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Ah, Facebook games.  The time was that Facebook was just a humble social networking site, connecting college students to the cute people in their recitation sessions.  Nowadays, Facebook users can log on and become mafia dons, bloodthirsty vampires, Special Forces operatives, and even cultists of Dread Cthulhu.  Even with all this variety, though, the future grows still brighter:  Facebook’s very first shooting game is on the horizon:

Our biggest gripe with Facebook “games” most times is the lack of actual gameplay involved in them. Things like Mafia Wars seem much more like stat management spreadsheets couched in a social networking medium rather than games with a social media component. That said, it seems that 3G Studios is bringing a full on 3D shooter to the website in Brave Arms, announced this week and set for a March launch.

As the screenshot above corroborates, Brave Arms puts players in the first-person perspective for a Team Fortress 2-eque cartoony death match. CEO James Kosta says in the press release announcing the game that, “Our new title, Brave Arms, will bring first-person shooter games to the masses.” Snarkier, meaner bloggers might mention games like Doom, Quake, Halo, or Call of Duty at this point, but we wouldn’t do that. Nope. No sir. We’d just say something like, “How has EA not jumped on Facebook with Battlefield Heroes, nonetheless id Software/Bethesda with Quake Live?” As you might imagine with this type of free-to-play fare, there will be some form of microtransactions, though nothing has been explicitly detailed just yet.

This is a bold experiment for Facebook and for online gaming.  Gamers, of course, have had the ability to plug holes in their friends for a long time now.  The matching systems for players in games like TF2 are elegant and effective, so it’s not like we’ve been missing out on the social aspect.  But an FPS with the power of Facebook dramatically expands these possibilities.  If your clan is missing a member for the evening’s scrimmage, hop on FB Chat and conscript that twitchy kid from Orgo class.  No clan?  Stitch one together from the scattered gamers you’ve already friended.

Brave Arms is a crossroads.  If it works–if gamers as well as Facebook addicts can support the thing–we may be seeing content on the social network that amounts to more than just a glorified sales pitch / online scam.  Otherwise I think this will be the subject of ridicule.  But hey–it ain’t called Brave Arms for nothin’.

Also, the only Facebook games I have thus far enjoyed are The Fellowship and Bite Me.  Thoughts?

[Via Joystiq]

[Image Source:  Kotaku]

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