Could High Voltage Software's vampire-slaying shooter be escaping from the first-person genre?

Last month came news that High Voltage Software's Left 4 Dead-inflected first-person shooter would be hitting HD consoles as well as Wii. Now though, fresh from the Games Developers Conference, comes news that the game - at least on HD consoles - has taken a rather more radical change.

The Xbox 360 version of The Grinder was playable at GDC, and it appears that the game will now be released on those consoles as dual-analogue-controlled top-down shooter, similar in vein to the likes of Robotron or Gauntlet. The given reason for the change is that the HD consoles are already glutted with online-enabled first-person shooters.

It must be iterated that the Wii version of The Grinder has not been confirmed to be following the same fate. Rather, its status is still clouded in mystery since the press went hands-on at last year's E3. One certainly couldn't say the Wii platform is saturated with quality online FPS titles as well, but we must wait for confirmation.

The Grinder is still scheduled to release late in 2011 on Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.