In every genre, there are some key aspects that developers just have to get right, lest the whole thing fall apart. For instance, if the karts feel awkward or difficult to control in a kart racer, there's not really a lot that will salvage that game. In an FPS, meanwhile, the player's going to spend a lot of their time shooting, and so the guns need to feel satisfying and impactful.
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If an FPS offers flexible builds and approaches, all the better, but weapons that are satisfying to use and varied are major considerations for the fun factor. Here are some of the biggest FPS titles that have offered players just that.
7 TimeSplitters 2
A Historical Selection Of Weapons
For many, TimeSplitters 2 was the pinnacle of this much-loved FPS series. It revolved around the efforts of Sergeant Cortez, a space marine traveling through various periods of time to acquire the Time Crystals that a malevolent race known as the TimeSplitters had spread between them. We play as a contemporary character in the specific time period of each level rather than Cortez himself, and this means that they had access to contemporaneous weapons in each level too. From the electricity-tossing ElectroTool from the Robot Factory of the year 2315 to the Tommy Gun acquired in 1932 Chicago, there's a great variety. Many are rather standard, but alternate fire modes add to the utility in some cases.
In Arcade Custom mode, players can create weapon sets that combined their favorites together, regardless of time period. Of course, not every weapon is as powerful or as practical as the next, nor as punchy to use. Wild cards like the Brick, a simple housebrick that can be thrown, is one hilarious highlight: A real pain to aim with, but a one-shot if striking well.
6 Bulletstorm
Absolute Creative Carnage
TimeSplitters is a series unafraid to embrace the more ludicrous fun side of the FPS, and 2011's Bulletstorm takes the same approach to its action. Its protagonist is Grayson Hunt, a former commander of a special forces squad who leaves General Victor Sarrano's service after being decieved by him. Hunt's foolhardiness causes him to crash on a planet known as Stygia, and he must now fight for his survival as he and his remaining allies seek a way off of the planet. An experienced soldier, he knows his way around a conventional arsenal of weapons (a shotgun and so on), as well as some rather more unique ones.
The first intriguing thing he's armed with is an Instinct Leash, a sort of futuristic lasso. Combat is not just about simply blasting away, but combining tricky moves like kicks, slides, and the Leash to set up Skillshots, elaborate finishing moves that those seeking to boost their high scores will have to master. Other weapons are more creative, like the Bouncer, which is a flaming mortar of sorts. The different Skillshots (scoring a kill with a Bouncer shot that has traveled a long distance is one of them) forces the player to make use of different weapons in different scenarios, lending another layer of strategy to the non-stop action. Bulletstorm isn't afraid to get gory, too, meaning that every shot has a brutal, visceral impact. There's nothing like it for mindless action.
5 Halo: Reach
Reaching A New Standard
Sometimes, installments in a new series change very little. It's always controversial to make big changes to the status quo, after all. A wide range of established weapons returned for Halo: Reach, then, but there were some notable tweaks to the formula. The dual-wielding mechanic, which had grown popular with some in prior titles, was removed. In its place was more of a focus on ranged combat, with the Designated Marksman Rifle becoming dominant (this would remain the case in Halo 4, where other weapons in its category suffered in comparison).
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The Sniper Rifle, too, was particularly potent here, as was the Plasma Pistol, which had fantastic utility in removing those all-important shields. This did seem to come at the expense of the effectiveness of other Halo staples like the Assault Rifle, but there it was. All of this played well into the new Armor Ability mechanic, though, which allowed players to equip the Jet Pack and find themselves sneaky, difficult-to-access high ground from which to unleash their sniper or DMR.
4 Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil
From the Conventional To The Brilliantly Absurd
There's no FPS convention quite like starting out with a pistol. After all, if you had the most destructive weapons right from the start, a lot of your enemies wouldn't stand a chance. It's the feeling of steadily ramping up your power level, and Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil is a great example of this. At the very beginning, in the Port of Adia, Turok is armed with a pistol and his trademark bow. He steadily adds more and more weapons to his arsenal for the steeper challenges to come, and they're among the most iconic and preposterous in the genre.
Turok gains access to the Razor Wind, a bladed throwing weapon that travels like a boomerang (thankfully Turok is able to retrieve it without being sliced himself). The Scorpion Launcher doesn't launch scorpions, but missiles, and the unwieldy Torpedo Launcher is as potent as the name implies. The Riding Gun is another highlight, being a sort of artillery option mounted on a dinosaur our hero briefly rides. The Nuke, a monstrously powerful rocket launcher of sorts that disintegrates targets, has limited availability only during the very late stages of the game. Then, of course, there's the famous Cerebral Bore, a homing weapon that drills into targets' skulls before exploding. Even Doom has never gone quite that far, and the weapon has become emblematic of the Turok series' goriness and grim creativity with its weapons.
3 Borderlands 2
Legendary Weapons Indeed
The Borderlands games take themselves just seriously enough to separate their weapons into entirely conventional categories. Pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, sniper and assault rifles, and rocket launchers are standard fare, joined by additions such as laser weapons for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Really, it's some of what's within these categories that makes the games' arsenal so notable. The series is famous for its elemental effects, such as Shock's ability to break through shields and Corrosive damage making armored enemies much less of a pain. For many fans, Borderlands 2's iconic selection of weapons is a franchise highlight, with some extraordinary Legendary weapons that completely change the rules about how weapons behave and the damage they can do.
The Infinity, for instance, is a pistol with unlimited ammo that fires in a distinctive pattern, while the Hellfire is an Incendiary SMG with an increased chance to burn, some AOE potential, and boosted incendiary damage. There are also grenade mods that are just as outlandish. Among these is the Contraband Sky Rocket, which is Unique rather than Legendary but well-known for the wide-range carnage it can cause (potentially also downing the player if thrown carelessly). The Borderlands faithful will often farm particular bosses and minibosses in hope of Legendary loot, but even if playing casually, the elemental touch to conventional weapons makes them a blast to play with.
2 Killing Floor 2
Brutal Weapons For A Brutal Job
Killing Floor 2 is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, and how to achieve that. It's a horde shooter, a cooperative rather than competitive affair, in which the only goal is to blast away at ever-increasing hordes of Zeds. There's some strategy in making a diverse team from the character classes available (such as Field Medic, Commando, and Sharpshooter), but the crux of it all is to just cause as much carnage as possible to prevent yourself being overwhelmed.
As such, the game's weapons are its most critical factor, and the great things is that most of them feel very powerful indeed. It's not just about guns, as the melee-centric Berserker Perk specializes in weapons like the Fire Axe while the Demolitionist favors explosives such as C4, but there's an enormous range of firearms here. The fiery shotgun that is the Dragonsbreath, the Survalist's ice-centric Freezethrower, and the formidable Rail Gun are just some of the delights that join a rather standard yet highly potent lineup of sniper rifles, machine guns, and so on. Whatever you use, it feels weighty and very satisfying to destroy those Zeds with. On top of that, the upgrade mechanic allows players to stick with and develop their favorite weapons.
1 Doom
Hitting As Hard As Ever After All These Years
When Doom was rebooted, the developers faced the usual dilemma. To bring the game into the brave new world of 2016 and make it worthy of being regarded as a 'new' game, but also to pay homage to the iconic original as much as possible. As such, there could be no question of leaving behind that legendary roster of weapons. The Super Shotgun, the Chainsaw, the Plasma Rifle, and the fearsome BFG were among those that made a return, and it was a kind of nostalgic joy to see them tearing apart Imps and their larger demonic friends once more.
The look and feel of the weapons was one thing that Doom got so right the first time. Doom 2016 and its follow-ups then developed the formula with additions such as weapon mods, which gave the player the choice of some significant upgrades for each weapon that really added some additional strategy and potency to them (an optional mod to give the rocket launcher homing rockets after a delay, for instance). Authenticity, but with creativity and advancement, factors which have made the new generation of Doom games so successful.
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