Shooters with the best shooting mechanics? (2013)

I'm in the mood to shoot stuff. I mean, to shoot stuff while having a great time shooting at stuff. Just curious of what shooters you guys consider the best at... well, shooting stuff. Those games don't necessarily need to be triple A, but they do need to have a great gunplay nonetheless. Anywho, I think Rage is a pretty good candidate for being good at shooting shit. Any other suggestions?

Halo.

Half-life series

any of the first 3 Quake games

Max Payne 3

I think Battlefield 2 had pretty decent shooting (All the pre-Bad Company BF games had solid shooting. The BC games were good too, though the guns felt a bit too accurate at times. BF3's shooting sucks, way too easy. Everything is super accurate so it takes the skill out). It striked a balance of being harder than modern COD-style everything-is-super-accurate and old school Ghost Recon-style crazy bullet spread (I'm talking original Ghost Recon, not the newer ones). Full automatic was basically useless in it other than at close distances because of how crazy bullet spread was, and the game encouraged you to use single shot or short bursts. Sniping in it was a ton of fun even though it wasn't realistic in any way (It felt like there was a lot of power to your shots, especially with the Barrett).

Borderlands perhaps...

The shooting in Rage is awesome but the enemy AI is from 10 years ago. Everyone is a bullet sponge with a head encased in concrete. The pathing is lame as hell. Enemies either hide behind cover until you flank them or they charged at you screaming.

If you want good shooting (although the games are mediocre) I would recommend the Crysis games or Far Cry 3. There is some light stealth if you want to mix up the game play but its perfectly okay to just smash you way through. There's also a great arsenal in both series. FC3 is pretty much a Rambo-simulator and Crysis a Robocop simulator.

What system do you plan on playing games on? If you are into shooters and want to shoot stuff, then the PC is easily your best option.

• Unreal Series
• Quake Series
• Bioshock Infinite
• Max Payne 3
• Any game by Raven Software
• Serious Sam
• Call of Duty Series
• Bad Company 2

As for consoles... well, the availability of shooters with decent shooting mechanics is debateable, but here are a couple of my opinions.

• Halo
• Gears of War
• Call of Duty
• Tomb Raider
• Thats it, because controllers are awful for shooters and most games do not slow down gameplay enough to compensate. There is a reason why console games have auto-aim and targer-locking.

TPS: Max Payne 2, Red Dead Redemption (with "expert" aiming), Tomb Raider; FPS: Left4Dead, COD

I don't think FPS gets better than Red Orchestra. The guns have a real weight to them and will swim about the screen whilst aiming (and firing) rather than just being centered perfectly in the centre of the screen like pretty much every other shooter. The rifles all have a great kick to them and the ability to manually bolt the bolt action rifles brings a higher level of interaction to the gunplay that I really appreciate. The submachine guns feel wildly powerful when wielded at close range due to their power and rate of fire, hearing a submachine gun being fired close by can be pretty scary because you know you barely stand a chance with your bolt action. The sniper rifles have great scopes that stay part of the world when zoomed in and will still do the swaying stuff unlike most games where the scope takes up the entire screen. The heavy machineguns feel as powerful as they should and the ability to duck whilst using them and blindfire builds on that interaction that I like.

And I think Max Payne 3 might be one of the best third person shooters. The way Max can bend and move with the guns is really impressive. The slo mo works really well and feels powerful like it should. The camera works incredibly well I think and will even smoothly transition to what seems like a first person view when it gets into tight situations to let you carry on shooting without hinderance. My one complaint would be that it gets a little too easy at times because the first shot on just about any weapon will land on the dot which when combined with the slo mo can turn the game into more of a shooting gallery than one with firefights.

Oh and though I only played about half of it because it's hard to run I really enjoyed the shooting in FEAR. I loved how they seemed to be fairly inaccurate and that the game seemed to encourage more firefighting than just COD "left trigger right trigger". That and all the crazy effects the weapons had on the environment was really cool

Doom.

Beat that shotgun. You can't.

Painkiller. You can freeze enemies with the shotgun. Try doing that in Doom

Timesplitters 2... :)

And i agree with the above post, painkiller is great for some real good shooting.

I don't care what people think and don't hate to say it. But the Call of Duty games, particularly the Modern Warfare ones: COD:4, MW2, MW3, have the most solid shooting I've experienced.

• Hard Reset

Max Payne 3, Halo, Gears of War (nothing beats gnasher + wall bouncing)

I also really like the gunplay in Resident Evil 5, though that's probably a controversial pick.

I love when shooters implement RPG elements, such as Borderlands or Dead Island, so I'm going to nominate those two. I also really enjoyed the hell out of Timesplitters 2 & 3, Gears 3, and Halo (3 and Reach in particular).

Doom 2's Super Shotgun just has a certain feedback loop that is incredibly satisfying and that no other gun in any other shooter since has really gotten right. When you fire it and a pinky or an imp gibs and goes flying backwards while that "BOOM clickclick" sound loop plays, you just get a really good feeling in your gut. No freezing effect can really replicate that.

Doesn't hurt that most shotguns these days have become fairly useless with an effective range of about three feet. Why? Why is it that the gun that should be the most fun and satisfying to simply fire isn't really that great in games anymore?

First thing that popped into my mind was The Darkness 2. The quad-wielding in that game was so much fun.

Max Payne 3.

Max Payne 3 does this really well, yeah. Too bad it's cutscene city.

I would nominate Half-Life 2 as being pretty far up there. Something really satisfying about the sound design in that game, especially the crossbow.

Far Cry 3 has some pretty great shooting, too, although it sucks that the island's mostly empty by the time you beat the game. Edit: Far Cry 2 also has some great sniping and shooting, with some interesting weapons. The flare gun paired up with dead underbrush is really fun to use.

Vanquish.

Binary Domain..

Regardless of overall game quality, pacing or level of fun. I think Rage and Max Payne 3 play incredibly well and with satisfying reactions. Team Fortress 2 and Quake 3 both feel amazing in their respective niches and I think Gears of War has its own particular charm.

That said, I can't and won't play some of those game for any extemded periods because they have too many problems outside of the core mechanics, and I'm just plain burned out on shooting shit. Rage epsecially is a solid core covered with shit.

EDIT: Actually the real winner is the first FEAR game. That was a cool fucking shooter. And it played well too.

Max Payne 3 for sure for TPS games. None are close.

Not sure what the best FPS game is... I suppose there are different games that do certain things better than others. I guess Halo and CoD are probably both still at the top overall.

Halo, Battlefield, Gears of War.

Bulletstorm has hella fun shooting.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I ended up installing Max Payne 3, Hl2's episode 2 and Darkness II. If I don't reach my fill of guns, I'll probably end up getting a Gears copy pretty soon to satisfy my shooting urges. I didn't find Halo's shooting all that good, because enemies don't really react to your shots until they die. Same with Call of Duty. As good as these weapons look, there's no feel to them. At least, in my opinion.

Counter-Strike and everything else is casual :)

Killzone 2 and 3. There's a good amount of recoil in the guns which make them feel powerful.

Binary Domain. It's fun shooting at the robots and seeing chunks of metal flying off their skeletons.

@klei: Regarding games that manage to give each gun a lot of character and a unique feel this

is a very good suggestion. One of the very best though I hear the console port might have been less than ideal. However I only played the PC version and that is definitely pretty excellent. Also, BF Bad Company 2 has top of the line gunplay that actually makes mastering many of the unique weapon options a rewarding learning experience. Absolute standouts being the M16, G3, M60, PKM, M1911 handgun and MP-412 Rex revolver in my opinion. The singleplayer portion is just good aside from the actual shooting and only worth it at a discount (which shouldn't be a problem anymore). The multiplayer is incredible but coming into it this late might be frustrating admittedly.

Max Payne 3, Vanquish

I am very impressed with Max Payne 3 because it handles shooting from various angles, potions, and stances so fluidly without extra button inputs. Yes, there are TPS and FPS shooters with more control over stances, the guns, or are more realistic; but I think Max Payne best them for simplicity of input that still allows complexity of movement.

I am of the opinion that the more complex that game the more thoughtful and simple inputs has to be - design simplicity of input leading to functional complexity of output. The goal being 'one' input that based on context leads to varied results. Jump once you go 'this' high, double jump you go 'that' high, but jump off a wall to jump off another wall leads that this other result, or double jumping off the wall leading to a even more complex result. One input, impossible to screw up, that leads to functional complexity depending on the contest of use. And, entire game build off inputs like that with animations that show teh result leads to a game that otherwise would need fifty five individual buttons to work.

The goal of games many games should always be design simplicity leading to functional complexity, or when you want design complexity you do that to demonstrate a functional state of being; i.e. making a hard thing in a game that mirrors a hard thing in reality seem hard by making the inputs purposefully finger twisting.

I really liked the way the action felt in rage and fear. I also would recommend hard reset and serious sam the second encounter HD if you like fast twitchier shooting. I felt that metro last light had pretty decent feeling gunplay as well. Generally, in a fps I like to have a lot of responsiveness and precision. I like the feeling of having really powerful guns with a lot of feedback and kick, but being vulnerable so that death is only a seconds mistake away. I mean I grew up cutting my teeth playing games like quake 2 and doom even before that, so I guess it takes a lot to impress me.

F.E.A.R. just felt great. Some of the best, intense shooting mechanics I know of.

If you're going to listen to a lot of people recommending Halo. Play Halo 3. It suffers time to time from horrible netcode, but it's still the best Halo game you can play online multiplayer with.

I really liked the feel of RAGE, the shooting feels so good to me.

I like most though but I didn't like Perfect Dark Zero's feels or Doom 3's machine gun, that was awful.

If you're just in the mood to shoot stuff then hook up with some people and play Left 4 Dead 2. Good, bite sized shooting. A great game to have laying around, if you get the FPS munchies, since you don't really have to "keep up" to be decent. I guess Payday 2 is kind of the same deal (but I didn't really like that one).

I find the shooting in Gears of War to be the most fun personally.

Max payne 3, red dead redemption, bad company 2, fear

I loved Max Payne 3. Some levels I would let myself die so I could do certain bits again. The slow-mo and all the diving about was just fantastic. That game deserved so much more love.

EDIT: Rage was also really good with excellent, unpredictable AI. But the game is a bit bland.

I liked Fear/Fear Extraction Point for it's shooting mechanics ( I know later on Extraction Point was demoted from cannon). Others have been good also. I know ppl. like Halo a lot, but somehow I do poorly at times w/ the mechanics, improved over time.

Crysis 2 - not the best in the series but the guns felt AMAZING to shoot. That and Killzone 2 for me. The weight of the guns in both is incomparable.

The answer is Bulletstorm. What a ridiculous game.

I like Quake 3/Quakelive, Battlefield 3, CoD, Killzone 3. That are the ones that immediatly came to my mind. Rage was also good, but I'm just done with post-apocalyptic wastelands by now.

Edit: Let me add Vanquish to this list. That was some really fun over-the-top action. You should turn off sound and subtitles during the cutscenes. These dialogues almost ruined it for me.

Far Cry 2 is pretty sweet.