Rhys from Awesome Games writes: 'Now hear me out on this one. How bizarre would it be if the first ever third person cover shooter ever made was not, in fact, Western made, but instead by a small Japanese team more famous for the Dynasty Warriors franchise? It sounds like something I’ve just pulled from thin air, but, it’s actually the truth.'
Let’s examine the roots of the cover based shooting mechanic made famous by Gears of War.
Winback was a fun game. I remember the graphics were top notch on it and the 4 player MP was pretty sweet. Goldeneye and perfect dark definitely owned FPS then, but this was a great change of pace
TGE:
In today's modern gaming environment, most any shooter title, be it first-person or third, is nearly required to have some sort of cover mechanic. Only a few in recent memory, such as Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, have foregone the inclusion of a cover system, and those titles are far more the exception than the rule.
We here at The Game Effect, wanted to take a moment to examine the beginnings of this now ubiquitous mechanic. The origins behind the cover system can be traced back to 1975 and the now, near extinct, arcade.
Pioneers have always been a very important part of the video game industry, they mark the few occasions where someone tried to do something different and that something different actually turned out to be kinda cool. So cool in fact, that everyone else starts to incorporate it into their own projects. Eventually after enough games use that “something different” it then becomes the new standard that everyone has to adhere to if they want to be taken seriously.
While Guitar Hero/Rock Band is basically a direct rip of GuitarFreaks, Drummania and Karaoke Rev/SingStar...
Gears of War is also a rip of RE4's perspective, WinBack and KillSwith. Even in design, it's like UT.
Then again, I guess no game is completely original.
And what about Metroid? I believe that game provided more than a couple of things to gaming. And Super Metroid perfected the formula.
Blackthorne in 1994 (Blizzard game for 32x, PC, SNES, Genesis) had a pop-out-and-shoot cover system.
That's true! You didn't exactly use “cover” though, but it’s still defiantly a game worth remembering for that mechanic!
