Celebrating the modern shooters that make aim-down-sights optional. By Morgan Park
There is no better bliss in an FPS than the perfect hipfire kill. Sometimes, we hipfire because it’s faster or because it’s accurate, and sometimes we just want to best our foes with a bit of style. There’s an implied flex to the hipfire that I absolutely love—as if you’re such a good shot that you don’t need to plant your feet on waist-high cover and look down a scope to pop headshots. What a power move!
The FPS was founded on hipfire. Some of the best shooters ever made are fun, in part, because of the hipfire. And yet, the last 20 years of video games has seen this empowering ability nerfed into the ground. Most modern games favor the ADS (aim-down-sights) mechanic as a requirement to be accurate. There’s lots of fun to be had with that kind of game as well, but the ‘right mouse aim/left mouse shoot’ standard slowed shooters down and relegated hipfire to an inaccurate secondary fire. Thankfully, the hipfire is back on the rise in recent years with excellent FPS throwbacks and modern takes that marry the two aiming styles together.
Hipfire has been on my mind as I play through Back 4 Blood, Turtle Rock Studios’ spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. Now nine years removed from Left 4 Dead 2, I still consider it some of the purest FPS fun you can have with friends due in no small part to its hipfire-heavy gunplay.
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Denne historien er fra January 2022-utgaven av PC Gamer US Edition.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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A cinematic FPS with tour de force visuals.
PLOD OF WAR
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KILLING FLOOR 3
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