I would say emphasis on story makes it less of a shooter, shooters don't exactly have the strongest of stories.

I would say Mass Effect is just as much as a shooter as Uncharted, they both have plenty of gun battles but there are many other elements about the games that prevent them from being placed in that genre.

As for MGS, the game is slow paced and the large environments and the "alert phases" encourage you to avoid being spotted at all costs, the shooting mechanics are slow and awkward, another incentive to sneeak instead of shoot. The fact that you can complete the games without killing anybody excludes it from the shooting genre.

u beat me to it.

not more diverse but more excepting of defferent types of ip and gameplay styles.

Wow, some of the arguments in here have gone full retard :P

But seriously, categorizing games is getting harder and harder with all the genre crossing and how various games are incorporating elements of everything. Ratchet and Clank I classify as a platformer, but it could easily be seen as a Shooter, and it has RPG elements, strategy segments, puzzle segments, and even shoot-em-up levels. It's got everything.

Seriously, can anyone tell me what genre Mass Effect is? Metal Gear Solid? Uncharted? No, you can't. Why? because they all encompass many different things. One could argue that 90% of all games are action/adventure.

so we should totally decide what is what.

I never beat MGS4, but I did beat MGS1 and 2, and got a fair way into 3.

I don't consider MGS4 a FPS like Halo or CoD, but I don't see too much of a difference between it and Splinter Cell, which is a third person shooter. Even James Bond games have stealth levels, and from my experience with MGS games, you still need to use the tranq gun fairly often. MGS is good because it doesn't tell you to kill 100 people, but it's still largely focused on sneaking and shooting.

MGS is a very story focused game, very different from any any game which involves guns. If stealth were a category, I would say MGS (the franchise) is Stealth/Shooter. I agree with you, MGS is very different fron Uncharted, Gears, Lost Planet, and well most third person shooters. Just like Splinter Cell I think shooter should be a secondary category. Maybe Action/Shooter, but shooter none the less.

As for Uncharted, I spent more time shooting people then climbing. Especially Uncharted 1. I know it's also an action/adventure game, but personally I would call it a shooter primarily. Everyone has their own opinion. What does VGC site MGS4, Splinter Cell, and Uncharted as anyway?

That's true, and Ratchet and Clank is a great example. I guess after a certain point, classifying a game is meaningless.

The only classification games should have is what developers make them to be. So if Konami refers to MGS as a shooter or stealth game, that's what it should be.

brendude13 - Having a strong story isn't criteria for not being a shooter.

I consider both Mass Effect (2) and Uncharted shooters primarily, but everyone has their own take. To be fair I beleive both have shooter at least as a sub genre.

As for MGS being a stealth game, that's true, and I would like to say shooter is a secondary genre for MGS. However you can go nuts and go on a murder streak during "avoid sequences" and poor shooter controls don't exclude it from anything. It's a game which has 1st and third person shooting mechanics, so at the very least shooter is a sub genre. I consider it stealth/shooter, not Action/Adventure (It's linear, how can that be an adventure game?)

Don't get me wrong, some games are EASY to classify...Call of Duty is a First Person Shooter. MAdden is a sports game. Gran Turismo is a racing game. Nobody's denying that, but the reason I'm so insistent that PS3 users are more versatile in their gaming is because...well...I don't think 'action/adventure' should be a genre. Frankly, it encompasses entirely too many different gameplay styles to really justify it. Generally speaking "action/adventure" games tend to be like Ratchet and Clank or Uncharted or Metal Gear Solid or Grand Theft Auto, they have so much variety in them that it's hard to say those four have much in common, aside from the fact that you shoot bad guys in all of them (well, and good guys in Grand Theft Auto.)

Ratchet has action, Adventure, platforming, shooting, puzzling, racing, strategy, sports, SHMUP, and RPG elements.
Grand Theft Auto has Action, Adventure, Shooting, Racing, Sports, and Brawler elements
Uncharted has Action, Adventure, Shooting, Puzzling, and platforming elements.
Metal Gear Solid has Action, Adventure, Shooting, Puzzling, Fighting, stealth, and RPG elements.

Though it could be argued that 90% of ALL Games have "Action and adventure". Call of Duty has Action and Adventure elements (especially in Modern Warfare, the original). you could argue that, although mario is a platformer through, it also has elements of action and adventure.

I just think "Action/Adventure" is entirely too broad a genre to be accurately comparing to something as concise as other genres. Hell, I'd ALMOST argue that "Shooter" is too broad a genre in and of itself, since most modern games have shooting elements in them. Space Invaders was a shooter. Contra was a shooter. PixelJunk Shooter was a friggin shooter.

Mass Effect is an RPG.  Yes, you can choose soldier class and rip throught the game like it's Gears of War but that's really doing yourself a diservice.

-In Mass Effect, you talk to people.  Not just one or two, you talk to everybody.  You go on side quests.  You recover items for them.  You make drastic decisions that effect your experience.  It's almost on a Heavy Rain level where you can see things in your playthrough that other people won't ever see because of the choices they make.  That's why porting your game save is so important.

-You scan planets to find minerals that are critical to upgrading your ship and your equipment.  You get better weapons, armor, and equipment based on what you find and what you use your findings for.  Some guns do more damage.  Some armor regenerates energy faster.  Some let you regain your "Biotic" energy faster.

-Enemies have certain weaknesses that you have to figure out.  For that, you need to pick the right crew for the job.  Some members of your crew can burn or freeze enemies.  Some can levitate them into the air.  Some can take control of an enemy and make them fight for you.  Depending on who you're facing, you need to pick the right crew because if you don't you'll have a tougher time.  If you have an enemy that regenerates energy, yes, you can kill them by shooting them a thousand times or, you can have one of your guys fling him through the air--or you can set him on fire so that he doesn't regenerate energy--or you can freeze him so that he doesn't attack you while you pick him apart.  You have to pick what your crew is going to do, whether they're going to attack or fight from a distance, whether they're going to heal or use magic, etc.

-The story is first and foremost.  It's more about creating a believable world and your decisions within that world than it is about the gunfights (and if you don't choose Soldier class, it's not about gunfights at all--you can be stealthy or use magic (aka Biotics) or use technical power to control robots and summon drones or something).

-You level up.  The amount of damage you can deal and recieve are a direct result of your level.  In ME1, your aim was even controlled by your level.  On lower levels, your aim was horrible!

-You can explore an entire sprawling galaxy, planet by planet in a "Airship" (actually a spaceship) and you can go in a non-linear direction and the story still makes perfect sense.

-You spend a considerable amount of time talking to and pleasing your teamates (unless you don't want them to be loyal and possibly die on you).

-You can customize your character's appearence and their home, right down to the kinds of fish that are in their fish tank.

Saying that Mass Effect is mostly a shooter because you have the option to use guns is like calling Dragon Age Origins a hack n' slash because you have swords in the game.  It's an RPG.  Like Jazz2K said, you can go hours without firing a single bullet.

When determining a genre, it's important to factor in what the game's primary focus is...Mass Effect has shooting elements but that's not what the game's about.

Call of Duty is ALL about shooting the life out of bad guys, over and over and over and over again. Gears of War, Halo, and Resistance are all about shooting aliens. Hell, I didn't even know Mass Effect had shooting until I watched a friend play it...

edited and posted my reponse below

well said

but i was just saying why i thought people would consider Mass effect a shooter more so than uncharted and Infamous(being because you platform in those games)

and a lot of people say that it's a shooter before it's an rpg(well atleast Mass effect 2..dont know about the 1st)

and even when i look at walkthroughs or gameplay's THEY ARE ALWAY'S SHOOTING!

but idk..