Favourite "Gun" Video Games

[MattyDienhoff]

I'm sure most of us here have favourite "gun movies". In other words, films that have exceptional gun handling, well executed shoot-outs, and/or feature particularly memorable guns. Along the same lines, there are a few games that I especially appreciate for their firearms. My favourite:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series (IMFDB page)
Despite the mirrored weapon models, this is my favourite "gun" game for a variety of reasons. In many first person shooters weapons are just taken for granted, as if they're an extension of the player character. Walk over one you don't already have and it teleports into your inventory. Walk over any additional ones and they become a unit of ammunition. They're there and you never really have to think about them, beyond finding ammunition and using the right one for the task. STALKER, however, takes some pages from the RPG book, especially in regards to inventory management.

In the STALKER games, weapons can be drawn and holstered at will, dropped and picked up, stored for later use, and bought and sold. They degrade over time and jam on occasion. They can be unloaded whenever you like, or loaded with different types of ammunition (this is the first game I've ever played where you can choose between buckshot and slugs for your shotgun). You can even partially load a shotgun with one type of ammo, then top it up with another type, if you like...

They can be fitted with attachments such as sound suppressors, scopes and grenade launchers. Unlike many games in which select-fire guns are always stuck on full auto mode *cough*Modern Warfare*cough*, you can switch between fire modes on all weapons that have more than one (some have three). The weight of any given firearm is actually a consideration (since the amount of gear you can carry is limited by weight and stamina).

In the prequel (Clear Sky) and sequel (Call of Pripyat), you can also have your guns modified by a gunsmith to change their accuracy, rate of fire or muzzle velocity, or even rechamber them for different calibers in some cases. Not all of these modifications are very realistic, but none are downright absurd.

There is a wide variety of firearms. At one end of the scale there are break-action shotguns and small-caliber handguns like the Makarov pistol, and at the other there are modern rifles from both East and West like the VSS Vintorez and the FN F2000. No stockless machine pistols with zero recoil, no guns akimbo, no machine guns even. The extent of the cliched weapon choices are the Desert Eagle (heavy, expensive, rare, and nowhere near as effective as a rifle), and the SPAS-12 (heavy, expensive, rare).

The contrast between armed (and armored) human foes and unarmored but fast-moving mutant animals constantly makes you evaluate what kind of weapons (and even ammunition) to carry with you as you go out on missions. An assault rifle with a 4x scope loaded with armor-piercing ammunition is great for wiping out that camp of mercenaries, but what if you run into a pack of vicious dogs along the way? Better take a .45 handgun loaded with hollow-points or, better yet (and if it's not too heavy), a shotgun.

Finally, the game engine's ballistics, while not configured to be very realistic out of the box (that's what mods are for), is more robust than most, featuring drop over long distances, travel time and even ricochets (though not penetration of soft materials). Even hand grenades, upon detonation, unleash dozens of projectile fragments which act much like bullets, doing damage to anything they hit and ricocheting off of surfaces. I once saw a fragment from a hand grenade kick up puffs of dust as it skipped along the ground, like a pebble on the surface of a pond.

What are your favourite gun games?