A Season for Shooting

It seems to happen fairly early in the year for me pretty consistently now. For the past few years, there is usually some shooter that I pick up playing in the winter months that I really enjoy playing. Well it seems to be that not only do I have a carry over from the previous year, but there are two others that I started playing this year that I am also really enjoying. 
 
From last year... I'm still playing Left for Dead 2. That game is a really solid and fun co-op shooter. I play it as often as I have the occasion to with some friends of mine on Steam, but it's always hard to find a good group to stick with through a campaign. Each campaign provides a slightly different experience of this kind of co-op shooter, and I really enjoy going back and trying to play in different ways, and for better scores. There are some issues with playing games like this on the 'open-market.' 
 
Part of the problem of playing these games with strangers is communication. It seems like a lot of people who play games are absolutely terrified of communicating with other people. It's almost like they're afraid of talking because they hate the sound of their voice, or because they don't want to come off as some psycho kid who sits there and sings into their headset the entire time. It's very simple to just provide some information for your teammates, and to coordinate a plan of attack. It isn't rocket science... it's a video game. Anyway...  
 
One game I started playing this year, is actually a game from last year. Shattered Horizon is a game that really seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I watched the trailers back around when it was released and remember being interested, but not that interested in it. When Steam had their free weekend of play, I instantly signed up, and then made the purchase the following day. 
 
On paper this is a game that would seem to be at a disadvantage in almost every way to most shooters on the market. There are 8 maps, three modes of play, one gun (with two firing modes), and three grenade types. It seems like it would be something that feels old very quickly... maybe for some people it does. It absolutely doesn't feel that way for me. Each of the maps have a meticulous design that allow players to attack the objectives in many different ways, and are full of intricate and useful hiding places and choke points. The joy of this game comes from it's seamless integration of a flight sim, and 'on-the-ground' shooter (as you can play both ways). 
 
There is a lot to think about in a round, like: how big your power signature is; what visible clues your jet pack is giving off from being engaged; the advantages of crossing an open space with suit power off; finding a good position to stand and use a sniper scope; various methods of dealing with entrenched enemies by using different grenades; and the list goes on and on. It seems simple, and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who might be turned off by it, but as a multiplayer shooter, there are few that feel this fun and refreshing to play right now.
  
The last game I started playing is Bad Company 2 (PC version). This game is really pretty fun, exciting, and looks nice. The multiplayer to me seems like a slightly more focused  (and better looking) version of Battlefield 2. The battles feel really loud, kinetic, and chaotic. The particle effects and smoke when the environment is shattered by explosions obscure the action and create this interestingly tense few seconds of haze. I also like the notion that there are very few places (if any at all) where you are actually safe. I can't explain that feeling any better unfortunately. 
 
I would like to note, at this point, that Battlefield 2 had a persistent character system where you leveled up and unlocked enhanced weapons and command abilities for your profile (*before* modern warfare). I know there is likely even some other game out there which was doing this before Battlefield 2 , but I'm starting to get tired of this revisionist version of history where suddenly just because a game became popular on a console that these things did not exist before. Sometimes many years in advance. (Even in the case of those examples, there are others that had more interesting persistent play and actual *victory* conditions) 
 
These are the shooter's that are currently dominating my mindshare at this point in time. I'm really enjoying being able to settle down into these games for the next little while and just enjoy playing them online. Once again my year looks like it will be dominated by my PC (at least for multiplayer purposes). At least I'm reassured that I'm not in the minority in that fact. 
 
Happy fragging everyone!