A million new FPS games come out every year. Okay, my math is a little off, but shooters might be the most overcrowded game genre. Even when AAA publishers were afraid to release anything more Call of Duty or Downfallindie developers took up the slack in a big way, making sure there's always a new one Single player FPS game waiting for you.
Due to the sheer volume of releases, some titles will always slip through the cracks and become little more than a memory for those who played them back then. Not every game can become an all-time classic or be worth revisiting years down the road, but these forgotten FPS gems deliver top-notch campaigns that hold up incredibly well.
Red Steel 2 is the ultimate hack-and-slash shooter
Worth buying a Wii just to play it
Thanks to the precision of the pointer, the Nintendo Wii was perfect for first-person shooters, and it's a shame that only a handful of worthwhile games were designed for the system. You should track down almost every Wii FPS project you can get your hands on, including The management duology and especially Fix remake, but no other game showcases the complementary nature of the console better Red Steel 2.
Since Ubisoft's launch title was a mess that still isn't worth anything, no one was particularly excited about the sequel, only to find that Red Steel 2 was the game that its predecessor should have been. Taking full advantage of Wii MotionPlus, the shooter/slasher hybrid's gyroscope tracking accurately mirrors your movements and, more importantly, has NPCs that react realistically to them. The combat is stylish, addictive and quite challenging, and the switching between sword and gun is quite seamless.
Wii exclusivity and the negative reputation of its predecessors are doomed Red Steel 2 into relative obscurity, but I would 100% recommend picking up the console just to play it. I mean, the Wii also has dozens, if not hundreds of other great games.
aliens vs. Predator (2010) has three great single player campaigns
You get to play as a Xenomorph, Predator and a human!
The Aliens vs. Predator games are shockingly great, but Rebellion's 2010 releases tend to be overshadowed by its spiritual predecessor, 1999's Aliens vs. Predator. Although that shooter was a more impressive achievement for its time, Aliens vs. Predator is the franchise's best game to play these days, and it offers three campaigns for the price of one.
If you want survival horror and a more traditional shooter, you can just play as a Marine and try to survive against an army of Aliens and the occasional Predator. Oh, are you in the mood for stealth? Well, in that case, you can become the predator and stalk your prey and carry out brutal deaths. Want something more chaotic and unusual? The Xenomorph campaign turns you into a wall-crawling, ceiling-running monster that moves at a breakneck pace.
Individually, the campaigns are quite short but still satisfying. Overall, Aliens vs. Predator offers unbeatable variety and consistent quality. Personally, the Predator campaign is my favorite, and I've never quite gotten used to Xenomorph's playstyle, but all three have more positives than negatives.
Technically, the human campaign is the only one that is truly an FPS.
Prey (2006) Might Be Better Than Prey (As A Shooter)
A butt through an alien ship
Overshadowed by Arkane's mostly unrelated 2017 immersive sim, the original Change doesn't get anywhere near the attention it deserves, a fate compounded by the fact that its Steam version was delisted in 2009. Tommy, a disgruntled Cherokee mechanic, and his girlfriend are abducted by aliens and taken aboard a massive biomechanical mothership. Tommy taps into his ancestry (and learns an astral project) and makes alert progress through a complex maze filled with moving platforms, gravity breakers, and deadly enemies.
After recently revisiting the game, I was really surprised at how good it was Changes core tricks, mechanics and tempo hold up. Concepts like the “Spirit Walk” and reverse gravity are used consistently for both combat and puzzles, with the game finding creative ways to recontextualize them. Even though some episodes look a little too samey, the mothership has so much personality and works great as the main setting.
Singularity lets you become a Time Lord
I miss AA FPS games
The late 2000s and early 2010s were a golden era for first-person shooters, as publishers dropped one experimental AA game after another. Sure, they weren't all winners, but many of them were funny or at least charming. Peculiarity was one of the genre's better B-tier releases from this period, and it's still readily available on Steam for anyone looking to revisit in 2010.
Set on a Soviet research island and focusing on a timeline fracture, Of the singularity selling point is TMD (Time Manipulation Device) which increases both shooting and level transition. While the shooting mechanics are very solid, the real fun comes from manipulating the physical world through rapid aging (or de-aging), and that's just an upgrade. The puzzles are relatively rudimentary (from what I remember), but they are visually interesting as the majority of them revolve around switching environments using the TMD.
Darkwatch is a supernatural western FPS game
What more needs to be said?
Darkwatch
- Released
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August 16, 2005
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Sexual Themes
We rarely get games like that Darkwatch longer from well-known developers and publishers. High Moon Studios did so well for about a decade, and it's a real shame that the studio's modern output consists solely of Call of Duty assist the work. While I prefer Transformers Cybertron games that came soon after, Darkwatch is a top contender for coolest game ever, and it plays pretty well too!
You play as Jericho Cross, a cowboy train robber who becomes a vampire and is recruited by monster hunters. Darkwatch gives you a small but amazing array of weapons, all of which serve a purpose and are best used in conjunction with each other. Since you can save or harvest souls, the game features a morality system that allows you to be good or evil, with those choices affecting the story and your abilities.
Darkwatch is the complete package: stunning world-building, top-notch combat, and an unbeatable sense of style.
