Splash Damage puts your trigger-finger to the test in frenetic shooter Dirty Bomb (hands-on preview)

If you’re looking for something besides Call of Duty or Battlefield when it comes to first-person shooters, Dirty Bomb might be your next obsession. It’s a fast-action, first-person shooter game that hearkens back to games where speed and skill mattered.

The mercenary combat shooter is a big one for Splash Damage, maker of games such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, as well as Tokyo-based Nexon, which is trying to expand from Asia into the West with triple-A games that take advantage of its deep experience with free-to-play. It is a modern game with Western-style art. It was designed for e-sports fans with 5-vs-5 and 8-vs-8 multiplayer matches that feel a lot like sports events. If you want to thrive here, you have to hone your trigger-finger skills and play dirty.