FPS Wii U title to be revealed this week, says insider

[Torillian]

TheLastStarFighter said:

Torillian said:

MohammadBadir said:

jamesmarkus87 said:
Metroid Prime 4... I wish

that's FPA.

That was an interesting discussion in the staff chat a few weeks ago or so.  I argued that the term FPA was only used because Nintendo fans didn't want Metroid to be thought of as anything close to Call of Duty and that no other game was thought to be in the subgenre.  What other games would you put down as FPA's?

I would call it a legitimate sub-genre.  Some other titles would include the Bioshocks, and I would also include games like the later Myst titles or Turok.  There is no doubt that the pacing, exploration and style of a title like Metroid or Bioshock is very different from a Halo or COD.  Whether it's 1st person, 3rd person, side-scroler or 3D, I would suggest action titles or "shooters" tend to be straight-line affairs, while Adventure games involve back-tracking and/or exploration.

Seems like a pretty flimsy definition that is not easily differentiated from other titles.  Then again I suppose it fits along with games like Unchated being defined as Action/Adventure instead of Third Person Shooter which they clearly are.  People think that Adventure makes it sound different and less like the plethora of titles that are out there.  Which means that any time a shooter doesn't fit within these predefined norms it gets called something else and people wonder why all shooters all the same.  Reminds me of JRPGs and how they're so stringently defined by some and then people question why they never change.  It's simply because by definition they can't change, or they'll become something else entirely.

All that said, I like your idea of Adventure titles being defined by the amount of backtracking and exploration involved, but I think it's more useful for games that are obviously first person adaptations of classic adventure titles such as myst and Gone Home versus games like Metroid and Bioshock which are First person adaptations of action/adventure in which the action portion has been replaced with pretty standard FPS shooting mechanics.  I could see First Person Shooter/Adventure maybe, but I think FPS is a far better definition than grouping these titles up with true FPA games.