Shooter Video Games

Retaining the open-world characteristics of Far Cry 2 while returning to an island setting similar to that of the original Far Cry, Ubisoft's shooter Far Cry 3 puts players in control of Jason Brody, a tourist who finds himself stranded on a lawless island where warlords and indigenous rebels have spent years mired in bloody conflict. Gamers can explore the jungles, swamps, mountains, and beaches of the island in a variety of ways, including speeding over land in jeeps, trucks, and ATVs, soaring through the air in hang gliders, and gliding across the water in speedboats.

As Brody attempts to reconnect with his girlfriend he will interact with a cast of unusual characters, come across more than 20 different species of wild and sometimes dangerous animals, and discover ancient ruins, shipwrecks, and caves. He can also earn money during his adventure by playing poker, racing, and winning shooting and knife-throwing contests. Players gain experience as they fight their way across the island, developing better stealth skills and combat techniques, and collecting plants and animal parts to craft new and improved items.

A separate co-op mode spins an entirely different story, as four crew members of a seedy cruise ship set out on a six-chapter campaign to track down the captain who stole their valuables and sold them out to pirates. Other multiplayer features include classic modes in which gamers team up to capture land or kill the most enemies, while the Firestorm mode finds two teams competing to turn opposing bases into raging infernos. Creative players can also design and share custom multiplayer maps using the included map editor.

~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

IO Interactive's bald assassin comes to PS3 for the first time as gamers help Agent 47 avoid the police, eliminate those who betrayed him, and uncover a deep conspiracy in Hitman: Absolution. The developer's new Glacier 2 AI system was designed to mimic the wide range in intelligence, behavior, and response seen in real humans, while the trial-and-error gameplay of previous entries in the series has been replaced by a new AI attention meter that lets gamers know exactly how close other characters are to spotting Agent 47, so they can back off when needed.

As always, the build up to the kill is as much of the gameplay experience as actually performing the assassination, and the freedom to choose how to perform a hit is a direct result of how much players plan, observe, and listen, and how creative they feel. Hitman: Absolution rewards gamers for performing classic moves by allowing them to use the new Instinct mode, in which they see the world through Agent 47's eyes and can map out enemy patrol routes, spot weapons, and locate shortcuts or ways to escape. Players can also accomplish their tasks by donning a variety of disguises or impersonating victims, but doing so may elicit unpredictable reactions from other characters. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Activision's massively successful first-person shooter franchise returns to the shady world of clandestine missions and deniable operations, while for the first time adding in branching storylines and near-future combat in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The single-player story weaves between the exploits of original Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason in the 1980s, and those of his son David Mason in the year 2025. A Nicaraguan drug-lord and terrorist named Raul Menendez provides a timeline-spanning villain, with gamers witnessing his formative years and his ascent to power.

The early portion of the campaign finds players joining Alex Mason and other operatives as they fight proxy wars in Cold War hotspots like Central America and Afghanistan; actions that partially spur Menendez into forming his populist Cordis Die movement. The futuristic portions of the game occur after an electronic attack brings down the Chinese Stock Exchange, leading to a new cold war in which China stops exporting rare earth elements. Much of the new war is fought with cyber attacks, robots, and unmanned aerial vehicles, with Menendez antagonizing both sides into a larger conflicts in places like Los Angeles, Singapore, and Yemen. The branching storylines of new Strike Force missions take place in the 2025 portion of campaign, with the selection of one path locking out several other missions, and permanent deaths resulting in constantly shifting goals and conflict-resolution possibilities.

Set exclusively in 2025, the Black Ops II multiplayer modes remain a vital part of the Call of Duty package and have received a variety of upgrades and alterations designed to promote teamwork and make the action more accessible to newcomers. A new multi-team option expands the traditional squad-vs.-squad mechanic to include three or more teams, the Create-A-Class feature has been changed to allow for the creation of custom characters, and Kill Streak bonuses have been renamed Score Streaks to reward gamers for completing specific actions rather than simply offing a number of foes in succession.

Developer Treyarch has also included and expanded its popular co-op zombie action, with the Tranzit mode letting up to four players battle zombies and travel on foot or in a bus through an expansive landscape. The Survival mode asks gamers to defend a single area as waves of undead descend upon them, while the new Grief mode finds with two teams of four competing to see who can survive the zombie invasion the longest. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

A direct sequel to EA's 2010 franchise reboot, Medal of Honor: Warfighter once again puts PS3 gamers in the role of elite Tier 1 operators as they battle the world's most dangerous terrorists in places like the Philippines, Bosnia, and Somalia. The single-player story follows the life of Tier 1 soldier Preacher as he struggles to readjust to civilian life, only to have his world rocked when a massive PETN bomb goes off on U.S. soil. Players then join familiar characters Stump, Mother, and Voodoo as they attempt to track down the source of the explosives.

Though the game is still built on EA DICE's Frostbite 2 engine, Danger Close Games handled all development of Warfighter, including the new Fireteam multiplayer mode in which two players join forces to share health and ammo during battle. Gamers can select special Tier 1 soldiers from ten different countries, including Germany, South Korea, Russia, and three different branches of the U.S. military, and then choose from the Assault, Sniper, Demolitions, Point Man, Heavy Gunner, and Spec Ops character classes. As many as 20 players can compete across eight different maps in a variety of modes, including Combat Mission, Team Deathmatch, and Sector Control.

This Limited Edition immediately unlocks the British SAS Spec Ops and U.S. Navy SEAL Sniper & Rifle multiplayer options, and includes a map pack inspired by the film Zero Dark Thirty, and early access to the Battlefield 4 beta. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Gamers participate in a mix of shooting, stealth, and intrigue as they play through classic scenes starring Daniel Craig's version of fiction's greatest spy in 007 Legends. The action finds players gathering intel, piloting vehicles, using advanced gadgets, and battling familiar villains as they weave through scenes from Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Moonraker, License to Kill, and Die Another Day. Additionally, a Skyfall mission will be made available as downloadable content post-release.

Players can unlock and upgrade a variety of gadgets and weapons, and multiplayer options include four-player local split-screen and 12-player online competitions. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Capcom's long-running series about zombies, bioterrorism, and political machinations continues with four distinct campaigns, overhauled controls, and four-player co-op in Resident Evil 6. One campaign begins with Leon S. Kennedy and his partner Helena Harper attending an anti-bioterrorism speech by the President of the United States, only to be forced to kill him when he becomes an infected mutant. A second campaign features Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans as they head to China to battle the spread of a powerful new strain known as "C-virus."

The third campaign takes place in Eastern Europe and stars Jake Muller, son of series antagonist Albert Wesker, and Raccoon City survivor-turned government agent Sherry Birkin, as they flee from a biomechanical abomination know as an Uranak. The fourth campaign can only be unlocked once gamers finish the first three, and it stars longtime series antihero Ada Wong. All three main campaigns offer co-op support, and some sections of the game combine two groups for four-player action; while the new "Agent Hunt" multiplayer mode lets PS3 gamers become monsters and infiltrate the campaigns of fellow players. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Gearbox sends gamers back to the Borderlands for a shooter-adventure sequel of high-velocity combat and custom character development. The first-person action plays out in dystopian outpost environments on the original game's planet of Pandora, five years later, as a greedy industrialist called Handsome Jack seeks to weed out the local populace through a series of gladiator matches. Players choose from four new character types, each with three branches of specialized development in the game's RPG-like experience system. Experience comes with kills and quest completions.

Expanding on the original game, Borderlands 2's gun system can create millions of different computer-generated weapons, as well as shields and equipment enhancements. Non-player characters are more expressive, and quest outcomes have more influence on the game world. In addition to the dusty, desert settings of the first adventure, the sequel visits a number of new Pandora environments, including the merciless frozen tundra where the revenge-driven plotline begins. Online, over a local network, or in split screen, the game's co-op mode allows a second player to freely join and drop out of a game in session. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide

PS3 gamers get a glimpse of the final days on the Transformers' home planet as they take part in the brutal civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons in Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Players can control a variety of familiar Transformers from each side of the battle, including Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream, and each character can dynamically transform from robot to vehicle at any time. Each level is tailored to a character's specific skills, resulting in 3D action, shooting, bombing, flying, melee combat, and even stealth missions.

Fall of Cybertron includes an expansive arsenal of weapons, and gamers can stop at stations around each level to log into the in-game computer network Teletraan and purchase weapon upgrades, power-ups, and permanent ability perks. The co-op campaign mode from War for Cybertron has been removed, but players can still create their own Transformer and join up to 11 others for a variety of online multiplayer modes. ~ Christopher Brown, All Game Guide

Elite counter-terrorism agents lead the way, into a modern-military heart of darkness, as the gritty Spec Ops series returns to action in 2012. In the unflinching style of its PC predecessors, The Line challenges players to accomplish missions through third-person squad tactics; surveillance, stealth, and bloody firefights. The narrative poses challenges as well, in a progression of desperate circumstances and lose-lose moral dilemmas. Battles take place in an abandoned desert city, where players' efforts are complicated by sand that covers buildings and blows through the streets.

For opulent Dubai, the apocalypse is now, as massive windstorms have buried the city beneath millions of tons of sand. With the assistance of the U.S. Army, most of the metropolis was successfully evacuated, but Colonel John Konrad remained behind with his squad. Konrad's unit has now been isolated by the sandstorms, and is feared lost. The players' objective is to find the missing soldiers and -- if possible -- bring them back home. The sand-filled city poses unusual dangers, but also opportunities, for special operatives who can hide in the obscuring winds, or smother enemies beneath a triggered avalanche. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide