I’ve been thinking about the genre question posed by Tycho around games like Monday Night Combat and I believe I’ve finally come to peace with a name. First, I present the rationale.
A “team sport” implies people are working together toward a shared objective. It does not require an opposing team, like the Blitz mode in Monday Night Combat, and the expectation that team members may have different roles is not out of line. Football and Baseball are essentially class based multiplayer. Team sport can suggest both competition against others in real-time, or competition against other teams’ posted times, scores, or other achievements.
A “shooter” is understood to be a player controlling an avatar navigating a 3D space and generally “shooting” stuff with weapons. Usually this is from a 1st person perspective but 3rd person is acceptable provided the camera rotates with with character. Setting doesn’t matter as FPS games range from prehistoric times to far future science fiction. They range from ultra violent, to completely non-violent. Story heavy to a complete absence of one. It boils down to this: you know you’re playing a shooter if you run around a 3D environment with a camera affixed to your character in its head or over the shoulder, point the camera at stuff, press a button, and cause meaningful change in the environment. Sure, it’s an abstract definition and elements can be nitpicked, but I’m sticking with it. So there.
When I consider the intersection of these two notions, team sport and shooter, it immediately conjures images of my favorite multiplayer game modes. CTF, Domination, VIP, Search and Destroy, and Headquarters, not to mention Monday Night Combat’s Crossfire and Blitz modes! So for me, this just works. Monday Night Combat is a Team Sport Shooter, and while it may not be the birth of the genre I believe it will definitely go down as a milestone in its history. It’s got bacon after all.
