Clearance Bin - The Games I've Played

I've talked about the sales bins at Walmart, but another great place to pick up cheap random games is in the back corner of the electronics department of K-Mart or the computer game isle next to the books and magazines in Target.

In these corners of stores, you'll be able to find either games that they bought too many of and were expecting to be big hits or games that never took off and the store is trying to get rid of because no one has ever heard of the game, and they want to get rid of them to make room for whatever is getting released and costs $70. 

Today, I'm going to cover the games that I've picked up from those bins that aren't on my trophy list because they're old enough, ghetto enough, or both old and ghetto that they don't have trophies. With no trophies, I have no way of knowing when I played them, so I'm just dumping it here. 

Now to tell you just how random this game is, and how unknown it is- while trying to search for images or anything about the game, I couldn't find the game on Metacritic's list of ps3 FPS's. 

This game is one of those that has potential to do some really crazy and inventive things with the idea of FPS games and it went unnoticed, mainly from horrible game play, and poorly written story. 

Now, let's talk about one of the best things that came out of this game before I dive into tearing it apart as the horrible FPS that it truly is. The innovative part of this game that could be something interesting, but turned out to be nothing, was the fact that your guns, your grenades, and even general combat can change the terrain around you. You don't have cover? Shoot your gun and raise the ground around you so that you can hide behind a hill. Want the high ground to snipe from? Throw a grenade and make a pillar of rock shoot up that you can stand on. Your opponents getting the high ground on you? Shoot underneath them and make them fall as the ground disappears underneath them. 

I'm no fps player, but this is one of those mechanics that I think could lead to some really interesting tactical choices. You could do a lot with being able to alter the ground and do whatever you want with it in the heat of battle. The reality of that mechanic and the gameplay that is attached to it annoying to get through a battle, and you're more likely to treat the field like a traditional FPS than you are to abuse and use the terrain gun unless there's something really specific that you need to do. The land mechanic isn't used so much in fighting as it is in rare times that the story wants you to do something and says something along the lines of, "Hey! Remember that gun that we gave you that does that stuff? You never use it, but we're going to make it worth our production team's time making it by forcing you to use it right here."

As for story line - I can't remember it. Even with other FPS's that I've made my way through I could tell you a rough story line, but this stuck with the COD formula of not making the story line memorable enough that I cared about anything that was going on. I'm not even sure if I ever finished the whole game.

There's a reason that this was on a bargain shelf. The story was forgettable, the innovative mechanic fell short of it's potential, and it turned itself into a generic first person shooter that didn't want to make any waves or do anything new, so it turned into being something average.