Top 8 first person shooters of the last decade (according to me)

[Magmarock]

Hey guys, after seeing this gallery of the day http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/galleryoftheday/12554-8-Super-Shooters-You-Should-Have-Played and lets just say not really agreeing with it I decided to make my own list of what I feel are the best FPS of the last decade that is 2004 being the cut off date. Another reason I've decided to do this is because while there area a lot of top ten FPS lists all over the internet and the Escapist alike, I am yet to find one that even comes close to my opinion and I wanted to go a bit further and explain why I think these games are as good as they are.

Please remember that is is only my opinion and nothing more. I've got the impulse to do this since I'm a passionate FPS fan and one that I favour single player games over multi player ones.


8. Rise of the Triad
not particularly polished but lots of fun and a faithful remake that demands respect because Interceptor gets it.

7. Hard Reset
Just a very solid shooter with awesome weapons and beautiful visuals. Not to mention a fair bit of replay value with new game plus

6. Metroid Prime 2
My favourite in the series; while many liked the first one more and many more don?t regard this as an FPS I regard it as a damn good game with enough shooting in first person to qualify.

5. Dishonored
A love letter to thief and Deus Ex. While this game favours stealth, running and gunning along with jumping and blinking has it?s own rewards

4. Crysis 1
This game was overlooked because of it?s amazing graphics which may have been too to the point where it?s all anyone would talk about. However, just about any PC today should be able to run this game on high with little getting in the way. As far as I?m considered this is the best single play FPS EA has under it?s name. It plays a lot like a modern Perfect Dark.

3. Painkiller
a simple cathartic first person shooter where you kill everything that moves. This game is a lot like Hard Reset but almost perfect. Great music, great levels and awesome guns with plenty of enemies to cap with them. While there is a HD version of this game the original still holds up pretty well. It still looks good and plays well. There?s not much to say other then it?s just lots of fun.

2. Unreal Tournament 2004
What UT 2003 should?ve been like. This game is simply amazing. How it compares to the original is debatable, but what?s not debate is that this is still an awesome game. Lots of fun both with friends and with bots this game is packed with so much content, mods and settings that even if all you do is play against bots, there?s still enough there to keep you happy for years. And then you get into some of the mods to make it go further.

1. Shadow Warrior 2013
Without a shadow of a doubt the best FPS of 2013 and the most deserving of your attention.
Remember Red Steal for the Wii. Remember how excited you were when you saw it then then you played it. This game is everything Red Steal promised to be.

Made be some of the minds behind Painkiller Shadow Warrior 2013 combines great gunplay with even better first person sward play. The enemies are all different and exciting and the amount of different ways to play is countless. To this day it is one of the best and overlooked shooters.

Honourable Mentions


Far Cry 3
In some ways not as good as FC 2 but a step in the right direction or rather any direction What I liked the most about this game was that you could pick just about any direction of the campus and just go there. It really felt like that these islands were yours to explore.

Riddick
Haven't finished it but rather interesting game to say the least

Dark Messiah
Made by the same team that bought us Dishonored, Dark Messiah is another game I am yet to finish. However the parts I have played were amazing. One of the best first person sward combat mechanics (recently out staged but shadow Warrior) Dark Messiah has a visceral and fluid feel to it. It has RPG bits but it's designed like an FPS. It reminds me a lot of Hexen 2 by Raven.


System Shock 2
First released is 1999 but re-released in a working state in 2013, I first played this gem in... 2013. I didn't use any mods or even texture packs. I wanted to experience the game vanilla to see how it held up, and in all honesty. It's one of the best games I've played since the original Deus Ex.


Games that I didn't like for one reason or another.

Bulletstorm:
Bulletstorm has the makings of a great game but just too many problems that are impossible for me to look past; such as the AI for both e enemy and allies alike being completely wrong


Wolfenstein the New Order:
Wolfenstein felt just a little too much like Call of Duty to me and normally I wouldn?t complain about a games install size but 40gigs is just a bit ridiculous.


F.E.A.R:
I liked the first Fear but the more I think about it the more I realised that as much as I love action and horror, I don't like action and horror together. I feel that action is at it's best when it makes you feel powerful and horror is at it's best when it makes you feel vulnerable. It's a little hard to be scared of a little creepy girl when you?re a super soldier with big guns who can slow down time and who has a bigger body count.

Half-Life 2:
No I didn't forget about Half Life 2 I just don't think it held up very well. When HL2 first came out, it blew my socks off, but looking at it now, I just don't think it's aged very well. I could go on about all the things that annoy me about HL2 but short end of it is that without the gravity gun, not even the story holds my interest.


Bioshock/Infinite:
I have two words for the Bioshock series ?pretensions wank.? Again this is only my opinion, as for the reason I hold it; well, after playing System Shock 2 and Deus Ex I realised the difference between games that are clever and games that tell you they are clever. I feel that Bioshock is a game trying to appear smarter then it actually is.

Deus Ex Human Revolution:
I pretty much feel the same about this as I do about Bioshock. I actually prefer Invisible War despite how dumb down it was. I just felt that IW had a better idea of the themes that made Deus Ex great then HR does.



So that's my list, and once again this is only my prospective, I truly feel that I shouldn't have to state that but this is the internet so please keep that in mind and remain respectful to those who don't agree with you.

I hope you enjoyed and what are your thoughts and where there any games mentioned here that you might now consider trying out.

 

[vledleR]

I agree with you about HL2. I didn't really like it back in '06 Even the people who thought it was a godsend for the time, they have to admit, it hasn't aged well at all.

I'd personally put Halo:CE on the list. Halo lan was pretty damn epic

 

[Evonisia]

Can I ask why you thought Wolfenstein: The New Order was too much like Call of Duty to you? Personally I got more of a Halo vibe off it, as in it has some elements of older shooters and dips them into a newer shooter shape. Obviously the choice of elements differ, but that's the main idea of the game.

And can Dishonoured even be called a FPS? It's not a shooter, it's a stealth game from the first person perspective.

Personally I've played most of those games, and if I'll be honest there are some specific games I would replace. Crysis with FarCry 1, for instance, and not just because FarCry is my favourite game, but because FarCry never tried forcing a type of play onto you while presenting many options. Vehicle sections are the biggest example here, you never actually have to use a vehicle in that game, not even on the penultimate level where you jump a pit of lava which is nice because Crysis and FarCry have absolutely wank vehicle sections.

I would also probably replace FC3 with FC2, but that's a matter of personal preference. Admittedly, I was a tad bored of the Ubisoft formula when I played FC3 so take that as you will. I would also include Call of Duty: World at War (yes, above CoD 4 and Spec Ops: The Line) for improving on the last game while also so obviously being the main inspiration for Spec Ops: The Line's approach to satire. Play World at War after SO: TL and tell me they weren't taking notes. World at War suffers from the characters being one note, however, but they do push that one note effectively.

I agree with you about HL2. I didn't really like it back in '06 Even the people who thought it was a godsend for the time, they have to admit, it hasn't aged well at all.

I'd personally put Halo:CE on the list. Halo lan was pretty damn epic

Halo: CE was 13 years ago, Halo 2 would make the 10 year cut off mark. I also think Halo 2 is the superior of the two, but I kinda get why people say otherwise.

Edit: That moment when you realise you could come off as telling somebody to change their opinion.

 

[MysticSlayer]

5. Dishonored
A love letter to thief and Deus Ex. While this game favours stealth, running and gunning along with jumping and blinking has it?s own rewards

I might be coming across as an FPS purist (if those even exist), but I'm not entirely sure Dishonored is much of an FPS game. It seems to fall more into the Elder Scrolls category where there are FPS-like elements built into it, but they make up so little of the experience that calling it an FPS is like calling Call of Duty an RPG or Tales a fighting game series.

F.E.A.R:
I liked the first Fear but the more I think about it the more I realised that as much as I love action and horror, I don't like action and horror together. I feel that action is at it's best when it makes you feel powerful and horror is at it's best when it makes you feel vulnerable. It's a little hard to be scared of a little creepy girl when you're a super soldier with big guns who can slow down time and who has a bigger body count.

Personally, I've always felt that F.E.A.R. managed to find a way to turn an action game into a horror game. It defined early on who you could beat (i.e. the soldiers) and who you were at the mercy of (i.e. Alma, Paxton), and the mostly-clear-yet-still-somewhat-blurry line between the action and horror sections gave a rather engaging cycle of constantly empowering and disempowering the player. As time progressed, I even found the line between action and horror were breaking down as I began to realize that I was essentially a doll that Alma was playing around with and could dispose of whenever she felt like it. That dissonance between being empowered and disempowered, along with the constant sense that there was a malicious force that had absolute control over when I killed and was killed, to me made F.E.A.R. the incredibly rare case where horror and action merge together while maintaining the feeling of both.

Unfortunately, the other games in the series never really built on this. And in pretty much every case, it was because they completely forgot that the original worked because, despite the action, it still offered a malicious, omnipotent opponent that the player couldn't resist no matter how powerful they were.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

No mention of Kill Zone: Shadow fall?

I personally liked Wolfenstien: New Order, I didn't even see any resemblance of Call of Duty ( And that was a good thing!) It was more or less an infusion of the old school and the new. They even attempted to give Blazco some depth in their own way with some adult themes thrown in the mix so it was a graduation to a new level for ID and the Wolfenstien series. I'm hoping they pick up where they left off because the world is still ran by Nazis. Only thing I had problems is the steam version liked to kick me off time to time.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Good list. I'm still surprises Metroid Prime 2 is on it, though. Even most Metroid Prime fans don't like MP2 that much. (Probably, it's that dark world and the beam ammo mechanics.) I love them all nearly equally, which is to say I could have glued the Trilogy disc into my Wii and still used the machine often. But I wouldn't really call either of the first two clear cut FPSes, unless you count the Wii versions. The lock on made them both more of Zelda games with ranged weapons than FPSes. Aiming wasn't the challege; dodging attacks and exploring (as per a proper Metroid) was. MP3 crossed over the line through, with the standard Wii FPS controls and the fare heavier emphasis on combat.

I bought Bioshock 1 used for maybe $10, got maybe an hour in. What I've heard of the entire series makes me think they would have been better as TV shows, movies, comics or books, not an interactive medium.

I still have to try Painkiller someday, shurikens and lightning and all that.

I agree with you about HL2. I didn't really like it back in '06 Even the people who thought it was a godsend for the time, they have to admit, it hasn't aged well at all.

I'd personally put Halo:CE on the list. Halo lan was pretty damn epic

Half-Life is so *puts on extreme temperature suit and ballistic armor* overrated.[footnote]Though Valve should take a break from counting their Steam money and give the story arc some closure after Episode 2.[/footnote] It might have been the cream of the crop and innovative back in the day, and still is a decent game, but many others have made significant contributions since then. I played it once, and once is enough. It looks rather boring at times. A lot of realistic shooters do that. The lack of detail in a modern/near future Earth and the dreary atmosphere make them bland.

I miss carting my crts around town to my friends' houses and hooking up 3 or more xboxes for some Halos. Halo: CE always did have the best multiplayer experience, out of most games of the past 15 years. Halo, being of a more sci-fi influence, also didn't suffer from the blandness even when walking out in the barren snowy valleys from the campaign.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Yeah, Dishonored is a shooter the same way Skyrim is. Projectile attacks are certainly an element of the gameplay, but not a focus by any means, and just because it's first-person doesn't make it a shooter. Good game, just not an FPS.

I bought Bioshock 1 used for maybe $10, got maybe an hour in. What I've heard of the entire series makes me think they would have been better as TV shows, movies, comics or books, not an interactive medium.

No, no, no. No. Not liking Bioshock is fine, but you could not be more wrong. Bioshock not only works best as a game, it could not have existed in any other medium. The setting is indeed cinematic and the story events are quite linear, perhaps making it suitable for a non-interactive film or novel. But the Bioshock experience is rooted essentially in the nature of video games.

You haven't played it yourself so I can't really explain. But both Bioshock and Infinite are video games about video games, and would not work at all as anything else.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I bought Bioshock 1 used for maybe $10, got maybe an hour in. What I've heard of the entire series makes me think they would have been better as TV shows, movies, comics or books, not an interactive medium.

No, no, no. No. Not liking Bioshock is fine, but you could not be more wrong. Bioshock not only works best as a game, it could not have existed in any other medium. The setting is indeed cinematic and the story events are quite linear, perhaps making it suitable for a non-interactive film or novel. But the Bioshock experience is rooted essentially in the nature of video games.

You haven't played it yourself so I can't really explain. But both Bioshock and Infinite are video games about video games, and would not work at all as anything else.

I really have to agree with this. Both BioShock and Infinite might have a lot going on in their stories, but so much of their stories come down to commenting on the interactivity of video games. Sure, people may have largely remembered BioShock for its commentary on Randian objectivism, and a lot of people seem to remember Infinite for being a game about violence. However, BioShock was still very much about player agency, and Infinite was still very much about the relationship between the developer's narrative and the player's unique story. Such commentary pretty much relies on engaging with the interactive systems of video games, and I just don't see how a movie or book could have told their stories quite as well as the games did.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Really? Far Cry 3 made your list, but Bioshock didn't?

How do people not see that Far Cry 3 is terrible? It relies on making you grind for core gameplay mechanics. You have to grind for your ability to carry more than one weapon. You can't even carry enough ammo to explore the world properly or enough money to buy guns or ammo until you grind for it. And in order to grind for it you have to unlock those towers so you could see where the animals that you need to kill are located. If you don't do that you'll just run around aimlessly in hopes of encountering the right animal. And you'll most likely get killed. I actually found myself making notes in order to prioritize my grinding to unlock everything that I needed to start having fun in that game. Because I was tired of constantly checking the map and backpack and requirements for another holster or whatever. God, that was so frustrating.

And if that wasn't enough, the skill tree is abysmal. I have to buy an upgrade in order to reload while running? I can understand having to unlock the ability to chain takedowns, or those ridiculous grenade and resistance abilities etc. but the fuckin' run and reload, or takedown from above and from below? You should have those from the start.

They got rid of everything. There is no balance or fun to be found in that kind of grinding. They just copied the Assassin's Creed approach and made it worse.

They did that because they had no idea how to make the game last longer than the story missions, so they decided to simply lock you out of everything they could think of until you work your ass for it. They lock you out of fun. And that is the pinnacle of bad game design. If they truly wanted to create a good shooter with elements of exploration, they should have payed more attention to what makes Skyrim so addictive. Because they completely missed the point, even though they were obviously aiming for that. STALKER did it much better years ago.

And it's a shame, because if they took some time to think about what they want this game to be, they could have made a really great survival or exploration shooter, not just a first person Assassin's Creed.

Now, if you said Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, that would be a different story. Blood Dragon might not have more than 6h of content even with all the side missions and collectibles, but I'll be damned if it wasn't a superior game. In fact, it's one of the best shooters in the last decade as far as I'm concerned. Isn't that weird?

 

[TheRiddler]

You haven't played it yourself so I can't really explain. But both Bioshock and Infinite are video games about video games, and would not work at all as anything else.

I've played both, and while I get that the plot developments in Bioshock 1 would make it a lot less interesting in other mediums, what about Bioshock Infinite makes it game-specific? I mean, I feel like a movie with the run-and-gun segments abbreviated and the background of Columbia and our characters expanded on would actually be better for the story.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

I didn't know 8 came before 9.

Your list is okay by me, I guess. At least you didn't put some boring ass shooter on it.

 

[MysticSlayer]

How do people not see that Far Cry 3 is terrible? It relies on making you grind for core gameplay mechanics.

I actually initially thought a lot of the grinding in Far Cry 3 showed promise. In the early sections of the game, it gave the sense that you were a pathetic weakling that was really going to have to work and fight your way to the top. But then it took less than a dozen hours to craft almost everything meaningful, and it took even less time to start clearing massive outposts with ease. At that point it just became a boring trudge to the another radio tower before going to another outpost. If the game had spent considerably more time making you fight your way to being little more than a power fantasy, then I think that the game would have been much better. As it stands, though, it devolved into doing the same easy thing over and over and over again way, way too early.

what about Bioshock Infinite makes it game-specific? I mean, I feel like a movie with the run-and-gun segments abbreviated and the background of Columbia and our characters expanded on would actually be better for the story.

Spoiler: Spoiler for those who haven't played the game.

To me, the infinite universes was an attempt to explore the way that developer's narrative merges with the game's mechanics and how players make their own stories through those mechanics.

For starters, there's the nature of Elizabeth's tears. They are often referred to as "wish fulfillment" and "windows". In many ways, they are their own individual stories, similar to how stories are viewed as windows into another world. However, no matter what narrative Booker and Elizabeth are following, the player is still using the exact same basic mechanics. We still have guns, vigors, and the sky hook. In this case, the mechanics are the constant while the mechanics are the variables. Using other games as examples: Regardless of your decision too kill or spare Wrex in Mass Effect, or your decision to side with Iorveth or Roche in The Witcher 2, or your decision to save or destroy Megaton in Fallout 3, you will always be interacting with those games basic mechanics as the narratives branch after the choice. Furthermore, series like Zelda and Call of Duty have utilized very similar mechanics across their games for years but still manage to tell different stories with those mechanics. By Infinite's account, there are theoretically a limitless number of stories that can be told with the same game mechanics.

On the flip side, though, Booker and Elizabeth's story in the game is a "constant". Despite the universe jumping, there is a very linear story that drivers the Booker and the Elizabeth that the player follows throughout the game. However, within this constant narrative, players have the freedom to create their own story. You may remember a time of killing all the enemies in an area without ever leaving the sky hook, but I may remember hunkering down in a small section and never using the sky hooks. In many ways, there is no well-defined story for the game despite the constant narrative. Once the player enters the lighthouse, their story will be different because the different ways they use the mechanics, and the infinite lighthouses seen at the end represents this. In this case, while the narrative is a constant, the mechanics (or, more specifically, the stories told through them) are a variable, and as far as Infinite is concerned, game mechanics give us a theoretically infinite number of stories to tell within the same narrative.

All of this really highlights what makes a game a game. It's a narrative with a set of mechanics that let us interact with that narrative. BioShock Infinite is, ultimately, both and exploration and celebration of this nature of games, and that aspect of its narrative just wouldn't work as well as a movie.

 

[Pete Oddly]

My list goes a little something like this (keep in mind, not all of these are strictly shooters):

10. The Darkness
9. Halo 2 (only one day away from it's 10 year anniversary)
8. Wolfenstein: The New Order
7. Bulletstorm
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (the last one I played with any real enjoyment)
5. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
4. Far Cry 3
3. BioShock: Infinite
2. Borderlands/Borderlands 2/Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (let's face it, as great as they are, they are pretty much the same game with minor improvements made every installment)
1. Fallout 3

 

[Ragnoon]

1: Borderlands 2- Great fun with friends.
2: Serious Sam 2- Loved the humour and the colours and secrets.
3: Portal 2/Portal- A wonderful puzzle game.
4: Hidden & Dangerous 2- Still love this tactical first person shooter, has a lot a detail for the weapons.
5: Painkiller- Just ridiculous shoot em up like serious sam.
6: Wolfenstein: The New Order- Honestly thought it was gonna be one of the worst games of the year, had a wonderful suprise when it was the complete opposite.
7: Unreal Tournament 2004- So much variety in the game modes and environments, still play alot of this game.
8: Brothers In Arms/ any of them- Another beloved tactical shooter.
9: No One Lives Forever 2- A good spoof of the spy genre.
10: Any of the timesplitter games: Great fun and great humour, just hope the remakes are still going to come out.

 

[Evonisia]

9. Halo 2 (only one day away from it's 10 year anniversary)

One day away? And the MCC comes out on the 11th. You had one job, Microsoft. ONE. JOB.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

Uh...take another look at your list. Look at the numbering on it. Something's not right. :/

OT: Pretty good choices, I'd say. I loved Shadow Warrior's sword-fighting and Far Cry 3's shooting...not to mention that tiny little island with the respawning lions on it. Heheheh.

 

[Kathinka]

system shock 2 gives me a gamer boner. i'd argue arma2 also. maybe cod4. for all that cod has become, the fourth one was fantastic.

 

[Flammablezeus]

Take my ordering with a pinch of salt, as it usually depends more on what kind of mood I'm in.

8. Bulletstorm
7. Half Life 2
6. Blood Dragon
5. Bioshock 2
4. The Darkness
3. Natural Selection 2
2. Crysis
1. Far Cry 2

 

[Magmarock]

I might be coming across as an FPS purist (if those even exist), but I'm not entirely sure Dishonored is much of an FPS game. It seems to fall more into the Elder Scrolls category where there are FPS-like elements built into it, but they make up so little of the experience that calling it an FPS is like calling Call of Duty an RPG or Tales a fighting game series.

That's an interesting point about Dishonored. I'd say it's more stealth focused but the reason it's on the list is because if you put the upgrades in the right places you can play it like an FPS and a very decent one at that.

Personally, I've always felt that F.E.A.R. managed to find a way to turn an action game into a horror game.

The opinion that action and horror don't work together is very much just a personal one of mine. Fear is fun but I didn't find it scary personally because I felt too powerful. A lot of people found Fear to be scary which is great. There's a lot of snoppery surrounding horror games and movies and it really disappoints me. If something scars then great if it doesn't try something else. Fear didn't scar me personally but it did scare a lot of people.

I didn't know 8 came before 9.

Your list is okay by me, I guess. At least you didn't put some boring ass shooter on it.

Damn it! every time I post a long thread like this I always make a mistake despite proofreading it before hand. Far Cry 3 has been moved to honourable mentions.

Uh...take another look at your list. Look at the numbering on it. Something's not right. :/

OT: Pretty good choices, I'd say. I loved Shadow Warrior's sword-fighting and Far Cry 3's shooting...not to mention that tiny little island with the respawning lions on it. Heheheh.

Yeah lol I just moved FC3 to honourable mentions, the worst part was putting the 9 before 8 lol. I can't today.

Really? Far Cry 3 made your list, but Bioshock didn't?

FC 3 has a lot of problems but I really enjoyed exploring the island and it felt like a true sandbox to me. As for Bioshock it got a Dishonourable mention is the list of games I didn't like. I didn't go into too much reason though.

 

[Magmarock]

Sorry, this was an accidental post, because I forgot it click the edit button.