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

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Torillian said:

TheLastStarFighter said:

Torillian said:

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.   

The definition of "adventure game" is nebulous at best. In accordance to my personal rules of thumb for discourse on these forums, I try to assume Wikipedia definition for everything... but the "adventure game" is an oddball, because it's only defining aspect is being an interactive story. Usually they're driven by puzzle and exploration gameplay, but neither or those are unique to the genre, and there are exceptions to the rule (The Stanley Parable, Dear Esther, Thirty Flights of Loving, ect.). So, by extension, I don't think it's necessarily right to say that an action/adventure game is an action/adventure game because it has some required puzzles and exploration in addition to combat and/or platforming, which are central to the action genre. Or at least it doesn't make much sense.

In fact, once upon a time I tried to make a thread detailing the sub-genres of action/adventure, with two methods of organizing action/adventure games into the sub-genres. I got pretty far but, once I realized that the adventure genre itself isn't well-defined or organized to begin with, I stopped. :P

On another note, I can't say I have any fondness for terms like "JRPG/WRPG" or "Metroidvania". If they were clear, acceptable terms for a sub-genre or style of gameplay, I don't think I would see so many threads and debates over their meaning and boundaries.