Recommend me a fun PC shooter

[TheMann]

I've been playing the remake of Rise of the Triad and, to be blunt, it's fucking glorious. Everything from the original is preserved, including all the ridiculous powerups, six different rocket launchers, jump pads, bottomless magazines, a movement speed that flips the middle finger at the whole concept of "taking cover" and, of course, ludicrous gibs. Also highly self-aware and self-parodying. All rendered in the Unreal 3 engine.

Speaking of Unreal, you might give that a go. It was the 1998 single-player precursor to UT99 and is very well designed and balanced.

Also Deus Ex, if you want something a bit slower with a very good story. Both the original and DX:HR are excellent, but the original's graphics have aged horribly. The voice acting in Human Revolution is also far superior.

I'd say System Shock 2 is also quite interesting.

 

[Zaazel]

Can only second "Hard Reset", a nice and fast oldschool FPS with hordes of enemies, giant enemies and a nice morphing weapon / XP system.

Bulletstorm was also fun for a weekend and shouldn't be too expensive anymore.

 

[searron]

I second Bulletstorm. It's ludicrous over the top violent fun at its best. IT's a shame that there wont be a number 2.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Hard Reset is a fun, cyberpunk themed shooter. Weapons can be upgraded, have multiple fire modes, the enemies are varied and the gameplay is polished with solid gunplay. It's old-school in its approach and best of all, because it's a PC game it doesn't have any bullshit from having been a console port.

The STALKER games are also really good. Combining some exploration of "the zone", the radioactive area around Chernobyl, survival and fun sneaking/shooting. Get the "Complete" mods to flesh the games out, fix bugs and add some extra polish.

Painkiller games are old school shooters also, but where Hard Reset is robots and sci fi, Painkiller is demons and hellfire. You have really cool weapons to play with and no dicking about with anything other than the killing of the damned and the dead.

Crysis and Crysis Warhead are good PC shooters, the only games in the series worth playing since shortly after they devolved from top-notch PC shooters to console MMSs. You have a nano suit allowing you to run fast, jump high, turn invisible or absorb damage and multiple approaches to tackling objectives. Avoid 2 and 3 at all costs, they're so awful you'll regret buying them.

Rage from id was alright. Built on their newest engine, it looks very pretty. It's very much like Borderlands but with a lot less faff and downtime between actual shooting.

Bulletstorm is pure shooter. The protagonist is Oghren from DA:O and you basically get lots of funky weapons and get "scored" for zany gunplay. Shooting a dude gets you 10 points. Shooting him in half and impaling his torso on a cactus gets you 1000. Yuu get energy whips, bolas, blasters, rifles and more. This is a puerile, vulgar, juvenile game in all ways but the gunplay is good. Made by the same folks who made Painkiller.

Singularity is basically BioShock but with a "time travel" twist. You get temporal related abilities/plasmids which you level up with Adam and it's a lot of fun, at least once. Favourite thing is freezing enemies with liquid nitrogen.

Other honourable mentions go to FEAR, The Darkness I/II, Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Dead Space 2.

 

[OneCatch]

Jeez, you've played all the main ones!

Splinter Cell - The newer ones (particularly Conviction) could probably be described as third person shooters.

Spec Ops the Line - Serious YMMV - the combat is pretty bland, but the storyline is rather clever and compelling.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River - It's not quite as unforgiving as ARMA or other Flashpoints (let alone Red Orchestra), though I'm not sure it counts as 'decent ammo expenditure'. Good tactical shooter though.

X-COM: The Bureau - It ain't XCOM, but it's a fairly solid tactical third person shooter in it's own right, even if abilities and gadgets are a little over-emphasised.

Also seconding STALKER.

EDIT - also the Crysis series. The first one is kind of a natural progression from Far Cry 1 (stealth emphasised, enemy alert levels, detection meters, etc) with a bit of Halo-style scifi thrown in.
The latter two kind of move into their own territory, being a bit more arcade-y, but probably more fluid, polished, and entertaining. The Campaign of the third one is bloody short though.

 

[Jusey1]

Halo CE. I still play it online!

 

[Black Reaper]

Shadow Warrior. Buy it, play it, love it, live it. Let it consume your life because it's probably better than life. It's the most fun single player PC shooter that I've EVER played if I'm being totally honest. And it's quite long for a shooter. Especially these days. It took me 13h to finish it on Normal difficulty. And it's so good I played through it 3 times already. It has a New Game + mode and a Survival Mode.
Don't even bother checking it out before you buy it. Go in without any knowledge of what it's like. That will make it even better.

Yes!, a thousand times yes!

Barring that, i recommend Loadout, it is free to play, it doesn't take itself seriously, and you can make your own wepons
Rise of the Triad is good too, it has an awesome metal soundtrack and is very fun, but like the Yhatzee review says, it is brought down by the stupid platforming sectons

 

[Clowndoe]

You could try Natural Selection 2. It's an online multiplayer RTS/FPS hybrid with some unique mechanics.

So much this. OP absolutely must look this up. To add to the synopsis: If you join the alien team you're immediately spawned as a crawling monster that gallops on walls and through vents, and later you can be a gas-spewing pterodactyl and then a rhino. There's just so much to it I can't even explain why you should look it up.

 

[solemnwar]

It's kind of a bad game, but it's kind of entertaining in the weirdness: NecroVisioN.
You start off in the trenches of World War I.
And then vampires and hell demons show up.
Yep.
I cannot get through it without cheating like hell though. I think that might say more about my ability to play FPS at the time (it was somewhere around 2009 when I picked it up?)
I should pick it up again.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Bulletstorm, I laughed through about half of it.

 

[angryfish]

Unreal tournament 2004 remains my favourite FPS of all time, maybe even favourite game (and if not definitely in top 3). It has virtually no story whatsoever, just fast-paced shootiness. All the things I dislike about modern shooters it leaves out. Only has hip firing, essentially no regenerating health, carry as many weapons at once as are on the map, no cover based shooting - move fast or die. Also clips are bottomless (but you still have limited ammo).

6 game modes in the single player campaign, about 13+ multiplayer/instant action, and loads and loads of gameplay customization options. I never really play online, but I'm pretty sure there were still a fair few servers up pretty recently if that's your thing, dunno if there still are though.

Can't really stress how fast paced it is, some of the most intense games I've ever played have been UT2004 matches (especially DOM-Conduit if anyone on here knows what I'm on about...)

Difficulty curve goes through the roof between penultimate and final level of the single player, but it's the most fun I've ever had in an FPS.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Warframe, it's free, it has a lot of action, sure some people might think you HAVE to spend money on it to get anything, but in reality every single weapon/warframe is craftable for free, but yeah, I've put about 100 hours into it so far, it's pretty damn fun, you should give it a try.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

How about the original Unreal? Think your some slick gunslinging bad-ass? Get your teeth kicked in a couple times by a skaarj or brute a couple times for a real lesson in humility. Then if you run into a titan. . .

Or Unreal Tournament. Mostly because I love unreal's weapons

 

[mattaui]

Kind of surprised to not see Dead Space mentioned yet. I enjoyed the whole series, but the first two were definitely the strongest in theme, though I found the third one was still pretty fun, too.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Red Orchestra 2 is pretty damn fun if you like ultra-realistic WW2 fighting where a shot to the chest from a rifle will actually kill you (Not like hardcore mode in Battlefield or COD where a shot to the foot will kill you).

Bulletstorm is a fun game that gives zero fucks. It's crude, vulgar, graphic as all fuck, and fun as hell.

I'm assuming you have Metro 2033 on there because you played it, but I would recommend playing Metro: Last Light as well. Pretty much improves on 2033 in every way.

 

[MrCaptainA]

I'd suggest WARFRAME - It's a free to play 3rd person action shooter with a bit of parkour added for funzies. There is a pretty robust crafting system and as far as communities go, it's not too bad. Finding a clan can be tedious and as there are several items that are specifically 'clan tech' it's worth starting the search sooner rather than later as it's designed to be multiplayer co-op. There is a cash currency available, however there isn't anything that you NEED to buy with it, however it's good to have a few platinum spare for the occasional 'potato' (weapon/frame superchargers) and additional weapon/frame slots if you're a bit of a collector/completionist.

If you want to see what it's like before downloading, you can check out their livestreams on Thursdays 7pm EST, or their Dev Q&A's on Fridays 2pm EST at twitch.tv/warframe

I've got 1052 hours played so far and I'm not looking to stop playing any time soon.

*EDIT* Adding to this I really enjoyed the original Crysis, and to a lesser extent Crysis 2. Both games are reasonably good in the FPS genre and you can get Crysis Maximum edition (comes with the Crysis: Warhead expansion) as a boxed game in your local game store bargain bin for less than £5

Blacklight: Retribution was ok, but as with all "F2P" games released under the Cryptic Studios moniker, it's a bit of a misnomer as there are pretty clear cut "Pay to Win" avenues which sucked the fun out of it for me - as someone that would rather take the time to earn my rewards as supposed to buy them.

 

[MHR]

Wow, these are some seriously good suggestions. I'm going to look at a few of them on Steam and see what I can get or watch for a sale. thanks.

I see Doom mentioned a few times and I've always wanted to play that and I saw someone playing Doom during the Awesome games done quick marathon and it looks great. Love the life/ammo management and the death-maze feel.

I'm not playing tribes. Tribes can go screw itself. I want the primary mechanic in play to be shooting things, not careening off hills at the speed of sound trying to chase the flag carrier all day and probably failing at it. Some games are just too fast to be fun for me.

Well you've kinda rul.led out all the known fun ones.. heck you've ruled out most of the shooters. You've ruled outr th sci-fi shooters, the silly shooter the ultra violent shooters, the funny shooters.. about the only thing left is COD, Modern Warfare and ARMA... the Modern Military shooters.

Maybe shooters aren't your thing. I mean you've been nice enough to post all the shooters you don't like but yet haven't mentioned one you do like. Perhapes FPS just isn't the genre for you OP.

I've played all those I've listed except 2 of those Far Crys, 1 of the Red Fections, The GTAs that aren't 3, 4, Vice City and San Andreus, the first Saints Row, and I haven't played Metro 2033 all the way through, mostly because I didn't like the feel of it.

I didn't list all the shooters I've played on consoles. Shooters are definitely my thing. I've got 3049 hours in TF2 alone. That's why I say it's wearing on me.

 

[Signa]

Descent just released on Steam. You shouldn't need to look further than that unless you get motion sick.

Edit: and yes, as you just said, Doom is always a good option. It's amazing what happens to a FPS when you remove the need to aim and reload. It sounds really bad when I put it that way, but when all you need to do is face someone and press the fire button, the game becomes a frenzy instead of some sort of casual-friendly mess. The "death maze" part is just icing on the cake, because exploration is always fun.

 

[Movitz]

Well, why not try "Kane & Lynch"?

The the control and game mechanics may not be gold, but they work, and the plot is this tough revenge story that takes you to different colorful settings. And it's really easy to just start up and play, without having to spend large amounts of time getting into it.

That and it's probably cheap as hell nowadays.