it jams a few times (ie need to press reload a few times to unjam) and visibly gets worn down.

So when it eventually stops working, its not that much of a surprise. 

weapon degradation didn't bother me at all in FC2. in fact, i liked it as it gets the whole scavenger vibe going and you sort of get into a routine where you regularly go swap out your guns at the shop.

stalker bothered me. mostly because unique weapons degraded. you'd get the uber rifle of awesomeness and then it'd be gone with no way to replace it except with an inferior normal gun.
thankfully, there's a mod that removes weapon degradation from uniques. mind, i wouldn't have cared if you could repair your gun. i mean, we're playing a character who spends weeks at a time out in the wilds and apparently never heard of cleaning out firearms??

as long as there's a good warning that the thing is going to fail, i don't mind very much. it's when the weapon just disintegrates in your hands and you're left holding little dust piles that it's dumb. 

STALKER never bothered me much, though honestly speaking I barely noticed it at all.

System Shock 2's however added a lot to the tension, especially if you're not well versed in firearms and repairing. Didn't mind it here much either since otherwise, it would feel like I can shoot without a care in the world besides ammo. Would lose that survival aspect and tension.

Generally speaking, it works if it fits. Wouldn't be fun to have paper quality guns in something like Quake or such for example. Horror shooters work though, or things like FC2 and Fallout (haven't played the former) because of the scavenging aspects. 

How fast does a gun degrade in reality?

I think the stalker mechanic is actually nice, because it encourages hunting for better gear. And as i remember the special guns weren't that much better than their normal variants, were they?

Maybe a mechanic that simulates dirt/water/humidity for on the weapons would make much more sense. 

weapons do not degrade to the point of not working if you keep them clean and dry. To avoid random malfunctions which are frustrating for the player, the game would have to include a "clean and dry weapon" action so that the weapon remains usable during fights. But that sounds like a chore. We already have to reload, now we also have to maintain the weapon? Why not also add actions for "take a piss / shit", "eat", "drink" etc. to keep the character's health?

It's a shit idea if you think about it. But then, most realism enhancing concepts are shit in games. 

Your gun collects dusts over time when walking, more when swimming, when lying down in mud, etc. That in itself is not bad and can just be cleaned, but if you shoot while dirty, your weapon degrades.

Might make sense in a game like stalker. 

I think it can be ok in more RPG-ish type games, like I didn't mind it at all in Fallout 3. You obviously need some kind of system to repair them, or to slow down the damage. 

It's shit. But of course the french welcome any excuse for surrendering in a fight. ;-) 

o/ \o 

but like Necros, I enjoyed this mechanic the way Far Cry 2 implemented it. But it's not for faced paced action shooters. Although, again, creatively used, it forces players into weapons they wouldn't otherwise use which could be an interesting tactic even in a quake map. 

Forcing players to choose underused weapons is an interesting side effect. But in Quake, you can do that by intentionally leaving weapons out or giving them to the player late in the map. Guns & Ammo for Quake 2 was a DM map that forced the player to use the Chaingun and Railgun, and it was a ton of fun! 

Aside from my personal opinion, which is that guns in games in which you're supposed to be some sort of world-saving-super-soldier/fighter/etc. should be reliable, consistent and accurate...period.

My real world experience (purely anecdotal and by no means, approaching or pretending to be knowledgeable on a professional level) is that most games get guns mostly wrong. I have an M1 30 cal. that traveled through terrible times in terrible places in the Pacific theater as well as a 30-06 Mauser action LR that spent a load of time in the wilds of Eastern Europe, it too went through harsh times. Both were carried by the same man who to my utter surprise passed them on to me.

I've used both weapons extensively for hunting, sport and varmint shooting over the past 30 years in all kinds of climates and conditions (make that 20 years, ammo has been way too costly for those two the last 10 years)and they are terrifyingly accurate. I wouldn't even claim to be much of a shooter but when I put the sights on a target within a reasonable distance and have reasonable muscle/breathing control, that target gets hit practically every time. I define "reasonable distance" as about 100 yards with iron sights. Most action in modern games that I've played is closer up than that.

This topic is why I've generally hated/disliked the Brothers In Arms games and most others of that ilk. One other recent worst or the worst example would be the two Resistance games, rubber-band and or water guns have more consistency and accuracy than those designed into the games (hyperbole much?). I couldn't believe they were from the same folks that made the bounty of amazing weapons in all of the Ratchet & Clank games.

Don't get me started on bullet-sponge enemies, I'm looking at you Gears games. 

sleep: you seem like you're posting under the impression we're talking about quake? i don't think anyone here is suggesting we should have weapon degradation in any kind of all out action shooter.
but i really do think that it adds stuff to rpg games especially.
quakis mentioned SS2 and i agree that it's really awesome in there. i think the guns degraded a little too fast, but when i modded the gameplay, i only ever decreased the rate by a small amount.
it's part of the game-- finding a maintenance module so you can prolong the life of your gun for a few more shots or playing the repair minigame when a monster could stumble around the corner and attack you while you're still trying to fix your gun.

another thing about it is you don't get too attached to your guns. take stalker-- you basically just toss a gun when it stops working and i think that's ok. the availability of guns is very high unless you're in one of the mutant labs (and even then, soldiers always show up after you beat the mutants so you replenish your guns and ammo from them).

i think weapon degradation adds a lot to the right kinds of games. i'd say it's down to testing to see if it is good or not, really.

nothing added more to the tension in FC2 than hiding in some bushes or a busted building while i knew there were 3 or 4 guys searching for me, and i look at my gun model and it's all beaten down and scrathed. 'shit, will my gun hold out long enough to get those last guys?!' 

Those games are a different beast I guess. I thought you were talking about action shooters. So I take it all back. Except what I said about the French ;-). 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/preview-prey-2/

It's gone full Blade Runner on us. Boner. 

Boners for everyone! 

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2011/04/18/skyrims-dragons-are-serious-business?show=HD 

Some footage of a full level from Rage, can't believe I missed this :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGo5BnfU2Y&feature=player_embedded 

I'd take a 10 hour corridor shooter over a 200 hour RPG any day. Looks like I won't care much for Prey 2 :( 

Rage is looking a lot better in that video than the gun showcase one we saw before. The environments look rather nice too. 

I feel as though I'll be totally happy with that. 

Sounds cool to me. Much better than more Prey, I think the reviewer has that spot on. I also think the old D3 engine will suit that sort of atmosphere and gameplay well, rather than hampering it.

Rage

Looks great, really liking the atmosphere and style and stuff, and some proper monsters as well. Weapons are still meh but that trailer has me more than convinced. 

never played any Elder Scrolls game but Skyrim looks amazing! 

looks excellent concept art wise and I dig the player speed which is faster than usual for a modern shooter. 

After almost a decade Epic Games finally created a new franchise to add to Unreal. Unfortunately, it only lasted one game before they moved exclusively to the Xbox, but I'm glad we got at least one single-player game in Gears of War. Obviously Unreal was a classic, but Unreal II was critically disappointing, so Epic really had to create something special, in my opinion, to live up to their grand reputation. Did they suceed? Probably not, but try telling that to the Xbox crowd.

This seems to be becoming a common trend in each game I review - it looks good. In this case, fantastic. As to be expected from Unreal Engine 3, the environments are chocka full of detail with backgrounds of epic proportions. Too many games turn into claustraphobic corridor crawls missing any kind of grand, imposing environment. Not true with Gears of War, as there are some massive looking levels. This is, of course, just part of scenery because the very linear path you follow is quite tight and small. There's very little exploration or wandering off course. Basically Gears does share those simularities with corridor shooters, but at least you've got some large scale eye candy around you. In fact, while this is a sci-fi shooter, the level design felt almost fantasy-like much of the time. Fantasy-Sci Fi perhaps? The one negative of the art and design is that everything is very dull and BROWN. Where's the colour in this world?

Now there are some other nitpicks with this game, some of which are more personal that general. No quicksaving is present; always a bad thing. Only two main weapons at a time, a nasty gremlin copied from Halo I assume, which developers really need to stop doing because I hate having to play through a game with the same couple of weapons. Sure I could pick up another weapon, but why bother if they're not as good or only suit certain situations? Instead I equipped myself with a machine gun and a... machine gun. Oh such variety! There's also almost no story. Sure you've got your mission, you've got regular team-mates who spit some quick funny lines. But what is this war and who am I fighting? There's no backstory at all. Would it really have been too hard to make a two minute intro on what the hell this game is about, like a lead up to how this war first begun? It wasn't until I finished the game and Wiki'd the plots to the sequels that I realised it wasn't supposed to be earth!

The difficulty was just right for me on casual, as I don't need too much of a challenge. Only a few instances did I have to reload the same checkpoint more than twice. However for the less skilled players, there needs to be an easy difficulty. Some could say this game is a little difficult.

The gameplay throughout Gears was consistently fun with enough variety in battles and bosses. In fact some of these enemies I really liked, especially the Boomer and Beserker. It's been a long time since I came upon a semi-boss I hated so much as the Beserker. However I think the lack of quicksave contributes towards that feeling, as I know if she gets me I have to start all over. And while that means you really fear her, it's also damn frustrating when you do have to start the battle again.

So, 2006 comes down to Prey vs Gears of War for action shooter of the year. And I've got to give it to Gears because, while it doesn't do anything new, Prey's antigravity and portal ideas became ugly and irritating after a while. Gears at heart is just another action-shooter, like I said with nothing new, but it does it to a very high standard with great looking design and fun gameplay.

It's a shame Epic decided to shit on the PC crowd and go make Xbox only sequels, especially considering it's the PC crwod that made them what they are today.