Nexuiz

With several huge franchises like Call of Duty, Halo, and Battlefield dominating sales, the first-person shooter is unquestionably one of the most popular genres in video games. This makes it all the more questionable that the sub-genre that basically put multiplayer on the map  -- arena shooters -- are nowhere to be seen in today's gaming landscape. THQ and developer Illfonic hope to fill this gap with Nexuiz, an under-the-radar first person shooter that brings back the thrill of high-octane arena shootouts.

The history of Nexuiz goes back to 2002, when a small group of Quake modders put together the concept. A decade later, a revamped version of the popular mod is coming to consoles and PC thanks to yet another small team born out of the Quake modding community. Developer Illfonic, a team of only 10 guys, is resurrecting the game with the CryEngine 3, the Crytek developed game engine made famous by Crysis 2.

Given the bunny hopping, lightning fast navigation, and boisterous arsenal featuring death dealers like rocket launchers and mortars, Nexuiz should feel immediately familiar to anyone who cut their teeth on games like Unreal and Quake. The game features nine maps, each of which is used for either team deathmatch or capture the flag battles. Matches cap out at eight players, but most of the maps are concentrated enough that you won't miss the extra soldiers at your side.

When a match starts, players race to gather armor and new weapons that are strewn across the environment. The best thing you can find on the map isn't a weapon, however. To give this new version of Nexuiz a flair of its own, Illfonic has introduced game changing power-ups called mutators that operate much like those found in Mario Kart. Use the right mutator at the right time, and it can drastically change the trajectory of a match. Illfonic says the game includes over 100 mutators, each of which vary in strength and effectiveness. Some of them, like the Color Blind mutator, simply change the perspective of the players by making everything black and white. Others -- like the jet packs, nukes, or instakills -- have a more visceral impact. Mutators come in three general flavors -- some mutators affect only your team, others apply only to your enemies, and the third type influences everyone in the arena. Players gain these mutators by either finding them on the ground or unlocking them via kill sprees.

It may be a multiplayer-only Xbox Live and PSN game, but Nexuiz features everything you would expect out of a modern muiltiplayer shooter, including persistent ranking, stat tracking, medals, and unlockables. Because all of the weapons are there for the taking in the matches, players don't need to unlock new weapons or attachments. Instead, you spend experience points to make your favorite mutators appear more frequently in during matches.

Nexuiz is one of the flagship titles of Xbox Live's House Party, which means you can expect to see it hit your console sometime between February 15 and March 14. Look for it on PSN and Steam shortly thereafter.