https://youtu.be/cCCEjeYuoKg

Even at the tender age of 57, I’ve been called a player. Not video games, though. They’re WAY too much of a time suck for me. And once I get sucked-in I can’t get out. But I’m well aware that American gun culture owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the video game industry, for introducing millions of young ‘uns to the joys of firearms. So did you get a new game for the holidays? What’s your all-time fave?

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124 COMMENTS

        • Yep. Keep loving the anti white propaganda. Next you will be talking how great a Black Lives Matter mod for Fallout.

    • Yes. Doom and Doom 2. Those games were my favorite first person shooters. Adding in the whole hell/supernatural angle made them that much better. They were great because of their simplicity, you just pointed and shot. I’m unable to play modern first person shooters. Yeah they look incredible and there is much more realism in some of the firearms, but they are also over complicated. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

      Rise of the Triad for the PC came out around the same, I feel it deserves an honorable mention.

      • Yep, that’s a good one too…I guess I’ll have to pull the ol’ 486 out and give both titles a run.

  3. Fallout 4 has a mod called “Modern Firearms” which lets you customize a wide range of current weapons. Been keeping me in the game well past 1400 hrs. And no I don’t have a life…..

    • Insurgency, its all online but it emphasizes realism in a war on terror setting and some of the mod servers have hundreds of real firearm choices.

        • I haven’t played any more thaan a few rounds PvP when the early version was released last year. You could tell it wasn’5 quite finshed because the MG32 would fill the screen with floating red X’s when fired.

    • Forgot to mention, the centerpiece is a vending machine, that among other things lets you go to a “Brownells” or “Magpul” “catalog” where you can buy various parts and furniture.

  5. Well, I find FPS to be far to linear and boring and Fallout 4 was an epic disappointment, so I’ll have to go with Fallout: New Vegas, unless Empire: Total War counts as “Gun based”

    Also the Hitman series. I know people didn’t like Silent Assassin but it was more of a challenge than the rest.

      • Really? I thought that was one of the worst games of the whole series. I am a big fan of some of the originals and then Fallout 3. 4 is a lot of fun but definitely has its issues

    • I’d love to see modders port the resources from Fallout New Vegas into the Fallout 4 engine. Hell, modders have already re-made a lot of the iconic New Vegas items like That Gun, the Chinese Stealth Armor, and numerous other New Vegas inspired items for Fallout 4.

      I agree, the quasi “locked on rails” plotline of Fallout 4 was a big disappointment. And the DLCs for 4 were pretty weak in comparison. Far Harbor had the best storyline of the modest DLCs released, the rest were basically glorified kill and fetch quests to unlock new stuff to craft. Nothing anywhere near the level of Old World Blues (the absolute best of the NV DLC) or Lonesome Road, or even the much maligned Dead Money.

      New Vegas was the premier video game gun simulator, since Bethesda’s openness and support of modders encouraged a worldwide community to build them and add them to the game, even if they did break the canon lore of the series.

      • It wasn’t just that, J.E. Sawyer did a substantial amount of work on accurately representing the stock guns and systems- the reloading bench, existing in-game weapons mods, etc. even before third parties started up with the Bethesda Creation Kit.

    • Empire: Total War is great, but I slightly prefer the Fall of the Samurai expansion for Shogun 2: Total War when it comes to ballistic mayhem.

      (It probably doesn’t hurt that directly taking control of the artillery and ships can be quite fun in itself.)

  6. Years ago during an ambush in Afghanistan everything actually went right. We were behind a little hut and all set up about 200 yards from the gate of a compound. Talibs kepr jumping up and rushing out of the gate. It was a perfect fatal funnel. And we just hammered them. Eventually we started taking turns on who would shoot. The team sergeant yelled “shit, this is just like Duck Hunt, let me get a piece of this.” Ever since then duck hunt has had a special place in my heart.

    • How glib. You are a true hero and have protected my virtue from the evil cave dwellers. Is a compound what they call a home in the far east. I should look to my own compound and make sure no death funnel exists. Sound unpleasant when you’re heading out for a days opium farming or goat humping.

    • Wasn’t it Chris Kyle that told the tale of insurgents crossing a river using beach balls for flotation and he and his crew picking them off one-by-one?

  8. Never really been a gamer. I had an explosive, irrational temper as a child and wisely stopped subjecting controllers and furniture to my tirades.

    That said, I will always remember Goldeneye on N64 as a turning point in my ballistic curiosity. Plus, cheat codes…

  9. I haven’t used my Playstation in many years but my favorite was always Medal of Honor.

  11. My favorite was James Bond 007 Golden Eye for n64. My friends and I would battle something fierce on 4 player mode. I still use the name of one of those guns in my probably 20 year old AOL email address!

      • Negative. You’re thinking of the “Konami Code” which was used in MANY of their games.

        It changed a little over the years as the new consoles came out but the original code for the NES was as follows: U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R-B-A-B-A-SEL-START

        • So I wasn’t terribly clear, the code above is the one for the original Contra on NES, not all NES games.

  13. I played Doom II shortly after it came out because the whole office (at the already dead back then Control Data Systems) did. I thought it was really cool back then but haven’t had the urge since. Maybe, if I worked in an office again I might want to again.

    • Have you tried the Brutal Doom mod? Doom 1 and 2 were always my favorite, but those games came out a long time ago. Then some time last year I found Brutal Doom and I couldn’t stop plying it until I finished the whole thing. Just make sure you read the manual, because this mod adds more than just weapons and maps. Original Doom cheat codes work, too.

  14. Guns in games probably peaked for me w/ either COD:Modern Warfare / MW2 or Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 & 2. Haven’t started Siege yet, but COD totally lost its roots and started inventing a bunch of stupid fake guns with clown-vomit camo themes. Haven’t done the Battlefield series, but One is the only shooter I’ve seen lately (on consoles, mind) based around real-world firearms. I’ve been playing other stuff besides shooters lately.

  17. The Division, Fallout series, Farcry series. Those would be at the top of my list, but I also have little time for them these days. I got into The Division for a few months this year, but that’s about it.

  18. My all-time favorite is the western-themed “GUN” for the PC (2005). You start out with Colt 1851 Navy revolvers, and can go all the way up to a Volcanic lever-action pistol (though they WAY overdid how powerful it is in the game, compared to the weak “rocket ball” ammo of the original), or even a pair of Peacemakers. Most powerful available gun is a Nock “volley gun”, which you have to capture from the final “boss”. Plus, a variety of edged weapons are available as well.

  19. The modern firearms mod for fallout is my favorite thing in the game. .50 Beowulf AR with a silencer, and holographic sights? Yes please 😀 I’ve got all my minutemen at the castle decked out in so much tacticool that those institute abominations never stood a chance!

  22. I’m going to go with “Duck Hunt” on this one. Was it a little odd hunting ducks with a revolver? I don’t know, maybe? But at least the revolver was the game’s actual input device, which was cool, plus the game taught you to know your target.

    • Before gunpowder, just what were people using to hunt ducks? Bows? Slings? I don’t find a revolver that odd. LOL

        • One old (read: ANCIENT) Native American trick was to wade into the water with your head inside/under a decoy made of reeds, cattail leaves, and even feathers, and make your way into a flock of swimming ducks. THe hunter would then grab an unsuspecting duck by its feet, pull it under the water and either drown it or break its neck, then move on to the next bird. IIRC, decoys of that sort were found in Lovelock Cave.

  24. The only one I currently play is Eldritch, which is probably too niche for most, but it’s a tight focused small form experience which is what you need with 3 kids and no free time. :p

  25. Starsiege: Tribes is without a doubt the most soul consuming shooter I’ve ever played. Played every iteration since it’s release in 1999 and in 01-05 made cross-country trips for LAN parties and tournaments every few months.

    Back in the early-mid 2000’s I was heavily into competitive America’s Army, which included sponsorship from a few different companies with the adoption of the game in CPL. CPL dropped the game three years in a row, which unfortunately kept the game from being as big as it should have been on the comp scene. I’ve competed in every iteration of the game since it’s initial release in 02 or 03, but none of the subsequent versions have been as well-rounded as the original.

    Dabbled in every Battlefield game, played the hell out of Enemy Territory, a few other promising titles here and there (RIP Global Agenda, you had so much potential…)

    Now It’s Overwatch, H1Z1: King of the Kill, and the occasional session of CSGO when I’m feeling particularly masochistic.

    Do I get a nerd badge now?

      • Ascend is garbage… After Hi-Rez completely trashed Global Agenda my heart broke that they bought the Tribes IP. They took a game that was super athletic and skill based and made it hitscan hell.

        That developer should have been incredible, but the owner/founder/bankroller is/was WAY too involved in the day-to-day operation of the studio. I’ve been in the studio and met everybody there, great people, but there are way to many chiefs and not enough indians to be a good gamedev.

        • There’s a growing trend now to re-release older games with nothing but some graphics and physics updates.

          I hope Tribes makes that list. I also hope someone makes a real Spinfusor.

      • I finally uninstalled Tribes Ascend for good a couple of months ago. Surprised they actually keep the servers up for it, though with as buggy and crashy as they are, that’s not saying much.

        The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the flood of cheaters using speed and unlimited energy hacks to ruin everyone else’s game. That and HiRez’s incompetence in disallowing extended ASCII usernames, since you can’t report (like anyone actually monitors those) people cheating or votekick them to get some temporary relief.

        Still, as much of a Call’O’Doodie hitscan crapfest as Hi Rez tried to make it, it still scratched an itch that the OG Tribes did such a better job of.

        Midair is in testing now, and should be what Tribes should have evolved into, not the $h!tfest that Ascend was.

        • Holy shit!

          I just looked up Midair and have a huge nerd boner. More research needed for sure. THIS is exciting!

        • Just pre-ordered Midair. See you in June when the closed Beta starts!

          Additionally, a couple of the guys on the dev team are people I played not only Tribes with, but other games as well… I giggled when I saw a couple of the names.

    • OMG Tribes. In no way realistic, but you could go all sorts of tactical in that game. That was THE game for the longest time in my book and aside from Tribes 2, nothing else has really come close to that level of open world depth.

      You win this thread for me, dear sir.

      • Thanks dude!

        The article didn’t specifically mention realism otherwise I’d have talked more about the ARMA series and Squad (which is the much better game imo.) Since the subject was just shooters, I dove into my favorites 🙂

    • +1000 for this. Absolutely agree, it looks like it will be amazing.

      Also, ARMA 3 is pretty good, once you mod it up.

  27. STALKER Call of Pripyat. The only minus is the “Counter-Striked” mirror view of the guns.

    Absolutely immersive atmosphere. It was easy to get lost in the game for a few hours or six at a time.

    • If you like Stalker, might I recommend the Metro games? Highly underrated titles, particularly the 2nd one, Last Light.

    • STALKER is great (though like nearly every game out there it doesn’t track +1 capacity)

      The Call of Chernobyl mod with the quest mod is a pretty fun addition. Adding Arsenal Overhaul to that adds a really high variety of guns.

  28. No Ones Lives Forever 1

    Borderlands 2 and its DLC Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep

    Games that just kick in the pants fun, and with wonderful senses of humor.

    • Came here to mention Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Literally millions of (somewhat only slightly) different guns (procedurally generated). Still need to try Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and some of the DLC for Borderlands 2 …

      • Skip Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel. It was developed by a different company and lacks most of the humor and charm of its predecessors. It also had a lot of annoying features that detracted from the fun, like the bizarre Australian slang, the beating-you-over-the-head lesbianism(it was on the verge of Social Justice Warfare), oxygen needs to managed(yay, another resource to manage), low gravity means when you jump you sail a hundred meters into the air and makes it impossible to aim(but the bad guys have no trouble), etc., etc.

        Have not played nearly all Borderlands 2’s DLCs, but definitely get Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep(think Dungeons and Dragons meets Borderlands). Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty was very good, Mister Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage was fairly good, but Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt was boring.

  30. All time: Battlefield 2142
    Current: Tom Clancy’s The Division

    Honorable Mention: Fallout 4, Battlefield 4.

    Blast from the past: Action Quake 2

  31. Sniper Elite on the PS2. Hands down my fave and most realistic. You play a OSS sniper in 1945 Berlin fighting the Soviets & Germans. The optics felt real. The breath control )or a shot. The need to use cover and concealment, booby traps, the stalking. The best feature was the 1000 yard airport shot. You had to sneak into a control tower and hold it till resistance fighters capture a plane. There is this sentry on the fence line. And if you pull it off right, you got a slow mo of the bullet to the target. Rare find on the store shelves… Red Dead Revolver was fun too. It was a Spagehtti Western shooter. Great weapons choice and effects. The music and mission were cool. What I really miss???? Back in my video arcade days there was a cowboy action quick draw game based on a police shooting simulator. Anybody ever try that one???

    • +1 for Sniper Elite, great game. I have hundreds of hours in Elite 2 and 3. Sniper Elite 4 is coming on Feb 14th and my wife already agreed to an early Valentines Day 🙂

      • Speaking of Sniping… That brings back another 2 arcade faves of mine. Silent Scope & Time Crisis. But Sniper Elite is a great challenge for any shooting fan. Not a big title at the game store though. Hard to find. It is sad arcades have faded. Kept kids busy at malls and such.

        • Question about any of these games…
          Are any of them have realistic ballistics, where you have to account for bullet drop, by either “hold over”, or by changing turret settings on your scope?

  32. Borderlands 2 is fun, the QWOT based medal of honar are cool, i cant remember which one had the russians invading conus, but the scene with the russian airborne troops dropping was cool, probably cow a doody

  33. At home, the original Ghost Recon. At the arcade, I once found this game called Quick and Crash, which is a very straightforward speed shooting game. Targets appear, in four phases, and you try to get the lowest time and highest accuracy. Super addictive. In an arcade full of all the latest and greatest, I spent hours on it.

    • The original Ghost Recon was unbelievably well made, it should have been ten times bigger than it was but UbiSoft tried to cut corners on cost (I know, you’re shocked) and there was no dedicated server support which shortened the lifespan and appeal of the game tremendously. They tried to remedy that issue with GR:AW, but the game was too much arcade to appeal to the same crowd.

    • Damn, you’re bringing the nostalgia back. I still have the game and it’s addons somewhere in archive.

  34. Black was an amazing game. I thought it was a fairly realistic interpretation. As far as guns being customizable and fun? Army of Two, 40th Day.

    • Not that kind of gun, Ralphie boy.

      For me, Goldeneye 007 was the one that flipped the switch. Imagine the surprise when 12-year-old me discovered the “Klobb” was, in fact, a real firearm. After that, Resident Evil 2 sealed the deal, despite even 15-year-old me being able to call shenanigans on the game featuring a pump-action Remington 1100.

  36. JAGGED ALLIANCE 2 a myriad of weapons from. 38 revolvers to g11, machine guns and all in between most were mod
    able. And an online gun store in the game !

  37. Resonance of fate for ps3/360 was great. The gun customization was very fun even if it was pretty unrealistic. Destiny is good too.

  38. “Insurgency” fits a nice place between arcade physics and milsim (Arma, etc). Other than shotguns being underpowered the weapons are done very well.

  39. Gotta admit I’m digging the new Battlefield 1, cool classic firearms…..Have told everybody for years they need to do a WW 1 shooter.

    • Try “Verdun”. Simple, lots of WW1 guns, and fun. I can jump in for quick 20-30 minutes while the kids are busy outside trying to burn down a tree or whatever, I don’t care as long as they leave me alone.

  40. Realistic, it has to be STALKER: Call of Pripyat, with Fallout 4 running a close second (hey, SOME of those guns are KINDA realistic). Both have great weapon customization.

    Waaaay-unrealistic, but completely f***ing BADASS: the new DOOM. Heavy metal violence from the git-go, and cranks what the original Doom did up to E-F***ING-LEVEN!

  41. Battlefield 4, (although 3 was also good), loads of different sorts of guns which are all customisable with a wide choice of sights, lights, grips, bipods, barrels, flash hiders, grenade launchers etc etc etc.
    Battlefield 1 is the new hotness and if you into obscure WW1 sub machine guns it’s good, but I haven’t spent much time on it as I miss my night vision and lasers. Excellent graphics though.

  42. My choice may be from left field, but I really loved Far Cry 2. For all it’s flaws, it was as real as it gets to being dropped into some shithole African country and surviving.

  43. RF, if you was ever called a player it was by the guy in the mirror.

    I’ve never played a video game.

  44. i haven’t played any video games since 2014 maybe. waiting for the new gran turismo to launch.
    the only one i remember that shot stuff was speed power gun bike. very difficult.
    kid loves overwatch. kinda cartoony for me.

  45. I have played several FPS games over the years, and my favorite is Halo and Halo 2 on PC. I would probably like Halo 3 etc, but I can’t deal with the Xbox’s crappy controller.

    I liked Doom 1 and 2 some, but Duke Nukem 3D was much more interesting and funny. When Doom 3 came out I tried it, and it was more of the SOS: Dark rooms, stuff jumps out at you, and weird un-related satanic crap. Don’t even bother with Duke Nukem Forever. It’s garbage.

    Charlie

  46. I used to play a lot of Call of Duty 4 all the way to Modern Warfare 3 in college.

    Because of that game, I was able to know firearms such as the FS2000, M4, SCAR, 92FS, M14, USP, etc…

    Now that I don’t play it anymore, It influenced me in getting an EOtech for my AR just because I often preferred those sights.

    Also Resident Evil because the 92FS was the first pistol I ever shot and loved the look on the Samurai Edge.

  48. Doom, Doom II & Wolfenstien. (Plus Return to Castle Wolfenstien).
    Only First Shooters I ever played before everything moved to consoles.

  50. Fallout 4 is pretty good, but what got me into the latest firearm frenzy is Rainbow Six: Vegas. The guns in that game got me wondering what were the best rifles and pistols and that opened Pandora’s Gun Box. Have been researching and discussing guns the last 3 years now.

    Before 2014, my biggest interests were CNC machining and engineering, pro wrestling, and meeting girls my age. Now I don’t give a crap about any of those three things anymore.

  51. The Last of Us on Playstation 3 and 4 (remastered). Great game play. Excellent story and character development. Somewhat realistic gun characteristics. You definitely need to have a plan and cannot really run and gun in multiplayer or the main stories thanks to limited amounts of ammunition unlike most games. The main story lines can be both graphically violent at times and then absolutely beautiful a few scenes later. It wrestles with some fairly real issues of what I imagine humanity would be like in a time of collapse.

  52. Cut my teeth on the original Tribes and Ghost Recon. Outstanding tactical games. For purist shooters, I loved the Quake series. It was the first game to ever scare the crap out of me. Halo deserves honorable mention.

  55. I guess I’m the Only one here that remembers a time when Counter-Strike was relevant… It was always fun running a TMP or M3 and Pwning AWPs and then being called a Bot….. hehe

    • CS was fun at first but got old pretty fast because of some of the tactics employed by veterans that never let a newb stand a chance.

  56. notice RF’s elitist attitude on this matter? first thing he does is let it me known he is so much better than us gamers. he’s a REAL player, which usually means you treat women like shit. so congrads on that, playa.

    • Yeah I did pick up on the “I’m cooler because I don’t play games” attitude.

    • Farago has made many comments over the years about gaming and gamers. I’ve never picked up on the “holier than thou” vibe you guys are getting. To the contrary, he’s pretty self-deprecating about going full zombie if he sits down to play, which is why he doesn’t.

      Either way; if you’re a gamer, embrace it. Those who are are not don’t and won’t get it, who gives a shit?

  57. Has to be be Counter-Strike. Hundreds (thousands?) of hours into that game.

    I will say in response to many posters, Goldeneye 007 for N64 is completely unplayable today. It doesn’t hold up. The controls are too terrible. We only suffered through them at the time because it was the only shooter for N64 that all our friends had.

    • Yeah I tried playing it and Perfect Dark again with a buddy a few years ago. It was just about impossible to enjoy after playing modern games.

  58. Generally I prefer RPGs to FPSes, but that said, in descending order: the Metal Gear Solid series, Halo 1, Destiny, Fallout: New Vegas. FNV even now is incredibly broken on console, but mods on PC have only made it better, and the story, DLCs and all, is the best one in the Fallout series so far, in my opinion. And the MGS games actually taught me a lot about firearms at an age where I didn’t and couldn’t have any of my own.

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