Best Gunplay in a First Person Shooter?

I think F.E.A.R. has best gunplay in FPS. Guns feel powerful due to their impact and sound effects. Enemy AI is also smart and react when bullet hits them. They cry for hep, call for reinforcements, update their status etc, which brings scene to life.

Another reason why gunplay feels so satisfying is due to graphics. During battle you can see dust particles flying around, blood on floor and walls, objects being destroyed, light bulbs blinking, pieces of paper in air etc. When the fight ends, sometimes the entire look of the room is changed.

Even grenades feel a lot powerful and terrifying. It's hard to believe that this game came out in 2005 because it has aged incredibly well. What about you? What First Person Shooter is a winner in this department in your opinion?

Halo 3, soon to be Halo 5. :P

Yeah, FEAR is nice.

Fear, although the slowmo mechanic makes the game too easy and with the games enemy variety and enviroment design lacking.

While it is the most satisfying, probably Quake or Quake 3 are objectively better, but lack the "oomph", particularly Quake 3's weapons e.g. the shitty triangle machine-gun of mediocre...

Call of Duty, Fear, Stalker all come to mind.

FEAR is rock solid. The entity of the Call of Duty series has had fantastic gunplay as well. Battlefield 4 has great gunplay as well and so did Battlefield Bad Company 2. Problem with those is the network has always been an issue so you never got that rock solid feel of CoD. That's an on going issue with BF4.

The old classic arena shooters like Unreal Tournament 2k4 and Quake 3 have some of the best shooting mechanics in games. It's different from military shooters of course, but they are still absolutely fantastic in their own right.

On the console Halo has always had some of the best feeling weapons. They always have a nice amount of diversity and the enemy variety and AI made them very fun to shoot.

I hate defining a "best" in such a subjective area. I think there are a lot of games with absolutely amazing gun play that all have their own unique qualities that make the gunplay fun and engaging.

I actually do not like STALKER's gunplay. I think it's incredibly frustrating and extremely overrated. I hate the "RPG" aspects to it. When I hit somebody in the chest with 7.62x39mm or 5.54x39mm, they would stagger and probably drop if not be dead. STALKER also over emphasizes recoil to force you to control your shots. Other games with realistic combat do this in other ways that doesn't feel like you lose control of your gun so easily.

With some mods STALKER can be great, but the vanilla experience is more frustrating than anything.

Well, you took my answer. All of FEAR's shortcomings are made up for due to how ace the gunplay is. After almost 10 years, it has yet to be topped in that aspect.

I would nominate Killing Floor 2, and Red ORchestra 2. Tripwire knows thier way around fun shooting mechanics :3

Excellent post my friend. Killing Floor 2's gunplay looks incredibly satisfying. In fact, I'd say it's the best I've seen since FEAR. And the full game is not even out yet (otherwise, I would've mentioned it as well).

Halo and Battlefield series.

Am I the only one who is not a fan of Halo's gunplay?

FEAR, I second this notion. Moreover, Soldier of Fortune 2 (has anyone even played this game???), as well as Quake 1 and 2, and...surprisingly RAGE.

I'm sure I could think of more but that's just off the top of my head.

Yea I've played SoF2...been aaages though.

FEAR

Didnt like it either for most guns.

Some of the guns felt rather weak.

You're not.

Halo has fantastic gunplay tho; It somewhat makes up for the lackluster level design.

It's a shame Raven Software has been relegated to CoD DLC makers :(

Bro, you are an intelligent person. Trust me I was thinking about adding Soldier of Fortune 2 as an honorable mention. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Fvcking John Mullins kicks ass in that game. Dismemberment tech in that game was just glorious.

I would say Doom and Quake III Arena are the best followed closely by Unreal Tournament. Serious Sam was immensely fun but not so much because of its gunplay. As for FEAR, I always thought that game overrated.

From Heretic, Hexen, SoF and Jedi Outcast to this...It's a cold world out there :(

I was only 15 when I played the SoF games. Nothing makes a weapon feel more powerful than using it to bring bodily mutilation upon your enemies.

Oh man, speaking of Raven takes me back to the days of playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Not only does it make me feel old, but also makes me feel blessed to have been part of the heydays of PC FPS games.

nope.

F.E.A.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Red Orchestra, and Killzone 2 (surprisingly).

@Seabas989: Killzone 2's gunplay would be better if the game didn't have that ridiculous input lag.

Half-Life 2 for me. Dat Gravity gun and Ravenholm......Lovely.

The effects of the guns are second to none. What ever you hit gets shredded to pieces in a satisfying manner.

But the gun handling is a bit floaty so i wouldn't qualify it as best.

I'd add Insurgency to the list, it's made by ex-Red Orchestra Mod people.

Between this and RO2 you've got the most realistic gun handling in first person shooters.

Also, Brutal Doom is the tightest shit ever.

FEAR is indeed amazing.

For fast paced action, UT and QUAKE are my picks.

Also, SWAT 4 has some good recoil and use of tactical options

Thread about best gunplay.

Lists a shooter made 100% only for controller.

F.E.A.R

After that I'm going to bat for Shadow of Chernobyl, inb4Wasdiehoetry.

I thought Wolfenstein (2009) had excellent gun play. There was a great variety of weapons that felt really fun to use, and the more exotic ones had really interesting effects as well. The enemy animations/reactions to the weapons were also very well done, and loved how the could die in many different ways.

Completely underrated shooter IMO.

F.E.A.R. was kind of uneven imo. Shotgun was pure joy. Assault rifles/smg weren't as good. That nail gun was awesome though. I also hate the look of the arm/hand, very awkward.

Anyway I think Battlefield 3 had awesome all around gunplay (haven't played any BF since).

Ah....

I don't know what that means. :P

Anyways I thought it was pretty good for a console shooter not named Halo.

More or less delay between you pressing a button or moving the sticks, and something actually happening on the screen.

Killzone 2 has the most satisfying gunplay of any fps I've played.

Oh.

@Seabas989 said:

@jg4xchamp said:

@Seabas989 said:

@Wasdie said:

@Seabas989: Killzone 2's gunplay would be better if the game didn't have that ridiculous input lag.

Ah....

I don't know what that means. :P

Anyways I thought it was pretty good for a console shooter not named Halo.

More or less delay between you pressing a button or moving the sticks, and something actually happening on the screen.

Oh.

Made the game feel unnecessarily clunky. I get they were going for a sluggish feel, but there are plenty of ways to do that without input lag. I'm not sure if it as intended design or a programming fault.

Killzone 2 was a very solid shooter outside of the minor performance issues and that input latency. Some of the later levels were kind of slogs though, but that's got nothing to do with the feel of the gameplay.

There's no argument from me that FEAR is an amazing game with top of the class gunplay

One of my favourite shooters was Day of Defeat, there's nothing like diving into a firing position, counting the seconds go by as you deploy your MG and mowing down an assault from the other team trying to cap your position. Rifles carried by the majority could kill with a single shot, Sub machine guns gave you agility and speed for a compromise in raw stopping power, snipers covered the battle field from blown out church spires and the rattle of an MG sent everyone into cover. Definitely one of the most lethal multiplayer FPS games ever, those of us who loved it played it for years (some still do) those who hated it likely uninstalled after 10 minutes of getting killed by single shots from everyone.

Lol yeah!!!!

A recent game that I thought had pretty decent gunplay is Wolfenstein.

So we're talking about best gunplay I would say Halo series/ Destiny. And I really hate Destiny as a game because of various reason.

FEAR is good.

Far Cry was good,

Borderlands is really good.

Call of Duty before the Modern Warfare ear was good.

Crysis 2 was pretty good.

But yeah Halo/ Destiny are probably the two most solid shooters out there with Borderlands right behind it.

The Battlefield series has gunplay physics that completely squash COD, Halo, or any other fps on consoles. From recoil to bullet drop, it's in a league of its own.

I'm going to have to say Doom 2 nothing has ever matched up to that for me though it could just be nostalgia talking. I can see why FEAR is getting a lot of love, great game well the first one was.

I love Halo and while I don't think the gunplay is bad it's more functional than impressive.

Man no love for Black guys? For those who don't know, Black was a awesome game with awesome gunplay for a FPS. It had really solid gunplay and the sound effects of the guns felt like real guns and it's a very underrated game when I played it on Xbox back in 2006.

Killzone 3

@Cloud_imperium:

Fear was great. I can remember saying that fear was much better than other games especially when it come in gun play quality. But now the best fps for gun play quality is Wolfenstein New order. I can't really tell why like you did. Just out of my memory and what I felt and of what I can remember.

FEAR 1, BF4, and Serious Sam have my favorite gunplay.

Fear was amazing thanks to its gunplay but I think kf2 has finally topped it. The way you see each round impacting on an enemies body in slow motion is insane.

In terms of deep, complex shooting mechanics area 3 is also pretty great.

F.E.A.R. and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

pc shooting is pretty much the same for all fps games. The difference has more to do with level design, game speed, and ai. Id lean towards Unreal and games like serious sam.

Best on consoles would be Halo 2---maybe best overall, too.

I agree about F.E.A.R. That game was perfect.

Bioshock!

There, I got that out of the way and everyone's attention, its obviously not.

Bioshock has the dubious distinction of being one of the most incredibly, phenomenally boring games I've ever played. It's actually impressive how bad they were at literally every single aspect of designing a game. Quite an achievement IMO.

@blueinheaven: In contrast to you, I found the games really wonderful. Beautiful, vibrant settings and gameplay can be best described as "functional". To me it's just a pity they were turned into first person shooter lite games instead of proper RPGs because everyone focuses instead on the poor shooting mechanics.