Shooters split on one question: do you want the guns to feel good, or do you want the fights to be a problem you solve? Arena and movement shooters are about feel and speed. Cover shooters, tactical shooters and immersive sims are about the plan.
What makes a good one
How the guns sound and how the enemies react. A shooter with mediocre level design and superb weapon feedback is more fun than the reverse, every time.
Movement shooters
Fast, vertical, and built so that standing still kills you. The movement system is the real weapon.
- Titanfall 2 — Wall-running that chains into a rhythm, plus the best campaign in the genre.
- Perfect Dark — Objective-led missions and multiplayer bots before that was normal.
- Resistance: Fall of Man — The most inventive arsenal on the PlayStation 3.
Cover and squad shooters
Heavy characters, chest-high walls, and a plan that survives contact for about four seconds. Co-op is usually where these are best.
- Gears of War — The game that invented the modern cover shooter.
- Left 4 Dead 2 — Four players, no classes, and a director that watches how you are doing.
- Crackdown — A shooter where the jump upgrade is the progression.
Shooters you play for the place
Where the setting and the systems matter more than the shooting, and the shooting is still fine.
- BioShock — Rapture explains itself through audio logs and set dressing.
- GoldenEye 007 — Objectives that change with difficulty, which almost nothing does now.
- Arc Raiders — An extraction shooter where the machines are the real threat.
Common mistakes
- Judging a shooter on its first weapon. Almost all of them start you with the least interesting gun in the game.
- Playing a co-op shooter solo. Left 4 Dead 2 and Deep Rock Galactic are different, worse games with bots.
- Skipping the difficulty setting. Tactical shooters are usually balanced around their second-hardest mode.
Questions
What is the best shooter campaign?
Titanfall 2 is the usual answer and it deserves it — nearly every level introduces one mechanic and then throws it away. Half-Life 2 and Doom Eternal are the other two most people name.
Are old shooters still playable?
The arena ones, absolutely. Console shooters from before dual-stick aiming settled are the hard ones, which is why GoldenEye and Perfect Dark are better remembered than replayed.
What is an extraction shooter?
You go in with gear, try to find better gear, and the whole tension is deciding when to leave. Losing a run means losing what you carried.
