Top 10 Forgotten First Person Shooters.

“Star Wars” games have been a mixed bag when it comes to popularity, this is one that wasn’t, possibly due to its conspicuous lack of Jedi, or due to the fact that it was a spin off of Attack of the Clones. It certainly wasn’t due to the excellent and fast-paced tactical gameplay, which put you in control of Delta Squad, a team of elite clone troopers. As much fun as it is to use the force, this game proved that you didn’t need light sabers to have a sweet Star Wars experience, as with awesome guns like the DC-17 Interchangeable Weapons System proved.

This game didn’t sell particularly well, but we know better than to trust the opinions of the general public too much. Developer Epic Games was so open about marketing this unconventional shooter as a “CoD” anthesis that they made a hilarious parody game called “Duty Calls,” to help promote their game, but most gamers were uninterested in upending the status quo. They missed out, as the game’s peerlessly vulgar humor kept us laughing for hours, and the fun “skillshot” system rewarded our violent creativity and gave you a legitimate reason play through multiple times.

The titular artist who designed this game and voiced the character Ambrose is a best-selling horror novelist, but apparently his name didn’t carry too much clout over into the gaming world. Way ahead of it’s time, you do a lot more than shoot, like use cool spells such as Scrye, which allows you to see things that are invisible or took place into the past. You’ll need whatever you can get, because the terrifying story has you fight supernatural powers like the evil Undying King.

This unique shooter brought innovation into a genre that gets accused of being stale. Unfortunately, as this game’s lack of staying power proved, most people prefer their shooters tried and true. That’s too bad for them, because Prey was thinking with Portals before Portal was even thought of. Not only did it contain reality bending effects, but the spirit walk mechanic and the lack of true in game death meant there was a lot of fresh ideas packed into what seemed like a very generic shooter, on the surface.

Shogo was an anime influenced shooter that had you running around both on foot and in a giant mech, with both controlling almost identically. It’s a shame it wasn’t more of a hit, because on top of the beautiful looking visuals, there really wasn’t anything else out there that let you stomp around a city in a giant robot and still feel fast and fluid while you do it. Maybe the art style didn’t resonate with western gamers, but who wouldn’t like blowing stuff up in giant robots? That never goes out of style.

This futuristic cop game brought a host of features to the table that were uncommon for the time, such as non-linear gameplay, highly interactive environments, and the potential to knock an enemy’s gun from his hand. It also brought in a lot of stuff we consider to be genre tropes today: turret sections, the “voice in your head” NPC telling you were to go, and unique death animations. SiN had the unfortunate fate of being released at the same time as Half-Life, and unfortunately the realistic tone it did so well was overshadowed considerably from its harsh competition.

Next up is a game that was unlucky with its release date. The violent shooter with a dystopian setting hit the shelves soon after the Columbine shooting, and lots of politicians and lobbyists jumped on it due to its graphic and vulgar nature, leading to it eventually not hitting the shelves at all in certain stores. It’s not like Kingpin didn’t deserve it’s reputation. It really was violent as all hell, was one of the first games to feature fully voiced f-bombs, and had a real world setting that was begging for controversy. Mission Accomplished.

Until “Tron Legacy” came out, this was the only sequel to the cult flick, and it’s so good that we would’ve been fine with having the franchise end here. But just like the original film, the sales were poor. This game had almost too many cool ideas to list. The disk throwing combat, the light cycle races, the wicked weapon animations, everything was new a fresh for the genre. Plus, being set inside a computer offered some really cool scenarios, like when you have to run from a slowly advancing wall of destruction as the hard drive you find yourself on is being formatted.

I’ll be the first to admit it, this game gave me the creeps. True to its name, this game features plenty of violence, but its how you enact said violence that was most noteworthy. Instead of just your standard pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher bag of weapons, you also had a pitchfork for stabbing, a flare gun for lighting dudes on fire, and a voodoo doll for enacting otherworldly pain. Blood was freaky, weird and more violent that almost anything we’d seen before, permanently scarring our tender brains for years to come.
Before we get to our number one, let’s take a look at some honorable mentions:

“Rage” (2011)
“Singularity” (2010)
“MAG” (2010)
“Unreal 2” (2005)
“Command and Conquer: Renegade” (2002)

Despite this title’s sharp wit, it unfortunately doesn’t get the respect it deserves. It parodies classic secret agent films, and it upends the formula by featuring a female protagonist, the beautiful super-spy Cate Archer. A super spy named Archer, who’d have thought? She has to stop a group of criminals known as “H.A.R.M.,” and like any good spy movie you’ll travel the globe, go to exotic locations and use a ton of cool gadgets along the way. You may play as a woman, but honestly, this is the closest thing to a good James Bond game as we’ve ever seen, and that includes a certain N64 classic.

Chances are there’s a gem of a First Person Shooter that we don’t know about, so let us know what hidden gems we should look out for, and for more underrated top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.