Serious Sam and his Amazing Friends

I've recently become aware that holy hell are there a lot of first-person shooters coming out this year. We've already gotten Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Killzone 3, Conduit 2, Homefront, and Portal 2 (though that's more of a puzzler). Upcoming is Brink, Bodycount, F.E.A.R. 3, Red Faction: Armageddon, Duke Nukem Forever, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Resistance 3, Serious Sam 3, Battlefield 3, XCOM, and Rage. That's not counting really similar third-person shooters like Gears of War 3 and SOCOM 4, nor anything to be unveiled at E3 like a new Call of Duty or Halo, nor anything I forgot to mention. Most of them with XP-grubbing mutliplayer and DLC to encourage addiction continuous, long-lasting play.

Wow! I'm no FPS fan, but that's one hell of a lineup. Look at all those games. Their histories, their legacies, their stories and momentum, all intersecting at this moment. The long-delayed Duke Nukem Forever. The seminal third installments of several blockbuster console franchises. The first new IP from id Software since Quake. What's looking to be the real sequel to Deus Ex that fans have been waiting for for a decade. Serious Sam 3. Huge franchises, and promising newbies. Nearly every major FPS producer, from EA to id to Splash Damage, is throwing their hat in the ring this year, polishing their multimillion dollar baby, pushing those features that make them unique. So many circling, positioning, prepping their marketing campaigns, working long nights to give gamers the experience that will earn their finicky dollars.

What I'm saying is, there is no way all of them can be profitable. No. Way. These games are so huge and packed with content that you could play any one of them for months. It's too much even if you play FPS games exclusively, and won't buy any of the other huge 2011 games. No no, no way all of these get another sequel.

And of course, every single one of them is coming out on the 360 and PS3, a fact I love ribbing my PC-gamer brother about. I can remember when first-person shooters were rare on consoles, and more often than not derided where they appeared. But, not to disparage the fine other FPS games that have arrived before (Perfect Dark anyone?), the trinity of GoldenEye, Halo, and Call of Duty have pushed the genre inexorably to the forefront of the console gamer's mind.

Like I said, I'm no real FPS fan (though Serious Sam 3 is one of the few games I might buy new this year), but this confluence is really interesting to me, just from a business and cultural perspective. I wonder how it's going to shake out.