Well, throughout that whole gameplay video, it was only used for a couple seconds. So you can understand why I might think it's not an important feature (and is it really the first game to use cover as a stealthy feature?). Gears of War 2 got credit for its cover feature because it simply worked. And it worked well. Obviously few people are the first to anything, but that doesn't stop them from doing something very well. LittleBigPlanet is far from the first game with level editing as a primary focus, but it gets praise for its innovation. Same stuff.

The reason for the Dreamcast's quality in its early years was due to the fact that Sega felt they had to bring all they could at the system's start to ensure its success (and it certainly didn't work). Sony felt secure in their market position, and that's why they waited until developers were secure with the PS2's architecture.

By the end of 2001, PS2 owners could play Zone of the Enders, Dark Cloud, Crazy Taxi, Twisted Metal: Black, Gran Turismo 3, ICO, Silent Hill 2, Grand Theft Auto III, Devil May Cry, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Ace Combat 4, Burnout, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X, and a bunch of EA titles you'd never find on the Dreamcast. The last thing I want to do is start an endless and annoying games war, but the point is that the PS2 had plenty to offer as well.

^lol, I guess I got owned with PS2 titles above. I retract my PS2 statement.

I got to wonder though how many of those were late 2001 or christmas releases. I remember selling my dreamcast in March 2001 to buy a PS2 and having nothing to play what so ever until July when I bought the dreamcast back to play Sonic Adventure 2.

I'm not just ranting against PS2...I had a PS2 in 2001 and the only game I remember buying in the summer of 2001 was Resident Evil Code Veronica X...those 10 extra minutes with Wester were worth 50 bucks. :)

Winback, N64, 1999. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz4oNZqw9eA (skip to about 0:30).

Kill.Switch is still significant because it introduced blind-fire, which I don't think Winback and Headhunter have (I've played both, but don't remember).

First of all, taking cover and then shooting out enemies is as old as warm water. A cover system designed to be as "automatic" as in Headhunter, Kill Switch or Gears (these last two games being heavily dependent on it) that's an entirely different thing. There were hundreds of cover-based shooters/action games even before this decade began.

Cliffy B. said kill.switch inspired some of Gears. I loved the game. I wish I had it on my Xbox right now.

It's not the company that creates a product - it's the one that gets recognized for it. Look at the iPod. It wasn't the first MP3 player on the market - Diamond Rio was - but it's by far, the dominate force.

@ Montana - if you like cover systems, get kill.switch. It's a pretty cool game overall.

Who cares, Gears of War made it great. Basically every single third person shooter has a cover system because of Gears of War, it made it work amazingly, and the game sold fantastically, I has caused more of a change with its cover system than any of those other games did

Yeah it easy. Well Gears is popular this gen.

That game looks kinda cool, but tbh TPS' just werent all that well done till this generation. Gears is the first game to implement & perfect the system. Uncharted is probably second in line.

Gaming mediocrity called the PS2? Don't you mean "best console ever made?".

Time Crisis invented the cover system!!!!!!!111111

The camera use is that game looks awful.