Decline Sell me a First-Person Shooter.

[ferratilis]

Here's a comprehensive list of modern shooters (with annotations) for people who think that oldschool shooters are just for boomers:

Spoiler

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

don't fall for it guys, zombra is only looking for more people to put in ignore.

 

[Keyboard Vomit]

Annnnnnnnnd .... shill!

There is only one shooter for you unless you're a scrub. Beach Head 2000.

 

[udm]

You might like Crysis, Zombro. First half of the game has what you're looking for. Return to Castle Wolfenstein also has some good moments with fantastic sound effects.

Also highly recommend STALKER since you don't have it on your completed games list.

 

[Konjad]

Yes, that's right! Zombra, the guy who causes screams of incredulous outrage up and down the Codex for suggesting that not all games must feature a rocket launcher in the final act, is looking for a good single-player FPS.

I've been playing a lot of Insurgency: Sandstorm with my homies lately, and it's left me with a craving for more of that kind of gameplay, only without having to schedule a meetup with half a dozen friends.

My ideal shooter will be often stressful but rarely frantic, with a confident, measured pace, plenty of quiet moments, and excellent audio/visual feedback from the combat, like solid booms from the guns and the satisfying ping of an ejected clip. You know what I'm talking about.

Annnnnnnnnd .... shill!

You'll love Arma 3 King of the Hill RHS, the best multiplayer fun I've ever had. Both realistic enough (with bullet physics, weapons and armor), and at the same time quick and just join & play (no autistic looking for "friends" to play with online) as it's very popular.

If you're too lazy to download 4 files, then vanilla KotH is great too, but weapons are... not perfect.

Also if you want to play together, just let me know!

 

[DraQ]

Yes, that's right! Zombra, the guy who causes screams of incredulous outrage up and down the Codex for suggesting that not all games must feature a rocket launcher in the final act, is looking for a good single-player FPS.

I've been playing a lot of Insurgency: Sandstorm with my homies lately, and it's left me with a craving for more of that kind of gameplay, only without having to schedule a meetup with half a dozen friends.

My ideal shooter will be often stressful but rarely frantic, with a confident, measured pace, plenty of quiet moments, and excellent audio/visual feedback from the combat, like solid booms from the guns and the satisfying ping of an ejected clip. You know what I'm talking about.

Annnnnnnnnd .... shill!

I don't know anything about Insurgency: Sandstorm, but(t) see below (NOTE: most are not tacticool unless specified):

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat.
Atmospheric, free roaming lot of downtime and avoidance being a good idea a lot of the time. Tacticool - quasi-realistic with modern weapons.

Unreal
Atmospheric, a lot of just soaking the atmosphere in, fast and smart enemies, weapons a bit underpowered but pretty diverse. Might play Ash's mod.

Black Mesa
HL1 remake. Pretty good and mostly faithful. Very mildly tacticool (same as HL1/2).

Sin
Half-Life's ugly sibling. Graphically unimpressive for it's time, but has punchy guns and tons of interactivity. Very mildly tacticool.

Red Faction
Satisfying guns and destructible environments on Mars. Very mildly tacticool.

Ancient/Retro Tier:

Blood
The bestest classic Build engine game. Somehow blends atmospheric horror and black comedy together.

Shadow Warrior
The second best of the classic build engine games. Features racist humour which should secure its place among Codex' favourites.

Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri
More of a powered armour sim, but you're missing out. Sadly short.

System Shock 1 and 2
1 is more similar to TN:SFC than conventional FPS and 2 technically has RPG elements.

Guncaster Vindicated (mod for Doom engine games and WADs running in GZDoom)
You get to shoot some really punchy weapons (including 8 barrel shotgun), kick upgraded clasic doom/hexen/heretic/strife enemies in the nuts, cast spells and also breath fire and fly ('cause you're a dragon).

Something Completely Different But Technically FPS Tier:

Hexen 1 and 2
Fantasy FPS.

Budget/Obscure Tier (YMMV but cheap and might be interesting):

Chasm
Ukrainian Quake. Sadly short, lacking in Z-Axis deparetment and came out too late but features some impressive (for its time) effects and fun array of weapons, and enemies you can dismember with them.

Eradicator
Build-ish, suffers from a lot of Quake 2's issues, but has some neat ideas going for it as well, along with rather large array of weapons.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

My ideal shooter will be often stressful but rarely frantic, with a confident, measured pace, plenty of quiet moments, and excellent audio/visual feedback from the combat, like solid booms from the guns and the satisfying ping of an ejected clip. You know what I'm talking about.

Play the Metro series if you want a top shelf Slav experience.

Titanfall 2 if you want something high-quality to burn through in an afternoon.

 

[CappenVarra]

F.E.A.R.

 

[ValeVelKal]

I second STALKER SoC and STALKER CoP. Clear Sky (the second one) is much weaker.

HEXEN 2 did not age well, unlike HEXEN1 which is still solid. I would know, I tried replaying HEXEN1 and then HEXEN2... 3 weeks ago.

I don't see DOOM1 and DOOM2. They did not really age and are still a blast to play. On the other hand, avoid Heretic - aged like milk.

There are some very good Star Wars game : Republic Commando, Dark Force 1 (aged well) and Jedi Knight 1 & 2.

 

[ValeVelKal]

And of course, you MUST play Warhammer 40 000 : Fire Warrior.

 

[Lady_Error]

As someone who hardly played any shooters at all, the ones I liked are:

Half-Life - all round good game, decent story

Halo - has its own charm and the rings are a good setting

Duke Nukem 3D - another classic, but very dated by now

If you want something fancy and new, I guess Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty much a shooter. I may get it at some point (if civilization survives long enough).

 

[Ash]

It helps to know what you've already played...

Zombra's Completed Game List
Games played but not completed aren't listed, but this should give you a good start.

You're not making this easy for us. Either list the FPS you have played succinctly, or describe your tastes. Don't make me write a damn autistic list goddamn it!

 

[Zombra]

It helps to know what you've already played...

Zombra's Completed Game List

You're not making this easy for us. Either list the FPS you have played succinctly, or describe your tastes. Don't make me write a damn autistic list goddamn it!

Sorry, I figured people could go "I wonder if he played Lazer Lizzards, oh it's not on the list, I'll recommend that."

And I did describe my tastes quite specifically in the OP. =✰

 

[Ash]

My ideal shooter will be often stressful but rarely frantic, with a confident, measured pace, plenty of quiet moments, and excellent audio/visual feedback from the combat, like solid booms from the guns and the satisfying ping of an ejected clip. You know what I'm talking about.

Nah this isn't good enough.

So 8/10 difficulty. Walking sim moments (? you're not specific - "quiet" moments with puzzles and platforming? Moments of backtracking or potential to get lost? Or walking sim or storytelling moments?). Good weapon feedback. Tells me a great deal.

fuck it, Wolfenstien '09 on the highest difficulty. It fits your description

Seriously though, I actually like that game. Good for what it is. Too bad it is not easy to get hold of these days.

 

[SlamDunk]

I'm not going to sell you any of the first-person shooters that I own.

 

[Multidirectional]

The only genuinely fun ones that come to mind out of recently released ones are Dusk and Doom Eternal.
Replayed F.E.A.R recently and going through Extraction Point now so might as well mention these here. Anyone who still haven't played them needs to unfag themselves and do it. Action still looks great, guns feel nice and AI remains fun to fight against after many playthroughs.

 

[King Crispy]

The best-looking one is Metro Exodus. If you want a game to show off what your GPU is capable of, can't go wrong with it.

Yes, there are parts of it that are still quite linear, but it has equal amounts of fairly large open-world gameplay, even if your mission is always locked in.

Don't bother with its ray-tracing and DLSS features; the game looks and plays almost worse with either of them on. DX11 mode, details as high as you can to still achieve the framerate you want.

 

[Vlajdermen]

It feels good to say this after all these years...
Play Serious Sam, faggot.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Unreal
Atmospheric, a lot of just soaking the atmosphere in, fast and smart enemies, weapons a bit underpowered but pretty diverse. Might play Ash's mod.

Hell yeah, I'm great, play me... wait, Ash's mod? No way, play it with the OldUnreal patch and its Old Weapons mutator.

Black Mesa
HL1 remake. Pretty good and mostly faithful. Very mildly tacticool (same as HL1/2).

More like HL1 hollywoodified with ugly Xbox 360 aesthetics and a barrage of questionable ethics choices. At the very least play the original first, it's the most prestigious option.

Sin
Half-Life's ugly sibling. Graphically unimpressive for it's time, but has punchy guns and tons of interactivity. Very mildly tacticool.

Stop this nonsense, buddy. Sin's graphics are fully on par with their own time. What you should be complaining about is obviously Activision's insistence that the game ship with a million bugs. But I understand. Not everyone is equipped to appreciate its niche comic book nonsense.

Red Faction
Satisfying guns and destructible environments on Mars. Very mildly tacticool.

Also worth noting that it's originally a PS2 game. Explains the graphics, but it otherwise seems like they just made a PC game and slapped auto-aim on it. Also more ‘boring’ than Quake 2. Check out the sequel for shocking decline and copying of Gaylo.

Blood
The bestest classic Build engine game. Somehow blends atmospheric horror and black comedy together.

Hey, you can't forget to mention that it has the worstest sequel ever, which is required playing for all First Person Action Shooter Game Hardcore Gamers.

System Shock 1 and 2
1 is more similar to TN:SFC than conventional FPS and 2 technically has RPG elements.

Um, excuse me, System Shock is a point-and-click adventure game. Get it right!

Guncaster Vindicated (mod for Doom engine games and WADs running in GZDoom)
You get to shoot some really punchy weapons (including 8 barrel shotgun), kick upgraded clasic doom/hexen/heretic/strife enemies in the nuts, cast spells and also breath fire and fly ('cause you're a dragon).

please show us your bad dragon collection

Something Completely Different But Technically FPS Tier

What did you even mean by this? Hexens are 100% FPS.

Eradicator
Build-ish, suffers from a lot of Quake 2's issues, but has some neat ideas going for it as well, along with rather large array of weapons.

Quake 2 doesn't have any issues.


You, sir, have just been Flak-Checked by Unreal.

 

[curds]

Quake 2 doesn't have any issues.

How about:
- Every area looks the same.
- Guns feel weak as shit due to being too quiet and also enemies being bullet sponges.
- Lame, generic military sci fi setting compared to weird, gothic original Quake.
- Boring soundtrack, especially compared to previous id games, Doom 1 and 2 and Quake 1.
- Boring level design compared to previous id games.

I don’t hate Quake 2 but to say it has no issues is not true. It’s pretty mediocre.

 

[sser]

If you liked Insurgency and want a similar strategy vibe but in single-player then play Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon & the expansions. Or play the Rainbow Six games, particularly Rogue Spear.

If you want the setting but more uptempo action, then play the Delta Force games, particularly Black Hawk Down (if it works).

 

[Tacgnol]

I'd definitely recommend the STALKER series.

SHOC and COP anyway. Clear Sky is more controversial.

Very unique series with an interesting setting and amazing atmosphere. Also an interesting take on the hybrid RPG/FPS experience without including hard character progression (instead based on gear).

 

[Morenatsu.]

Quake 2 doesn't have any issues.

How about:
- Every area looks the same.

In software mode, perhaps.

- Guns feel weak as shit due to being too quiet and also enemies being bullet sponges.

The weaker weapons are weak, but what about muh railgun and shiet lol

- Lame, generic military sci fi setting compared to weird, gothic original Quake.

ur mum is lame and generic. There's nothing wrong with non-weird settings. And it's not like you were ever really drowning in it until now.

- Boring soundtrack, especially compared to previous id games, Doom 1 and 2 and Quake 1.
- Boring level design compared to previous id games.

There isn't really any huge gap in quality between Doom metal and Quake 2 metal, and Doom 2 is obviously the boringest out of those games, Quake 2 included.

I don’t hate Quake 2 but to say it has no issues is not true. It’s pretty mediocre.

It's not as good as the previous games, but relative decline is still decent overall. There's way more properly mediocre games out there, and Quake 2 utterly destroys them all. Derp.

 

[Tavar]

Try Bulletstorm. It's pure fun with some cool ideas with only the two weapon limit and the dumb story as downsides. If third person shooters are an option as well, play Max Payne.

 

[Zlaja]

My ideal shooter will be often stressful but rarely frantic, with a confident, measured pace, plenty of quiet moments, and excellent audio/visual feedback from the combat, like solid booms from the guns and the satisfying ping of an ejected clip. You know what I'm talking about.

For something that isn't fucking archaic that most everyone's already played at least once, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.

Western Arcade Shootin' with a meaty campaign. Featurin' measured yet deadly gunplay rewardin' deliberation, a great procession of environments, stunnin' renditions of the wild countryside and one of the best depictions of a cowboy arsenal games have ever managed to produce. All wrapped up in one of the better narratives to come from this generation of modern shooters.

Personal tip, going to the effort of removing the comic borders is worth it.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is also a fun western shooter. In your first mission you start out with a bang and get to shoot yankee scum during the civil war. Also, you get to mow down indians with a gatling gun. What's not to like? If made today, the game would have been cancelled in 2 seconds.

 

[Ash]

Unreal
Atmospheric, a lot of just soaking the atmosphere in, fast and smart enemies, weapons a bit underpowered but pretty diverse. Might play Ash's mod.

Do it.

In fact I'll suggest a few modded FPS:

Duke Nukem 3D w/Duke+ mod. Better mechanics (kick is actually good now), weapons more punchy, AI more diverse. Decent mod though it could use a tad more polish.
Heretic w/Brutal Heretic. This has none of the controversial or lame shit of normal Brutal Doom. It's straight AI, weaponry and effects upgrades. Pretty much perfect.
Turok w/Turok+ Mod. Additional polishing and gameplay depth.
RTCW w/ Venom mod. I played this one a few years back and it has had many updates since. Could be different now. But it was a minor faithful upgrade at the time.
Quake w/ quake 1.5. I've not played this one, but it looks good. I mention it specifically because it improves weapon feedback considerably. Alternatively, if you have played quake before and not feeling another run of the base game, play Arcane Dimensions. There was a few things I didn't agree with but overall it's pretty impressive.
Quake 2 w/Beserker mod. Mostly graphics-focused, but also some minor gameplay changes too. Not the best thing ever and if I were modding the gameplay I'd go a lot further (e.g remove/alter shield belt, fix dumb AI), but it is cool nonetheless.