What makes a shooter good
What makes a shooter good
Hi
I’m looking to begin a conversation about shooters and what makes them effective. I’d like to hear what others think and share my perspective too.
Starting with my view: games like Counter Strike, Half Life (the original), UT, Serious Sam and Painkiller are the ideal shooters. You need enemies to fall down after one hit, assault rifles should be avoided, and you should face dozens of opponents at once. The titles I mentioned all include these elements. In Counter Strike, headshots with a deagle or AK are decisive; in Half Life, you use the shotgun and Gauss gun, charging them up for a single shot. What I appreciate about these weapons is that missing your aim often means your opponent has time to react and finish you off.
The gauss gun, in particular, slows down because it takes time to charge. If you miss, your enemy can turn around and attack you instead. This makes most modern shooters less appealing, since they usually don’t require just one hit to eliminate you.
This is why I generally dislike many contemporary shooters. Games like Borderlands, Doom, or the recent zombie titles lack these mechanics. Most of them give you an assault rifle and let you blast through crowds without much challenge. And the enemies are often very resilient—taking them down takes a long time.
It's quite personal. CS focuses on PvP with a realistic approach, whereas Borderlands is more about PvM and featuring large tanky creatures that require intense battles. This style of gameplay can be more fun and engaging when you're trying to survive through prolonged firefights instead of quickly defeating everything.
In my view, it's subjective, but they seem to enjoy it. Painkiller and Serious Sam are also pve/pvm, and it works well for them. They're much more fun than Borderlands in my opinion.
Can't really talk about opinions because reaching agreement is tough. People enjoy different games for various reasons. This doesn't mean Borderlands is inferior to CS—it's just another game that suits some players more than others, but one that works well for many.
The weapons in the game are crucial to me—they provide a strong sense of feel, sound, appearance, and behavior. I played CSGO a lot in 2015 but stopped when it became too repetitive. I switched to R6S, which offers unique mechanics, competitive play, real strategies, teamwork, and the need to share information to succeed at higher levels.
I can appreciate the experience but I don't really like that "if you miss your shot you die" approach. I enjoy having that aspect in any FPS, though I find it less appealing when it becomes the only focus. It's entertaining in both CQC and sniper scenarios, but other titles—such as BF, the Rising Storm series, ARMA, Tarkov, or PUBG—bring the feeling of being in the wild into play, encouraging longer-range shots and helping players master larger spaces.
Similarly, the match formats are excellent challenges for skill development in CSGO, yet for unwinding while staying sharp I prefer games like BF or Rising Storm. These offer steady waves of enemies with territories to defend or seize, providing a more consistent and dynamic experience (assuming good map design) compared to CSGO, where most of the time is spent dashing between spawn points and fixed zones before landing shots or facing bombs.
Regarding the "if you die you lose" style, I think the BR genre added an interesting twist (even though respawns exist in some games like Fortnite or Apex), because hunting loot gives extra motivation not to die. The pacing of looting and the intervals between fights make each match feel more personal and unique, which likely explains its popularity among streamers—whether solo or with a group.
In short, compared to other FPS, BR games rarely offer the same experience again after each session, unless you change your location.
My main complaint is that many people still claim CS is realistic. It's an excellent tactical shooter and a standard for game development, but it lacks realism outside of certain titles like TTK. Especially in competitive play, many of the clever strategies clash with realism. Still, this is great for training aim, improving movement and engagement in general FPS play, and it's transferable to other games—though not realistic.