I've come to notice a parallel betwixt the under rated games of this generation and those of the last. When Iron Phoenix was released it was be rated ultimately by critics including but not limited to OXM's Francesca Reyes. Heck even gamespot gave it a 4.1 poor rating seen herehttp://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/ironphoenix/index.html?tag=result;title;0
There was no singleplayer mode and there were glitches but despite that there was a following of gamers who still chose to play it online and off in spite of the many new releases around the same time and .
It did have one thing going for it though that lent itself to longevity...bots with seemingly ever changing AI. I don't think any of the critics bothered to mention it and if they did it was shirked and taken for granted... To this day I'd still be playing it if it if Microsoft would only ink a deal with its creators and license holders (where ever they are now) to offer it up at the very least as a digital download since I think its safe to say that they've given up on bc-ing it. Who knows may be they could workout the glitches too.
A quick glance over at its forum posts over at sega suggests that there'd still be a following of gamers for it if it were brought over but I think they're too intimidated by it to make that move.http://forums.sega.com/forumdisplay.php?s=226907dd698b9440d43517e1df66bcc7&f=75&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=lastpost
Then there's shadowrun. I mean I've been paying that game just about everyday since I bought it. To me its become the iron phoenix of this generation. it recieved a tepid 6.9 just one point shy of a full 7 byt Jeff Gerstmann yet ironically enough I enjoy playing it offline with the bots alot more than most of the other more "modern" FPS shooters that have come out.
You know the other day I bought a PS3? I've downloaded some demos for it some FPSs like Killzone 2, Punisher No Mercy, and Uncharted 2 (yeah, even though that's a 3rd person shooter I'm including it here cause of its multiplayer).
Which brings me back to my point. You know after I've played all those games' demos? I still came back to Shadowrun? Really I did. And I've played bioshock, and rainbow six vegas too but I still want to play Shadowrun.
I don't feel like buying HALO 3: ODST because they shot down the idea of having bots with ever changing AI and without it I feel like its just more HALO 3 besides I don't really like prequels and I kind of expected there to be bots in the HALO 3multiplayer mode and for there to be the option of playing with/as soldiers and not just more covenant versus spartans(if I recall correctly you could do that,Spartans vs Covenant, in HALO 2) .
I kind of expected there to be bots in the HALO 3multiplayer modemultiplayer mode because they bragged so much how much smarter the ai was in the singleplayer, couldn't they have simply made the AI more modular and adaptive and cut and paste the code required to reference the soldier/covenant models and AI in multiplayer with a few tweaks here and there to the coding? How hard would that have been? and not just this 4 player co-op stuff
Shadowrun and Iron Phoenix share two things in common they have a more so social atmosphere because they are multiplayer centric? and they have bots with ever changing AI that present a challenge.
I guess I could add the third thing being that they both have no end in sight since they're devoid of much of any plot (outside of the extras option in iron phoenix). Shadowrun doesn't really have much in the way of a story at all but then if you were to compare it to a fighting game where you're playing online?
Or better yet to counterstrike there's no story in either case doesn't stop people from coming back for more...The glitches were present at one point too and to be fair its still not perfect but I still like it despite its flaws and don't see the point in buying another flaw filled game or any other "modern" shooters that choose to eschew bots and ai in multiplayer.
To buy one of those modern shooters without ANY bots and AI post Unreal? is like sitting down to have some cereal but choosing to eschew the bowl and milk. Just pouring it on the counter/table and just digging in with that spoon at the ready... I want the bowl AND some mik with my cereal...
unless its ALL-Bran that's good out of a plastic bag with no milk in a half cup serving mmm free demos...