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Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0400

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Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Ever since we got guns in the digital realm there has always been a difference between a small pistol and a big caliber gun. Wolfeinstein and Doom the first to come out in the first person shooter genre showed us that the bigger the gun the more fire power and damage it could do. This is what I like to coin in first person shooters as "GUN STRENGTH." The capability of a gun to cause damage to the enemy. Older games like Wolfeinstein couldn't show damage to specific body parts but you could tell you were blasting away at the enemy by the RATE OF FIRE the guns had. J.B. only had three guns to go against the Third Reich and it was a pistol, a semi-automatic 9mm, and eventually a fully automatic 9mm gun. The last gun shot a lot more bullets wiping the enemy quickly off your face and keeping you alive when the bullets started flying.

Newer games have been getting pretty bad at doing "gun strength" in games as time goes by or some just totally forget about it. Even though they have the technology to do target specific damage to enemies body parts, most games don't even bother with it or if they do it is hardly noticeable. They only target major body parts such as the head blowing off or turning the body to giblets when it is bombed away by a rocket launcher.

When you have guns you expect a certain amount of damage when attacking enemies. A handgun is the lowly gun in most first person shooters. You expect that to be weak. What happens when you get a shotgun and the damage seems the same as the handgun? You start TO HATE THE GAME. A shotgun should do considerable more damage to an enemy especially when up close to the enemy. The best first person shooters take this "GUN STRENGTH" into account and even make enemies fly back when getting shot by a shotgun in close range. It even stops doing damage to enemies once the enemy is way too far from the effective shotgun distance. GOOD GUN STRENGTH GAME PLAY. Bad gun strength gameplay? Carrying TWO shotguns and you still can't take down one enemy from ANY DISTANCE. I'm looking at you Area 51! (The first thing I always do in any first person shooter game is try to find a shotgun. I love them.)

This is a man with a shotgun. His name is Duke Nukem. Come get some double barrel action.

Other great examples of gun strength is also how it shows recoil in shooting. Obviously, only the bigger caliber guns will have big recoil like the Magnum pistols and fully automatics. The best games show this mechanic in the game and make the gun move up when you keep shooting and not hold the cursor down to the spot you are shooting. Just like in real life, if you don't hold these guns well they will go off mark. That is shown well in the best first person shooters. If is annoying, but that is the purpose of showing the power of the automatic guns and the heavy caliber pistols. The worst games? Well they won't even make the gun move at all and at the same time seems to shoot like a very high speed pistol but with less punch or accuracy. (For some reason, some games still make you miss shots even without the recoil being shown. That makes no sense.) The best game that shows this is Killing Floor as it really makes you seem to "FEEL" the recoil of these guns. The worst? Well I'm sure you seen a lot of those games that have the bad recoil feature.

This is a FN Scar H. A fully automatic gun in Killing Floor. It's very powerful and really likes to recoil at times. Keep your cursor ready to aim.

The best example of gun strength for sure is the RIFLE. The rifle is best at taking pot shots from afar and taking enemies out usually with one or two shots. The best games kill the enemy with one shot when aimed at the right spot. The head is the best spot. The worst games? YOU HAVE TO KEEP SHOOTING A RIFLE TEN TIMES BEFORE THE ENEMY EVEN GOES DOWN. I don't care if YOU HAVE A METAL MAGIC HELMET. YOU GO DOWN WITH ONE BIG SLUG GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD. Unless it has penetration defenses the size of the Great Wall of China I doubt the bullet won't go through a helmet. We also know the Great Wall of China was not impenetrable in the end.

What are your examples of best gun strength games? The worst? I like to hear your thoughts gamers!

As always, the best gun strength games shows a T-Rex with machine guns on their head and are MEGA POWERFUL AND IMPOSSIBLE TO TAKE DOWN! WE ALL KNOW WHEN YOU ARE SHOOTING THINGS IN GAMES, IT'S TIME TO GET SERIOUS!

The game? Dino D-Day. Seriously, check that out. Fun in a bun with a T-Rex with a gun.

The Sons Comic

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