Best and worst gun feel

[Maeshone]

Well, the clear winner is the pump-action shotgun from DOOM and DOOM II, it is without a doubt the best shotgun I've ever fired in any game. The super-shotgun is pretty cool, but it doesn't have the satisfying 'k-chk' between each shot that the pump-action does.

Best overall gun feel I would have to give F.E.A.R. Every gun in that game was just a joy to fire and the destruction they caused was just awesome.

Best recent I would say Army of Two: The Devils Cartel (Haven't played Infinite yet) which came as a pleasant surprise after the rather lacklustre Army of Two: The Fortieth Day and the absolutely dreadful Army of Two... Seriously, every assault rifle and LMG had the same sound, and it was among the worst weapon soundeffects I've ever heard...

 

[Zantos]

Warhammer 40K Space Marine.

Heavy Bolter fire just nailed it for me. That and all the melee weapons (not that we're discussing those), my god. Chainswords. Everything just had weight!

Worst? I don't know, there are a lot of lackluster ones out there. Bioshock Infinite definitely wasn't the absolute worst for me... Hm... I don't know honestly. Maybe DE:HR?

Space Marine was pretty awesome for it's guns. People seem to forget that the bolter isn't a machine gun, it's a damn rocket launcher. But Space Marine had the right idea, I shoot you and you explode from the inside! Also, how can you talk about weighty weapons without the Thunder Hammer! Especially when pairing it with the jump pack for a good dose of Thunder Hammer Raining Murder Death! Titus' anger had more weight to it than some game's entire arsenal.

Metro 2033 was pretty good for guns too. You could feel the cheap in those weapons, which made it all the more satisfying when you got your hands on something awesome.

Bad guns? A lot of mine have already been said, so I think I'll go with Devil May Cry. I don't know how this is in the new one, but I always found the gunplay to be tacked on a bit. I did not feel that about Pandora, that was just ludicrously awesome.

 

[shrekfan246]

Conversely, Bioshock Infinite has fantastic gun-feel in my opinion. Some of the best sounding guns I've ever heard, and there's a lot of weight behind firing the hand cannon and shotgun. Even the starting pistol, replaceable as it is, gives off a satisfying crack when fired.

I loved the hand cannon in Infinite, shotgun and starting pistol too...but I just had so many problems with the burst-gun. It just didn't feel right. Maybe because I was playing hard and it lacked punch, but it just felt awful to me.

The burst-gun is a bit odd. It spreads and recoils too much to be as useful as most of the other weapons in my opinion. Certainly not as good as the normal carbine, even if it does have more ammo.

Most of the Vox weapons I didn't really like compared to their Founder counterparts. The heater had a nice secondary effect, but (and maybe this is just because I didn't upgrade it) it didn't pack as much of a straight-up punch as the shotgun, and the repeater's lower ammo store compared to the machine gun made it feel more awkward to use.

 

[XMark]

It seems to me that the sound design for the guns in the whole Modern Warfare and Black Ops series is consistently horrible.

The newer Battlefield and Medal of Honor games have far more of a realistic sound to their weapons that makes them feel more powerful and satisfying.

However, I don't think any game gun will ever feel better than the good ol' single shotgun from Doom.

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

Bad Company 2 got something right with how the guns feel. Sure they're not the most realistic, but the sound to them coupled with the vibration really makes you feel like you're using a high powered killing device.

The BAKOOM sound that the shotguns make in that game stand as the bar all games must hit for me in terms of shotgun sounds.


Worst would probably be Fallout 3. Never really felt like I was using a real gun. Always kinda wimpy guns... Except the Fatman.

 

[FrostyFinn]

I actually really liked the gun-feel in Bioshock 1. Sure towards the end the enemies could take four shotgun blasts to the head without dying, but that to me is an enemy problem, not a gun-feel problem. All the weapons "felt" really good, the sounds, vibrations, and recoil were quite fitting.

As much as I love these games, Bioshock Infinite and Resident Evil 4 I think are overkill gun-feel wise. Sure it makes your guns feel powerful when a single handcannon shot blows off heads, but a bad case of exploding head syndrome does not equal good gun feel to me. Really Bioshock Infinite? I can shoot enemies heads off but shooting in the chest is not fatal?

The worst gun feel to me is Cod Blops 1 & 2. It has virtually no gun-feel to the point I have to double-check to make sure my gun is even firing. Compared to Bioshock 1's pistol, which is weak but I am clearly both firing and doing damage, the starting pistol in blops is beyond useless and you can use up all your ammo on 3 wave 1 zombies if you don't use the knife.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Kane & Lynch had pretty decent gun sounds if I remember rightly. The shotgun in particular sounded nasty.

The pistol in San Andreas disappointed me a little compared to the Vice City one.

 

[Vandenberg1]

WORST....Whatever that game was called where it tried to say you can climb up walls and have all these different classes, hundreds of guns...but it wasno plot, no online play due to PS3 systems getting hacked, which led you to use shitttttyyyyyyyyy A.I. and both factions looked lame with long.. Army of Darkness- Ash stretched faces..

Pretty sure that's Brink, and you're certainly not alone in that. It was one of the biggest flops this generation...

BRINK! THANK YOU! I am so glad I held back, while all my friends pre-ordered that crap...Then again I did get Duke Nukem..which is still better then BRINK.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Gotta love the feel of the guns in Doom. They are helped a lot by the death animations of the demons, which usually has them melting into giblets, exploding into pieces or getting knocked back as blood shoots from their face. Plus, you can't help but love the "K-CHHK" sound of the single shotgun. It may not be as powerful as it's thumping double barreled brethren, but DAMN does it make it all the more satisfying!

I also like the feel of Torgue shotguns in Borderlands 2. They usually come firing three shots at once and since of course, since it's Torgue, "EXPLOSIONS MOTHERF*CKER!". Their accuracy may be for shit, but they have a nice loud pump-action sound and it's great to run up to an enemy, pull the trigger, and shower in the body bits that will inevitably fall upon you.

As for bad weapon feels, I too notify Fallout 3. The guns there just feel like crap and not in the good way like in Metro 2033 where the guns are MEANT to be shoddily-pieced together bits of scrapmetal. Here they just don't feel like they are doing anything until the enemy falls down to the floor.

 

[Ravinoff]

Best: hmm, I thought Borderlands 2 had some pretty nice ones, moreso when you start levelling a bit. Nailing two guys with one round, right through the head for 200k+ damage is always nice. And Gaige is just hilarious when you put most of your points into the Anarchy and Little Big Trouble, electrical damage going everywhere. Can't hit the broad side of a barn after building up some stacks, but it's worth it.

Bulletstorm had some real standouts too, but the primary assault rifle was sort of lame, so I'll give it second place.

Worst: tie between Mass Effect (1 only, 2 and 3 were much better in this regard) and Fallout 3.

 

[TrevHead]

Serious Sam has some pretty fantastic feeling weapons, as do any ID game that said FEAR is my favorite.

For a 3rd person shooter Binary Domain has some good feeling weapons, shooting robots with an automatic and seeing bits of metal fly off the robots is great. I second Space Marine 40K too, those weapons are quite beefy and feel like a weapon a Space Marine would use, add in the hack and slash elements and greenskins and you have one of the greatest games ever made in the game feel dept.

 

[Skullpanda]

Personally, I'd have to go with all the Helghast's weaponry from Killzone 2 and 3 for my personal favorites (Flame shield on!). They all seemed to have a weight and power that the ISA's didn't, and the sound was just brutal enough to make you want to keep playing. ISA weaponry just felt too...eh.

Worst guns? I'd probably say any of the guns from the APB. Nothing seemed to be powerful. I get that it's a MMO, but shouldn't a gun feel like a gun instead of throwing rocks at someone?

 

[Yuuki]

Crysis 2 guns, especially in multiplayer. For anyone who played it to a higher level, man the guns in that game handled so damn smoothly and accurately, it didn't try to imitate absurd amounts of "realistic" recoil/spread. They just worked, they were reliable, you could feel the impact.

Worst gun handling...Battlefield 3. The bullets take so long to travel to targets that often I've pulled the trigger at a completely stationary target, and then the next the guy basically runs away and my shot misses. Yes, running out of the path of a bullet...and this was a distance less than 100 meters, I'm not even going to bring up long-distance sniping because the target has all year to move out of the way while being completely oblivious how close they came to death. You can't dodge bullets intentionally obviously (it's an online game, nobody can see bullets coming).
I get BF3 is going for a fully "realistic" feel and it's amazing how developers are yet to grasp that making guns feel "realistic" means they will feel like absolute shit and handle like absolute shit.
Then there was the concept of suppression, and whoever came up with that needs to be thrown off the fucking base-jumping point at Damavand Peak without a parachute. Possibly the worst idea implemented in a first person shooter till date, it undermines the very foundations of shooters lol.

 

[BushMonstar]

The best for me would probably have to be Doom. So satisfying.

The worst would probably be Left 4 Dead 2. Don't really like any of the weapons in that game except for the shotgun.

Also, since BioShock Infinite has been mentioned a lot, I should just go ahead and say that I didn't really like the feel of most of the weapons in that game, especially the machine gun.

 

[Darkasassin96]

The sawed off shotgun in saints row 1 has to be the best feeling gun. It sounds like god slamming his car door shut and it can blow up a car with one shot, never have i felt a more satisfying gun in a game.

Worst gun, any gun in the Halo universe, seriously they all make pew pew pew noises and it just doesn't feel right to me.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm kind of suprised no one has mentioned "Rage". Definitely not the world's best game, but I thought the game's guns were great. They all felt heavy and powerful and had great sound effects, plus multiple ammo types. And even though it sounds kind of corny, I loved the way your character would examine and inspect them whenever you got a new gun.