By Nathan Grayson on October 31st, 2012 at 10:00 am.
Often to my own detriment, I am wildly intrigued by things that confuse and frighten me. True story: this kind of thinking resulted in me being chased across a gorgeous Japanese park by a herd of enraged deer. It’s with a similar mentality that I bring you word of First Person Shouter. From the look of things, it’s about embittered nerds rebelling against their school bully oppressors by… screaming at them? I think there might also be psychic powers. It’s certainly got an eye for style, though, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw my implicit support behind such unabashed punsmanship. Study it in the form of a maybe-not-so-timely Skyrim parody after the break.
I’m definitely digging the dingy, Sin-City-ish school environment they’ve created. That, however, isn’t the only thing that stands out here. See, First Person Shouter is microphone-controlled. You shout, and so does your character. Here’s the full rundown:
“Darkness has swept over your our high school. Darkness in Adidas tracksuits. For too long have you and your fellow classmates been under the firm Nike shoe of the bullies. Its time to fight back! But do not fear, you have a rare gift. You have… THE VOICE. Prepare to lose your voice, as you experience the power of controlling the world around you by shouting! Basically, the game is in first person, but instead of doing something boring and typical like clicking to attack, you shout into a microphone to play.”
Originally, developer The Anti-Socialites wanted to have First Person Shouter finished by now for submission to the 2013 Independent Games Festival Student Showcase, but that didn’t end up working out. Apparently, though, a demo’s right around the corner.
In the meantime, there’s definite promise in this one – even if it seems like a bit of a crazy hodgepodge idea-wise. If nothing else, it’ll be solid, silly fun (just imagine screaming at your opponents in multiplayer), but bullying’s also ground that gaming rarely covers in a meaningful way. Well, you know, aside from Rockstar’s, er, Bully. Regardless, silly things can still pack an emotional punch, so we’ll see. And if not, SHOUTING. IT’S FUN AND NEVER ANNOYS ANYONE AND I ONCE USED IT TO SCARE AWAY SOME REALLY MEAN DEER.
31/10/2012 at 10:04 Makariel says:
FUS RO DAH!
31/10/2012 at 20:05 Vandelay says:
FUS RO DOE surely?
31/10/2012 at 10:11 f1x says:
The style is nice, even if a bit too abusing on black + neon red
I’m curious about how that shouting thing is gonna work
31/10/2012 at 10:19 Didero says:
Welp, best watch that trailer quickly before it gets taken down by Bethesda.
31/10/2012 at 10:35 theloz says:
Hell yes I can’t wait to play this on the train.
31/10/2012 at 10:37 Priestman says:
Comes with authentic bugs! If I didn’t know any better, I would have easily mistaken this for Fallshout 4.
31/10/2012 at 10:39 Henke says:
Well, I know what I’ll be shouting when playing this: THIS IS SO FUCKING STUPID
31/10/2012 at 10:58 castorp says:
The ‘true story’ sounds like you’ve been to Nara – deer do that there.
31/10/2012 at 11:56 yurusei says:
Don’t do this in real life kids.
You only get hit harder.
31/10/2012 at 12:00 moreyummystuff says:
If you set your recording input to “stereo/wave output” it’ll play itself?
31/10/2012 at 12:09 particlese says:
I was just thinking I would treat it like a DS game and blow at the mic, but I like your idea. It would be like that Red Dwarf episode “Justice”…
31/10/2012 at 12:35 zbmott says:
And then just crank up some Ensiferum or somesuch…
+1
31/10/2012 at 14:05 Smion says:
I wonder if it’ll require you to pronounce actual words. If so, I would love to see a let’s play by a dude raised in rural ireland/scotland/manchester/general-non-america being driven into despair by the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZ32TygD9c
31/10/2012 at 12:03 Outright Villainy says:
When I saw the name I thought Chris Livingston was reviving his blog in game form.
If only…
31/10/2012 at 12:17 liquidindian says:
Chris is writing some stuff for a certain rival PC website at the moment.
31/10/2012 at 12:36 InternetBatman says:
Skyrim the High School Years? Skyrim Evolution? Saved by the Fus Ro Dah?
31/10/2012 at 12:38 pupsikaso says:
Wasn’t there a game just like this recently? I think it had zombies, though…
31/10/2012 at 13:16 wodin says:
Who remembers an old Speccy game set in a school? Can’t remember what it was called now..good fun though.
31/10/2012 at 13:20 Antsy says:
Skool Daze?
31/10/2012 at 13:43 wodin says:
Thats the one!
31/10/2012 at 13:21 Harlander says:
Skool Daze, remade later as Klass of ’99?
ETA: God dammit Antsy :p
31/10/2012 at 13:22 Antsy says:
Chortle
31/10/2012 at 13:58 Skabooga says:
Haha! I remember that! I punched so many kids in the face.
31/10/2012 at 13:56 SkittleDiddler says:
Deer God, this looks simply bad.
31/10/2012 at 14:06 ehsfoewa says:
And here I was thinking indie voice acting couldn’t be any more atrocious. Leave it to indie devs to raise the bar on my expectations!
31/10/2012 at 16:02 sinister agent says:
Hmph. SWAT 4 is the true first person shouter. Without mastering the “sneak up behind a suspect and scream in his ears”, or the always intense simultaneous quintuple yell technique, you’ll never be King of the SWATS, or whatever.
31/10/2012 at 17:49 Phantoon says:
SWAT has royalty?
31/10/2012 at 18:45 CMaster says:
I thought the same thing. Compared to SWAT, this looks like a weak entry in the established first person shouter genre.