the "enough already!" edge with regards to the shooter genre. But are these franchises doing anything special to win me back?

Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach has been a roller-coaster ride for me. When the beta first hit, I didn't think much of it — it just felt like more of the same to me. I needed more…which eventually came in the form of Invasion mode, a fun and frantic affair where Covenant players attempt to take down Marine-protected objectives.

Then I heard Reach was getting a Firefight mode, and again, my enthusiasm waned. This co-op-against-hordes-of-A.I. thing didn't always work that well in ODST — some drawn-out matches would go on for over two hours with no end in sight — and…again, that game is only a few months old. Do we really need to revisit this mode so soon?

Apparently, the answer is a "yes" for me…and that's because it works much better with the class system in Reach and with a few small, but important, tweaks.

You can now pick different modes and modify various settings, similar to a typical Halo multiplayer match. This may sound insignificant, but it makes a huge difference.

I got to try two preset game types, on top of Firefight Classic (which works exactly the same as in ODST): Generator Defense and Rocketfight. You might've seen Generator Defense in the beta, only this time, you play as the Marines, defending three generators from waves of A.I. Covenant foes. If they destroy the last one, then your match is over.

In Rocketfight, it's time to let loose with rocket launchers and unlimited ammo. Some Halo players don't like all-rocket matches in multiplayer for good reason: They're not elegant, skill-based weapons. But in Firefight, who cares? Blasting away herds of Covenant Grunts, Jackals, and Hunters with huge, booming explosions is simply more fun when you don't need to conserve ammo — and the announcer throwing out, "Double kill! Triple kill! Killtacular! Running Riot! Rampage!" one after the other faster than you've ever heard him do it before certainly gets the adrenaline going. Watching me play this and seeing the silly grin on my face, Multiplayer Producer Joe Tung says to me, "We made Rocketfight for Halo players like you."

Firefight is very much a team-oriented mode, and thus, the classes matter very much here. One player could go into armor lock to draw fire, while a cloaked spectre flanks enemies from the side, for example. And if anyone's in trouble, the medic could drop a bubble shield to heal all those inside. Plus: Jetpacks go with unlimited rockets like Cortana and Master Chief — it's a match made in dork heaven.

 

 

Gears of War 3

Beast mode (aka "Reverse Horde mode") puts you in the slimy boots of the Locust horde as they try to exterminate all A.I.-controlled human resistance. At the beginning of each round, you can pick a Locust enemy type out of a list of about a dozen. Each has an associated cost — the more powerful the character, the more points you'll need to earn and spend to get him — but they all have their pros and cons.

The lowly Ticker, for example, is a fast, scurrying giant-flea-like creature that can rush up and blow into bloody chunks anyone in a small radius. This kamikaze attack can also help remove barriers like barbed-wire fences, letting your teammates inch closer to the entrenched targets. Mis-time the short fuse, though, and you'll only end up exploding yourself and having to respawn and start over.

The standard Kantus doesn't have the firepower, but he can heal nearby soldiers. The Berserker can rush targets and withstand a lot of damage, but she has very limited vision. You can even play  massive, hulking Locusts such as the chaingun-wielding Grinder or the mace-slamming Mauler…but these lumbering beasts will always be bringing up the rear. And if you're not one for new play styles, you can always fall back on the Locust Drone, the standard gunner you've played in past multiplayer matches.

Beast mode is a little bit Team Fortress 2, a little bit Left 4 Dead (in terms of playing as the different zombie types in multiplayer), but it's more ambitious than either with many more characters/classes to choose from. Unfortunately, you cannot go up against other human players here…only A.I.-controlled human characters. Regardless, this is one of my favorite gametypes from everything I've seen at this year's E3. The only time I wasn't having a good time was when they were kicking me off the system because they were shutting down for the night….

Call of Duty: Black Ops

By now, you're probably as sick of us complaining about the modern-combat genre as you may be of the games themselves. I'm not sure Black Ops will suck me back in as much as the two aforementioned titles have, but it's not a totally fair comparison since I haven't seen the next Call of Duty's multiplayer yet.

On the single-player front, yes…Black Ops looks and plays exactly as you'd expect. For me, I'm at least somewhat happy to see two things: the emphasis on the smaller scale, more stealthy-style missions (as opposed to the overdone epic, all-out warzones we've seen recently) and the switching between different eras (modern day and Vietnam), just for a change of pace. Although with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam coming out this winter, might the South Asian jungles be the new new World War 2? Ugh…I don't even want to think about it….