Feel the Wrath of My Mighty... Um... Supersoaker

Looking for a single-player, level-based FPS with the feel of Doom or Serious Sam, and not all that interested in getting pwned by smack-talking teenage jerks with way too much time on their hands in online play? Then Commander Josh is the thing for you.

Created by one guy (really!), Commander Josh has graphics at about Quake level, and some pretty involved levels. As to the supersoaker--well, your main weapon is a watergun. Shorts out the androids who are your main opponents, see, without breaching the walls of the Mars colony, which is good because it's nice to continue breathing. Maybe if the Chronicles continue, you'll get to use some more awesome weaponry.

I Long for Combat

...as one of the units in Starcraft says. If you long for combat, you'd be hard put to find a better game than Crimsonland, which is a pure, fast, intense third-person gorefest. Story? Pah! Who needs story when there are things to shoot, with a wide variety of high-powered weapons and 50 levels to conquer. Shoot, grab the powerups, retreat when necessary, and shoot some more.

Blow Things Up Real Good

DevastationZone Troopers is not a deep game--but there is a lot to be said for picking one thing and doing it well. And DZT does precisely that: it's a Ramboesque third-person shooter (in nicely rendered 3D) where you run around, gun blazing, and blow things up real good. Cathartic fun, in other words.

"Diablo Lite"

Evil Invasion is in the mold of fast, frenetic overhead-view third-person shooters like Crimsonland or Robotron, but with a difference: rather than gory combat with futuristic weapons, this game is set in a fantasy world, the "weapons" are magic spells, and there's an RPG-like character advancement system. You can think of it as "Diablo Lite," if you will; more retro graphics, and not as much depth, but a similar aesthetic. Good gory fantasy fun.

Arrgh! Die!

Here's another genre they don't make any more--2D third-person platform shooters, like Duke Nuke'm back before the Duke went 3D. Developed pretty much by one guy (Dusan Stevanovic), it's a damn impressive effort for a one-man shop. If hopping about and blowing crap up sounds good to you, well, pally, that's what the demo is for, eh?

No technological glitch could lure people from what is the heart of video games: a good gameplay.

...as the Fast Lane Carnage manual says. Mais oui, Comrade Millet.

From this, you may conclude the developer's English is not so good--and also, to be sure, that the aesthetic of the game is one that Manifestoites will find wholly sympathetic. But for all that--this is a very French game.

Not French as in the France of the Guide Michelin, the Rive Gauche, or Jacques Chirac. Rather, the France of Mobius, Metal Hurlant and the bandes dessinee, the gritty, adult French comics that are as alien to the American form as Japanese manga; of the bizarre Franco-Algerian slang of the French underworld; of the polar noir, movies even bleaker and more brutal than their American counterparts.

That's Gibbage as in "gibs," from "giblets"--the body parts strewn across the screen in FPS games like Doom and Quake.

Gibbage is a truly odd and heart-warmingly gory game that combines the mechanics of retro platformers with the aesthetic of the modern first-person shooter. The graphics are cartoony, and would not look amiss on a NES or pre-CD-ROM PC; the gameplay is deathmatch shooting madness. Your avatar runs and leaps about, gathering powerups and dispatching your foe with massive firepower, a 3D game's gibs replaced with pixellated blood.

2005 IGF Winner for Excellence in Audio

Global Defense Network is, uh, a rhythm shooter. If that's possible. That is, as fast-paced electronic music plays, you shoot various objects whizzing about the screen--as you might in a shooting gallery, except that there are a wide variety of potential targets that behave quite differently. As you play, you unlock new levels, with new music, new targets, and new weapons for you to use.

Be a Giant Transforming Battle Robot

Let your inner twelve-year old say "Cool!".

Gun Metal is a level-based third-person shooter in which you control a mech--a giant battle bot--that can also transform into a jet aircraft. In a series of levels, you battle enemy tanks, hovertanks, aircraft, artillery, and so on, generally with some ground support from friendly troops. Kind of mindless fun, and maybe not the most creative game ever published, but hey, at ten bucks, it's a pretty good deal.

A Hit on Xbox Live Arena

Heavy Weapon is a sidescrolling shooter in the classic style; you control a tank, blazing away at enemy aircraft moving overhead and trying to bomb you into oblivion. In Mission mode, there are 19 levels (each with its own boss), and there's also a Survival mode with no pause in the onslaught. Scads of weapons and powerups, as you might expect. On the whole, good brainless fun.