A tactical shooter is a sub-genre of first- and third-person shooters, associated with using strategy, planning, and tactics in gameplay, as well as the realistic simulations of ballistics, firearm mechanics, physics, stamina, and low time to kill. Dating back to strategy games from the late 1980s, the genre first rose to prominence in the late 1990s with the releases of several well-received tactical shooters. The popularity of the genre saw a decline in the late 2000s as fast-paced "arcade"-like action shooters rose to prominence, it has seen a revitalization since the mid-2010s with the successful releases of several modern tactical shooters.
The Simpsons: Road Rage is a 2001 racing video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons, and is part of a series of games based on the show. It was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. A Game Boy Advance version was released in 2003.
Sonic Heroes is a 2003 platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The player races a team of series characters through levels to amass rings, defeat robots, and collect the seven Chaos Emeralds needed to defeat Doctor Eggman. Within each level, the player switches between the team's three characters, who each have unique abilities, to overcome obstacles. Sonic Heroes downplays the action-adventure and exploration-based gameplay of its predecessors Sonic Adventure (1998) and Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) in favor of returning to the linear style of Sega Genesis-era Sonic games.
Ikaruga is a shoot 'em up developed by Treasure. It is the spiritual sequel to Radiant Silvergun (1998) and was originally released in Japanese arcades in December 2001. The story follows a rebel pilot named Shinra as he battles an enemy nation using a specially designed fighter called the Ikaruga which can flip between two polarities, black and white. This polarity mechanism is the game's key feature and the foundation for its stage and enemy design. All enemies and bullets in the game are either black or white. Bullets which are the same color as the player are absorbed while the others will kill the player. The game features both single-player and cooperative modes.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a 2003 action-adventure game developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. It is based on the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and is the twenty-second installment in the Simpsons series of video games.
Warthog Games Limited, or Warthog plc, was a British video game developer, located in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, with studios in Sweden and the United States.
TimeSplitters 2 is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Free Radical Design, published by Eidos Interactive, and released in 2002 for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. The game's story focuses on the efforts of a space marine who seeks to recover powerful time crystals from a race of alien mutants called TimeSplitters, which leads them to taking on the form of an individual dealing with their own problems across different time periods between the 19th and 25th century. The developers focused on expanding the story element following 2000's TimeSplitters, and features influences from various film genres, including Horror, Action and Science Fiction.
Alien Hominid is a run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth and first released as a Flash game on the multimedia website Newgrounds on August 7, 2002. It was originally developed in Adobe Flash by programmer and Newgrounds founder, Tom Fulp, and animator and artist, Dan Paladin. It has since been re-released in several expanded and enhanced iterations for home consoles and computers.
Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters is a fighting game in the Mega Man series released as an arcade video game in Japan in 1996. It is the direct sequel to Mega Man: The Power Battle released the previous year. Both games were ported to home consoles in North America in 2004 as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube and in Japan during the same year as part of two game compilation titled Rockman: Power Battle Fighters, also for the PlayStation 2. An adaptation of both games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, titled Rockman Battle & Fighters, was also made. Both games were later re-released as part of the Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium compilation in 2022.
Sega Soccer Slam, also known as simply Soccer Slam, is a sports game released for GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 in 2002.
Pac-Man World Rally, known in Europe as Pac-Man Rally, is a kart racing game in the Pac-Man series. It was published by Bandai Namco Games, and released on August 22, 2006, for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, PlayStation Portable, and Microsoft Windows. An Xbox version of the game was cancelled, though a preview of the game can be found in the Xbox release of Pac-Man World 3.
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom is a 2007 action role-playing game developed by Blueside and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the fourth installment in the Kingdom Under Fire series. Chronologically the game's story follows Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders released in 2004. Unlike the previous Kingdom Under Fire games, Circle of Doom lacks the real-time strategy elements, with much of the gameplay focus being on hack and slash combat.
Hunter: The Reckoning is a 2002 hack-and-slash third-person shooter video game developed by High Voltage Software and published by Interplay Entertainment for the Xbox and GameCube. It is based on the tabletop role-playing game of the same name, and is part of the larger World of Darkness series. Two sequels, Wayward and Redeemer, were both released in 2003.
Mr. Driller Drill Land is a 2002 puzzle video game developed and published in Japan by Namco for the GameCube. It is the fifth entry in the Mr. Driller video game series, and the second developed for a Nintendo platform following Mr. Driller A. Controlling one of seven characters, the player must make it to the bottom of each stage by destroying colored blocks, which can connect to each other and form chain reactions. The game is divided into five different modes themed as amusement park attractions, which feature new mechanics such as enemies, items and different block types.
Sticky Balls is an action puzzle game published by Gizmondo Studios and developed in Manchester and designed by John and Ste Pickford in 2005 for Gizmondo, and later ported to iOS in 2014.
Borderlands is a 2009 action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. It is the first game in the Borderlands series. The game was released worldwide in October 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, with a Mac OS X version being released on December 3, 2010 by Feral Interactive. The game's story focuses on a group of four "Vault Hunters", who travel to the distant planet of Pandora to search for the "Vault", which is rumored to contain advanced alien technology and other priceless riches. The hunters piece together clues to find the Vault while battling the savage wildlife of Pandora, local bandits that populate the planet, and ultimately banding together to prevent the Atlas Corporation and its privately funded paramilitary forces from reaching the Vault first.
Hard Corps: Uprising is a run and gun video game developed by Arc System Works and published by Konami for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The game was released digitally on Xbox Live Arcade on February 16, 2011 and on the PlayStation Network in March 2011. In Hard Corps: Uprising, the player assumes the role of an elite soldier simply called Bahamut, along with other main characters. Konami has added three additional player characters via downloadable content.
Sonic Extreme was a prototype video game created by Vision Scape Interactive in May 2003. Proposed as a spin-off to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series, Sonic Extreme featured Sonic and Shadow riding hoverboards in a Green Hill Zone-themed open world, with gameplay likened to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It featured three gameplay modes, which included searching for keys and Chaos Emeralds and fighting or racing another player. Vision Scape created the prototype while it made cutscenes for Sonic Heroes (2003); it was developed on the Xbox with intent to port it to the GameCube and PlayStation 2. The prototype was assembled using the RenderWare game engine and assets from prior Vision Scape and Sonic games.
Alien Rage is a 2013 first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 developed by CI Games, then known as City Interactive, using Unreal Engine 3. The game has single-player and competitive multiplayer modes. In its single player campaign, players are put in control of an elite soldier named Jack which is sent to destroy a mining facility and its aliens after they turned against and killed the humans that they had shared the facility with.
Kameo: Elements of Power is a 2005 action-adventure video game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The player controls Kameo, a 16-year-old elf, who must travel across the land, rescuing her family while collecting Elemental Sprites and Warriors in a beat 'em up style combat against the trolls that stand in her way. Kameo's ten elemental powers let her transform into creatures and use their varied abilities to solve combat-oriented puzzles and progress through the game's levels.
