games with guns that have underwhelming designs and sounds

[Lila Feuer]

16 hours ago, Avoozl said:

In GTA San Andreas most of the weapons were grey or washed out and most of them made crappy popping firing sounds.

I think they opted for more realistic sounding firearms, which IRL sound mostly like really loud firecrackers, but I agree it pales in comparison to the sounds in GTA III/Vice City.
 

16 hours ago, geo said:

Some accuse the Doom 3 machine gun of having weak sounds.

It does, as do all of the other weapons.
 

13 hours ago, Doomkid said:

The sound for the pistol and chaingun. It sounds like someone slapping paper or something. I generally prefer the PC sounds, but the PSX/N64 Dooms had a much better pistol sound.

They're not the greatest but they've grown on me.
 

9 hours ago, R4L said:

Quake. All of the weapons sound wimpy. The Silent Hill games have some really underwhelming weapons. At least in Resident Evil you get grenade launchers and colt pythons that are loud, powerful and sound cool. Even the pistol and shotgun sounds and feel are better than in SH.

 

At least SH is better horror-wise. 😉

Well, they're just handguns, shotguns, hunting rifles, and a submachine gun in SH3/4, so of course they won't compare to RE's lineup, but they get the job done.

1. Wolf3D's machine gun, I can't say I care for the graphic, or the sound, the pistol and chaingun are nicer to look at and listen to. Mods that replace the graphic and/or sound usually make it much more satisfying.
2. Quake III's machine gun, jesus christ this thing is almost useless outside of harassing at a distance with its high degree of accuracy coupled w/ zoom, that and it looks like a drill, what were they thinking?
3. Doom 3's pistol, shotgun, machine gun and chaingun either sound puny or are grossly under-powered in damage or performance.
4. Every ballistics firearm in GTA San Andreas, they nerfed so many weapons and most sound like popguns.
5. Turok 2's pistol, shotgun, plasma rifle and firestorm cannon, they either sound weak or do far less damage than they should.
6. The pistol(s) in Shogo, they're too weak (especially for Colts) and there's next to no ammo available for them. Thankfully Monolith remedied this with F.E.A.R.'s AT-14.
7. The machine gun in POSTAL 2, it has a pitiful sound, poor accuracy, underwhelming damage for an assault rifle, and the updates reduced the muzzle flash to a tiny little ring of fire wrapping around the muzzle brake. Just sad.
8. The howitzer in Blood II, it's the largest weapon in the game in terms of length and is reported to fire 50mm shells and somehow manages to be weaker than the fucking sawed-off shotgun. Bonus mention to the nerfed Napalm Launcher also.
9. The pistol in Kingpin, it may as well be useless as soon as you get the shotgun, and the tommy gun which uses pistol ammo.
10. Every firearm in Chaser.

[Teder]

36 minutes ago, Optimus said:

I remember Heretic weapons felt dull, every single one of them. Then again if you move away from modern guns to fantasy or spacey energy weapons (Unreal is another one) I always felt they don't have the Oompf.

Agree

[Manuel-K]

It's interesting how highly subjective sound design is.

 

I love Quake 1's sounds and (non xp) music. Quake 3's sounds. Doom 1/2's sounds are great, too. Half-Life 1 has some good sounds as well (and I hate that Black Mesa has different sounds).

 

IMO the game with the most disappointing weapon sounds is Doom 3. The pistol, the machine gun and the shotgun sound incredible weak.

 

Duke3d's pistol sounds horrible – although all sounds in the game suffers from the heavy compression.

[DeadAstronaut]

2 hours ago, Manuel-K said:

 

 

Duke3d's pistol sounds horrible – although all sounds in the game suffers from the heavy compression.

 

I think that depends on which version you are playing. Duke 3D's sound has been alerted in all the remastered versions. The most recent version (World tour, I think?) has them heavy compressed and quiet under the voice and sound effects of the world. 

[Barry Burton]

13 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Well, they're just handguns, shotguns, hunting rifles, and a submachine gun in SH3/4, so of course they won't compare to RE's lineup, but they get the job done.

 

The point of this thread is to discuss underwhelming weapons. SH underwhelms in both the feel and sound of the weapons. Go fire the shotgun in any of the first RE games and then compare it to SH's shotgun. Even the Beretta feels better in RE, and that's just a pistol. If the hunting rifle is the most powerful weapon you can acquire in SH, then it should FEEL and SOUND that way IMO.

[KVELLER]

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Quake 2's Blaster? That thing feels horrible to shoot, and I'm not a fan of the design either.

[Starkiller]

14 minutes ago, KVELLER said:

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Quake 2's Blaster? That thing feels horrible to shoot, and I'm not a fan of the design either.

That poor excuse for a starting weapon doesn't even need mentioning. All it's good against is grunts early on, and even then it's immediately useless. Compare it to something like Unreal's Dispersion Pistol, where it still had a use even when you picked up better weapons, either by breaking crates or smaller enemies, and not forgetting to mention the powerup upgrades and damage amplifier. Quake 2's Blaster is pitiful even with Quad Damage! You know something feels bad if can't kill higher level Strogg with that powerup. 

 

Quake 1's shotgun at least still had use, as well as the Axe. 

[Daemon Doomer]

N/A

Edited March 17, 2023 by Daemon Doomer

[jupiter_ex]

Right now I can think of several guns from Doom 3 (machinegun, shotgun.. maybe everything but the energy weapons). I mean the original sounds. They were improved for BFG edition.

 

And this just comes in handy to mention Quake Champions guns. Which sound surprisingly un-punchy. At least their initial tiers. The rocket launcher firing sound sounds like a stapler or something. I don't know.. not my idea of firing a rocket.

[Solmyr]

Depth Dwellers, everything about the game is half assed and dull, but  the sound effects are the worst, sounds like some dude was making sounds with his mouth in front of a cheap low end mic.

 

I don't like Quake's I sound, weapon and monster designs, Shubb Niggurath is probably the second most underwhelming final boss in FPS history, after the Icon of Sin.

[jupiter_ex]

 

1 minute ago, Solmyr said:

Depth Dwellers, everything about the game is half assed and dull, but  the sound effects are the worst, sounds like some dude was making sounds with his mouth in front of a cheap low end mic.

 

not mentioning that the gun is literally the photo of a nut :D. I have some kind of strange affection for that game. It was made by one guy an his wife if that can be any kind of justification

[Solmyr]

Just now, jupiter_ex said:

 

 

not mentioning that the gun is literally the photo of a nut :D. I have some kind of strange affection for that game. It was made by one guy an his wife if that can be any kind of justification

 

And if i recall correctly the guy was working for NASA as an engineer, but just because the game was made by a couple doesn't justify the end product, they clearly didin't care much about videogames nor they understand the appeal of FPS games also was made in 94 so they tried to take advantage of Doom's popularity at the time. There were games and simulators made by one or two people like Dwarf Fortress wich was made mostly by one guy and his brother and Space Engine wich simulates a Universe tens of thousands of light years across made by a russian scientist and it clearly shows passion, and dedication to what they wanted to make.

[jupiter_ex]

I'm not saying it's good. Actually one single tune plays during the entire game. But I couldn't be sure to point out a lack of passion.

Edited March 2, 2019 by jupiter_ex

[MrGlide]

Are we talking enjoyable games or lack luster ones?

[Immorpher]

I don't like Doom 2016's pistol (is it any better if you upgrade it?). For comparison, the pistols in Ion Maiden and Blood Dragon are much better.

[Impie]

Half-Life. I hate every single gun sound in that game.

[Havoc Crow]

Strife's machine gun looks and sounds like a toy gun I had as a kid.

[ReaperAA]

Some undewhelming weapons:

1. Heretic's firemace. Most Heretic's weapons are kinda underwhelming but firemace deserves a special mention. Not only does it feel similar to hellstaff in its role, but is also weaker.

2. Quake 1's shotguns. Coming from Doom, the shotguns in quake feel underwhelming. This is due to the lack of the animations that Doom's shotguns have and their low damage.

3. Quake 2's blaster and rocket launcher. Blaster has weak ass sound and take ages to kill anything beyond a simple grunt. Atleast has infinite ammo. Rocket Launcher's rockets are extremely slow moving for my liking.

4. Quake 3's machinegun. Weak ass sound and like Lila mentioned, it looks like a drill. What were they thinking.

5. Unreal 1's dispersion pistol and stinger. They fire slow projectiles which can be dodged by Skaarj enemies (unless used extremely skillfully). Probably why they where removed later in UT99.

6. UT2004's weapon sounds. Most weapons sound much weaker and underwhelming compared to UT99's weapon sounds.

7. GTA San Andreas' weapon sounds. San Andreas is my favourite GTA game but MY GOD are those weapon sounds terrible. Atleast one can easily mod the game to add more powerful sounds.

8. Mass Effect weapon sounds. Especially most ME2 weapon sounds are extremely underwhelming.

 

[Lila Feuer]

4 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

4. Quake 3's machinegun. Weak ass sound and like Lila mentioned, it looks like a drill. What were they thinking.

5. Unreal 1's dispersion pistol and stinger. They fire slow projectiles which can be dodged by Skaarj enemies (unless used extremely skillfully). Probably why they where removed later in UT99.

6. UT2004's weapon sounds. Most weapons sound much weaker and underwhelming compared to UT99's weapon sounds.

I take back what I say about pitiful damage for the Q3 machine gun, it's surprisingly powerful (7 damage a bullet, lightning gun by comparison is 8) and when paired with relatively high accuracy and extremely long effective range and a decent rate of fire it is probably the best starting weapon in all of the Quakes. Quake Live on the other hand, nerfed it to 5 damage a shot (4 in TDM!) and made it feel much more puny. But muh competitive gameplay guise.

Yeah, the Dispersion Pistol and Stinger, they don't really have a place in Unreal past the first game, and are intended as early weapons to depend on until you get better ones, by late game they are effectively reserved as backups only. In multiplayer the former weapon is indeed useless (about as effective as Quake II's blaster) and the latter requires absurd tracking skills on top of having to close the gap if you're to use its alt-fire with any real efficiency.

Agree with the UT2K4 weapon sounds, the starting machine gun (that unfortunately replaces the superior Auto Mag/Enforcer from prior games) is pathetic to listen to. Shock rifle, rocket launcher (pity it only loads up to three shots now) and flak cannon are still powerful weapons, but indeed have less satisfying sounds overall. At least there's ragdoll physics!

[jupiter_ex]

Perhaps I'm understanding wrong but the stinger is present in UT99.

The machinegun in Q3 is supposed to look and sound weak since its the default weapon, the one you immediately want to switch for another. Strangely the chose a gatling-like machinegun to be the starting crappy weapon (it uses to be a slow fire blaster, etc). In Quake 3 Team Arena the added an actual gatling in the form of the chaingun.

[magicsofa]

 

[Chow Yun Thin]

6 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

Perhaps I'm understanding wrong but the stinger is present in UT99.

Nah, it was replaced by the Gatling Gun in UT. I think it's possible to have the Unreal weapons spawn in UT via Stuffswapper, but I've never tried that.

 

As already mentioned, most of the Doom 3 weapons sound wimpy. The pistol should have used the much beefier sound used by the pistol enemies. Thank goodness for sound replacements.

 

Killing Floor 2 has gun sounds that lack that certain punch. The bizarre thing is, those gun sounds are recorded from actual guns.

 

 

I'm not shitting on the sound crew or anything, but something was definitely missing. Enough to the point where I use a KF1 sound mod for all but a few weapons that I felt passed muster.

 

I saw an LGR review about a shitty hunting game from the 90s, where a player's gatling gun sounded less menacing than a pair of scissors being opened and closed rapidly.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

On 3/2/2019 at 7:00 PM, ReaperAA said:

4. Quake 3's machinegun. Weak ass sound and like Lila mentioned, it looks like a drill. What were they thinking.

 

 

Makes up for it with the psychological trauma it causes to whoever it just killed! 

[Lila Feuer]

10 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

Strangely the chose a gatling-like machinegun to be the starting crappy weapon (it uses to be a slow fire blaster, etc).

Thank fuck they didn't pull a Q2, the Blaster is a genuinely terrible starting weapon.
 

3 hours ago, Chow Yun Thin said:

Nah, it was replaced by the Gatling Gun in UT.

The Minigun in UT is just the Minigun from Unreal 1, but it does more damage in UT. It's actually a waste of Auto Mag ammo in the original game sadly.
 

1 hour ago, Pegg said:

 

Makes up for it with the psychological trauma it causes to whoever it just killed! 

It's also killer for tracking, especially at a distance, making it a versatile weapon even after acquiring better ones.

[Chow Yun Thin]

Oh crap, that's right! It had a pair of 3-barrel assemblies that somehow intermeshed like gear teeth.

[Manuel-K]

16 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Thank fuck they didn't pull a Q2, the Blaster is a genuinely terrible starting weapon.

On the other hand it can be used as a torch. ;-)

[KVELLER]

23 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

The Minigun in UT is just the Minigun from Unreal 1, but it does more damage in UT. It's actually a waste of Auto Mag ammo in the original game sadly.

 

That's pretty much a moot point considering how much ammo that game throws at the player. It's also much more fun to use than the Auto Mag IMO.

[Avoozl]

On 3/6/2019 at 9:28 AM, Pegg said:

 

Makes up for it with the psychological trauma it causes to whoever it just killed! 

I thought that was the purpose of the gauntlet since it awards a "humiliation" award.

[Lila Feuer]

1 hour ago, KVELLER said:

 

That's pretty much a moot point considering how much ammo that game throws at the player. It's also much more fun to use than the Auto Mag IMO.

Sure, but it's still a disappointing weapon for how low the damage output is, its only true strength being a rapid fire hitscan weapon, otherwise not really a penultimate weapon to get last in the game. The Rifle on the other hand, headshots and most enemies are over. The Auto Mag is still surprisingly versatile even late game however with perfect accuracy and commendable damage, though it's alt-fire feels wasteful.

[ReaperAA]

On 3/5/2019 at 7:06 PM, jupiter_ex said:

Perhaps I'm understanding wrong but the stinger is present in UT99.

 

On 3/6/2019 at 1:26 AM, Chow Yun Thin said:

Nah, it was replaced by the Gatling Gun in UT.

 

Actually the Stinger is replaced by the Pulse gun in UT99.

 

Fun Fact: U can play Unreal 1 DM maps in UT99. Just copy the DM maps from "Unreal/Maps" (or "Unreal Gold/Maps" in case of Unreal Gold) and paste them to UT99's directory "Unreal Tournament/Maps". When u load UT99, u can see the maps in DM map list. They won't show the picture of map on map selection. But upon loading the maps, the will load fine*. Upon playing the maps in UT99, u will notice that Pulse gun will be placed in areas when Stinger was in Unreal 1 (hence proving that Stinger is replaced by Pulse gun).

 

* Stock Unreal 1 maps will work fine but maps that make use of custom music/texture will not work unless the required resources are also copied to UT99's equivalent directories. Maps made for Unreal v227 (Unofficial Patch) will also not work in UT99.