Best FPS mechanics

[RubyT]

Playing BLACK MESA got me and some friends talking about shooters, how they evolved. Obviously, at some point we reached the part of the debate where it all comes down to which is the best FPS. And unsurprisingly, different people found different games superior for different reasons. Say, MAX PAYNE had this great, dense atmosphere. NO ONE LIVES FORVER was funny and off-beat. UNDYING had the horror down. DEUS EX had the story and RPG going for it.

The point of this thread: which FPS had the best shooter mechanics? That is enemy A.I., combat design, physical awareness, weapons. In essence, if you strip it down to just shooting, which game was best?

I found F.E.A.R. to be awesome in that department. The A.I. was very well coded and scripted, with enemies turning over tables for cover, actually using cover, sticking to it instead of rushing the player, flanking, retreating from danger, being able to jump over ledges and climb ladders. A lot of the combats also felt well-paced and "plausible" (as opposed to groups of enemies being randomly placed or, worse, teleported). Your avatar also had a real physical body, i.e. feet and you had a great feel of physical presence in the world. The bullet-time was a nice touch, although I always feel self-recharging game mechanics are killing the pace, because they make you wait for something to replenish. MAX PAYNE did it better by making you earn bullet-time through regular kills.

So - what were your favourites?
Not setting, plot or art direction, just shooting. And single-player only, please

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Single player only? Well fuck, you just eliminated the best shooter, mechanics wise, that I've ever played.

Dammit, I'm going to talk about it anyway. The best shooter mechanics in any game I have ever played are in Tribes: Ascend (I never played any of the other Tribes games, so I can't judge them). Not only is the shooting fun, satisfying, and challenging (in a good way), but it also remembers the so often forgotten second half of the core fps mechanics, movement. Moving around on the big open maps is a joy that it's fun to play the game even if you're sucking. After playing Tribes: Ascend, I have a hard time playing games that make me slow down to a crawl just so I have a chance of hitting anything (seriously, fuck ironsights).

I suppose if you really want me to choose a single player game, I'll have to go with Mirror's Edge, for pretty much the same reason. The big problem with Mirror's Edge, as a shooter, is that in order to use any of halfway decent guns you have to slow down a lot. And I can say that going slow is not where that game shines. Still a brilliant game, though.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Duke Nukem 3D is where i would cast my vote. The selection and variety of guns is truly amazing for it's age and the level designs are top quality. How many other games have earthquakes that wreck levels? The AI isn't anything special of course but it isn't in most games so i can ignore it.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The lean function. Cover based mechanics that don't turn you into a sloth.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Overall mechanics I got to give it to Quake 3 Arena, that shit was built from the ground up for the single solitary purpose of a great FPS experience, and the freedom of movement in it is like nothing else.

I still prefer Unreal Tournament on the basis of variety, but Unreal was always a general purpose engine and their movement physics were never on par, even Unreal 3 doesn't get up there.

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

I'm not sure if it's considered a "game mechanic", but what sets apart some shooters from others is the "feel" of the gun.

You know what I mean, the gun seems like it has genuine sense of "impact". This is represented through visual effects, animations, reload animations, appropriate sounds, how the enemies react to the damage dealt by that weapon or damage decals shown on the enemies themselves.

Just adding that extra level of satisfaction really enhances the gun play for me.

For example, in the original F.E.A.R. the shotgun sounded and felt godlike with its sheer stopping power and the enemy AI rag-dolled perfectly in order to reflect the impact of the weapon (especially in bullet time where it looked morbidly beautiful and satisfying)

I don't care if it's COD, but World at War was my favorite out of the series. Mainly for the bolt-action rifles, I just love that reload animation between each shot. The unlocking of the bolt, manually entering a round, locking the bolt in place and realigning your iron sights. *SIGH* <3

Subsequently, any FPS that lets me get my hands on a bolt-action rifle, well lets just say that I fall in love with that weapon straight away.

OT: To choose my ABSOLUTE favorite FPS based on the gun-play, Unreal Tournament Classic or Unreal Tournament 2004. Every weapon felt unique, handled differently and they all reflected the impact of every weapon through great sound and animations, enemy death animations even changed according to the gun you were using.

 

[RubyT]

I'm not sure if it's considered a "game mechanic", but what sets apart some shooters from others is the "feel" of the gun.

Yes, absolutely! For me, that "defining" gun was the sniper rifle in Deus Ex (the original). It made such a shiver-inducing sound, you had to steady your breathing, reloading took an eternity. One of the first levels of the game sends your across the roof-tops and you're snipering from there. I can still invoke the feelings I had up there. Glorious times.
Then the game kicked me in the croch big time when I got a silencer for the rifle. It sounded so gimped. I considered leaving it off, but in Deus Ex, you wanted to be sneaky...

I find that an FPS game's feel must be freakin' outstanding to get away with not having iron sights anymore. Just feels like comedy these days to run around hip firing shit. So that would be the most important to me.

Hm, ironsighting I don't like so much. Your field of view tends to be a lot smaller in games than in real life, due to your eyes being able to quickly move around. Sticking a gun in your face reduces that even more and when recoil is added, I often feel confused. These things must be approached carefully in games. For example view bob and motion blur give me the feeling of being drunk. I don't shake and blur this much in real life.

I like when games enlarge your crosshair/target area while you move and shrink it when you slow down. As to compensate for obvious imprecision on the move and kinda nerfing you just UT'ing in a single player campaign.

 

[Thrashgrinder]

Tediore guns in Borderlands 2

'' Explodes like a grenade when reloaded ''

 

[Vuliev]

I think I'm going to have to go with Halo: Reach. I haven't played the campaign or Firefight enough to remember what the AI is like (though I remember it being pretty good), but the actual combat mechanics are polished to a mirror shine. There are enough weapons to find a combo you're good with, the human/Covenant analogues are close enough to serve similar purposes, but their individual mechanics are different enough to each have unique applications. The suit modifiers (jetpack, sprint, roll, etc.) all have unique applications and, for the most part, none are head-and-shoulders better than the rest. Combat is visceral but not over-the-top.

 

[MetroidNut]

I love the shooting mechanics in Halo: Reach. Every battle is about critical split-second decisions, and every gun feels incredibly satisfying to use. From the roar and nigh-uncontrollable recoil of the assault rifle to the massive bang of the DMR, no matter what gun you're using, you feel like a badass. Not to mention that every weapon is truly different from all the others, something that modern shooters all too often don't bother with. And the enemies you'll be using those guns on range from "very intelligent" to "goddamn terrifying".

I also loved the gunplay in the original Crysis. The very customizable weapons were great, but more importantly, combining solid, fairly-realistic shooting mechanics with nanosuit-granted superpowers made for incredible freedom to play however you wanted. And, as in Reach, the enemies were brilliant and/or appropriately terrifying.

 

[EHKOS]

I'm not sure if it's considered a "game mechanic", but what sets apart some shooters from others is the "feel" of the gun.

You know what I mean, the gun seems like it has genuine sense of "impact". This is represented through visual effects, animations, reload animations, appropriate sounds, how the enemies react to the damage dealt by that weapon or damage decals shown on the enemies themselves.

Just adding that extra level of satisfaction really enhances the gun play for me.

For example, in the original F.E.A.R. the shotgun sounded and felt godlike with its sheer stopping power and the enemy AI rag-dolled perfectly in order to reflect the impact of the weapon (especially in bullet time where it looked morbidly beautiful and satisfying)

I don't care if it's COD, but World at War was my favorite out of the series. Mainly for the bolt-action rifles, I just love that reload animation between each shot. The unlocking of the bolt, manually entering a round, locking the bolt in place and realigning your iron sights. *SIGH* <3

Subsequently, any FPS that lets me get my hands on a bolt-action rifle, well lets just say that I fall in love with that weapon straight away.

OT: To choose my ABSOLUTE favorite FPS based on the gun-play, Unreal Tournament Classic or Unreal Tournament 2004. Every weapon felt unique, handled differently and they all reflected the impact of every weapon through great sound and animations, enemy death animations even changed according to the gun you were using.

Yeah, I know what you mean about the feel. It really can make the game.

OT: Borderlands 2. All of it. Ye gods...its just....PLAY IT. BEAT IT AND PLAY IT AGAIN!

 

[sethisjimmy]

Max Payne isn't an FPS, so maybe this should be best shooter mechanics?

Anyway it's not so much a mechanic but any game where you can see your legs is a major bonus.

 

[Reaper195]

I don't recall Max Payne ever being an FPS.



Best feature for me started back with Halo (Well, as far as I know, it was Halo) where you could hoot someone in the bollocks, punch them in the bollocks, and then throw a grenade which stuck to their bollocks. All without having to swap weapons. I find it fucking archaic when I play a game, and I need to swap to a crowbar or a wrench of a pipe or some other device to slap an enemy in the face. As Halo proved to me, there is nothing wrong with a shouldered rocket lawnchair, and then flipping it forward, slapping someone in the bollocks with the back end of it. Or holding most two handed weapons, then using one hand to prime and and punt a grenade away.

And, iron sights. Some might call it cliché or whatever french looking word, but I can't really deal without it. In most games, (Yes, including CoD), your shots are much more accurate when aiming down the sights. And it feels incredibly weird when I'm shooting an assault rifle at an enemy whose thirty metres away from the hip. In Halo, the rounds are still accurate, but it doesn't 'feel' like it is. The one thing the Modern Warfare series got down right was that at least you felt like you were being a decent soldier (Even if you ended up dying more times than not. And then actually died later on in...each game.).

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Anyway it's not so much a mechanic but any game where you can see your legs is a major bonus.

FEAR was the first game I've played that actually featured this. I still remember noticing it the first time when I went through a vent of some kind, looked down and said to myself: "Hey! The dude I'm playing actually has legs!"

 

[Greni]

Regenerating health and coverbased shooting that pins you to the cover unless you press a button which leaves you out in the open.

In seriousness, what I said above but the opposite.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Call Of Duty has lovely fluid aiming.

Doom has awesome fast paced goodness.

RAGE had a great, powerful feel to its weapons.

 

[CleverNickname]

I... this question makes my brain hurt. The mechanics should be great in every FPS, otherwise they are borderline pointless. There shouldn't be (and isn't) ONE game that does it right.

Unfortunately, it's been ages since the absolute best FPS mechanic has been properly utilized.
Dodging.
Oddly enough, it's something I noticed again in Black Mesa - for whatever reason I found it much more difficult to simply avoid damage than I ever did in the original Half-Life; and HL isn't even the most shining example.

Especially when we're limiting ourselves to Single Player. Cuz in Multiplayer obviously we have TF2, where - despite the million ways to die instantly to bullshit - due to its projectile-heavy gameplay and most classes' mobility options, you can dodge shit. And it's a skill. Everyone can get out of the way, but awesome players can dance around a Soldier and basically make him kill himself.

I'm not sure when exactly I've done that last. But then again, I don't play most shooters - I doubt United States Military Boot Camp devotes a day to dodging rockets.

Wrong genre, but I think that might be why I loved the combat in Arkham City - I knew that every time I got hit by an enemy, it was my fault and I could have avoided it. Same principle in good shooters.
Nothing cooler than quickloading, repeating a small area and surviving with most of your HP.
Nothing worse than reloading at the last checkpoint, redoing an hour's worth of infinitely spawning enemies, and dying to that one cheaply-places bastard towars the end because the AI aim-bots you with a hitscan gun.

 

[Mordekaien]

Reciever had it mostly right. It has pretty decent physics, unique art style, has been made in 7 days, and it's awesome.
And It features best guns mechanics I've seen to this day.