IMMORTALS OF AVEUM

Fight a magewar with first-person spell shooting

- Tyler Wilde

Immortals of Aveum is an old-fashioned singleplayer FPS, but not in the vein of boomer shooters'. Immortals has an Xbox 360 vibe, with enemies that spill out of dropships like Halo 3 grunts and cutscenes in which heroes bond and villains scheme. It's like we're reenacting the transition from corridors to the storytelling ambitions of the mid-2000s.

Today's fascination with '90s shooters suggests a kind of contemporary FPS fan who rejects all post-Quake values, but I think most of us are also suckers for the special abilities of the immersive simmy shooters of the 2000s. Immortals is a fantasy game with spells instead of guns, which gives it a good excuse to stuff the keyboard with powers. By the end of the few hours I had to preview it at EA headquarters recently, I could double jump, hover, yoink enemies off cliffs with a grapple spell, stun or slow opponents, raise a shield to mitigate incoming damage, flip through three primary attack spells, and bust out big specials with the number keys, such as an energy wave that terminates with spikes of earth, good for breaking shields.