Blending role-playing elements and first-person blasting action in a video game is nothing new, of course. JC Denton and chums made that particular mash-up in the marvellous Deus Ex way back in 1998. More recently, Fallout 3's combination of VATS-assisted firestorms and deep, epic character development made Bethesda's game one of the most critically-lauded of recent times. But these games excelled in story and role-play more than FPS, their gunplay obfuscated by stat trees and dice-rolling.
