So, having completed my posting of my top five games of 2011 and thinking about all the talk about next generation consoles, I started thinking about the impact of the games, specifically the new IP's, of this generation. When I first started thinking about them, I didn't realize how many there have been. But the more that I thought about it, the more I realized there were, and I'm sure a few are still missing. But consider the following list:

• Portal
• Left 4 Dead
• Bioshock
• Gears of War
• Mass Effect
• Uncharted
• Assassin's Creed
• Resistance
• Alan Wake 
• Heavy Rain
• inFamous
• Prototype
• Little Big Planet
• Dead Space
• The Darkness
• Metro (2033 and this year First Light)
• The Witcher
• Crysis
• Batman: Arkham series
• Borderlands
• Dead Rising
• Crackdown
• Dragon Age

Some, like Heavy Rain, and a host of others many of which I didn't include, appear at this point to be dead, with no future games planned in the series. Some had big entrances but the follow ups were not as well received. Some have sequels coming that could determine the fate of the franchise. A few have been spectacular successes and are landmark titles for gaming, at least in the minds of many gamers. (Be sure to engage maximum strength before jumping)

Hey, I'm not one for jumping on bandwagons. Boycotts and other such things seldom (not never) work. But what if we could politely tell Valve we'd like some news, any news about the next Half-Life game? Do you remember the last one, Half-Life 2 Episode 2? Do you remember how it ended? Maybe the trailer for the game will help.

Okay, so here's the deal. A group of Half-Life fans have started up a Steam group - A Call to Communication (Half-Life). Simply being a member of the group could help, but more importantly this Saturday, February 4th, the group is planning to hold an event. Not a sit in, nor a march but a time (2:00 PM EST) to all play Half-Life 2. A Red Letter Day.

Why? Because if we do, we can put Half-Life 2 into the top 10 of the Steam Stats. I think the goal is to put it in the top 10, but I hope we can at least get it into the top 5. The time is now for us to get some new from Valve on the continuation of the series. I, nor do I believe the group, is asking for the game to be released before Valve thinks it's ready. We just want to hear something from them. Putting Half-Life 2 near the top of the play list on Steam seems as nice a way to ask as any.

HT: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Deus Ex is a special game. It remains my favorite game of all time and holds the same spot for PC Gamer. Ion Storm, the same team that did the original, released a sequel a couple of years later. Deus Ex: Invisible War really isn't a bad game, it just doesn't capture whatever it was that made Deus Ex so special. Everyone has at least one change they point out as the problem, from universal ammo to a simplified inventory. Whatever it was, Invisible War was not the successor anyone wanted it to be and so for years it seemed as if the franchise was dead.

So when it was announced that the new Eidos Montreal studio would be doing Deus Ex 3, I was both excited and concerned. If Ion Storm couldn't recapture the Deus Ex magic, what hope did Eidos Montreal have. But still, it was a glimmer of hope. Bioshock wasn't System Shock 3 but as a spiritual successor it recalled much of what made System Shock 2 a great game. Maybe Eidos Montreal could do the same for Deus Ex?

Could Adam Jensen fill JC Denton's trenchcoat?

Bioshock had Ken Levine though. Eidos did not have Warren Spector. However, as news came from the studio about the game they affirmed a love for Deus Ex and a desire to create a game that recaptured that games feel. The main glimmer of hope I had was when it was announced the game would be a prequel, not a sequel. They wouldn't try to make sense of the multiple endings of Deus Ex, which was one of the things that hindered Invisible War. Instead they would go back to the time of mechanical augmentations.  Clearly they were thinking about how to do this right. (Missteps and giant leaps follow the jump)

The poster is available from Valve here.

What can I say about Portal 2 that hasn't been said already. It was on almost every Games of the Year list and was even the top game on some of the lists. In almost any other year it would have been at the top of my list as well, but this year for me it sits at number two. 

It sits at number two not because it is flawed. In nearly every measure Portal 2 is a great game and as I thought about all the elements of the game that are great I wanted to fire it up and play it again. (Let me count the ways - after the jump; bring your long fall boots just in case)

This past weekend I had a conversation (as much as you can over twitter) with Holy Headshot from Everyday Gamers. His opinion of F.E.A.R. 3 is negative, in large part because of the story. He was a big fan of F.E.A.R. 2 and felt the story was lacking in the latest game.

Alma clearly isn't having a good day in F.E.A.R. 3

For me, the story in F.E.A.R. 3 was as good as the story in the other games and did a decent job of tying the two different story lines together. In the first F.E.A.R. you played as Point Man, a new member of a First Encounter Assult Recon team sent in to subdue Paxton Fettel, a psychic with a clone army (Replicas) that he controls. In that game you come to learn that Point Man and Fettel are brothers, sons of Alma, a powerful psychic that has been locked away by Armacham Industries, the same company that cloned the soldiers that Fettel now controls. In the course of that game Point Man kills Fettel.

F.E.A.R. 2 picks up the story with another solder, Michael Becket, who is sent into the same general area as Point Man with the goal of retrieving Genevieve Aristide, a leader of Armacham Industries. Becket learns that he, similar to Point Man and Fettel, is touched with Alma's power and she wants him for some reason. At the end of the game Aristide is able to lock Becket into a chamber with Alma. While Becket is engaged in a psychic battle Alma uses his physical body to try to become pregnant. F.E.A.R. 2 ends with Becket finding out she was successful. (Don't fear, I'll get to the point after the jump).

In DLC for F.E.A.R. 2, one of the Replicas frees Fettel from a psychic enclosure, and Fettel is reborn. At the start of F.E.A.R. 3 we find that Fettel has sought out his brother, Point Man, and frees him from incarceration. Alma is nearing the end of her pregnancy and Fettel is looking forward to a family reunion. Point Man, much to his brothers consternation, is more interested in finding Jin, a remaining member of his F.E.A.R. team. Over the course of the game their purposes become more aligned, and the race to get to Alma before her baby is born begins.

Brother is never far away, though he's not helpful if you're not playing coop.

So F.E.A.R 3, and the other games in the series, do have a story. But for me, the story is not the driving reason to play the games. F.E.A.R. from it's beginning has brought some unique things to the first person shooter genre. While Max Payne may have introduced bullet time, or slow motion, to shooters, it is F.E.A.R. that brought it to the first person perspective. Additionally, F.E.A.R. allows you to play with mechs, has destructible environments, and some fun weapons to complete the package. 

F.E.A.R. 3 now adds to that package cooperative play where one player can play in the traditional F.E.A.R. Point Man role with the ability to slow time. The other player then plays as Fettel, who can (1) psychically grab enemies and hold them up, for Point Man to quickly kill; (2) shoot psychic energy (the individual shots are relatively weak but can be fired rapidly) to kill opponents; or (3) possess opponents, creating interesting cross-fire situations since Fettel can traverse great distances when possessing enemies.

In single player you play alone as Point Man but completing a level unlocks the ability to replay it as Fettel. Progressing through the game levels the characters up and unlocks additional abilities or enhancements to existing abilities. For example, for Point Man, leveling up includes increasing the duration of slow motion counter, but also includes unlocking a devasting slide attack. 

Playing through a level you earn points. These points are based on completing certain challenges. Some challenges are easy, like spending a certain amount of time behind cover. Other challenges are more difficult, like killing ten enemies without taking any damage. In single player the scores are largely about leveling up your character. In coop, each player is evaluated at the end of the round to determine who is the "Favorite Son." Who is the overall Favorite Son will effect the ending of the game.

Mom, no offense, but your doll is creeping me out.

Points are also awarded for the games two collectibles. One, the Alma Dolls, are one per level and for most levels are not in the same location in differnt play throughs. The second are some bodies have a remaining psychic energy you can absorb. In coop you can choose to absorb all the energy yourself, for 1500 points, or share the energy with your partner, for 1000 points per player. 

All of this leads to a lot of replayability for F.E.A.R. 3. If you replay levels your character keeps his upgraded abilities, allowing you to improve your scores and further increase your abilities. At first pass I assumed there were certain challenges I would never get, yet in the end I did get them all (many thanks to Vitale for helping with the coop related challenges).

As for the general gameplay, Point Man is still rock solid and the slow motion with parts of the environment flying or a grenade exploding is incredibly cinematic. The mech sequences are a lot of fun whether fighting other mechs or just taking out groups of soldiers. The environments are varied, from the prison you start in to the slums you have to get out of to a sequence on a highway. Add an airport level that evokes some Left 4 Dead memories (you all do know I like Left 4 Dead, right?) and I couldn't be happier with the settings.

In addition to the campaign, there are four multiplayer modes. Two modes are cooperative, two are competitive. Only one of each is unlocked if you rent the game or buy it used. While I owned the game the other people I was playing with were only renting so we only got to try out the unlocked modes. 

Contractions is F.E.A.R. 3's horde mode. What it brings to the horde idea are a few items. First, you can spend some time rebuiling your fortifications. This is far less complex than what was added to horde mode in Gears 3 and largely appears to be a poor use of time. Much more important is that you go out and find ammo boxes. That's right, to replenish your supply of ammo, or to get better weapons, between each wave you have to run around the maps collecting boxes and bringing them back to designated areas to unlock them. The strategy here is generally not to use the supplies too early as grabbing boxes later becomes more difficult. Why? Because as you progess through the waves a fog comes in. The fog makes finding the boxes harder and also forces you to seek higher ground. Finally, Alma will show up on the map. Shooter her or looking at her for too long will cause her to either down you immediately or transport you to another part of the map. While not as solid overall as Gears horde mode, I found contractions to be a lot of fun.

The competitive multiplayer that is unlocked is Soul King, which is still a four player mode. In this mode you are similar to Fettel, able to inhabit computer controlled enemies. The goal is to take them over, kill the other players or computer enemies and collect the souls that are left behind. For the computer controlled enemies this is one soul per enemy. For your opponents, you get roughly half the number of souls they were carrying. We generally didn't play this the way it was intended but I had a lot of fun running around the maps killing computer enemies anyway.

F.E.A.R. 3 was a surprise to me. I had loved the first game, liked the second, but wasn't even sure I was going to buy this one based on the previews. But good word of mouth and knowing that some friends were at least going to rent it caused me to buy the game. Now it sits as my third favorite game of 2011. It's a fairly firm choice as well. I could easily flip flop Gears 3 and Serious Sam 3. My first and second choices for the year are pretty close as well. F.E.A.R. 3 doesn't reach the heights of the first two, but stands clearly above Sam and Gears for me. I even picked up the PC version during one of the Steam sales, so if anyone else gets this on PC and wants to do some coop (or I still have my 360 copy as well).

So forget what you may have seen in the trailers. While the game isn't scary, the action is solid and there's a lot to do. In the words of one reviewer (Tom Chick), if you liked Bulletstorm, you'll love F.E.A.R. 3. The last paragraph of his review sums up my feelings not just about F.E.A.R. 3 but shooters in general.

"Rather than aping what's popular, it focuses on good gunplay and unique ways to make it interesting: the slow motion, the co-op, the scoring system, two distinct characters to emphasize replayability, and a story that knows its place and its limitations. Here's a game that "gets" gunplay. After all, we don't ask for much when we just want to unload lots of ammo at a bunch of bad guys. The appeal of a shooter is simple. The real surprise shouldn't be that Fear 3 is so good. The real surprise is that so few games understand this as well as Fear 3."

I would only add that Serious Sam 3: BFE, #5 on my 2011 Games of the Year list "gets" this as well. Just not quite as well as F.E.A.R. 3.