FPS World is a modern spin on the pop-up shooting gallery with a gaming-themed spin.  

"I gave it a try and for about three bucks you get forty shots of semi auto action," says South Korean-based reader Peter. "You get to slap a second magazine in and the shooting range is done up to look like a typical fps scene."

The blog One Dimensional Man deconstructs this kind of design, and comes up with another illusion - the illusion that the game isn't linear, and how the stage may be skillfully set for that. "Pseudo non-linearity," is the term the writer coins, and an expert example of it can be found in the opening sequences of Half-Life 2.

I agree that hamfisted mechanisms such as invisible walls sort of break the third wall, and at minimum are things working against immersion. But I'm not sure I ever felt that my freedom to explore anywhere in an FPS was part of the bargain in the first place. Hell, it's not completely part of the bargain in an open world RPG like Fallout 3. In Grayditch, an entire town, only a few buildings have doors that may be opened. The others have the kind of locked facades the writer calls a design flaw.

But we can't have everything. The key for a designer is knowing what we can have, and then how to discourage or prevent us from needlessly pursuing what we can't.

Freedom Is Dead, And Why It Doesn't Matter
[One Dimensional Man, Dec. 17, 2009]

The introduction to Half-Life 2 is a particularly useful archetype. The player (as Gordon Freeman), finds themselves trapped in the dystopian City 17, a living and breathing hell house of fascistic undertones (and a not so subtle reference to the dissolution of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany). After a brief encounter with an old friend (Barney, undercover as one of the faceless Combines) it soon becomes clear that the mission is one of escape. As Gordon Freeman makes his way around the spatially imposing City 17, navigating its various alleys, back roads, and crumbling apartments, the sense of a genuine, living and breathing world is certainly palpable. Other ‘evacuees' offer small talk, ‘Combine' guardsman patrol the streets, while sinister public service announcements play on giant, dominating screens. The world conveys a sense of it pre-existing the player's arrival there, which is really, for all titles that strive for immersion, one of the apogees of virtual design.

What one may not be consciously aware of however as they navigate through this dystopian sprawl is that Gordon's escape route is quite immaculately linear; an effective straight line in the figurative sense. And yet one could be entirely forgiven for thinking this virtual City as fully, spatially unfastened, naked to the whims of electronic exploration.

This is due to the creative design principle of pseudo-nonlinearity.

City 17 employs several techniques to psychologically re-orientate the player in this way, all operating generally around this one principle. Perhaps most psychologically effective, are the Combine guardsman who ‘dynamically' operate to cordon off certain parts of City 17's various stairwells and pathways as Gordon attempts his escape. They are dynamic in the sense that they allow for a passing glimpse of the virtual world outside the player's immediate field of view, before finally forcing them back en-route (often by way of a hard whack from an electro-truncheon) to be left with only the tantalizing suggestion planted into their own imagination; that of a fluid world that only marginally pre-empts subjectivity. Simultaneously, a colossal barrier to immersion is shattered as the familiar constrictive sense of the ‘developer behind the curtain' ruthlessly chopping and cutting parts of the world from view is countered by effectively showing the world behind that curtain – if only briefly. This is sufficient however, as in the process an illusion of freedom, or rather of non-linearity, is actively cultivated in the player's mind; the world becomes actualized, feels more three dimensional, as the artificial barriers to exploration are, in turn, naturalized, effectively reshaped into actors of the story operating against the player. In the process, they are absolved of their essential artifice as agents of linearity.

Pseudo-nonlinearity may also be achieved without the aid of such dynamic tools (which, it is worth stating, cannot always be relied upon – owing to the context of plot or narrative) and this is certainly a more common approach to environmental design that one finds. In practice, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged as the principle barrier to exploration must still undergo the same process of naturalization; that is, it must be configured so as to maintain consonance to the inherited semiotic array of both narrative and environment. For instance, in introducing an obstruction into a particular environment, the environment must also be able to passively disclose the ‘story' of why that obstruction is present there. The closer fidelity is able to be maintained between the obstruction to individual progression and the dynamic motivation to progress (i.e. the narrative) the greater the linearity ‘deficit' is reduced. To use a common example from modern FPS design: a wrecked car or coach laying across a road or landscape forces the player onto a different path, effectively manipulating them into the appropriate, pre-determined direction. While this form of static obstruction may appear a rather brash imposition and unconscionable artifice, this hinges upon how effectively it is naturalized in respect to its narrative and environmental arrays. By ensuring that it conforms to the animus of these two factors, its symbolic charge as both artifice and bearer of linearity can be effectively neutralized.

To put it simply, the narrative should, either directly or indirectly, be able account for why the obstruction is there, while the environment (by means of inference) discloses how it got there.

These two environmental operators (static and dynamic) form the basis of environmental design from the principle of pseudo non-linearity. By deploying them, developers are able to mitigate the lingering problems associated with this shift toward a narrowing of exploration in favour of greater control. Of course, the ever-critical gamer will often be able to penetrate the façade, and readily deduce the reality of linearity on display. However, awareness, or pre-awareness should not detract from the overall effect, which like a magic trick, is able to retain much of its prestige despite knowledge of this basic deception.

- One Dimensional Man

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

The last clip Futuremark released was nice, but it didn't show much of Shattered Horizon's actual combat. They certainly make up for that oversight in this clip, which is chock full of muzzle flashes and floating bodies.

Shattered Horizon can be preordered on Steam right now for $17.99, with a pre-loading available for those of you who wish to get right into the action once the game goes live.

Eliminate is a pretty straight forward online first-person shooter with average graphics. You play the game with twin virtual thumbsticks, using one to aim and the other to move.

We'll have a full review of the game in the coming week or so, but it's worth pointing out the game's take on pricing.

Eliminate is technically free-to-play, but to earn the money you need to upgrade your character and purchase new skins, armor and weapons, you have to earn credit. To earn credit you need to play matches using energy. While you get a free drip-feed of energy by downloading the game, if you want to excel you'll likely want to purchase energy packs from the in-app store.

I haven't worked out all of the details, for instance I believe that winning a match gives you some energy back, but I spent $1 last night to purchase enough energy to play a half dozen matches or so. Seems a bit pricey. Of course I don't need to buy energy, I could play and not worry about winning credits or I could just wait to get the free energy which is delivered over time to your account.

Like I said, very interesting.

Oh, anyone who gets the game and wants to play a bit, my username is Crecente.

In an interview with the Rebellion senior producer David Brickley, CVG pointedly mentioned that "There's been a lot of controversy this month surrounding Modern Warfare 2 and its ditching of PC dedicated server," and "Historically AvP is obviously a big PC game. How are you making sure you support the PC version and keep your community happy?

Replied Brickley:

This is a title that we want to support for a long time to come. If it's not been announced yet then certainly the PC version will benefit from Direct X 11 features. That's one thing we can use to make sure that people who invest in the hardware will get the absolute best.

Uhm, yes, but the question was about dedicated servers, right? CVG pressed on with:

And it was originally a PC title so you can imagine the heritage and the need within Rebellion itself to make sure that people who still play and talk of that game are not left behind.
And are you guys going to have those dedicated servers the community so clearly expects?

Replied Brickley:

Well the one thing we can say is obviously running an operation like that is monumentally expensive. For the period the original was up, people who played that game got an incredible experience.

You know what the internet's like. We're obviously used to getting things for free over the years. I guess on our side the thing we're focusing on is whatever your set-up at home, you get the best possible experience from it. We're just trying to use our time and resources wisely.

We think we've got our answer here, but just to get it for the record, CVG asks:

CVG: So is that a yes or a no on the dedicated servers?

Brickley: As I said the game is still quite a way from release so I guess there are other things to be determined during that time.

Given three opportunities to talk about it, we'll take that as a "no."

Interview: Aliens vs. Predator [CVG]

We've seen screenshots of shattered moonscapes and still shots of men in colorful space suits firing weapons at each other, but this is the first we've seen of actual zero-G fighting in Shattered Horizon. A terrible mining accident has destroyed the moon, and someone does something that gets two rival factions fighting. It doesn't really matter all that much, as long as one set of people is shooting at another set of people in the depths of outer space. Mission accomplished!

The Aliens were my faction in the original Aliens VS. Predator game, and they'll be my faction in the new game as well. You can keep your stealthy cornrowed Predators, and the Marines are nothing more than cannon fodder. Give me the relentless, terrifying, ceiling-crawling Aliens any day. They have tongues with teeth! What more could you possibly ask for?

Okay, the real reason I play as the Aliens is because I am so terrified of them that the only way to avoid being killed by one is to actually become one. Either way they win the day.

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics.

No official title has been given - heck, the project has not even been officially announced - making Smedley's use of Next rather curious. And its deliberate capitalization suggests that is at least the working title of this game.

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if this is indeed the new game's title. If I hear anything back, I'll put it here.

What Planetside Next Means to Me [Smed's Blog, via Joystiq]

It's not just pretty to the eyes. Listening to this with headphones on, there's some great sound this - although I swear that Warthog-looking thing comes to stop with a Flintstones-car skidding sound at 1:54.

DUST 514 [CCP on YouTube]

The game designer told G4 that he is interested in making a first-person shooters game. Just listen to him say it: "I have an interest in making first-person game." Ueda cites Valve's Half-Life series as FPS games he enjoy, remarking that, "Usually, you have to incorporate storytelling with constraints, but the way...[Valve] implemented constraints was something different that I enjoyed, compared to other games."

But what kind of first person game would Ueda make?

"[If] ...you're in the middle of play, in the middle of the game, then all of a sudden you're in a cut-scene [and] you're not supposed to operate at all - that's not the kind of game I want to do. If there is some other techniques that will not give them that kind of feeling, that's something I want to implement."

Hey man, do it, do it, do it.

Currently Ueda and his time are hard at work on the upcoming PS3 exclusive The Last Guardian.

Update: Edited title and post.

Fumito Ueda's A Big Half-Life 2 [G4 via Dtoid via Kombo]

The email sought help from "loyal player(s) and experienced shooter fan(s)" in designing this next game. "Don't worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn't going anywhere," the mail assures.

The independent site Planetside Universe found the Web site registration, and also reports that it reached John Smedley, the CEO of SOE, who said only, "PlanetSide fans will be happy We have big things planned in the next 12 months. We're working on something new that's really cool."

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if they'd like to shed any more light on this. Should we get a response, I'll update with it here.

Nexon America's revenue for August was up 32% over the previous year, and if the company's celebratory press release is any indication, Combat Arms had a lot to do with its "explosive growth". Since Combat Arms launched in July 2008, Nexon has updated the title on a regular basis, adding in new game modes like Quarantine and Fireteam, aping modes in popular retail releases to tremendous effect.

"We have worked extremely hard to make sure that our players get new, fun and interesting content delivered as frequently as possible," said Min Kim, Nexon America's vice president of marketing. "The progress we have made with Combat Arms is significant, substantial and added a great deal to the outstanding summer success for Nexon America."

Nexon continues to grow Combat Arms, recently adding new zombie maps to the Quarantine mode and a new mercenary character modeled after a movie action hero, and I can't see them stopping anytime soon. You can almost rest assured that if a new FPS game type becomes popular, Combat Arms will get a free version of it eventually. It's a business model that work - just ask those three million users. Visit the Combat Arms website if you're interested in becoming one of them.

So far our coverage of Shattered Horizon has consisted of a couple of teaser images to commemorate man landing on the moon, which is completely destroyed before the game starts. Set in the future, Shattered Horizon pits players against eachother in zero gravity, and now we know what those players will look like. It's certainly more colorful than I imagined. I think I like it.

Closed beta should be starting soon, so if you like it, head over to the Shattered Horizon website and sign up for the mailing list.

Watch him show off the gun again - this looks like a different prototype, with a smaller gun. "Full tracking, all the way around, and you can whip some ass," he boasts. "Or you die." This one looks like a wireless configuration. He says it's compatible with 360, Wii, and PS3, in addition to PC gaming.

Redneck Techie says you may order it here, but I don't see any order form, price, warranty, specs, anything. Caveat emptor, of course.

And what the hell is going on at 1:12? Is he baked?

Game Gun Going to be Ready for Retail by Christmas, will be Console Compatible [Engadget, thanks Abdul-Elah]

Hilmar Pétursson drew a familiar analogy - EVE Online players are the air force; DUST 514 players are the (wait for it) marines. Space marines! Pétursson went on to say that while EVE inhabitants are "different people," focused on operating spacecraft. a character in DUST "would rather run around, blow shit up. That is his skill."

You see, EVE players talk like this and DUST 514 players talk like this.

Pétursson says the game have persistency elements of its own, as well as ones from the EVE universe. He made no announcement or hint of when this will be available, other than CCP's been working on it for three years.

More DUST 514 Info Revealed in Video Interview with CCP Games CEO [Massively]

Battleswarm seems to be coming along well for a game we only heard about just last month. That's probably because the title, being developed by Gameworld Tech Co, LTD, was already released in Taiwan. The USA Today article the original story came from seems to credit Bushnell for development, but in reality it's the company he co-founded, Reality Gap, Inc., that will be performing publishing duties in worldwide English.

Online titles ported to North America generally move into beta rather quickly, as is the case with Battleswarm: Field of Honor. Anyone interested in pitting their RTS skills against opponents' FPS skills and vice-versa can visit http://www.battleswarm.net/ to give it a go.

Bushnell has been out of the game making business for quite awhile, but he's coming back with Battleswarm, an online PC game that allows players to switch between the roles of strategic commander and front line fighter, much like S2 Games' Savage. Instead of having different roles on the same team, however, one side plays the RTS-controlled alien bugs, while the other team is tasked with their extermination in first-person format.

The inspiration for the genre-mixing title comes from wanting to play games with his five sons.

They're all avid gamers and like first-person shooters. The problem is, as you get older, you lose some reaction time, and as a result, I'm getting slaughtered by them. A real-time strategy [RTS] game, however, is more my [preference], a good resource game is what I love. Battleswarm is both an RTS and a shooter, a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers, if you will. You can switch sides, too, if you feel like an RTS instead of a shooter, or vice-versa.

It actually sounds like an interesting solution to bridging the age gap, giving those of us slowly losing our reflexes a fighting chance against our young nephews...or whatever. Not that I am losing my edge or anything. It's just that kids these days can see forever, and might have psychic powers.

'Father of electronic games' on his next project, the state of the industry [USA Today]

Shattered Horizon is a first-person shooter which has players fighting in zero-gravity amidst the remnants of the moon, blown to bits during a mining explosion. In case you were wondering why we haven't done more on the moon since that initial stroll 40 years ago, just imagine the Earth with the sun blotted out due to a cloud of lunar debris and you'll feel a bit better about our lack of progress.

Futuremark issued these two new screenshots to celebrate today's anniversary, and to also remind prospective players that the beta for Shattered Horizon is kicking off soon. Head to the official website to sign up for the festivities.

Darkest of Days is a time-travelling first-person shooter, developed by 8monkey Labs and published by Phantom EFX, hitting retail shelves on September 8th. Players step into the muddy boots of Alexander Morris, a foot soldier who transfers into Custer's regiment days before the Battle of Little Big Horn. Right before he bites the big one, tomahawk style, a time agent warps in and takes him to the future. A rogue agency is trying to change history, and it's up to the player to revisit the famous battles of history to set things right. You'll visit World War I and II, the Civil War, and judging by that screenshot, ancient Rome, though your spear is definitely bigger than theirs.

The game features a new proprietary engine known as Marmoset, allowing for hundreds of NPCs on the screen at once, each acting according to advanced AI, and nifty mechanic where key people who cannot be killed no matter what are highlighted in blue, meaning that running and gunning without thinking is out of the question.

Of course, the best feature is the ability to bring a laser rifle to World War II. Screw temporal paradox.

I'm interested to see how Darkest of Days turns out. Time-travelling shooters have the potential to be pretty amazing, but then again...

They've got to be much too busy dealing with the sad situation in the fictional country of Chernarus, where Western forces have been called in to help quell a civil war, with the player first stepping into the shoes of a member of a U.S. Marine Corps Force Recon company. I suppose that makes it okay for Europe to get it first, as those of us in the states could just go enlist if we wanted a realistic simulation of the life of a Marine.

ArmA II, which I am dangerously close to just calling Armed Assault II because it sounds better, releases on Steam in North America on June 26th.