Over these past two weeks of intensive writing schedules and playing Dragonica (weee Australian Open Beta), I have been very much on the lookout for some quality shooter games to scratch my action junky itch. Maybe it's the fact that there are very few opportunities to engage in extreme sports in my life (I suspect that most practitioners of extreme sports don't get their 'action' fix via FPS shooters), but the fact remains that, when you play these slow-moving MMORPGs all day, sometimes you just want to blow people up on an equal level instead of having a 'who's more purple' competition in battlegrounds.

Unfortunately, while I would say that I love my shooters as much as I love my MMORPGs, it does feel like the industry is having a difficult time giving me my ideal version of the MMOFPSORG (pronounced memo-fepsorg). GunZ Online gives me carpal tunnel syndrome and its colour scheme makes me want a hug; Battlefield 2142, Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2 all feature some form of character progression system, but Battlefield 2142 sometimes devolves into a game of "whoever doesn't crash the helicopter wins." Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, seems to have replaced all of their bullets with grenades and Team Fortress 2, while it is charming, makes me rage so much when I get backstabbed that I think I might have an aneurism if I play it any more.