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[ductape]

Hey, never tried this out before but here goes.

Normally I am not a big FPS gamer, preferring the more thoughtful type games, but recently I have been having so much fun with a few of the glossier titles, and I need help finding a new one.

I have played some older stuff, but the newer games with the shiny graphics and thrilling set pieces are really my flavor of the month. Open level design is a plus but not required.

Modern FPS I have enjoyed: Dishonored, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Space Marine, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite.

Looking for more games like this, awesome gameplay in an interesting setting. Any suggestions?

[Bouchart]

My field of expertise is primarily with 1990s shooters, so I'll give you a few of the obscurer ones that you probably haven't played before but you might like:

Forsaken: It's kinda like Descent in that it's got 6 degrees of freedom, and the weapons are functionally similar to Descent.  The single player probably isn't as good as Descent's but it's got more interesting environments.  Minimalist plot.

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division: Anime inspired FPS.  The game alternates between an FPS where you wander around on foot, with regular small arms like machine guns and the like, and parts where you are in a giant robot.

Command and Conquer: Renegade: FPS in the Command and Conquer universe.

Malice for Quake: It's going to take some effort to get this working properly, and it requires the full version of Quake to play.  It's fairly conventional run-and-gun style gameplay, but the voice acting and writing was done by total amateurs and it's hilarious.

System Shock 1/2: Better known than the above games but not talked about as much as the more popular 1990s shooters.  System Shock 1's controls are very clunky.

If all you want are improved graphics, there's always plenty of graphics mod packs and level mod packs for the older Doom/Quake/Build engine games.

If all you want is a more modern game, The Conduit for the Wii is worth a look.  It uses motion controls, but does so effectively.

[Shadowlord]

I recommend Deus Ex, both the original and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is a prequel. (DX: Invisible War, the sequel to the original Deus Ex, isn't as good but it's still a decent game.) These are all plot-heavy games, but they're not games where you sit through hours-long cutscene theatre like in the Metal Gear games.

System Shock 2 is a good classic too. It's not easy, either. (I finished it in 4-player co-op multiplayer, but singleplayer is much harder, especially near the end)

Red Faction: Guerilla is more modern than modern games (What other game lets you drive through walls and dynamically cause building collapses?). The windows version was on GFWL, not sure if it got switched to something else, or abandoned... (I think the shutdown date has gone past?)

[EnigmaticHat]

I can second Red Faction: Guerilla.  Its one of those games that manages to be extremely fun despite not being that well designed.  Come for the hilarious/awesome building destruction, stay for the hilarious/awesome building destruction.  DX:HR I also second.

Left 4 Dead 2 is great, although it'll be just decent if you aren't willing to play it co-op.  The enemies are creative, the game mechanics encourage a lot of coordination and teamwork, and the difficulty levels can give you a pretty vastly different experience.  Plus at this point it has all sorts of free extra content.

Mass Effect is an RPG but it plays a lot like a shooter, especially past the first one.

Haven't played Far Cry 3 but most everyone seems to think its good.

[Mech#4]

Hmm, "Doom 3" is a nice shooter, though it is more towards horror than shooter but that doesn't say much when you're toting a rocket launcher against demons. I would recommend looking for the "Duct Tape" mod so you always have torch on. Being dark was a big part of the game but fumbling around with the torch is a little annoying.

"Farcry 1" is a nice shooter with a modern weapon loadout. I will warn you though that it is very hard and unforgiving. Enemies can and will snipe you from across a valley and they can see your bright red Hawaiian shirt in even the densest jungle. It also moves towards sci-fi later on rather than being completely realistic.

"Farcry 2". Well... I really do enjoy the shooting in it. The weapons are nice and you can sneak and assault positions in many different ways, using grenades, mines, sniper rifles or even setting the ground on fire using a flamethrower. The game, however, has a rather repetitive nature about it. Checkpoints respawn quickly, making getting around difficult as you're interrupted by enemies hounding after you in cars that move faster than yours, so you have to stop and deal with them. Missions are all pretty much "Go here, shoot someone, rescue buddy".
In my time playing it I haven't advanced the story line, just been exploring the map as it is from the beginning and not starting any missions.

Edit: Some more. "Serious Sam: First Encounter" and "Serious Sam: Second Encounter" are both good, fast paced shooters. Fight through armies of enemies. Both have interesting locals as well, the first set in ancient Egypt and the second in a kind of Aztec-y place.

"Painkiller" also. As far as variety of locals go, this goes nearly everywhere. Another fast paced shooter but with a larger focus on loot collection and goal completing (Things like "Finish level using only one weapon" can unlock power-up cards). Neither this, nor Serious Sam are realistic in any means of the word.

Ooo, if you've got a good internet connection, go and have a look at the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Lost Alpha" mod. It's a remake of the original "S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl" game which doesn't require the base game to run.  It is rather big at a 6 gig download though.

[nenjin]

Obligatory STALKER. Sorta open world post-apocalypse FPS. Super gritty, super Russian.

Obligatory Vampire the Masqeurade: Bloodlines for FPS/3rd person vampire RPG action. There's a reason it always gets recommended. Dated by now, but great. Get the Unofficial patches and stuff.

I'll second Deus Ex. It never quite grabbed me like it did others, but it's a quality game. A lot like VtM:Bloodlines in design, except you're a brooding cybernetic dude in the near future instead of a vampire in the world of darkness.

Crysis, definitely. Your played list says your comp will run it very well. FPS combined with magic combat suit that lets you go invis, move super fast, ect....and it's got some pretty impressive sequences and visuals, landmark for its day. Recommendation Engaged.

Most of the games you've listed, and what I listed above, are not what I'd call open world. They're still pretty heavily focused on level-based design. Stalker is the halfway between an open world and a level-based shooter.

If you want to go all out open world, you could get into the Bethesda titles. You can have your Fantasy FPS, Skyrim for the shiniest, or you can go back to Oblivion and Morrowind as are both good titles with their own merits. And then you can have your sci-fi/post-apocalyptic shooter in Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas. These are all big open world games you can put over 150 hours into if you want to.

I'd also recommend Red Faction Guerrilla, as others have said. It's also a serious open-world title.

Back to level-based shooters, you could go very retro and do Starwars - Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Dated but it goes between FPS and 3rd person (bad ass) light saber Jedi action pretty seamlessly, and is a good game all its own.

The other Wolfenstein game before New Order was pretty decent IMO, still fairly shiny by today's standards. It's just like every other Wolfenstein game, except you get occult powers in this one. The game is based around a hub design, which is unusual for Wolfenstein games. Not legendary, but more Nazi-killin' if you're not sated after New Order.

[WealthyRadish]

If you've played Bioshock Infinite but not the other Bioshocks, I'd recommend those. Of the three, I'd say Bioshock 2 is the best, if only because it's basically the original but with tons of minor improvements, whereas the publishers beat Bioshock Infinite with the console stick so hard it has essentially nothing in common with the other games. There is also System Shock 2, but it's obviously not a modern game.

[Darkmere]

Obligatory STALKER. Sorta open world post-apocalypse FPS. Super gritty, super Russian.

The other Wolfenstein game before New Order was pretty decent IMO, still fairly shiny by today's standards. It's just like every other Wolfenstein game, except you get occult powers in this one. The game is based around a hub design, which is unusual for Wolfenstein games. Not legendary, but more Nazi-killin' if you're not sated after New Order.

Yes to STALKER, but only Shadow of Chernobyl and if you really dig that, Call of Pripyat. Clear Sky is a let-down.

Just-plain-Wolfenstein I'd dispute due to pacing problems that entirely ruined the game for me. The one before it, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (i.e. the first modern one, I think) was much more fun for me.

[itisnotlogical]

Strife is a Doom engine game with an RPG spin. It's pretty unforgiving, but a ton of fun if you play in ZDoom using mouse look. Levels are huge and fairly open, most having multiple entrances.

Perfect Dark is a late N64 title with a modern overhaul on Xbox Live. I love it to death. Most of the objectives are puzzles, and the levels are fairly nonlinear. The game even changes by difficulty level, adding objectives and moving them around on higher settings. I have very thick nostalgia glasses for this game though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Darkmere]

Actually I'll go ahead and recommend F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon). It's a shooter that basically puts you at the core of a horror movie, with lots of gore but very few jump scares. The game instead opts for a very oppressive mood and tone that really builds dread, and the plot delivery was remarkable. Underrated game, even though I've heard the quality declines as the series goes on.

Alpha Protocol was pretty fun and had some shootery elements, but it's more of an RPG bent story-based game than straight manshooter.

If you aren't easily offended (or like me find vastly over-the-top obscenities endlessly amusing) you might give Bulletstorm (wow, really autocorrect? BULLET STORM) a try. It's deliberately meant to be tongue in cheek arcadey satire on current shooters. The base goal is to find as many creative ways to kill your enemies as possible, and the score attack combo setup lets you unlock more moves to do more wacky kills. A couple tame examples: kick a hot dog stand into the lead bad guy, which knocks him back into other bad guys. Shoot the propane tank on the hot dog cart. One guy in the back didn't die? Grab him Mortal Kombat style with your gravity leash, kick him into the air and finish him with a shotgun. I also managed to kill a couple dozen guys by leashing the pilot out of a helicopter so that it crashed into a fuel depot that knocked a wall down onto some other bad guys. It's that kind of game.

[Delta Foxtrot]

"Farcry 1" is a nice shooter with a modern weapon loadout. I will warn you though that it is very hard and unforgiving. Enemies can and will snipe you from across a valley and they can see your bright red Hawaiian shirt in even the densest jungle. It also moves towards sci-fi later on rather than being completely realistic.

I wouldn't call it that difficult unless you play on the higher difficulty levels which indeed are brutal. Not that I'd dub it easy either on normal.

From the same developers there's the Crysis series. Crysis 1 has very similar open level (but level based nonetheless) gameplay that Far Cry 1 has. It's pretty easy game though, owing to the fact that you're a super soldier in a nanosuit (so regen health, +armour mode, cloaking etc.) and your main opponents are Koreans with AKs. Unless you suck at FPS's, I recommend hard difficulty from the get-go. A blast to play through.

Crysis 2 though... Eh, it's a fun shooter don't get me wrong. But after Far Cry and Crysis I expected something with more open levels and multiple paths. Alas. I haven't actually gotten to Far Cry 3 or Crysis 3 yet to comment on those.

And I of course have to mention Painkiller. Very nice, very old school (in a good way). There's a remake/sequel called Hell & Damnation but I recommend Painkiller Black which is just the original bundled with expansion content. You should be able to find a demo if you're interested to sample the gameplay. I would describe the boss battles as quite spectacled. Made by the same guys that later made Bulletstorm.

[Retropunch]

99999% seconding Vampire: Bloodlines - truly fantastic game. It does get a bit mediocre near the end unfortunately, but the first 1-2 hubs are ridiculously amazing. A BIG TIP: if you do play it (and want to complete it) make sure you don't completely ignore fighting skills. It's easy to ignore them early on as pretty much three quarters of the game can be done via speaking and sneaking, with the occasional stab to the face, but later on there is a lot more combat.

Also, as mentioned, definitely make sure to get the unofficial patches. A lot of work has gone into them and they improve things considerably. It's still buggy/messy as hell, but it clears it up enough to be playable.

NO ONE MENTION THE HOTEL


Side note:
Deus Ex 1/2/HR are all great, with 1 and HR being the best.

[Ant]

F.E.A.R. seconded. Great game for abovementioned reasons, and the graphs have aged well IMO. Also, might try Condemned: Criminal Origins, has more melee-oriented action but has similar atmosphere to F.E.A.R. with some light puzzles to boot.

Shogo was mentioned, and it's really fun if little more than slightly buggy. I believe there was some patches to fix most problems though.

Dead Island is rather fun even solo, although it has been really designed with co-op in mind.

Metro 2033 is clunky but atmospheric. Mostly pretty too. Multiple endings with about 8-10h per playthrough.

[Mech#4]

"Dead Island" I did enjoy. Firearms are rather eh in it due to the "roll dice hit damage" system. Not to say you can't kill zombies with headshots but you do need to upgrade your "Crude Pistol" for a "Damaged Heavy Pistol".

Personally I would suggest it to play for the melee combat, with the story taking a back seat. Grab a machete, electrify it and slice some zombie heads and arms off.

[Retropunch]

Dead Island is fun solo although miles better co-op with friends. I find left 4 dead/2 a little bit too cartoony (and the zombies feel like paper) whereas Dead Island, whilst still not too serious, actually has some moments of actual tension/scares.

The Condemned series is really good, and has some quite interesting mechanics. Not for the faint hearted though.