Stick head shooting games. Sift Heads: The Ultimate Stickman Shooting Game Series

What is the Sift Heads game series about. How has the gameplay evolved throughout different versions. Why has this stickman shooting game become so popular among players.

The Rise of Stick Figure Gaming: Introducing Sift Heads

In the world of online gaming, a unique genre has been steadily gaining traction – stick figure games. Among these, the Sift Heads series stands out as a pioneer in stickman shooting games. Created by Chris Martin and his studio Pyrozen, this series has captivated players with its distinctive blend of action, strategy, and quirky stick figure animation.

The Sift Heads series has evolved from its original five-game lineup to include the newer World Chapter. These games are widely available for free online play, contributing to their immense popularity. But what makes Sift Heads so appealing to gamers?

The Premise of Sift Heads

At the heart of the Sift Heads series is Vinnie, a skilled Chicago bounty hunter with exceptional sniping abilities. Vinnie’s mission is to clean up the streets by taking down criminals and thwarting illegal operations. As players progress through the game, they encounter a cast of intriguing characters, both allies and enemies, that add depth to the storyline.

The term “sifting heads” refers to Vinnie’s method of eliminating targets, adding a unique twist to the typical shooting game format. This clever wordplay sets the tone for the series’ blend of action and dark humor.

Sift Heads 1: Where It All Began

The original Sift Heads game laid the foundation for the entire series. It introduces players to Vinnie and his world through six distinct missions. Each mission is presented with clear objectives and a monetary reward, giving players a sense of purpose and progression.

Key Features of Sift Heads 1

• Simple, straightforward mission structure
• Static screens with mission details and hints
• Challenging target identification due to stick figure design
• Consequences for taking down innocent bystanders
• Unlimited ammunition with simple reload mechanic

How does the game handle the challenge of target identification with stick figures? The developers cleverly incorporated hints into each mission screen, helping players distinguish their targets from innocent bystanders. This added an element of strategy to what could otherwise have been a simple point-and-shoot game.

Sift Heads 2: Expanding the Gameplay

The second installment of the Sift Heads series brought significant improvements and additions to the gameplay. From the opening scene featuring Vinnie’s impressive car, it’s clear that the developers invested considerable effort in enhancing the visual appeal and gameplay mechanics.

New Elements in Sift Heads 2

1. Introduction of keyboard controls for certain missions
2. Map-style menu for easier navigation
3. Gun shop feature with six different weapons
4. Improved vehicle designs by “Jo the Luck”
5. Enhanced plot videos and shootout scenes

How did the introduction of keyboard controls change the gameplay experience? By incorporating arrow key commands in specific missions, the game added a new layer of interactivity. This simple addition helped break up the potentially monotonous point-and-click gameplay, keeping players more engaged throughout the game.

Sift Heads 3: A Game-Changing Evolution

Sift Heads 3 marked a significant departure from its predecessors, introducing substantial changes to both the gameplay mechanics and visual presentation. This installment demonstrated the developers’ commitment to evolving the series and keeping it fresh for players.

Major Changes in Sift Heads 3

• Upgraded opening sequence with video credits
• Difficulty selection prompt at the start
• Keyboard-based movement (W, A, S, D keys)
• New combat system featuring melee attacks
• Chapter-based structure with a tutorial first chapter

Why did the developers decide to change the combat system so drastically? By introducing melee combat and reducing the emphasis on shooting, Sift Heads 3 offered a fresh take on the series’ gameplay. This change not only added variety but also presented a new challenge for returning players, encouraging them to adapt their strategies.

The Impact of Sift Heads on Stick Figure Gaming

The Sift Heads series has had a profound impact on the stick figure gaming genre. Its success has inspired numerous imitators and spin-offs, contributing to the overall growth of this unique gaming niche. But what sets Sift Heads apart from its competitors?

Factors Contributing to Sift Heads’ Success

• Engaging storyline with a memorable protagonist
• Evolving gameplay mechanics across different installments
• Balance of action, strategy, and dark humor
• Accessibility through free online play
• Consistent visual style with noticeable improvements

How has the Sift Heads series managed to maintain player interest across multiple games? By consistently introducing new elements and refining existing mechanics, the developers have kept the series fresh and exciting. Each new installment offers something different, encouraging players to return and experience the latest innovations.

The Art of Stick Figure Animation in Sift Heads

One of the most distinctive aspects of the Sift Heads series is its use of stick figure animation. This minimalist art style has become a hallmark of the series, contributing significantly to its charm and appeal. But how do the developers manage to create engaging visuals with such simple characters?

Techniques Used in Sift Heads’ Animation

1. Exaggerated movements to convey action
2. Clever use of color to distinguish characters and objects
3. Detailed backgrounds contrasting with simple character designs
4. Smooth animation transitions for a more polished feel
5. Creative visual effects to enhance action sequences

Why does the stick figure style work so well for this type of game? The simplicity of stick figures allows players to focus on the gameplay and story without being distracted by complex character designs. Additionally, the contrast between the simple characters and more detailed backgrounds creates a unique visual aesthetic that has become instantly recognizable.

The Role of Storytelling in Sift Heads

While Sift Heads is primarily known for its action-packed gameplay, the series also places a significant emphasis on storytelling. Each game in the series contributes to an overarching narrative, following Vinnie’s adventures and the colorful cast of characters he encounters.

Key Elements of Sift Heads’ Storytelling

• Character development across multiple games
• Interconnected plotlines creating a larger narrative
• Use of cutscenes to advance the story
• Dialogue that blends humor with serious themes
• Moral ambiguity in character motivations and actions

How does the storytelling in Sift Heads enhance the overall gaming experience? By investing in a compelling narrative, the developers have created a world that players want to return to. The story provides context for the missions and gives players a reason to care about the outcomes beyond just completing objectives.

The Future of Sift Heads and Stick Figure Gaming

As the Sift Heads series continues to evolve, it raises questions about the future of stick figure gaming as a whole. With each new installment pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with this minimalist art style, what can we expect from future games in this genre?

Potential Developments in Stick Figure Gaming

1. Integration of more complex game mechanics
2. Expansion into 3D environments while maintaining the 2D character style
3. Incorporation of multiplayer elements
4. Exploration of different genres beyond action and shooting
5. Utilization of advanced animation techniques for more fluid movement

What challenges might developers face as they continue to innovate in the stick figure gaming space? As games become more sophisticated, there’s a risk of losing the simplicity that made stick figure games appealing in the first place. Balancing innovation with the core essence of the genre will be crucial for its continued success.

The Sift Heads series has demonstrated that there’s still plenty of untapped potential in stick figure gaming. By consistently evolving and refining their approach, the developers have created a lasting legacy that continues to inspire both players and other game creators.

As we look to the future, it’s clear that stick figure games like Sift Heads will continue to have a place in the gaming landscape. Their unique blend of simplicity and depth offers an experience that can’t be found in more visually complex games. Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to the genre, the world of stick figure gaming, spearheaded by series like Sift Heads, offers endless possibilities for entertainment and innovation.

Sift Heads | Stickman Shooting Games

About the Games

Sift Heads World Act 1

Tired of shooters that just aren’t first-person enough for you? Gameplay of the sort found in Sift Heads World Act 1 is a rarity in the world of flash, but won’t you just look at what it has in store for you: shooting, guns, crosshair-based aiming, and the chance to navigate cities across the world to fulfil your mission, which just so happens to be packed with amounts of action that border on the immense.

Play Sift Heads World Act 1

Sift Heads World Act 2

Your average shooter can barely turn heads, let alone get someone to play it from beginning to end without question or complaint. Thankfully, SHW Act 2 is so above average it can’t even see its letters, or even the sentence it’s mentioned in. Resume control of your own choice of three characters in the web’s most popular stickman shooting games as you shoot enemies and solve some mild mysteries in a first-person fashion in one of the best flash-based shooters and snipers to exist. Ever.

Play Sift Heads World Act 2

An entire genre of quirky games featuring the simplistic animation of stick figures is on the rise. A notable contributor to this craze is sift heads involving stickman shooting and action. The original series of five games has led to a following of “shoot-’em-up” games, but none beat the original. The series is the brainchild of Chris Martin and his studio Pyrozen and each game is widely available for free online play. A new series has also been brought out of late called the World Chapter.

The series centers on Vinnie, a Chicagoan bounty hunter with an exceptionally keen eye for sniping. Along the way, Vinnie proves himself to be more than your run of the mill assassin (if there is such a thing). Vinnie is out to get the bad guys and clean up the streets. Along with a few helpful characters along the way, Vinnie encounters many crooks out to run illegal operations from right under his nose. His mission, if you choose to accept it, is to stop the bad guys in their tracks the best way he knows how, sifting heads.

Sift Heads 1 is the beginning of the entire saga (if you do not count a small diversion in Sift Heads Zero, where we get to fight as baby Vinnie) and follows Vinnie through six missions. Each mission has a remarkably straightforward premise and is presented to the player via a static screen with the mission name, objective, and payoff price. Each objective screen also has a handy hint to help players get a better idea of what they are searching for. Since every character is a stick man, it can sometimes be exceedingly tough to tell which person is the target. Taking down innocent pedestrians counts as a Failed Mission, and Vinnie has to go back and retry the mission if this is the case. Ammunition is not purchased in the game, and hitting the “R” button on the keyboard reloads Vinnie’s gun.

In the Second Game, it is clear from the opening scene that the animators have been developing the sift head game a lot more, as Vinnie’s impressive car makes a tremendous entrance. A new aspect of game play is added, and this is using the keyboard. In the first game, there was no reason to use the keyboard except to reload, the first, fifth, and eleventh missions incorporate the use of the arrow keys. A circle with an arrow appears on the screen and the player presses that corresponding arrow key. Not rocket science, but nevertheless a new aspect. A map-style menu depicts a point-of-contact for missions, a gun shop for the purchase of six different weapons, and a main menu option. The cars, drawn by “Jo the Luck” are one of the best new aspects of the game. While in the first game, there was the occasional Hummer and such, Sift Head 2 brings a bunch of nifty sports cars with meticulous detail in to entertain the eye, making not only the plot videos more appealing, but the shoot outs, as well.

Sift Head 3 is an entirely different game, all together. The game starts out with a neat little video credit-roll and an opening scene that looks majorly updated. Players are prompted to choose their difficulty, unlike in 1 & 2, where it was still an option, accessed through the options. This may be a reliable indicator that this game is not like the predecessors and that maybe choosing “easy” for the first few tries is a brilliant idea. There is little shooting in this game. The first Chapter (of 5) works as a short tutorial while following the storyline. Players move across the screen using the keyboard (W, A, S, and D). In addition, Vinnie stabs (sometimes shooting is an option, but it not a rule) his opponents with the left-click of the mouse. This incorporates an entirely new technique to the series and at first may be a little difficult to get used to, however, with a bit of time you will pick it up. In addition, there are a few times where there are similar scenarios to number 2, where players hit the arrow buttons when prompted, in short cut scene videos.

Sift Heads 4 offers a new aspect in the way of organization. Vinnie and his lady, Shorty are off on an international working vacation. The main objective menu is viewed as a globe with red markers indicating different missions in different countries. Each red marker houses between one and three missions for a total of twenty altogether, when all is said and done. The new option of skipping around the board is introduced in this game, and players can choose any mission they like, as long as they are unlocked. Before each mission, Vinnie will visit the arsenal of weapons, where he can select or purchase a weapon providing he has the money for them. However, Vinnie must only pick two of his weapons to take along with him on each mission. A nice bonus in the weapon area is a stats indicator which tells you the precision and noise levels of each weapon. This allows you to make an informed decision in relation to the mission at hand. During the mission, there is a drop down menu where players can choose to have the objectives for that mission displayed in the upper left-hand corner of the screen; this is a tremendously helpful tool. With more adventurous artwork than before, including exotic locations and a welcome splash of color, this fourth installment has evolved graphically.

The final chapter in the game saga is Sift Heads 5 featuring a return to Chicago for Vinnie. Vinnie’s objectives are found through interaction with other characters and, though there are 20 missions, only ten are critical to the story and 10 are monetary missions. These levels can be done in any order, as long as they are unlocked. Online walkthroughs allow the player to get a precise strategy, and the 5th has a lot of resources for assistance. Vinnie’s car takes him to various locations, this time viewed as a map of the town. The animation for the main game play is standard, but the storyline animation and videos are even more detailed than the rest of the games.

The evolution of the series is evident here and is an excellent place to leave the series and pick up at SH World, the next chapters in Vinnie’s career. The progression of artistry, story lines, and layout is evident and moves in the right direction throughout the series. Sift Heads games are a fun series, and it is worth playing all five to feel part of the game. We can clearly see that much of the series has taken inspiration from the early stickmen animations by Zhu Zhiqiang which have been hosted on Newgrounds since the portal’s inception.

Stickman Games – Play Stickman Games on CrazyGames

As you might imagine, the most popular stickman games mirror what games are generally popular. That means you can expect to find a disproportionate amount of stickman fighting games, 2D platformers, and shooting games in this section. After all, they are the most action-packed titles.

Stickman Fighting Games

So what are some good stickman fighting games? Stickman Fighting 3D is a highly-rated 1v1 fighting game with epic combos and moves similar to some of the best regular 3D fighting games.

If you’d rather walk through the street continuously beating up punks with whatever weapons you can lay your hands on, Stickman Street Fighting would be an exceptional choice instead.

Failing those two options, you can flail around like a wild ragdoll battling stickman enemies with melee and projectile weaponry in Stickman Supreme Duelist 2.

Stickman Shooting Games

There’s no shortage of stickman shooting games. Especially stickman sniper games, for reasons unknown. Many of these games involve using a sniper rifle to eliminate other stickmen. These sniper games are abundant from Elite Sniper to the highly popular Clear Vision 2.

Henry Stickmin

The most popular games in the stickman section are the Henry Stickmin games. This series is a cult classic, played through by many Youtubers for the viewer’s amusement. The game’s narrative is an action parody that’s driven by the decisions you make. Fleeing the Complex and Escaping the Prison are two fun Henry Stickmin games to play through.

More Stickman Games

As you can see, there are multiple pages of stickman games to sift through and find something you love playing! Many of these games don’t fit the typical genre mould, like Vex 5, which is a side-scrolling action platformer centered around a stick figure called Vex. The game is tons of fun and can be played on any device!

If epic battles are more your scene, you can also check out Stickman Clans and build up a team of hardened stickman warriors to conquer the world.

Stickman games cover every game genre. There’s only one difference. You play as a stick figure, often against other stick figures. Other than that, they’re just like ordinary games. There are FPS games, 2D platformers, racing games, RPG games, and even multiplayer games with 3D graphics. All of these games feature stickman characters.

We collected 198 of the best free online stickman games. These games include browser games for both your computer and mobile devices, as well as apps for your Android and iOS phones and tablets. They include new stickman games such as Stickman World War and top stickman games such as Stickman Clans, Stickman Supreme Duelist 2, and Stickman World War.

Shooting Games | Stick Figure Games

Stick figure games – they come in all shapes and formats. HOWEVER, there’s no denying it, the most exciting stick games out there are shooting games! When you combine the best of both worlds – action packed elements of shooting games and simplicity and fun of stick games, this page is what you get.

Whether you are looking for a side scrolling shooting game, stick figure first person shooters, stick men sniper games, something that’s a little old fashioned where you use bows and arrows instead, and everything else in between, as long as it’s about shooting and stick men, you will DEFINITELY find it here!

From the zombie killing wpnFire, the challenging Bowman series, Bloody Day (which is one of the goriest and bloodiest stick figure shooting games out there), and even modern classics and series like Sift Heads and Thing Thing, this section of StickFigureGames.org will surely keep you on the edge of your seats.

Top Shooting Games

#1: wpnFire

4.51/5

wpnFire is an excellent stick figure game that offers all the fun of killing zombies, blowing things up and several different game modes to accomplish all of the above. If you prefer the arrow keys you can configure the…

Number of plays: 239,131

#2: Territory War

4.59/5

Territory War is a great stick figure game that offers a multitude of options to keep the game interesting and fun. Some will find the first few campaigns a bit too easy, but the gradual increase in difficulty ensures…

Number of plays: 231,099

#3: Thing Thing Arena 3

4.55/5

Thing Thing Arena 3 is light years ahead of most of the other stick games online but with that in mind, it’s almost much more complicated. Doing well in this game is going to require a lot of attention to…

Number of plays: 166,020

#4: Bowman

4.34/5

Bowman is definitely a challenging game and it takes a little time to get used to. Play a few practice rounds too get a feel for the controls before you play versus the computer or versus a friend. Even…

Number of plays: 151,950

#5: Bowman 2

4.43/5

The second release in the Bowman series, Bowman 2, makes several improvements over its predecessor but doesn’t lose the challenge that made the first so addictive. You still can’t see your target, but you have slightly more control over…

Number of plays: 151,081

#6: Maniac Killer

4.33/5

Kill, kill, and kill – that’s the objective of the game. BUT mind you fellas, this is far from being simple. You see, enemies are coming for you with everything they have. No, they won’t just stand there like dummies…

Number of plays: 112,356

#7: Sift Heads 0

4.57/5

Sift Heads 0 – this is the starting point where Vinnie’s quest to be the best sifter and bounty hunter started. In this game, your thinking skills and creative juices matter more than your aim. Well, your aim’s precision still…

Number of plays: 100,433

#8: Bloody Day

4.19/5

Bloody Day is all about what a good stick figure game should be about – killing stick figures in the bloodiest, goriest ways possible. Sure all you have is guns, but play around with the different guns options you…

Number of plays: 85,472

#9: Sift Heads World – Act 1

4.75/5

In Sift Heads World – Act 1, Vinnie (the best head sifter and bounty hunter in the world) is now teamed up with Kiro (an assassin who sifts head with his Katana and shuriken) as well as the delicious Shorty. …

Number of plays: 55,452

#10: Cold Crime

4.39/5

Cold Crime – YES, that’s what this game is all about. The Mayor of Backborn City was assasinated – shot by a sniper straight to head. A perfect kill. HOWEVER, a couple of police enforfers spotted the sniper and It’s…

Number of plays: 47,972

#11: Ragdoll Invaders

4.36/5

Ragdoll Invaders is a shooter game that puts put in control of a ragdoll fighting to save Earth from alien invasion. Ragdoll Invaders features a hard-pumping soundtrack, a variety of enemies, and extremely challenging gameplay.
The objective of Ragdoll Invaders is…

Number of plays: 44,506

#12: Sift Heads World – Act 4

4.52/5

Easily one of the best and most popular shooting and stick man game series around – this is Sift Heads! If in the previous installments, Vinnie takes the spotlight, this time around, the story revolves around Shorty. She goes all…

Number of plays: 44,087

#13: Shoot’m

4.57/5

What if you could take a stick figure that could just stand there and take whatever beating you have to give it? Yeah, it won’t nag or fight back when you make it eat your fists. While it will dodge…

Number of plays: 43,784

#14: Xiao Xiao 4

4.45/5

The Xiao Xiao series is a classic in both animated stickman movies and games and Xiao Xiao 4, the second game in the series shows why. This game is a fantastic first person shooter game that is not only…

Number of plays: 43,157

#15: Sift Heads World – Ultimatum

4.68/5

Alright, being the most wanted bounty hunter is fun and action packed. There’s no doubt about it. HOWEVER, it also has disadvantages! You see, the police are now breathing down your neck… and you need to help Vinnie, Kiro, and…

Number of plays: 42,950

#16: Sift Heads World – Act 3

4.74/5

In Sift Heads World Act 3, you will revisit Chicago along with the dark and somber areas ruled by an underground crime organization. BUT Alonzo just gave the team a hard blow – almost fatal. BUT Vinnie, Shorty, and Kiro…

Number of plays: 41,750

#17: Sift Heads World – Act 2

4.73/5

In the second episode of Sift Heads World, the story takes you back to Chicago after Kiro, Shorty, and the famous Vinnie disposed the Italian Mafia in Palermo, Italy. HOWEVER, you are now taken to Tokyo, Japan to face a…

Number of plays: 38,073

#18: Thing Thing 2

4.31/5

When it comes to stick figure games, only a handful like Sift Heads can rival the Thing Thing series. And right here, you have the second installment brought to you by Diseased Productions. Beefed up with improved graphics, game play…

Number of plays: 34,283

#19: Sift Heads 5

4.61/5

In Sift Heads 5, Vinnie is back in town, doing what he does best. And that is sifting the heads of outlaws and criminals. BUT Vinnie has a problem. While he was on vacation, the Grey Mafia he just dispose…

Number of plays: 33,047

#20: Thing Thing Arena 2

4.32/5

If you loved Vinnie, Kiro, and Shorty of Sift Heads series, then you will go nuts with the Thing Thing series…especially one of their latest installments: Thing Thing Arena 2! The objective of the game pretty much stays the same:…

Number of plays: 32,960

#21: Thing Thing Arena

4.47/5

Stick figure games – I don’t know BUT these games filled with stick men from left, right, and center appeal to gamers of all sorts and ages. If I’m not mistaken, stick figure games began as nothing more than video…

Number of plays: 32,115

#22: Sift Heads 4

4.73/5

In Sift Heads 4, the streets of Chicago are now cleaned up – out of Mafias and criminals thanks to Vinnie’s efforts. Unfortunately, Vinnie is NOT someone to take pleasure in just sitting on a couch and watch TV. So…

Number of plays: 30,332

#23: Sierra 7

4.67/5

Sierra 7 – if you are on the hunt for a REALLY action packed first person shooter, this game is one that you must check out. Putting you in the shoes of a special operative unit known as Sierra, the…

Number of plays: 29,917

#24: Ragdoll Parashooter

4.43/5

So you love classic games, especially those from the 80’s? If you do, I’m sure you have encountered the game called Sabotage, which first came out for Apple II. This game prepared the road for A LOT of paratrooper style…

Number of plays: 29,780

#25: Boxhead: The Zombie Wars

4.56/5

Boxhead: The Zombie Wars – judging from the game’s name, the premise is quite self-explanatory. You are at war… not with humans BUT with the zombies. And this time, they are not alone. They decided to bring along their evil…

Number of plays: 29,740

#26: Thing Thing

4/5

Ah! The original Thing Thing. This is the game that started it all. While the game is relatively short, it served not just as an excellent introduction to the whole Thing Thing Series BUT it also sets the standard for…

Number of plays: 29,014

#27: Boxhead

4.57/5

Zombie and stick figure games / genre have been known for being bloody, action-packed, and fast paced. When you combine these 2, things could get only better! And this is what Boxhead is all about. A combination of the best…

Number of plays: 27,617

#28: Artillery Tower

4.73/5

Artillery Tower is a stickman game featuring shooting game and defense game elements. This stick game features cartoonish, well-animated graphics, simple, but challenging gameplay, and numerous upgrades.
The goal of Artillery Tower is to defend your tower and to survive for…

Number of plays: 27,512

#29: Storm the House 3

4.68/5

YES folks, Case Dollingswoth is in the house and has brought another installment to the Storm The House series. The latest game is without a doubt one of the best tower defense and stick figure games hybrid you can lay…

Number of plays: 27,181

#30: Rapid Fire

4.44/5

Rapid Fire – personally, this has to be one of the most… how am I supposed to put this? Let’s say primitive, primitive and straightforward titles I have encountered. For a stick figure / stick man game, this title doesn’t…

Number of plays: 27,051

#31: Sift Heads World – Act 5

4.57/5

In Sift Heads World – Act 5, the team goes into a safari excursion… exploring the depths of Amazonian Rain Forest in search for an expensive and exotic artifact. Sounds easy to handle especially when you are hunting with the…

Number of plays: 26,352

#32: Sift Heads World – Act 6

4.53/5

Here’s the bad news in Sift Heads World – Act 6: your head quarters are destroyed! And Vinnie along with the rest of the gang needs to find the culprit and stop them for good. HOWEVER, another bad news: there’s…

Number of plays: 26,339

#33: Thing Thing 3

4.63/5

Boasting an even more fast paced action than the previous installments, Thing Thing 3 outdoes the previous and already great Thing Thing installments and other stick figure games out there. Part 3 also shows more of the story behind the…

Number of plays: 26,325

#34: Storm the House

4.04/5

Tower defense games – they suck you into their world where you need to build one defensive tower after the other, buy upgrades, get more weapons of mass destruction, etc. And you do all of these for one single aim:…

Number of plays: 25,092

#35: Thing Thing 4

4.66/5

It took 2 years before the sequel to Thing Thing 3 is released and I’m sure players who have played Thing Thing 4 will agree that this installment is definitely worth the wait.
True, Thing Thing 4 comes with the familiar…

Number of plays: 24,260

#36: Sift Heads 3

4.58/5

Vinnie is back and hungry for revenge in Sift Heads 3, the third installment in the wildly successful Sift Heads stick game series. Vinnie’s home has been destroyed and he is not happy about it at all. Armed with a…

Number of plays: 24,021

#37: Sift Heads 2

4.75/5

In Sift Heads 2, the sequel to the popular stick game Sift Heads, Vinnie – everyone’s favorite hired assassin – is back again, taking out his targets and earning a reputation. Although the name implies yet another sniper based stick…

Number of plays: 23,313

#38: Storm the House 2

4.46/5

Fans of Storm The House (the original game), the long wait is finally over. The guys behind it all have brought us Storm The House 2! Nothing much has changed in the game. The objective pretty much stays the same:…

Number of plays: 21,442

#39: Mr. Vengeance: Act 1

4.53/5

I don’t know about you BUT I really can’t see how taking out the family of someone who goes by the name of Mr. Vengeance could end in a positive way. Think about it – with a name like that,…

Number of plays: 21,234

#40: Madness Hydraulic

4.21/5

This is indeed MADNESS! Madness Hydraulic is a cool and action-packed stick figure game that comes with just about anything you could ask for – nice graphics, action and explosion in large doses, fantastic sound effects, achievements / points, and…

Number of plays: 18,523

#41: Boxhead 2Play Rooms

4.69/5

YES, the Boxhead series is back and it now has MORE rooms for you to play on. This time around, there are no civilians to be saved. It’s a battle between you and the zombies together with other creatures from…

Number of plays: 18,433

#42: Boxhead: More Rooms

4.56/5

Boxhead: More Rooms – YES, folks. The box / zombie / stick figure game that we all came to love is back with a vengeance! As the name suggests, Boxhead is back with more rooms, more zombies, and greater challenges…

Number of plays: 15,189

The best free shooting games for Android – The best free Android games 2021

The best free shooting games for Android

Our favorite free Android FPS titles, twin-stick blasters and vertically-scrolling retro shoot ’em ups.

(Image credit: Jean-François Geyelin)

PewPew Live

PewPew Live scratches a number of retro-gaming itches, with its fast-paced gameplay and vibrant vector-style graphics. At its core, it’s a twin-stick shooter, echoing Geometry Wars and Robotron, as you aim to survive for as long as possible in a claustrophobic arena full of hostile enemies.

But PewPew Live expands on this basic premise across five meaningfully different game modes. One builds on classic arcade title Asteroids. Another has you weave between multiple deadly objects, thereby testing your dexterity more than your trigger finger.

One of these modes alone would be enough to recommend the game. That you get five equally strong challenges for free transforms PewPew Live into one of Android’s most unmissable freebies.

(Image credit: Ogre Pixel)

Shooty Quest

Shooty Quest is an excellent warning to wannabe evil types that annoying someone called the Deadly Arrow is a bad move. Furthermore, you really don’t want to, say, burn down his house, steal his cat, and sign your handiwork – because he tends to get a bit shooty.

Cue: 36 levels (and one endless battle) that features you, as the Deadly Arrow, killing everything in sight. Said carnage is all tap-based, with you unleashing arrow-based doom by prodding at the screen.

As you sit stationary at the center, survival initially relies on timing, dispatching encroaching enemies in order; later, you must master multiple weapons, ensuring you’re armed with the most effective one to off the nearest foe. In all, this is a frenetic and exciting claustrophobic shooter that’s ideal for mobile play.

(Image credit: Rovio Entertainment Corporation)

Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs

Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs takes Angry Birds into the third dimension, and frees it from the confines of your phone. Sort of. Both of these things are achieved by the game being presented in augmented reality.

This means ramshackle constructions within which egg-stealing pigs lurk are ‘projected’ on to your surroundings, be that a table, the floor, or the local town square. You can then check out the current challenge from any angle, before flinging one of the titular avians at it by way of a massive catapult.

As a series, Angry Birds was arguably tired years ago. But this game is more than yet another me-too sequel. In providing 3D environments you can fully scrutinize, the concept again feels fresh; and it doesn’t outstay its welcome, with 70 tightly designed levels.

(Image credit: Legal Radiation)

Kazarma

Kazarma finds you zooming along the ancient bridge of Kazarma, which connects the human colonies within the galaxy. Sadly, it has seen better days. Not only have maintenance been slacking, judging by the massive holes everywhere, but the bridge has also been invaded by aliens. It’s your job to sort them out, by blowing them all to pieces.

Much more suited to a phone than a tablet, this free Android game has you use a single thumb to zip left and right, dishing out neon death to anything stupid enough to get in your way. Procedurally generated levels ensure no two games are the same, and there are also three difficulty levels. On the easiest, Kazarma almost has a chill-out vibe, but ramp things up and it will take your face off!

(Image credit: Oddrok)

Boom Pilot

Boom Pilot is a shooter that yet again finds a lone hero saving the world, on the basis that the good guys can apparently only afford to fund a single pilot. This time, you’re in vertically scrolling territory, weaving through bullet hell, to take down robot fleets that now command the skies.

For some reason, the heavens are also packed full of boxes to blow up, coins to grab, and massive floating plane crushers. There are also, naturally, bosses to take on with the comparative pea shooter that is your plane.

The controls are a bit floaty, but the game’s nonetheless an entertaining blaster, with vibrant visuals, and an urgent soundtrack that’s seemingly beamed in from the 1980s.

(Image credit: Tree Men Games)

HELI 100

HELI 100 has the standard backstory of an arcade blaster: hordes of aliens are invading; but, for some reason, all your lot can cough up is a single defensive fighter. Into the fray you go, then, your people’s last hope against annihilation.

Fortunately, your craft is pretty hot stuff. You use two thumbs to have it zigzag between enemy fire, and it automatically retaliates, blasting foes to pieces. Now and again, pick-ups helpfully appear, which when triggered unleash all kinds of extremely dangerous death.

There are 100 levels in all, the last of which is endless, and the first ten or so of which are quite dull while you’re learning the ropes. Stick with it, though, because HELI 100 offers some cracking shooty action perfectly tuned for mobile play.

Piffle

Piffle is a shooting game where you fling strings of balls at blocks, depleting their face numbers until they explode. The backstory is that the nefarious Doc Block is doing something suitably evil with the blocks, hence why you’re trying to eradicate them.

Okay, that’s not the deepest of stories, but it doesn’t matter when the cartoonish action is so inviting and immediate. Flinging balls around the colorful levels is lots of fun, not least because they resemble tiny meowing cats.

There’s some grind here, and you’re going to hit levels that urge you to open your wallet. In the main, though, this is a bright and breezy arcade treat, with nice surprises as you work your way to the ultimate goal of stopping the blocks – and Doc Block – for good.

PewPew

PewPew is a twin-stick blaster in the classic mold. It has no time for storylines. Instead, it dumps you in a ship, hurls countless enemies your way, tasks you with blowing them to pieces, and dresses the entire thing in gorgeous old-school neon vectors.

From the off, this is a tense, exciting game. The arena you’re within is claustrophobic and frequently packed with ships and projectiles. Surviving for any length of time requires mastery of the controls, and learning how different enemies behave.

But there’s depth here, too. Once you’ve suitably honed your shooty skills, you can take on a mode with giant space rocks, and a version of PewPew that removes your weapons entirely, presumably making the ships pilot really wish they’d added ‘bring a really big gun’ to their to-do list.

Shadowgun Legends

Shadowgun Legends is a first-person shooter with tongue firmly in cheek. Set in a world where mercenaries are rock stars, and aliens are so much cannon fodder, this is a bold, brash, noisy slice of wanton arcade violence.

If you’re looking for nuance, head elsewhere. The story and characters here are wafer thin. But if you’re after action, Shadowgun Legends does the business. Missions are linear in nature, challenging you to be fast and accurate. Combat is responsive and fluid, and you soon find yourself amassing a pile of cash, upgrading kit, and adding to your fame.

Get good enough and your adoring fans will build a statue in your honor. It still won’t be enough to convince you this is a console-quality shooter, but this game feels perfect for mobile: streamlined, bite-sized, free-flowing, and fun.

Drag’n’Boom

Drag’n’Boom shows that you should never encourage a teenage dragon. Here, the rebellious fire-breather zooms about minimal landscapes, belly-sliding down hills, soaring into the air, barbecuing soldiers, and generally being a menace.

Fortunately, you get to be the dragon, rather than the put-upon army rather wishing it had better weapons. The game recalls Angry Birds in how you ping your dragon along, but also borrows from twin-stick shooters, Sonic the Hedgehog (super-fast tunnel bits), and even The Matrix (slo-mo as you aim).

Although there’s admittedly not masses of variation across the game’s 50 levels and endless mode, it’s hard to be too critical. Drag’n’Boom looks great, and has the kind of grin-inducing breezy gameplay that’s perfect for slotting into the odd moment when you feel the need to unleash your inner dragon.

Time Locker

This vertically scrolling shooter plays with convention in a manner that messes with your head. The basics are familiar – you’re dumped within a vertically scrolling environment and must shoot ALL OF THE THINGS.

Occasionally, obliterated foes drop bonus items that boost your weaponry, providing the means to unleash major destruction while yelling YEEE-HAA – if that’s your sort of thing.

However – and this is a big ‘however’ – everything in Time Locker only moves when you do. The temptation is to blaze ahead, due to bonus points being won for covering greater distances, and because you’re being pursued by the sole thing that doesn’t freeze when you do – an all-devouring nothingness.

But careening on isn’t always a good strategy, because blundering into a single foe or projectile ends your game. Risk versus reward, then, in this fresh and great-looking blaster that dares to try something different.

AirAttack 2

Bad news! It turns out the Axis of Evil needs overthrowing immediately, on account of having access to a ridiculous number of planes and tanks, some of which are the size of small villages. Sadly, we’ve had some cutbacks, which means our air force is now, er, you.

Still, we’re sure you’re going to love your time in AirAttack 2, cooing at gorgeous scenery shortly before bombing it, surviving bullet-hell, and puffing your chest to a thumping orchestral soundtrack.

Sure, you might have to turn down the graphic effects a bit on older hardware, and it’s a bit of a grind to reach later levels, but you’re not going to get better freebie shooting action this side of World War III.

Best shooter games for Android 2021

Source: Android Central

Professional and/or competitive shooter games are fast becoming a sustainable industry trend for mobile gaming. Both game development and smartphone hardware reaching the point where phones can absolutely deliver top-notch gaming experiences — even for first-person shooters.

This still probably sounds like crazy talk to traditional PC gamers but the fact is mobile shooters have cut out a nice niche within the pro-gaming community — franchises such as PUBG Mobile and Guns of Boom have competitive esports leagues that can be advantageous to people who love to stream or try playing for cash in a tournament. Just like other online games for console or PC, mobile games reward teams who can practice and train together — or you can just jump into the game and have some fun on your phone.

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And if you’re looking for something a bit less violent, check out our favorite Android games of 2021!

Call of Duty: Mobile

Call of Duty is one of the most popular selling game franchises of all time, so it was only a matter of time before a proper mobile version of the game was released by publisher Activision. CoD Mobile offers several ways to jump into multiplayer action with friends or strangers. Each multiplayer match type is 5-on-5 and the parameters are slightly different depending on the mode you choose:

• Team Deathmatch is pretty standard fare with random respawn points and each team racing to get to 50 kills (40 if you’re playing a ranked match)
• Frontline is similar to Team Deathmatch except each team’s respawn point is fixed on either side of the map.
• Domination adds in capture points that each team must secure and hold to earn points. The first team to reach the score limit wins.
• Search and Destroy is a tactical mode with no respawns that is played over several rounds. One team is tasked with destroying an objective while the other team plays defense.

All those modes are available to play in unranked matches, while only Team Deathmatch is available to start for ranked matches. Ranked Domination and Search and Destroy modes are only unlocked as you move up the rankings ladder.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s also a 100-player Battle Royale mode that you can play in first-person or third-person view in solo, duo, or 4-person team modes. Battle Royale mode also introduces a class system that gives your player a special ability to assist your team on the battlefield. Finally, there’s Warfare mode, a 20v20 match on the Battle Royale map with respawns that straight up kicks ass and leads to an all-out war as both teams race to reach 150 kills first.

Call of Duty: Mobile is another free-to-play game that is buoyed by a Battle Pass system that encourages you to buy in-app currency to spend on a premium battle pass for more rewards or even more cash on cosmetic skins for your character and weapons. The good news is that you don’t need to pay any attention to the in-app purchases to enjoy the game, but they’re there for those who care.

Call of Duty: Mobile

Call of Duty has won Game of the Year awards for good reason. It’s a surprisingly complete version of Call of Duty for phones that’s entirely free to play.

PUBG Mobile

It’s incredible how well PUBG Mobile plays on Android. The main attraction is the massive PvP Battle Royale mode that pits 100 players against each other on a massive island loaded with weapons, ammo, tactical gear, and vehicles. You drop in as a solo player or as part of a team and must use all your best skills to take down your opponents until you’re the last man standing.

Tencent Games continues to add new content to the game every couple of months with new maps or different arcade modes added over the years to add a depth of gameplay that is unlike other free-to-play games. Of course, there’s a tiered progression ladder with a free game pass and a premium one that offers more cosmetic rewards. Every six to eight weeks, the game pass resets to introduce a new season that typically introduces new premium cosmetics rewards to unlock and collect.

For players looking for a more competitive experience, you can join or custom-create a clan where you can team up and practice your tactical strategies. Due to its global popularity, PUBG Mobile has developed a bustling eSports community. Think you’ve got the goods? You can try out for a competitive team and start competing in privately-run tournaments, and then assemble your best squad and enter the PUBG Mobile Club Open.

PUBG Mobile manages to deliver a deep, well-rounded and varied gaming experience with graphics, controls, and game performance scaled down perfectly for play on mobile devices. There’s just so much to enjoy here without having to participate in the in-game economy or premium game passes. In fact, I’ve almost given up playing the core Battle Royale mode because some of the Team Deathmatch and zombie modes are so dang fun to play all on their own.

PUBG Mobile

PUBG Mobile is a free-to-play battle royale shooter that pits you against up to 99 other players. With an ever-growing list of maps and game modes to choose from, it’s one of the best games available to play on Android.

Critical Ops

Critical Ops is one of the best first-person shooters available for Android. It offers three game modes to choose from: bomb defusing, team deathmatch, and gun game where you cycle through different weapons every time you kill an opponent. Boasting over one million active daily players, you’ll always be able to jump into a match with little to no wait time.

It’s kind of got that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare vibe to it, mixed with a healthy dose of CounterStrike to create a best-of-both-worlds scenario that offers great graphics and really solid controls. It’s free to play with in-app purchases available, but you can only buy skins for your guns and the developers have assured players that this game will never be pay-to-win.

I appreciate the simplified menus and how quickly you can jump into a match here. The action is always fast-paced and intense, making Critical Ops one of my go-to shooters when I’ve got a couple of minutes to kill.

Critical Ops

Critical Ops is one of the best shooters available for Android with multiple modes and a large community, so you always have somebody to play with.

Modern Strike Online

Not interested in anything other than the thrill of online multiplayer? Modern Strike Online offers just that: a pure online FPS experience packed with features and game modes we’ve come to expect from the genre. Once you’ve leveled up some, you unlock all seven available game modes, which include the standard fare you’d expect — free-for-all, team deathmatch, seek and destroy, and a hardcore mode.

In-game currency can be bought via in-app purchases or earned via daily rewards, crates and generally kicking ass. Spend your gold and credits on new weapons, armor, and accessories for your character. There’s a decent amount of customization available for kitting, with over 30 types of weapons available to rent or buy.

It’s as complete an FPS as you’ll find on Android. You’ll want to head into the settings first to customize your controls and screen layout and tweak the graphics quality to optimize gameplay on your device. By default, your gun will auto-fire as soon as an enemy enters your crosshairs — you can switch this off in the settings, but it’s a pretty handy feature to have when you’re already using your thumbs to move and look around. Yes, there’s the occasional in-game ad and constant pressure to invest real cash, as is the case with most mobile games these days, but it’s not terribly invasive and there’s plenty of fun and loot to be had relying on the free crates and daily rewards.

Modern Strike Online

Modern Strike Online is another top-notch first-person shooter for Android that offers many ways to play and customize your character with skins. It’s got more of an emphasis on in-app purchases than other games on the list, but you can have lots of fun without spending a dime.

Guns of Boom

Guns of Boom is a bright and colorful cartoony first-person shooter that doesn’t take itself too seriously while still delivering one of the purest competitive online shooter games for Android. The game gets all the basics right that you want from a good FPS — quick and responsive controls that are customizable, well-designed maps and weapons that allow for adaptive gameplay, and a healthy community of players.

Matches are 4v4 deathmatches which take place in vibrant and colorful maps that allow for a mix of rush assaults, close-quarters combat, and long-range sniping. One of Guns of Boom’s biggest strengths is how easy it is to load up the app and jump right into the game. Alternatively, you can spend time in the menus connecting with friends or organizing with a clan, or dive into the Arsenal to buy and upgrade new weapons and health kits using in-game cash and gold.

To that end, Guns of Boom may give you the feeling that it’s pay-to-win and that might be the case once you get up to around Level 30 with the hardcore players who’ve maybe invested $100 or more into the game. But the game is super generous with cash and powerups if you’re diligent about completing all your daily challenges

Guns of Boom

Don’t let the cartoon graphics fool you — Guns of Boom is a seriously competitive shooter with fun and frantic gameplay. It also has great support for older devices and a simple control layout.

Battle Prime

For those who prefer third-person view over first-person, there’s Battle Prime: a methodical multiplayer shooter that offers a refreshing change of pace from the other games on this list.

Battle Prime features eight Prime Agents to unlock and play as, each with their own super-powered abilities that aim to give you an edge against your opponents on the battlefield. The graphics are top-notch and while there’s only a handful of maps and game modes to play (which are randomly selected for you every time you play), the core gameplay manages to feel fresh.

There’s a great amount of team play and strategy involved here, as the map relays the position of enemies in the sight of your teammates, marking them with a red triangle. This allows you to rush in to offer support for a teammate and can allow you to sneak around and flank enemies — just keep in mind that the other team can do the same right back at you.

The only downside is that Battle Prime offers a premium subscription to unlock more characters, and the cost is incredibly steep. Subscriptions range from $5 a week to the long-term 6-month subscription, yours for just under $80. Those are steep prices to pay but might be worth the investment if Battle Prime ends up being your favorite shooter.

Battle Prime

Battle Prime is a stylish third-person shooter with some great features that encourage strategic team play. I only wish it was a premium game with a one-time purchase price.

JYDGE

JYDGE is a gritty and violent top-down twin-stick shooter that is an absolute blast to play. You are the JYDGE, a cybernetic enforcement officer who uses his Gavel (see: BIG freaking gun) to dole out RoboCop-style justice.

Each level features different challenges that are required to progress but never feel like a slogging chore. Confiscating illegal cash along the way, you’re able to upgrade JYDGE and his gavel with a deep selection of accessories. In that way, JYDGE retains the rogue-like element from its predecessor Neon Chrome by encouraging you to replay levels with different upgrade combinations until you complete all the challenges.

With a game that has you replay levels over and over again, a game must find that mix of great gameplay with an interesting soundtrack that isn’t super annoying or repetitive — and JYDGE absolutely delivers.

Check out our full review if you need more convincing.

JYDGE

JYDGE is straight-up one of the most badass shooter games you’ll find in the Google Play Store. This is a twin-stick top-down shooter that features a ton of ways to upgrade your weapons as you dole out justice with your Gavel.

Hitman: Sniper

Hitman: Sniper finds you, Agent 47, stationed with a sniper rifle outside an estate filled with rich people, bodyguards, and a certain high-priority target. Your job is to take your time, plan a course of action, and begin removing enemies any way you see fit (as long as it’s through a scope). Each mission has different objectives you can complete for extra money, which you can then spend on weapon upgrades and new sniper rifles. If you’re especially proud of a mission, use the Share Replay function to share gameplay footage with your friends.

This game has nice graphics and great mechanics: you must lead enemies who are on the move and must account for their sometimes unforeseen actions. They will not shoot back but will take cover and move around the map attempting to help your prime target escape. Controls are easy and responsive, meaning you won’t have too much trouble lining up the shot. The music is great, especially when you miss a couple of shots and set off some alarms, and the voice acting is also above par for mobile games. Get your heart beating with this great shooter, and enjoy no ads or in-app purchases.

Hitman: Sniper

Step into the shoes of Agent 47 and peer down his sniper rifle scope as you assassinate high-value targets in this beautiful mobile shooter from the folks at Square Enix.

Tacticool

This 5v5 top-down shooter is simply a blast to play with a real-time physics engine that makes every match unique and offers you multiple ways you to go about attacking your enemy.

Developed by Finnish-Russian studio Panzerdog, Tacticool takes a ruthless approach to 5v5 tactical multiplayer by letting the battle unfold however players want on a destructible battlefield built with real-time physics and vehicles available to drive at your leisure. Delivered in three-minute matches, Tacticool does a great job of delivering fast and frantic action that gives the player more freedom in the game than most shooter games I’ve playtested for Android.

Now, for all the praise Tacticool deserves for its unmatched gameplay, the game is not without usual warts found on free-to-play titles. The weapon upgrade system heavily rewards those who spend real money in the game — and it’s not too long before you’ll start playing against some players who have clearly invested some cash. It’s not that anyone I’ve come across has bought enough upgrades to become godlike, but it certainly takes a heck of a lot more cunning and strategy to take out a paid player.

Tacticool

The physics engine deployed by the developers of Tacticool help set it apart from the other shooters available in the Play Store. It’s a fun top-down shooter, although pay-to-win mechanics do start to creep in over time.

Modern Combat 5: eSports FPS

Originally released as Modern Combat 5 Blackout, this trend-setting first-person shooter for Android has been re-branded to take advantage of the eSports movement. Now, I’d love to be proven wrong but I’m pretty sure it’s never going to take off as a prominent eSports game. Having said that, it’s still a solid mobile FPS with dazzling graphics and options to play through the solo campaign or take it online — and you can get an edge on your competition with a proper controller in your hand.

It’s clear that this game was trying to rub some shine off of the Call of Duty franchise when it was first released. Now that Call of Duty has a proper release, gamers might feel like there’s less incentive to play this legacy mobile shooter, but if you’ve never checked out Modern Combat 5, it’s still well worth your time.

Modern Combat 5: eSports FPS

It might be overshadowed by more recent releases, but Modern Combat 5 is still one of the better first-person shooters on Android that offers good support for Bluetooth controllers.

Overkill 3

Overkill 3 is a third-person shooter that guides you through the level, also known as being on rails. Your job is to aim and shoot bad guys. Sounds easy? Overkill lets you choose a difficulty before each boss fight, meaning your recent disposal of entry-position bad guys has no bearing on what is to come.

Choose a loadout from the armory before each mission and unlock new weapons and gear as you progress through the game. You must collect stars by completing specific objectives during each mission — the stars are used to unlock more missions. A tally at the end of each level keeps track of your progress, so you’ll never be unsure of where you stand.

Graphics are not as great as other shooters, but Overkill 3 features a co-op mode that lets you team up with a friend or random player to crush the enemy. Ads are few and far between, but there are many in-app purchases.

Overkill 3

Overkill 3 makes up for its rail shooter controls by throwing wave after wave of challenging enemies at you. It also offers a co-op multiplayer mode where you can team up with a friend or find a partner in the game’s chat room and make a run for the top of the leaderboards.

Unkilled

Unkilled is another very polished first-person shooter that fully supports Bluetooth controllers and offers over 150 missions in the single-player campaign, along with multiple online multiplayer modes to choose from. For online play, you get to choose your preferred character class, and then upgrade your skills and weapon load-outs with points you collect as you play.

You’re best off using the Bluetooth controller as it gives you a distinct advantage against the AI zombies as well as your online opponents. Simply sync your controller with your phone and it’ll automatically work when you load up the game.

Unkilled

Unkilled is one of the best first-person zombie shooters on Android. Play through the lengthy single-player campaign or go online and blast the undead with your friends.

Dead Trigger 2

Dead Trigger 2 continues to be the quintessential zombie-shooting experience on mobile. The graphics are amazing, though the game hardly takes itself seriously — there are lots of tongue-in-cheek references and over-the-top baddies to mow down. This version is a little different in that players now have their own hideout and a crew that can build stuff for them.

The controls have also been streamlined for touch; all you have to do is move the crosshairs over a zombie, and if you’re in range, you’ll automatically start shooting. There are tons of missions to enjoy, and the in-app purchases have been scaled back with the removal of the premium currency — now you can buy and build everything yourself without spending a cent.

Dead Trigger 2

Dead Trigger 2 is a zombie shooter that’s packed with content, featuring 33 different battlegrounds and a formidable array of deadly bosses to do battle with.

Dead Plague

Dead Plague is an outstanding top-down shooter that absolutely deserves a place on this list for its brilliant graphics, frantic gameplay, and support for online co-op play. You play as a member of a strike team that’s been dropped on an island where a zombie plague has broken out. You must fight your way through the swarms of zombies to find the DNA samples that are humanity’s only hope of finding a cure.

There’s a nice variety of enemies to battle, including some epic boss battles, along with a full arsenal of weapons to choose from. With tight dual-stick digital controls and an engaging campaign that you can play alone or online with friends, Dead Plague stands out as one of the best shooters for Android.

Dead Plague

Dead Plague offers a nice change of pace with a top-down perspective and an emphasis on survival and strategy as you try and save the world from a deadly zombie plague.

Fortnite

One of the most popular games in the world came out for Android a while ago and, after a brief stint on the Play Store, it became the center of a legal battle. Luckily, it’s still available outside of Google’s storefront if you want to play it. Samsung users can install the Epic Games app directly from the Galaxy Store. If you have another Android device, you can grab the file directly from Epic, which will be linked below. You will then need to sideload the Epic Games app in order to play it.

Fortnite pits you and 99 other players against each other with the goal to be the last individual or team standing. The map is huge, but it slowly shrinks over time to force people closer together. Conflict, mayhem, and death ensue as you are put between a rock and a hard place (sometimes literally) to survive. This is the full version of the game, too, not a mobile spin-off, so you get access to all updates and goodies when they happen. You can then make progress on your battle pass wherever you are.

Besides being popular due to its low (read: free) cost to entry and ease of accessibility for all kinds of players, Fortnite is infamous for its microtransactions. This game popularized the battle pass system, a split between a free (and much less rewarding) tier and a paid tier of progression throughout a given season. There’s also cosmetics to buy, so you won’t run out of ways to give Epic more money. Love it or hate it, Fortnite is a juggernaut and should be at least respected on that basis alone.

Fortnite

Fortnite has been booted off the Play Store, but you can still sideload the king of battle royales if you want to play on your phone.

N.O.V.A. Legacy

Long-time mobile gamers will recognize the N.O.V.A. name. It pushed the boundaries of what a mobile FPS could be back in its day and it turned into a pretty good series. Well, now the OG is back with N.O.V.A. Legacy, a game inspired by the first episode.

Legacy features a full campaign, multiplayer, weapon crafting, and more. It’s definitely good for killing a few hours and the controls are pretty decent, I’d say. I like it for the nostalgia, even if there are better shooters on this list. Of course, Legacy is a Gameloft game, so it’s supported by in-app purchases.

N.O.V.A. Legacy

Get ready for a fun sci-fi FPS based on the original N.O.V.A. Play through the campaign or hop into multiplayer for some intense shooter action.

Infinity Ops

Infinity Ops is the only game on this list that meaningfully pulled me away from CoD Mobile. This multiplayer shooter is more than just its awesome sci-fi aesthetic. There are a few different classes to choose from, each with their abilities and strengths.

The robust social features are great for people who appreciate that sort of thing. There are even clans! Infinity Ops contains a wide variety of weapons to choose from, depending on how you like to play. Each environment is different, too, some with differing levels of gravity to add a new element to the game flow.

While playing Infinity Ops, it felt like Bright Memory meets Destiny 2 PvP (minus the space wizard, god-slayer stuff), so if that sounds interesting to you, then I highly suggest you check out Infinity Ops. It’s free-to-play, with microtransactions going toward new weapons and gear. Did I mention that the game has jetpacks and giant mechs??

Infinity Ops

If you’re looking for a sci-fi multiplayer shooter with plenty of variety and things to do, then check out Infinity Ops.

Shadowgun War Games

I highly doubt we’ll ever see an Overwatch Mobile, but that hasn’t stopped other developers from giving the idea a shot. Meet Shadowgun War Games, a hero 5v5 PvP first-person shooter. And you know what? It’s actually really fun.

The main highlight of Shadowgun War Games is the roster of heroes, each with their own abilities, counters, strengths, and weaknesses. As you might expect, there are plenty of cosmetics for each character, but that’s what you’d expect in a free-to-play FPS.

You can choose between Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch. The game also features text and voice chat to make team communications easier (or more annoying, depending on the luck of your draw). Developer Madfinger is committed to updating the game regularly with balance patches, new heroes, events, and of course, cosmetics. Overall though, I like Shadowgun War Games, even though I dropped off the hero shooter bandwagon a long time ago.

Shadowgun War Games

Fans of hero shooters will enjoy Shadowgun War Games. Choose a hero who fits your playstyle and get out there in some 5v5 combat.

Sky Force Reloaded

Sky Force has had some ups and downs in its time, but Reloaded is the best it’s been despite being a few years old. It offers a lot of progression to keep you busy and gorgeous visuals to make sure you stay interested. Controls are super smooth and gameplay waxes and wanes so you’re not constantly on edge.

If you’ve never played a bullet hell game, then Sky Force Reloaded is a great place to start. Bullet hells are basically what the name suggests: a hellish storm of bullets and other projectiles on screen that you have to navigate through to survive. Sky Force Reloaded doesn’t offer a truly hardcore bullet hell experience — it’s more of a shoot-’em-up (shmup) — but I think it’s a good way for newbies to get their feet wet.

That’s not to say that you can’t enjoy Sky Force Reloaded if you’re a battle-hardened bullet hell or shmup veteran. It has a lot of nuance and it requires plenty of skill. There’s a lot of mastery involved and everyone can find a lot to enjoy.

Sky Force Reloaded

Even though it’s been out for a while, Sky Force Reloaded is the perfect way to get your feet wet with bullet hell shooters and/or shmup games.

Bullet Hell Monday

If you tried Sky Force Reloaded and liked the chaos, then the next step is to try a real bullet hell. I give you the Bullet Hell Monday trilogy, a trio of absolutely fantastic games that are just plain awesome. You can lose hours upon hours in this trilogy, gaining more and more skill through a trial by fire.

Beyond bullet hell fans, this trilogy can appeal to nostalgia fans with its arcade-y look and feel. From the bright colors to the epic soundtrack and simple controls, Bullet Hell Monday is the throwback you’ve been looking for. These games practically redefine chaos, pushing you to achieve that perfect score.

All three games are free with ads, although you can opt out of the ads at the cost of losing some in-game points. You can also purchase multiple upgrade paths outside of earning them in-game. So, despite some iffy monetization, all three Bullet Hell Mondays are worth it if you need more bullet hell in your life and, let’s face it, a lot of us do.

Bullet Hell Monday trilogy

Hearkening back to the bullet hell arcade days of old, the Bullet Hell Monday trilogy is packed full of nostalgia, chaos, and brutally challenging gameplay. The soundtracks are also top-notch.

Dead Effect 2

Dead Effect 2 is a gruesome first-person shooter set in a dark, gritty, and somewhat horrifying nightmare. It features some RPG-lite mechanics (including character personality), controller support, plenty of weapon and implant upgrades to chase, a long campaign with side missions, and more.

This game isn’t for the faint of heart, with you shooting or cutting your enemies into gory pieces. As such, player discretion is advised. That being said, Dead Effect 2 is a high-quality game that looks fantastic. And there’s even a katana! There’s also some freemium nonsense, like grinding to upgrade your weapons. Still, it’s a fun shooter.

Dead Effect 2

This gorgeous shooter is a dark and gruesome adeventure. Blast your way through enemies with a variety of weapons and upgrades.

Afterpulse

Afterpulse is a competitive third-person shooter and a worthy challenger to Call of Duty: Mobile’s crown. It looks good, plays well, and has plenty of weapon options to choose from. The developers are constantly working to improve the game and add features that the community wants, too.

There are a variety of game modes, maps, weapons, and optimization options. If you feel like spending some real-world cash, you can buy skins if you’d like. Afterpulse isn’t lacking in the skin department.

Afterpulse

Afterpulse is an awesome third-person competitive shooter. You have a lot of game modes to play, maps to learn, and weapons to use. And there are plenty of skins available for purchase, too.

321 Shootout

Far from the clutter and noise that has come to define so many shooters, 321 Shootout shines in its straightforward approach to the genre. You get tossed into a tight arena, there’s a 3-2-1 countdown, and then boom, you hit the ground running. As soon as you’re released into the arena, you need to start sprinting for the guns as fast as you can. This is a no-nonsense, fast-paced shooter and enemies are going to come at you from all sides if you’re not careful to mow them down first. You’ll rack up money with each shootout you complete, which you can use to purchase advantages in your next round, like starting with healthpacks in your inventory or larger magazine sizes.

One of the biggest draws of 321 Shootout is its concise action. Unlike other shooters with sprawling levels and chaotic hoardes, Shootout prefers close quarters and quicker victories with minimalist levels and smaller, but no less intelligent, waves of enemies. Things continue to escalate as you work your way up and the game can become challenging quickly. The touchscreen controls aren’t perfect though, so without practice you may find that you’re missing inputs and getting yourself killed through avoidable user-error.

It may lack a little finesse with the controls, but a lot of what makes 321 Shootout great is exactly that — what it lacks. There are no lootboxes, no pay-to-win mechanics, and no brutal slog to the top through intentionally grindy leveling. 321 Shootout wants you to have everything that’s good from first-person shooters without any of the modern bloat that plagues so many others in the genre. If you’re in the mood for frantic action without the bloat, then 321 Shootout may be right up your alley.

321 Shootout

A no-nonsense first-person shooter, 321 Shootout is all about fast action, wild arsenals, and precision. Brace yourself going into this one, you’ll need nerves of steel to make it through!

Update May 2021: Added 321 Shootout to our list!

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How to get Android 12 widgets on your phone today with KWGT

Why wait until September — or even later — to get Android 12’s fun new widgets when they’re available today thanks to KWGT Pro and some enterprising themers? Here are the best Android 12 widget packs to use right now and how to each handles the dynamic colors of Material You.

Vinnie | Sift Heads Wiki

Vinnie

Family

Aaron – Father (deceased)

Unnamed mother
Michael – Younger brother (deceased)

Weapons

Beretta 92FS

Desert Eagle
Glock
Dragunov
SPAS 12

Vinnie is the main protagonist of the Sift Heads game series. He’s a legendary bounty hunter and veteran assassin and the primary target of various criminals and mafia organizations. He first appears in Sift Heads as the main protagonist and is a main character in Sift Heads World and Sift Heads Cartels.

Background

Early Life

Vinnie was born in 1974 into a family as ordinary and simple as the next he met with Alexander and other 11 boys.

Vinnie Before Killing his cat

In 1976, his father, Aaron (also known as Wito), was killed by The Black Fox in a gunfight between two rival mafia clans in Italy (the Red Mafia and the Gray Mafia) when Vinnie was only two years old. Wanting to forget the tragic incident, his mother decided to leave Europe and move to America to start a new life, which happened to be the same year Vinnie made his first kill when he shot his cat who had “killed” Vinnie’s teddy bear Mobo. In 1980, he killed a fellow daycare kid with a toy car as payback for playing with his GT 500 toy car. Seven years later, he murdered his math teacher in order to avoid going to school. As a teenager, Vincent decorated his room with pornographic posters, a real AK47 and a Japanese katana sword which has “Blossom stem, if found please return to Kiro or else!” inscribed on it. (The following information is incorrect because when Vinnie was a teen, Kiro wasn’t born yet.)

Adulthood

In 1993, he had a run-in with law enforcement while being under the influence which resulted in him murdering two cops with his Taurus PT92. He later got his first taste of money by conning the cons themselves in the streets of Chicago. What was originally a simple hobby quickly turned into a profession, and Vincent later gave himself the nickname “Vinnie”. His name would soon spread quickly amongst the locals, gaining a reputation as being the best bounty hunter in the area and eventually the best in the world he lead group of bouty hunters number of members of group is 17 (with Vinnie). But later his friends were killed by Gray Mafia members and Vinnie was only survivor in the Bounty Hunters. Naturally, such notoriety would bring him not only many contracts, money and women, but also his share of enemies that never intimidated him. Amidst all the bloodshed and violence, a woman entered his life. Vinnie was surprised that she could withstand bloodbaths and violence, but behold she could not resist Vinnie’s charm and she fell for him. And since this day Shorty has stayed by his side as not only his lover, but as his partner-in-crime. Later on, a contract that turned sour forced Vinnie to meet one of his biggest adversaries: Kiro, an ex-member of the Yakuza, who was thirsty for vengeance for the death of his brother(see: Sift Renegade 1, Sift Heads 5 and Sift Renegade 2). After several heated battles, Vinnie proposed an alternative to this quarrel and to let Kiro become a part of his team.

Relationships with other Protagonists

Shorty

Vinnie met Shorty on a beach and they both fell in love with one another. Vinnie admires how Shorty is terrific at shooting and for always knowing what to do for fun. In Sift Heads 4 when Vinnie was bored (due to the fact he had eliminated all of the criminals in Chicago and there was nothing left to do), Shorty suggested that Vinnie should go on vacation by sifting heads – but on an international level this time. Another time, Vinnie received help from Shorty due to the he could not sift heads alone when he was infiltrating a base and needed backup in Shorty Covers. Vinnie cares a lot for Shorty and this is evident from the time he rescued Shorty when she was captured by Kiro and also the Crips and Red Mafia, and also took care of her when she was injured in Sift Heads: Ultimatum.

Kiro

When Vinnie was ordered by Yumma to kill Kienji (Kiro’s Brother) for rebelling against older members of the Yakuza, Kiro was trying to kill him after the murder of several members of the Triads, but Vinnie defeated him. He spared the beaten samurai and told him “not to kill someone who is paid but one who is paying.” Later, when Kiro confronted some Triads, Vinnie reappeared and shot the leader, leaving the rest for Kiro. Afterwards, Kiro met with Vinnie again, as he had his own enemies as well. Eventually, Kiro decided to shake off his hatred on Vinnie and became his partner instead.

Formerly enemies, Vinnie and Kiro eventually became trusted allies, and Kiro proved to be a formidable assassin to the gang. Though, the two mostly poke fun at each other at times around. Vinnie is also annoyed by Kiro for making fun of him for living in the past; when Kiro started to ask about his age, Vinnie retorted Kiro to throw himself out of the car, prompting Kiro to stop annoying Vinnie.

Vinnie also stopped Kiro for trying to kill police officers due to his fuel of his rage. when Kiro was arrested, Vinnie rescued him to help him kill Alonzo and Yumma.

During Sift Heads: Street Wars, Vinnie started to tease Kiro for guarding the safehouse. Kiro just explained that if he left his safehouse unprotected it might be blown up again.

Appearances

Characters killed by Vinnie

Trivia

• Vinnie likes R&B and classic rock music, cars & weapons.
• Vinnie has been fascinated with the Mustang Shelby GT500 Eleanor for a very long time.
• Before Sift Heads World: Act 1, Vinnie’s favorite gun was a Beretta 92 FS. Now, it seems to have changed to a Desert Eagle.
• Vinnie’s first ever kill was his cat, whose name is still unconfirmed.
• On the Main Menu screen of Sift Heads 2, Vinnie seems to be exiting a BMW M3 instead of a Shelby GT500 E.
• His eyes are never shown throughout the entire series.
• However his eyes were seen in one of the game over screens in Sift Heads 2, when Vinnie was shot in the head.
• Vinnie fights the final guy in a fist fight at the end of Sift Heads World: Act 4
• Vinnie has only been voiced in two games, Sift heads and the spin-off game, Vinnie’s Rampage.

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90,000 Games of the nineties and early 2000s, still relevant today / Games

We must take fire from the past, not ash.

Jean Jaures, French philosopher and historian

The river of time often carries away our favorite things. It remains to remember and indulge in light sadness. Video games are no exception.

Photorealism has come to interactive graphics, next-generation consoles are treading on the doorstep, and these games are as enjoyable as ever.No, this is not about your personal gaming values. Your favorite game may not be in this material. We will recall those projects of the twentieth century that are objectively cool to this day. Behind which even young people can hang with their eyes burning. Those connoisseurs of video games who did not find the last century at all. Go.

Earthworm Jim (1994 ). The star of the 16-bit era, Jim the Worm has become one of the most recognizable characters in video games.Zuboskal and wit, fighter against evil and space traveler, he was, perhaps, the most striking and extraordinary hero of the games of his era. Earthworm Jim has a rich history and a well-developed universe – here the animated series came to the rescue, which, by the way, was very popular at that time on Russian-language TV channels. Once a wonderful spacesuit fell from space to Earth, giving the owner strength and intelligence. An ordinary earthworm accidentally crawled into the spacesuit – and so Jim appeared. And the game about him has become a reference two-dimensional action game, with dashing shooting, very diverse levels, interplanetary flights in pseudo-3D and graphics as close as possible to a good cartoon.

There have been rumors about Jim’s imminent return. We are already tired of waiting

Comix Zone (1995). Comics and video games have a long and strong bond. But never before Comix Zone (and after it) were we offered in games a journey to the pages of a comic book in the literal sense of the word. According to the plot of the game, the artist gets into his own comic strip: during a thunderstorm, he changes places with the drawn villain. The visuals were created in the spirit of graphic novels, and the characters in the game came to life using advanced motion capture technology.Comix Zone’s gameplay combined a fierce fighting game with adventure elements. But the main advantage of Comix Zone is the aesthetics of the comics, which directly affects the process. So, the villain Mortus from the real world constantly painted our opponents – we saw his pencil right in the frame. And our tame rat could find the cache by tearing off the edge of the page that served as the border of the game screen for us.

The villain personally draws his minion

Myth : The Fallen Lords (1997). The first part of the dark fantasy trilogy blew up the gaming community at the time. They talked and wrote about Myth even in the post-Soviet space, where that very community did not differ in size. This tactical game was 3D, although it used sprite characters. And the camera obediently turned around, the unevenness of the relief was important, sometimes critical, and the distance and approach of the foreshortening at that time flaunted unprecedented freedom. But the main star was the working game physics. This has never happened before.The gnomes’ grenades bounced off the walls, rolled down the slope to the feet of the one who threw them, and the explosion of a dozen mines covered the screen with shrapnel and debris. Imagine only: a paw of a monster, torn off by a bomb, with a cleaver clamped in it, could fly ten meters in order to stick into a zombie standing nearby. Such tricks are rarely seen today. Hardcore gameplay forced dozens of times to replay the most tense moments, monsters delighted with pretentious design, and animated screensavers reminded of the best works of Don Blute (cartoon “All Dogs Go to Heaven”, game Dragon’s Lair).

Monsters will attack the village and will outnumber the defenders many times over. Victory will give a horse dose of endorphins

Half – Life (1998). The advent of Gordon Freeman changed a lot in game development in general and in shooters in particular. The story was told only in the first person and only in real time. Gamers got a stunning sense of ownership. An amazing gaming universe has appeared, to which, by the way, the developers will soon return in VR format.The roots of this world grow from Stephen King’s story “The Mist”, but the Half-Life universe has significantly outgrown the original source in scale and detail. The story of a failed experiment is impressive today, in such detail the Valve team showed the disaster through the eyes of Freeman. And the gameplay was remembered by the fact that for a dozen hours of passage it never sagged to the point of boredom and did not repeat itself. We were shown scenes in the best traditions of Hollywood, frightened by unprecedented monsters, and in the original arsenal of the hero there were tame carnivorous cockroaches and much more.

Half-Life had everything you could think of for a shooter. Helicopter battle including

Baldur ‘ s Gate (1998). This story – which, as many know, will soon continue – began over twenty years ago. Developers from the Canadian company BioWare, which would later create Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic, took up the license for the legendary D&D board game. The game has become the most real revolution in the genre.Real-time, paused tactical combat is still vigorously played today, thanks to a wealth of possibilities. The plot about the children of Baal was fascinating and went from cliches: the main villain acted from the shadows, inciting a major war. The heroes of the party became personalities: they could take offense and leave the tyrant player. But the main star of Baldur’s Gate is the Forgotten Realms themselves. A really big, colorful, dangerous and wonderful world for adventure seekers. To the accompaniment of unforgettable music, we trampled the fields and woods, poked our noses into such interesting caves and burial grounds, and on the road we could be met by an impudent swordsman and challenged to a duel.He could be successfully sent to hell – nonlinearity.

During the battle, Baldur’s Gate turned into a tactical strategy

Planescape : Torment (1999). This classic RPG is a must-see for anyone with a passion for video games. This is Dungeons & Dragons again, only now in a very bizarre world of Sigil, the City of Doors. From there you can get into an infinite number of other worlds, if you want.And if you don’t want to, too. The game became famous for its powerful multi-layered plot, for which the notorious 800,000 words were written. A story about immortality and its meaning, about love, friendship, betrayal and a dozen more equally important things. Planescape: Torment tells the story of the Nameless One, a character with no memory and no ability to die. The main force of gameplay is dialogue. They decide and determine everything that happens here. The dialogues are branchy, beautifully written, and verbose. Well, the team of Nameless is another good reason to join the classics.What is one flying skull Morte – chatterbox, coward and womanizer (!).

During his lifetime, Morte was still a sinner. Death didn’t change much

Homeworld (1999). There were strategies for space before Homeworld. But only this successful RTS reminded us that space is three-dimensional. All actions, be it the collection of resources or the battle of fleets, took place in full 3D, with a free camera and maneuvers along all axes. This was simply a shock. Homeworld is still interesting today.A well-developed and balanced tactical model – it’s not in vain that the Canadian masters from the Relic studio worked on the game, who now account for such series as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. There is a real sense of epic proportions here: under our command is the famous Mothership, home to an entire race. Here is a fascinating story about the search for a lost homeland. There is a stunning beauty of space and a great soundtrack. Such matters are timeless (but the remaster was still released).

Space in the game is far from real colors. But incredibly beautiful

Silent Hill (1999). One of the most terrifying, stylish and philosophically charged episodes started on the old PS1, who was sitting on a console throne just at the end of the millennium. The story of Harry Mason and his search for the missing daughter will not leave indifferent even a modern gamer spoiled by drama. The town of Silent Hill, under which the coal deposits are burning, is densely hidden by fog – you may have heard the legend that this is how the draw range was reduced for the frail console.But the scenery here is more frightening than the grotesque monsters from the darkness. One of the “shot” chips – excursions into a parallel world, rusty, dead and full of almost palpable melancholy and discomfort. The set included a set of convincing, well-voiced characters. Some of the puzzles can be described as examples of gloomy design. And you should definitely remember about the music of the genius Akira Yamaoka.

Creepy and exciting. What else does a good horror game need?

Sacrifice (2000). This strategy has become one of the most unusual games in the genre. At the same time, the game from the Shiny Entertainment team was and remains an incredibly exciting, stylistically effective and successful experiment. We played as a powerful sorcerer, led troops into battle and personally smashed the enemy with magic from a third person. The main resource was the souls of those killed on the battlefield. And the victory was achieved by the wizard who was able to desecrate the opponent’s altars faster, sacrificing one of the units there. The process was unusual and complicated, but the game was tight.Along with the unusual mechanics, it is worth noting the design of worlds and creatures. The developers set out to surprise, and they did it. Sacrifice is psychedelic in the best sense of the word: here every piece of location, every small character is a hymn to the victorious underground, non-format and visual style. It is worth appreciating at least five of the local grumpy gods. Well, the petty demon collecting souls with a huge syringe is an unforgettable sight.

At one time, the maximum Sacrifice settings sacrificed most PCs

Deus Ex (2000). There are games in which literally everything is great. This includes the first part of Deus Ex. This cyberpunk gaming classic has a great story about a global conspiracy. There is an incredible variety of gameplay – from hard action to subtle stealth. The world of Deus Ex is detailed at the level of a multivolume fantastic book by an experienced author. There are tons of excellently written and voiced dialogues. There are many cool tracks by Alexander Brandon playing here. Adrenaline missions in the terrorists’ lair give way to walks through the spacious underground headquarters and thoughtful digging in the inventory.Deus Ex graphics are understandably outdated, but such convincing robots are still worth looking for in modern games. And most importantly, Deus Ex, on some magical level, for the first time in the history of game development, combined a deep role-playing game and a dashing first-person shooter.

Deus Ex has more dialogue than some pure RPGs

Rune (2000). Not a word about the modern continuation. Thinking back to a great game from 2000. The cult status of this third-person action game has been brought about by the skilful on-screen incarnation of Scandinavian mythology and history.Viking settlement, architecture, weapons and armor, mythology and bestiary – everything in Rune was saturated with northern flavor. Our hero, a young warrior Ragnar, had to prevent Ragnarok, and on the way to this goal the most interesting thing began – excellent slasher mechanics. Ragnar covered himself with a shield, chopped off the limbs of enemies, knocked over the monsters with a mace and, falling into a frenzy, tore everyone around to natural shreds – the damage system allowed. Rune has seriously influenced the entire slasher genre. The brutality of the combat system will surely appeal to modern gamers who have walked the length and breadth of their beloved God of War.

In a rather lengthy introduction, Ragnar walks through his native village

Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (2000). Many RPG fans still consider – and, most likely, tomorrow will consider – this game as the best in its genre. There are reasons for this. The continuation surpassed the brilliant original in everything. Feirun’s world in the Forgotten Realms offered hundreds of hours of handpicked adventure. The story of the division of the inheritance by the descendants of Baal became even more fascinating. The plot took him to incredible places, among which the blazing underworld and the elven city in the trees are the most obvious.But there was also an unforgettable mental hospital for wizards! The scale of the game is staggering today. The number of locations, quests, heroes, items and spells is measured in some fantastic numbers. Freedom is almost complete, one of the first big tasks is short: “Collect the required amount.” And the fate of Yoshimo from your team is still one of the most powerful scenario feints in games. It was in Shadows of Amn that the popular Infinity Engine came out at its best. The amount of detail in the shot was staggering: above the butcher’s counter, for example, one could see climbing flies.

Big, lively, noisy and beautiful Amn, the southern capital. Another advantage of Baldur’s Gate 2

Diablo 2 (2000). The foundations of the appeal of the Diablo series were laid by the very first game. But we decided to remember the second one for several reasons. Diablo 2 features everything that the series is loved to this day at its best. It’s easy-to-learn yet eerily addictive gameplay. It is a mythology of its own, told by a great CGI video. These are different classes, each of which I want to try out.This is a fantastic demon design. But the second part has something that Diablo did not have in the current century. A waterfall fell on the player, even an avalanche of trophies. Yes, there was enough multi-colored useless rubbish, but it was a pleasure to disassemble the loot and try on all these chain mail and shields on the character’s doll. And pumping Diablo 2 was really difficult: it’s not for nothing that every self-respecting newspaper and magazine about PC games published guides for the development of a paladin or a sorceress. The addictive progress along the winding branches of the pumping deprived of sleep and subdued it no worse than a soul stone.

The Diablo 2 character’s inventory and doll were stealing a soul. In the third part, everything here has become more modest

Project I.G.I .: I’m Going In (2000). From cold Norway came one of the most challenging and interesting shooters of the time. Even today, the game has something to captivate. If the story of war criminals and special forces soldiers is unlikely to touch a sophisticated player, then the process in Project I.G.I. good and original in its own way. The main part of the missions is sabotage at protected facilities.Stealth is very important. The alarm signal will not lead to the end of the mission, but the matter will become much more complicated, because the hero dies from one or two bullets. However, the enemy too. Hence the special acuteness of the fire engagement. But the main feature of the game is huge, gigantic cards. And the enemy bases themselves are large. Unprecedented tactical depth appears. You can plan an attack in a dozen ways in a hundred directions. Recently, to the delight of fans, the third part of the franchise was announced.

Project I.G.I. featured a well-designed firearm

Hitman : Codename 47 (2000). The most recognizable bald spot in the world of video games flashed in the first game of its series so brightly that this brilliance cannot be hidden even after many years. Codename 47 wasn’t just the start of a franchise. This is a great example of stealth action with an eye for realism and high demands on intelligence. The game has an exemplary mission design – each of them has become a puzzle, elegant, difficult and with several solutions.A miniature sandbox and multiple paths to the goal – this is the formula used by the Danish team to this day; The forty-seventh is not going to retire. The game had really spectacular ragdoll physics, citing movie classics from “The Godfather” to “Terminator 2”, and the music of Jesper Kyud, who would then write the soundtrack for Assassin’s Creed 2, and many other extraordinary things.

Forty-seventh constantly communicated with representatives of the underworld

This, of course, is not a complete list.Express yourself in the comments which game of previous years is worthy, in your opinion, to be blown off from time to time.

If you notice an error, select it with the mouse and press CTRL + ENTER.

Paintball, airsoft and laser tag

Paintball, airsoft and laser tag

Over the past decade, the world of games and extreme sports and recreation has seen a major qualitative leap in development. Until recently, one could only dream of getting together and playing “real war”.Of course, you could always go to the military registration and enlistment office and … but these are not games at all. And I just wanted to play, where the participants of the event could shoot and hit each other from something that looks like a weapon, but without harm to life.

Nowadays, there is a decent choice for everyone in this area of ​​outdoor activities. The most interesting thing is that, according to psychologists, such games in general only have a positive effect on the psyche and health of a person, making him less aggressive in ordinary life (accumulated aggression spills out during the game) and improving his team interaction skills.

The essence of all such games is approximately the same – divided into teams, perform various game scenarios, shooting at each other. The only differences are in the implementation of the gameplay, equipment and what to shoot from.

Paintball

A paintball “gun” is called a marker and shoots paint balls up to 30 meters. The caliber of a classic paintball ball is 0.69 inches (about 2 cm), and they are made on the basis of gelatin.When hitting an obstacle, the ball splits, leaving a stain of paint in the place of contact (paintball paint is water-soluble, can be easily washed off clothes and is safe for health).

When playing paintball, all players must wear paintball masks to protect them from getting balls in their eyes and face.

According to statistics, paintball is the most popular war game today. Its main advantages are that, thanks to the presence of a bright dye in the ball, it is always clear where you are, so disputes are easily resolved whether the enemy is hit or not.In addition, shooting paintballs from a paintball marker is generally very entertaining, dynamic and fun.

Probably, it is thanks to these factors that both adults and children, and even entire companies, willingly play paintball, adding paintball to the list of their corporate events.

Airsoft (English airsoft)

Airsoft guns also have their own name. If in paintball it is a “marker”, then in airsoft the term “drive” is used.
Shoots an airsoft drive with 6mm plastic balls. The sighting range of a conventional drive, as in paintball, is about 30 meters. Players wear special glasses instead of paintball masks. The airsoft ball is one-piece, and when it hits an obstacle, it usually just bounces off. In this regard, airsoft can be played exclusively for fairness.

The advantage of airsoft can be called an imitation of military weapons and equipment. The airsoft drive is as close as possible in appearance and weight to a real firearm.

As a rule, airsoft fans are fans of playing in a realistic combat atmosphere. Everything is serious, but at the same time it is also safe for health (subject to simple safety rules).

Laser tag

Laser tag weapons do not have any special name such as “drive” or “marker” and do not shoot anything in the direct sense of this term. As a rule, this is a dummy of popular small arms (for example, an imitation model of a Kalashnikov assault rifle), on which a special signal emitter is attached (usually in the infrared spectrum).
By pulling the trigger, you activate the emitter, and an “energy shot” occurs (similar to the operation of a pocket flashlight, which you pointed in a certain direction, turned it on and then turned it off).

The players are wearing special sensors that are triggered if they are “irradiated”. Depending on the type of laser tag equipment and the game scenario, the triggering of the sensors may be accompanied by a sound signal and for some time turn off the “gun” of the affected player – take him out of the game.

Laser tag is sometimes called “laser paintball”, which is completely wrong, since laser tag has nothing to do with paintball.

From the name “laser tag” it can be assumed that this “weapon” should “shoot” with focused laser pulses. However, in practice, in terms of scattering angle, we are dealing with a good flashlight, but not with a “laser rifle”. As a rule, equipment for playing laser tag has a wide scattering angle of its radiation.

The advantages of laser tag include the absence of special safety requirements.No glasses or masks. Sensors attached to the head or a vest – that’s all the equipment.

In general, comparing paintball, airsoft and laser tag, one cannot say that one of these is “good” and the other is “bad”. As they say, the taste and color of ice cream is different. If you are puzzled by the question of which of these types of war games to choose, we recommend at least once to play all of them, and then decide on the basis of the experience gained.

If we analyze the market in the field of outdoor activities, comparing laser tag, airsoft and paintball, we can note a great advantage in the proposals in favor of paintball.St. Petersburg has dozens of paintball clubs offering their services with different levels of service and comfort. From the point of view of organizing corporate recreation, it is advisable to make a choice in favor of clubs with a developed infrastructure and experience in holding such events.
When it comes to choosing a place where you can play paintball, we recommend the current article “How to choose a paintball club”, the general recommendations of which will also be valid for airsoft and laser tag.

All of the above is the author’s view of what is happening around and does not claim to be the ultimate truth.

(unauthorized copying of the article is prohibited)

The case of deadly shooters – Money – Kommersant

90,010 $ 246 million intended to sue lawyer Jack Thompson from the manufacturers of a computer game, which, in his opinion, brought two teenagers to murder. Games come under suspicion every time a teenager grabs a gun, and the recent tragedy at a Moscow school is no different. Some are already proposing to ban shooters, which supposedly teach children to kill.However, practice shows that the persecution of games only contributes to their popularity.

KIRILL NOVIKOV

Death Race

In the last 20 years, if another senseless murder occurs anywhere in the world, there are usually reports in the press that the criminal was addicted to video games. When it comes to mass shootings in schools, university campuses or in the workplace, the topic of computer violence inevitably comes up. Some people still believe that shooting games can drive a teenager to a bloody carnage, push him to commit suicide or drive him crazy.There are those who are not averse to making political capital in the fight against computer entertainment, getting rich on lawsuits against manufacturing companies, or getting a grant to research gaming psychology. However, despite all the efforts of the fighters against video games, the income of game manufacturers is growing every year.

The first video game violence scandal erupted when the number of owners of personal computers could be counted on one hand. In 1976, when the unknown company Apple introduced its first home computer, electronic games existed only in the laboratories of scientists, as well as on slot machines in cafes, bars, cinemas and other entertainment venues.Each slot machine allowed only one game to be played, so anyone who wanted to buy it had to buy a slot machine. Monitors then transmitted only three colors – black, white and gray, and the graphics were in their infancy, so that there could be no talk of any streams of screen blood. Yet the American slot machine company Exidy created a game that shocked the public.

The game was titled “Death Race” and was made based on the film “Death Race 2000” about the grim future of America, in which racers are awarded points for every person knocked down.The tape was mixed with black humor and political satire, but Exidy did not go into details and made a game about collisions with pedestrians. The player was driving a white car that drove across a black screen. In different parts of the monitor, white men appeared, which had to be overtaken and crushed. At the time of their death, the little men uttered heartbreaking death cries, and grave mounds with crosses appeared at the place of their death. To win, the player had to kill as many pedestrians as possible.The creators of the game subsequently argued that the white men are not people, but gremlins, but the graphics of the game were primitive and did not allow distinguishing a gremlin from a person.

Exidy managed to sell no more than 500 machines before “Death Race” was noticed by journalists. The popular CBS show “60 Minutes” devoted a separate episode to the game and was soon featured on Sunday’s NBC news. The print media did not lag behind: The National Enquirer and other newspapers rushed to castigate the cruelty and immorality of the game.The National Health Council’s National Security Council declared the game terrifying and unhealthy. Scientists also had their say. Psychologist Gerald Driessen said in an interview with The New York Times: “The viewer perceives violence passively … and in this game the player creates violence himself. The player is no longer just an observer. He is a participant in the process … I am sure that most of those who have played this game are not rush to the car to start crushing pedestrians … But one in a thousand? One in a million? It’s scary to think where this will lead… There will be a lot of blood. “The scandal turned out to be of primary importance, but Exidy president Pete Kaufman did not lose heart. In a short time, the whole country learned about his modest company, and orders fell like a cornucopia. The company planned to sell about 1,000 machines with” Death Race “, actually sold at least 10 thousand

However, after the scandal with the screaming “gremlins”, society has come to the conclusion that video games can be dangerous, especially for the younger generation. Therefore, the next attack of the moralists was much more successful.In 1979, mother of two and school activist Ronnie Lamm launched a campaign to restrict minors’ access to slot machines. Lamm demanded that slot machine parlors be located away from schools and that children should not be allowed there during school hours. The angry housewife insisted that violent games cultivate aggression in children, and many believed her. As a result, in a number of cities in the United States, slot machines were completely banned, and in some places serious restrictions were imposed on this business. However, it was not possible to eradicate this phenomenon then, since games gradually migrated to game consoles and personal computers.

Senator Lieberman declared immoral a game in which it was necessary to save women and punish evil

Photo: AP

Atari dominated the game console market in the early 1980s. If earlier games were inseparable from slot machines, now the user could separately buy the Atari 2600 console and separately – cartridges with games from independent developers.One such developer was Mystique, a producer of pornographic games. In 1982, Mystique released the game “Custer’s Revenge”, the hero of which was a completely historical character – General George Custer, who exterminated the Indians in the Wild West until they exterminated his squad. In the game, Caster was naked, wearing a cowboy hat and a sticking out penis. The general had to run under a hail of Indian arrows to the Indian woman, tied to a pole, and rape her. The game sparked an outcry among feminists and human rights activists.The National Organization for Women, Women Against Pornography, and the American Indian Community House staged loud pickets outside the Mystique headquarters, demanding an end to demeaning women and Native Americans. And again, a loud scandal added popularity to the dubious product.

“Custer’s Revenge” quickly became the most popular erotic game in the country, selling about 80,000 copies – a great achievement at the time.

The developers of “Manhunt 2” set out to create the bloodiest game in history

Photo: Rockstar Games, file / AP

Still, video game moralists could congratulate themselves on a major success.Since the early 1980s, the tastes of a “moral majority” have become established in the United States, rejecting anything that could harm public mores. The influence of the conservatives quickly spread to film and music, as businesses chose not to get involved with the overwhelming majority of morality advocacy committees. Walmart, Sears and Fred Meyer have taken blacklisted rock musicians from their supermarket shelves. Self-censorship has spread to video game sellers as well.In 1986, Exidy decided to repeat its success with Death Race and released the game Chiller, which is shockingly violent even by today’s standards. They had to play as an assassin, whose goal was to dismember, hack and gut the prisoners tied to various torture instruments in a gloomy dungeon. The graphics of that time already made it possible to convey the color of blood, and the screams of the victims sounded even worse than the screams of dying “gremlins”. The game looked like a sadist’s paradise, but fortunately there were very few of those among the buyers.In addition, the stores refused to take the game, not wanting to get involved with moralists, so the project failed. In general, this time Pete Kaufman miscalculated. “Chiller” was Exidy’s latest game, but the main battles over censorship in video games were ahead.

Life is a Video Game

In 1992, a small but bloody revolution took place in the world of video games. Midway Games released the game “Mortal Kombat” (“Mortal Kombat”), in which the player could control one of the many characters-fighters.The whole game consisted of duels between masters of martial arts, who, as the name of the product implied, fought to the death. The graphics at that time were surprising with realism, and one could drown in blood. In addition, the developers added fatalities – finishing blows that made it possible to deal with a defeated opponent with special cruelty. It was possible, for example, to rip off the enemy’s head, rip out the heart, or pull out the spine. For these feats, players received additional points.Initially, “Mortal Kombat” was created for slot machines, but soon appeared on game consoles.

The game was a hit. Children and adults crowded around machine guns, from which the sounds of blows and death moans were heard, and the press sounded the alarm. American politicians had their say: the current topic made it possible to get additional points from voters. Senators Joe Lieberman and Herbert Kohl have initiated Congressional hearings on video game violence. The meetings were covered by the largest American newspapers – USA Today, The New York Times and The Washington Post.As you might expect, the hearings have become an arena for competition between game and console makers. Nintendo said Sega was releasing bloody games, while Sega showed congressmen an image of a giant bazooka from a Nintendo game and doubted it could teach children to be kind and creative. Yet the Nintendo lobbyists did not eat their bread for nothing. It wasn’t Mortal Kombat that got the most from the senators, but Sega’s Night Trap.Members of Congress considered it shameful, super-violent, unhealthy and disgusting, as it allegedly asked the player to “trap and kill women.” In fact, there was nothing like this in the game.

“Night Trap” was a digitized video with live actors. In the story, five girls stayed overnight in a house attacked by vampires. The player had to save the girls by luring vampires into traps, so nothing immoral happened in the game. The scenes of the murders appeared when the player was losing, and there was no particular cruelty in them – the then Hollywood filmed much more eerie scenes.Nevertheless, “Night Trap” became a symbol of bloody madness, which ultimately brought Sega considerable profits. Although the game was taken off the shelves of a number of American stores, many gamers rushed to buy Sega consoles just to play it. From the beginning of the hearing through 1994, the company sold about 50,000 copies of “Night Trap”.

Under pressure from the public and angry senators, the computer entertainment industry has developed a labeling system for video games. Since 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board has assigned each game a rating indicating the age audience for which it was intended.However, it was not so easy to protect children from bloody games. In 1993, id Software released the main game of the decade, Doom. It was one of the first first-person shooters, and certainly the most popular. The game had a creepy but mesmerizing atmosphere and was addictive for many hours. The player had to exterminate thousands of alien demons using a shotgun, bazooka, chainsaw and many other deadly devices. Doom has been played by millions around the world, and some continue to play today.All this gloomy fun could be considered quite harmless entertainment, if two fans of the game from the state of Colorado had not thought to transfer its action to the real world.

Two gamers made Columbine High the most realistic Doom level

Photo: The Denver Rocky Mountain News / AP

On April 20, 1999, high school students, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, walked into Columbine School carrying weapons.High school students killed twelve students and one teacher, after which they shot themselves. In the last years of his life, Harris created his own levels for “Doom”, and in one of the videos, friends admired the acquired shotgun, because it looked like a weapon from their favorite game.

In the aftermath of the Columbine tragedy, opponents of computer cruelty received another compelling argument. It soon became clear that the murders in Colorado were far from the first crimes associated with electronic entertainment.In December 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneel in Kentucky shot three schoolchildren and wounded five, and in March 1998, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 11-year-old Andrew Golden attacked a school in Arkansas, shooting four students and one teacher. As it turned out, the young killers loved to play shooters.

At the turn of the century, video game opponents triumphed. Then it seemed that the fight against computer cruelty would bring considerable dividends, and some really succeeded in it.Military psychologist David Grossman has released a book called “Stop Teaching Our Children to Kill.” A former professor at West Point Academy argued that without special training, soldiers cannot shoot people. The recruit has a psychological barrier that prevents him from pulling the trigger. To break this barrier, special exercises help to stop seeing a person in the enemy. Grossman believed that “Doom” and similar games did a great job at this. He considered first-person shooters to be murder simulators and demanded that civilians be denied access to them.Grossman’s book became a bestseller.

Grossman’s theory was adopted by Florida lawyer Jack Thompson, who had a reputation as a brawler and ultra-conservative. At first, Thompson fought rappers, gays and lesbians without much success, but in the early 2000s he found his true calling: now he opposed video games. Following Grossman, Thompson called shooters murder simulators, and all other games mental masturbation. He argued that there must be some kind of game behind every shooting at school, and tried to prove it in court.Thompson filed a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of Michael Carneal’s victims against the game makers that the young killer liked to play, and the creators of the movie “The Basketball Diary,” which he liked. Thompson hoped to sue id Software and other companies for $ 33 million, but the claim was not accepted for consideration, since the plaintiff’s arguments seemed extremely weak to the court.

Devin Moore (in yellow jumpsuit) looked like the hero of the game “Grand Theft Auto” in everything, except for one thing: he could not survive and start life from the beginning

Photo: Rockstar Games / AP

In 2001, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto III, or simply GTA 3, which was essentially a simulator of the life of a bandit in a big city.It was possible to steal cars, kill police officers, crush pedestrians, etc. If desired, the player could become a taxi driver, an ambulance driver or a volunteer police assistant, but the storyline encouraged to break the law, and most gamers were only happy about it. In 2002, a sequel was released – “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”. Soon, Rockstar Games started having problems. In June 2003, stepbrothers Joshua and William Buckner fired on the road, killing a man and wounding a girl. One brother was 14 and the other 16.At the police station, the Buckners explained that they got the idea for the crime in the game “Grand Theft Auto III”.

Jack Thompson was right there. He tried to sue $ 246 million from the game’s producers, publishers and sellers, but the lawsuit was dismissed. However, Thompson never thought to give up. In 2003, 18-year-old Devin Moore was arrested for carjacking. Unlike many other black teenagers, Devin did not break the law. On the contrary, he graduated well from high school and was about to enlist in the Air Force. At the police station, a guy took possession of one of the cops’ pistol, shot two and a 911 dispatcher, stole a company car, and went on the run.When Moore was caught, he said, “Life is a video game. Sometimes someone has to die.” Devin Moore turned out to be a fan of “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”. Jack Thompson again tried to prove the connection between the game and the crime and again failed. Devin Moore was sentenced to death and is now awaiting execution.

Thompson has repeatedly tried to sue the game makers and tried to take part in every high-profile murder case if at least one game disc was found in the killer’s house.All efforts were in vain. Moreover, through endless scandals, Thompson finally ruined his reputation and in 2008 was stripped of his lawyer’s license. He still leads a crusade against computer games, although no one has taken him seriously for a long time.

Devin Moore (in yellow jumpsuit) looked like the hero of the game “Grand Theft Auto” in everything, except for one thing: he could not survive and start life from the beginning

Photo: Commercial Dispatch / AP

Meanwhile, the “GTA” series has become one of the most successful in the history of the gaming industry, and Rockstar Games literally got rich, despite numerous scandals.

Time and money

Meanwhile, the question of the connection between computer violence and real crimes was very serious and required careful study. In 1994, psychologists Sandra Calvert and Siu Lan Tan examined the effects of video games on schoolchildren and concluded that those who played violent games had increased heart rate and more dizziness. In fact, there was nothing surprising in the dizziness, because from the endless corridors of “Doom” many people felt dizzy. In another study, two groups of college students were asked to play different games.Some of the students were playing the once-brutalized shooter Wolfenstein 3D, while others were leisurely solving puzzles in the beautiful and soothing game Myst. Then the students were asked to annoy each other by turning on and off the harsh noise. Wolfenstein 3D players took a little longer to do this. The experimental results seemed to confirm that play makes young people violent and inadequate.

Finally, in 2002, the Japanese scientist Akio Mori wrote a book, the title of which would be suitable for a computer game – “The Horror of the Game Brain.”Morey argued that the brain regions responsible for the development of emotions and creativity die off in gamers. Critics, however, noted that all the symptoms described in the book were the result of simple overwork. Mori forced subjects to sit at the computer for hours, and then measured their brain activity, which led to predictable results.

Many studies have shown that games are potentially dangerous, but the accusatory bias in science had a simple economic explanation. Psychology professor Chris Ferguson believes that the current system of receiving grants is to blame for everything: “There are financial and political interests.It’s hard to get a grant if you say the subject matter is not a problem. ”Therefore, arguing that games turn children into criminals was much more profitable than proving the opposite.

The death of pedestrians in the film “Death Race 2000” angered the audience much less than the death of faceless men in the game of the same name

Photos: AFP

Human rights organizations, as you know, also exist on grants.If they do not fight with anyone for a long time, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to obtain funding. Therefore, many games received their portion of criticism of human rights defenders. The same series “GTA” went to the fact that in one of the missions the player was asked to kill the “Haitian bastards”. Not only fighters against racism, but also the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, stood up for the offended Haitians. Outraged Haitian Americans began picketing Walmart, and Rockstar Games eventually removed Haitians from the game.

Research that did not depend on random grants showed a very different picture.In 2004, the results of a joint study by the US Secret Service and the Department of Education were published. Scientists have studied the biographies of several dozen young criminals who participated in attacks on schools. Only 12% of them loved violent computer games, 24% read books about violence, and 27% watched bloody films. Other studies showed that most of the criminals did not play any games at all. The game assumes a vivid imagination, and most killers are deprived of it.

Eventually, the gaming industry became concerned with its image, and in recent years, research has begun to show that games are not only harmless, but even useful.In 2011, a long-term study of Maria von Zalisch was completed in Germany. She proved that it is not cruel games that make children aggressive, but, on the contrary, aggressive children choose aggressive games, while peaceful children prefer quieter entertainment. In the same year, scientists at the University of Texas proved that violent video games can reduce crime. It turned out that when sales of such games grow by 10%, crime is reduced by 1%. Study author Mike Ward found a simple explanation for this phenomenon: “Not only is money spent on video games, but also time.It takes a long time to complete the game, and as long as you play, you don’t get into trouble. “

Opponents of video games are quite noisy, but usually do not grab stars from the skies

Photo: AP

Indeed, over the past 20 years, the street crime rate in the United States has been steadily declining, and this has happened, in part, as children and adolescents have gradually withdrawn from the streets.Instead of hooliganism, robbery or fighting, young people locked themselves in their rooms and buried themselves in monitors. Perhaps countless computer enemies, mercilessly destroyed by gamers, saved a lot of human lives with their death.

On the Game

Over the years, the gaming industry has seen many video games criticized and scandalized. Saudi Arabia has banned the Pokemon Trading Card Game, which, as you might guess, is dedicated to Pokémon.The country’s authorities saw the propaganda of Zionism in the children’s game, since the image of a six-pointed star was found in it. The most violent games were also banned in many countries. Such a fate deserved, in particular, “Manhunt” (“Hunt for a man”) and “Manhunt 2”, published by the same Rockstar Games. Enemies in them could be killed in the most inhuman ways.

Nevertheless, no one has yet been able to prove that a person, having played a cruel game, transfers the game situation into real life.But it has been proven that many avid gamers transfer their lives to the game, completely losing touch with the real world. Most of the crimes associated with computer games occur precisely because of this.

In 2007, 16-year-old Daniel Petrik shot and killed his parents in Ohio for forbidding him to play Halo 3. In 2010, 16-year-old Philadelphia resident Kendall Anderson beat his mother to death with a hammer for taking the PlayStation from him. In 2012, 14-year-old Noah Crooks attacked his mother after she took the “Call of Duty” game disc from him.Noah tried to rape his mother, and when nothing came of it, he shot her. Such cases are repeated with enviable regularity and testify to only one thing: teenagers addicted to games behave like complete drug addicts.

With the growing popularity of multiplayer games, a new type of crime has emerged. Many gamers began to transfer the relationship that had developed in the virtual world to the real world. More often than not, there is nothing wrong with that. It happens that brotherhood in virtual weapons leads to friendship, and some lucky ones find future wives and husbands in games.However, it also happens that the grievances inflicted in the game are pushed out to the other side of the monitor. In 2004, in Shanghai, 41-year-old Qiu Chengwei, who played the online game The Legend of Mir 3, won some valuable weapon and lent it to 26-year-old Zhu Kaoyuan, who immediately sold the virtual artifact for real money. Chengwei tried to complain to the police, but his application was not accepted because the stolen item was not, in fact, a thing. Then the deceived gamer took justice into his own hands and stabbed the offender with a dagger.Qiu Chengwei received a death sentence. In 2010, Frenchman Julien Barrot stabbed a friend with a knife, who treacherously stabbed his character in the game “Counter-Strike”.

Massively multiplayer online games differ from single-player games in that it is impossible to save at a convenient moment and exit. Life in virtual worlds does not stop for a second, and gamers who are addicted to the game simply cannot tear themselves away from the monitor. Someone loses a job because of this, and someone else and something more valuable.In October 2013, the American spouses were charged with the murder of their two-year-old daughter. Mark Knapp, 48, and his wife, Elizabeth Pester, 33, are hooked on the game Second Life. They forgot that they had a child in their first life. The girl died of hunger. At the time of her death, the baby weighed only 5.8 kg.

90,000 The Federation Council proposed to strengthen control over the content of computer games and oppose anonymity on the network

The Federation Council proposed to strengthen control over the content of computer games after the shooting in the Kazan gymnasium, RIA Novosti reports with reference to Senator Alexander Bashkin .

“It is in the sphere of the Internet that it is worth strengthening measures, tightening control, in particular, over computer games glorifying violence. Maybe think about extending the concept of “desirable and undesirable content” to them. In these games, scraps of meat, splashes of blood, sheer violence fly – for the still undeveloped adolescent psyche, this can be extremely dangerous, “Bashkin said.

The situation was also commented on in the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. Alexander Malkevich , Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation on Mass Media , believes that the tragedy in Kazan is another confirmation of the need to “end with anonymity” in social networks and toughen the responsibility of Internet platforms for content published there.

photo: “BUSINESS Online”

“What happened is another reason to end up with anonymity on social networks. The channel that was hosted by the terrorist under the name “God” is the most vivid example of what we are talking about, ”Malkevich said.

Meanwhile, the Galyaliyev canal had only one subscriber before the tragedy – himself. After news of the shooting at the school, Telegram administrators deleted the channel. It is currently unavailable.

Let us remind you that this morning there was a shooting in the building of the gymnasium on Jaudata Faizi Street.19-year-old Ilnaz Galyaviev was detained near the school. He graduated from school four years ago. A few days ago, he allegedly started a telegram channel, in which he called himself “God”, and in the morning before the shooting he said that he would “kill a huge amount of biomass” and then commit suicide.

As of 15:00 (Moscow time) as a result of the shooting, 7 eighth-graders and two school employees were killed. Another 20 people were injured.

On May 12, classes in all schools in Kazan are canceled, and a day of mourning has been declared in Tatarstan.

“Big trouble. We lost 7 children, 8th grade students. They died here, on the third floor, – said Minnikhanov, having visited the site of the tragedy. – The terrorist has been arrested. 19 years old, weapons are officially registered on it. Other accomplices have not yet been identified, investigative actions are underway. All the necessary help for both the school and the families will be provided. Today is a great tragedy for our entire republic and for our entire country ”.

90,000 team archery game ARTAGROS – SKB Kontur

Children’s hobby

I have been fond of archery since childhood.I am an English teacher by profession, at one time I lived and studied in the United States. I also bought my first professional bow there. The onion industry in the United States is thriving. In Russia, archery is generally less developed than in the West: we have restrictions on the force of tension, a ban on hunting with a bow. Most professional and hunting bows are supplied, as a rule, from the USA, so they are much more expensive in Moscow.

Last year I got the idea to create a game similar to paintball, but using bows instead of guns.Very quickly, it was possible to come up with special arrowheads that could be safely used for recreational shooting.

For a new game, I decided to create special shock-absorbing arrowheads, drew the project and gave it to the specialists in the patent office. They looked and said that no one produces this yet, which means that it attracts a patent. A year ago, I patented the design of several modifications of replaceable shock-absorbing arrowheads and began manufacturing them.The design of the new tip consists of several parts, each made from different materials and at different factories in China and Russia. By the summer, the first batch had already been manufactured using the new technology, and then I found future American partners on the Internet.

Brand trade

Living in America, I have never heard of the Archery Tag game. In June, I stumbled upon their YouTube video by accident. I decided to write to them, tell them who I am, explain that I am trying to do the same in Russia.They answered very quickly, and a correspondence began. We decided to organize a joint business. The Americans provided the equipment for commercial use only: for sports games, events and various tournaments, I have to pay an annual fee for using the Archery Tag brand.

Business approach

Basically, I only communicate with the founder directly – by email or Skype. He is pleased that he has found a reliable person related to business in Russia.I immediately paid the entire amount of the contract. We have entered into a contract for the equipment needed to start a business. Now I am their official distributor, and also remain the exclusive representative of their company in Russia: all requests from the regions automatically come to me. There have already been proposals from four regions, but expensive delivery and customs duties interfere. This summer we are planning to enter the Krasnodar Territory.

Archery Tag Arrows are already patented. They are unique: the shock absorbing nozzle allows for amazing aerodynamics.The arrow is absolutely safe and cannot injure anyone. It is made of carbon fiber, the tip is made of soft foam, the composition of which is kept secret.

Customs difficulties

The problem is getting all the required documents. This process took me about four months. A bow according to Russian law falls under the definition of “a product structurally similar to a throwing weapon.” This means that in addition to certificates and specifications, you need to obtain some documents from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.This problem was solved by my friend, a professional customs broker.

The most interesting thing started when the cargo arrived at customs. I received all the necessary documents, paid huge fees. It was necessary to divide taxes into two accounts, an employee making a payment at the bank sent money to one account, but the payment did not go through. While I was paying the bill again, another person changed the customs inspector who processed my cargo, and for him the available documents were not enough to release my cargo! He explained that it was necessary to obtain another document from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

I still remember that Saturday when we finally received all the cargo. On Monday, he would have already been arrested, as the time limit for the customs declaration expired.

Rules of the Game

Leaving behind all the bureaucratic problems, it was possible to proceed with the games themselves. The rules are very simple. There are two teams with a maximum of six people each. They are given protection – on the head and on the left hand. The site is divided by inflatable barriers. Initially, all arrows are laid out in the center.Players line up in a line, on a signal they must run to the center as quickly as possible and take as many arrows as possible. We spread from 15 to 18 arrows: this is the optimal number, if there are more of them, people will not run around the site, but hide behind shelters. In the center of the area there are square targets with five holes. They are knocked out. You can win either by knocking out all the players of the opposing team, or by knocking out all the targets.

The rules of each round are subject to change. We do not set targets with children, as they, as a rule, do not shoot at them at all.For children, the final result of their team is not so important, they want to run around in plenty, shoot as many opponents as possible. During the game, arrows can fly from all directions. We always decide the rules for a specific round individually before each game. There can be no strict rules here. But America has stricter rules in this game. They organize championships in schools, open clubs. Everything is just beginning for us, so we can experiment.

Achieve recognition

The first six months I did everything myself.When everything was ready and built, I hired my friend Dmitry, who had previously been organizing children’s parties. Now the two of us go to events, decide where and how to hold the next games. There are also four assistants. Since the company is just starting to work, with the volumes that we have, this personnel is enough for us.

Opening took place in February. By this time, the site had just been created and the name of the company had been invented. We invited many people to the opening, celebrated the event in the sports complex.None of our guests have ever heard of this game, but everyone really liked it right away. Our main task is to tell people what it is. Every time I call the gym to rent it for the next event, they ask me what this game is, if it is dangerous and will damage the walls. If you want to play football and call the gym to rent it, no one will ask such questions.

One of the types of advertising that we use is Yandex.Direct.It is already yielding first results. Word of mouth is actively working: people come back to play again and bring friends with them. In September, we plan to open recreational archery classes in several schools.

All ages are submissive

We do not have a stationary place yet, we are only planning to create it so that one can come there to play. So far we are working only on order. If people want to play with friends, we find the nearest sports ground or sports complex, come and set everything up.There are programs for birthday parties, corporate events.

Events are now held every weekend. The May holidays were very busy: we held games in Domodedovo, Mozhaisky district, on Vorobyovy Gory.

Having opened the Archery Tag game for Russia, we saw that people are interested in it. Now we can say with confidence that we have prospects for the development of such a business.

90,000 Top 20 third-person shooters – according to Kanobu, the best third-person shooters, top shooters

At the beginning of 2018, we completed a truly titanic work – the top 100 best games of all time.It took us over a year to take a break from bitter editorial controversy, and now we’re finally ready to go further – launching genre tops. It’s time to choose the best first person shooters, RPGs, strategy games, action games and so on. This is both easier and more difficult than it was with a hundred. Easier – because within the same genre of games you have to choose less. More difficult because there are also fewer games. There were a lot of controversies on this top in the editorial office: we hope that you, too, will express yourself in the comments.Here we go?

As with the top 100 games, these are not academic tops. We remember very well all the cult games, but if they are not here, then this is a general editorial decision, which we came to during a long discussion. In addition, if once upon a time the game X introduced an important mechanic, and 20 years later the game Y brought it to perfection – the game Y will get to the top.In addition to the many subjective categories, one important criterion was applied to all games – whether they are played normally Today?

We deliberately did not include in the top third-person shooters:

• open world games like GTA, Watch Dogs and the like;

90,442 games from the stealth series Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Batman: Arkham, Hitman and the like;

• slashers where the hero can shoot a firearm;

90,442 survival horror games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, The Evil Within and the like;

• Battle Royale;
• RPGs like Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol.

Some of the games mentioned will fall into other genre tops.

Denis Knyazev, head of the games section

The Order 1886 was released a little more than a year after the PS4 appeared – the game Ready At Dawn was supposed to show what else the console of the then new generation was capable of in terms of game graphics. And she did an excellent job with this task – it is still one of the most beautiful games.

Although, of course, it’s not just the graphics. The picture is just one of the elements with which the authors created the incredibly believable and highly detailed London of the late 19th century.Yes, this is an alternative history, with the ancient Order of the Knights of the Round Table, mutants, magical “black water” and Tesla’s steampunk weapons, but the features of the Victorian era are still the same: factories poisoning the air with caustic smoke, incessant locomotive whistles, loud hammers on steel, heralding the city’s active development, newspapers in which the front page is occupied by the latest news of the grisly murders in dirty Whitechapel.

Ready At Dawn has a deep and detailed universe that has found life in a very beautiful and detailed world.It was not for nothing that The Order 1886 was said to be more of a movie than a game: wandering around locations and looking at every corner, even in 2019, amazed at how much effort the artists and designers spent on creating levels is a separate pleasure and the main reason to play into this game today. The Order of 1886 is a captivating adventure set in Victorian London that doesn’t require you to study mechanics in detail or test your skills.

It’s true: The Order 1886 didn’t offer anything new in terms of gameplay even in 2015 – but is that a bad thing? Shooting in it is just normal, working on the principles laid down in Gears of War – and in my opinion, not every game should revolutionize the gameplay.Sometimes it’s enough when he just doesn’t irritate – that’s exactly the case in The Order. And after all, where else can you shoot from an arc gap or a magnetic cannon, literally “splitting” opponents, in the cramped London slums?

Denis Knyazev

In 2006, a month after the release of Gears of War, Capcom released a third-person shooter in which people try to recapture a distant colonized planet from the aliens living on it. Why did Lost Planet survive in such conditions and, moreover, received two sequels? Because the gameplay was noticeably different from Gears of War and had a couple of cool mechanics.

Lost Planet has no cover – and for that it should be at least respected. At least it was worth in the second half of the 2000s, when Gears of War, in fact, reinvented the genre and spawned a lot of successful and not so clones. In the Capcom game, the hero does not even think about hiding – he always runs ahead, killing the acrid crawling out from under the snow. Moving to Lost Planet is really important: on the planet E.D.N. III – eternal cold, and aliens living on its surface survive only because they contain special warming energy in their bodies.People learned to use it for their own purposes – they created costumes that retain heat.

This is an important point in the gameplay: the main character has two scales – health and a supply of that very energy, which is constantly running out. In order not to freeze in the snow, you need to kill acrid and collect orange glowing balls falling from them. You can replenish the warming energy in another way – either kill human enemies in the mentioned suits, or activate stationary storage facilities. One way or another, you have to constantly run, sit – it’s dangerous.

The second memorable moment is combat exoskeletons, which are easier to call controlled robots. Who doesn’t love robots? You jump into the fur and carry alien worms crawling out from under the snow, huge spiders and other monsters, which always have some weak spot, highlighted by an orange glow.

The second part of the series has lost snow, although it retained all the key mechanics, and the third has passed in quality. But the first is still a pretty good third-person shooter.

Denis Mayorov, editor-in-chief

This game hit the top, rather, in spite of. Kane & Lynch 2 is a messy picture, unnecessary complexity and, frankly, lousy shooting. How did she pave the way to this top? Style and script.

Good script is still rare in video games. A good crime drama is even more rare. Kane & Lynch 2 tells the disgustingly messy, messy story of two losers trying to start a new life by running on an old rake.This is a game about the showdown of the Shanghai mafia bosses, about torture and abductions, the division of territory and money, about murders and ambitions that the heroes do not care about. As usual, after an hour they just want to survive and be somewhere far away. In the first part, only Kane was a man, in the second we looked into the psychopath Lynch’s soul – an additional sharpness necessary for the series. If you realize the grotesque of what is happening and divide everything you see into it, the story will turn out to be even realistic.

The game is easy to enjoy.You just need to set an easy difficulty. Well, VHS filters with rich chromatic aberrations and a shaking camera will help to cope with the picture. The whole game is stylized for amateur shooting and is stylized perfectly, it really suits it. Like the scene – Shanghai shines and stinks at the same time, the city of the future in the still smoldering slums of the past, there is no better place for Kane and Lynch.

Denis Mayorov

Dan Aykroyd, one of the creators of Ghostbusters, called this game “almost the third movie” – a wikipedia fact that is already enough to shove Ghostbusters: The Video Game into the top one.It’s great that we just found the right one! The fact is true, so the “third part” also does not look much worse than the first two. Although, it is possible without quotes, because this is the canonical continuation of the second “Hunters” – your favorite voice actors, favorite, familiar music on the soundtrack from childhood, even the scriptwriters of the original film helped the developer work on the plot.

But it wasn’t just fan feelings that played out in us, because Ghostbusters: The Video Game is really a good game.Plasma Ghost Shooting? What a temptation to make based on a standard shooter! If this seems absurd to you, remember the latest game episodes of “Harry Potter” – and this is really the easiest path. But the developers chose another, in Ghostbusters everything is like in a movie: first weaken the ghost, then lasso, beat against the walls and into a trap. There are additional new tools, but the general gist is – authentic! True, situations begin to repeat themselves quite quickly, there is not enough variability in the mechanics, so the game is at the bottom of the top.

But this is not a problem, Ghostbusters is short, does not have time to get bored. And the sparkling fan service brightens up the passage. And the fast remaster for modern consoles will brighten it even more, so the game is still relevant.

Denis Mayorov

The best game about an alien who hates people and destroys them with great fun (burn, explode, swamp, set against each other, zombie) – period. The game still looks great and it certainly plays great, it is also available on modern platforms, so there is nothing between you and the destruction of humanity.Well, or you can wait for a full-fledged remake, which will be released in 2020 and, it seems, will be absolutely literal.

The game is valuable not only for its gameplay, but also for its setting, its humor, so stupid that it is impossible not to get stupid and start laughing. Only after arriving on earth, the hero takes the cows for a local intelligent life form and explains to the grass-chewing animals why he came and what he wants from them.

These are the jokes, it’s hard for me not to smile at them, I hope you too.The aliens here are caricatured, copied from their fellows from the fantasy of the fifties, although an even clearer landmark is the wonderful film “Mars Attacks”. Destroy All Humans! in general, you can call it a film adaptation and no one will notice the catch.

You can only find fault with huge maps, which from a certain angle really look like an open world. But in fact, this is not “open world” – in Destroy All Humans! there are no dozens of side activities, side quest chains, and in general all the mandatory attributes of open world games.This is a fairly linear, unpretentious, but damn fun game about an evil alien armed with anal probes.

Nikita Kazimirov, news editor

The decision of Sega, Yakuza Studio and specifically the author of the entire Yakuza series Nagoshi Toshihiro to release a third-person shooter Binary Domain seemed strange to many. Even stranger, it turned out to be an excellent game, which is not a shame to play even today. Alas, low sales put an end to a potential sequel, but this does not negate the strengths and even innovative aspects of the game.

They tried to promote it through a “system of consequences” and a unique mechanic of communication with in-game partners, who needed to give orders directly through the microphone. Of course, almost no one did this, but the changing level of loyalty of the main character’s associates, Dan Marshall, was a real discovery. Companions in terms of level of sophistication can be compared with Shepard’s team from Mass Effect. By the finale, you will surely have a favorite, whom you unwittingly guarded all the way before.

And there is something to protect from, because in Binary Domain you constantly have to shoot back from crowds of robots. You will definitely remember the local boss battles forever, they are so bright and unusual, and the game itself constantly shuffles situations and does not let you get bored. High-speed pursuits, tactical maneuvers, even a level in tight corridors, clearly inspired by “Aliens”, and many other moments take the game to the ranks of the best TPS. And even the plot, which sometimes exists in such a fast and aggressive genre only for the sake of form, turned out to be extremely meaningful and thoughtful.It intertwined politics, moral issues of cybernetics and technological progress, the psychological side of teamwork and romance, where without it. The story is revealed both in numerous dialogues between the characters, and in high-quality cutscenes, it is incredibly interesting to follow it, but it does not draw attention from the shootings once again.

Everything in Binary Domain is surprisingly harmonious. Perhaps the only thing with which the developers miscalculated is the health of the opponents, which is sometimes too great.Because of this, individual enemies turn into “bullet sponges”, which pretty much harms the overall pace of the game. However, Binary Domain is still required to pass. After all, who in this world does not like to shoot giant robots from a grenade launcher?

Nikita Kazimirov

Today, probably, almost no one remembers about this, but Spec Ops: The Line was supposed to be a relaunch of the series, which included as many as eight games. This did not happen due to low sales, but the shooter still left its mark on history in the scenery of the destroyed Dubai.After all, this is one of the rare war games that tries to denigrate and convey all the horrors of war.

It turned out chaotic and awkward, but many were still struck by the story of the Delta special forces, slowly sinking into madness. The references to the films “Apocalypse Now” and “Heart of Darkness” are pretty obvious and straightforward, but are there many games in general trying to imitate such great works? The sight of the corpses of civilians on the first playthrough will surely shock you, and the story itself loses touch with reality with each chapter.And there is a kind of dark splendor in this approach.

And the gameplay is just good. Interacting with teammates is not annoying, and the interesting use of sand adds unexpected moments to standard gunfights. But overall, Spec Ops: The Line is a classic cover shooter.

Just remember him not at all because of this. Many people still love him for the views of an almost post-apocalyptic Dubai, incredibly detailed scenery and provocative story. And as a bonus, there is a soundtrack with songs by Alice In Chains and Deep Purple.Isn’t that a good reason to give Spec Ops: The Line a shot?

Denis Mayorov

One day Goichi Souda, Shinji Mikami and Akira Yamaoka teamed up to make a game. Everyone’s hands were initially untied as much as possible, everyone went crazy as they wanted, and this is the result – one of the brightest games in the careers of all three legends.

Shadows of the Damned is another very loose reading of The Divine Comedy. The main character – a hot Mexican and demon hunter Garcia Hotspur – goes to hell to pile on the demon king and rescue his girlfriend.And he will be helped by the former demon Johnson, who turns into a “Stoke” when needed. Yes, there is such humor in the game: the main weapon of the hero is called Boner – the naming is that because it shoots with bones, but in general it translates exactly as “boner”. The cannon can also turn into Big Boner and Hot Boner. Garcia’s screaming “Taste my HOT BONER” is the best ad for Shadows of the Damned.

In fact, everything is thinner. The game balances between absurd comedy, drama and real horror. The demon world in Shadows of the Damned is a roaming European town living by its own rules: with medieval castles, gothic cemeteries and a neon quarter with strip clubs.Surround is constantly happening (did you know that strawberries are the berry of demons and are adored by the door guard babies?), In which the hero tries to figure it out as unsuccessfully as the player himself. Behind humor and ridiculous grotesque hideous perversions, unthinkable suffering and disgusting creatures that would do honor and “Silent Hill”. And all this accompanied by jazz, trip-hop, dark ambient, metal with vocals by Mary McGlynn and lounge.

Silent Hill in general appears quite often in the game, and you can also feel Devil May Cry and Resident Evil – which is to be expected.The work turned out to be unique and in the top it could have been higher, but the gameplay part of Shadow of the Damned itself is not so good. The game is built on the mechanics of Resident Evil 4, only with dodges and rolls – it is played cheerfully, but there is no depth in it. The game is simple, the enemies do not really resist being shot from the “Stoyak”, there are few weapons, and there are no survival horror elements in the game – cartridges and mountain healers. But remember that is not at all.

Denis Knyazev

In my Top 10 PS4 Games, I named Ratchet & Clank as the premier 3D platformer on the current Sony console, and I still believe the statement to be true.At the same time, this game is a cool third-person shooter, and you need to shoot in it as much as you jump (or even more!). After all, this is a very exciting family adventure, bright and full of genuine joy. This game even has a pixelator!

This is what Nikita Boguslavsky wrote about Ratchet & Clank in his review.

The Pixelizer is a kind of shotgun whose energy pulses turn enemies into 2D pixel art. Defeated opponents are scattered into piles of colorful cubes – the quality of this effect is simply amazing! And the miniature combat robot-companion Mister Zurkon will win your heart not so much by using it in battle as by stunning phrases like: “Mister Zurkon does not need bolts, his currency is pain.”

But the deadliest weapon in the game, far more sinister than the Pilot, the Flamethrower, or the Ovcenator that turns enemies into sheep, is the Kayfotron. This satanic device ranks first on the list of the most frightening death machines in video game history. The Kayfotron releases a disco ball into the air, causing enemies in range to dance uncontrollably to fiery rhythms while Ratchet calmly fires them from the rest of his arsenal.

All in all, Insomniac and Sony have created a vibrant, life-affirming adventure for gamers of all ages.And let Ratchet & Clank not throw a real challenge, I just want to return to it – because it is cozy, beautiful, interesting here.

Alexander Bashkirov, head of the section “Cinema and Series”

In the late 90s, Irish-British developers David Perry and Nick Bruti, who conquered every imaginable heights of 2D platformers with Aladdin and Earthworm Jim, rushed into the third dimension. But instead of a 3D platformer, they accidentally turned out the world’s first blockbuster game, with the picture, sound and the very nature of the events unfolding on the screen, pushing the boundaries of video games as in the cinema they were once smashed by “Jaws”, “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones “.

MDK is, first of all, a set of fantastically beautiful, even in our time, set pieces, as staged as spectacular three-dimensional conflicts and mini-games like orbital landing on the back of a giant mobile city-machine, during which the hero has to dodge those released by the caterpillar metropolis missiles. In its purest form, MDK uses extremely uncomplicated runʼnʼgun gameplay – but, after all, in this collection we have collected the best games in which you have to run, jump and shoot from a third person perspective.

Jumping in the game makes it interesting to use the proprietary “band parachute” of the hero, and shooting – creative and non-standard weapons even for 2019 (here I won’t spoil you anything – just play or watch the videos!). Well, and again you have to run for a reason, but ON GIANT MECHANOIDS SIZE WITH MEGAPOLIS. We add an immortal, symphonic-electronic soundtrack from Tommy Tallarico, do not forget about the absolutely Gigerian design of the levels and armor of the protagonist (thanks to the unique artistic talents of Bruti) – and you get a game out of time and space.And maybe even outside the genres – although MDK is the easiest to record in third-person shooters.

A very good sequel to MDK2, unfortunately, was made by other people – it’s just a very good TPS with switching between characters and serious platforming elements, which lacks the scope of action and purity of the gameplay of the first part. By the way, both Bruti and Perry will still make a masterpiece in the genre of third-person shooters. The first will be the main developer of an amazing hybrid of TPS and RTS called Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and the second – by a miracle did not make it into this top Enter the Matrix.

Alexander Bashkirov

Freedom Fighters is the first non-format game from Danish developer IO Interactive, known of course for the Hitman and Kane & Lynch series. They did not think about the plot for a long time, borrowing it entirely from the brilliant film Red Dawn directed and written by John Milius. Alternative history, the Soviet Union invades the United States, and scarlet flags with a hammer and sickle begin to fly over New York. Throughout the game, we wipe out the vile communist invaders from the captured Kalashnikov assault rifle and change the flags back to American ones to the amazing electronic church music of Yesper Kyud.

The picture looks extremely doubtful in our time, this is the level of the early “Hitman”. But as for the gameplay … At first glance, this is Hitman, who had all the stealth amputated and left only shooting and the use of cover (this is understandable – the same engine, the same developers, and assets from the games about the adventures of the forty-seventh are clearly involved in the design of the levels and opponents). But the game very actively uses elements of what was called a “tactical shooter” in the late 1990s and early 2000s: you can have up to 12 (!!!) teammates who can be commanded in order, for example, to bypass the entrenched in the building of the American post office of the Soviet invaders from the flank.

The result is the world’s only co-op shooter for one. There is multiplayer in Freedom Fighters, according to the “two by two” scheme and with a split-screen, but the main value of the game is precisely how it allows you to maneuver your AI partners. And also in how it is integrated into the gameplay of the traditional “clown” with the use of cover.

Freedom Fighters – this is when you shrink into a ball under a hail of enemy bullets behind a flimsy fence and wait with hidden gloating joy for a dozen patriots with machine guns to rush into the rear of the Russians.

Denis Knyazev

The main drawback of Quantum Break is the first skirmish, when the hero has no abilities yet, only a pistol. It is also inconvenient to shoot from it, and Jack Joyce sticks to shelters very awkwardly – he does it automatically and somehow not so. It is imperative to endure this episode in order to understand that Quantum Break is almost the only shooter with cover, where you do not need to hide. And it’s also a shooter, where, in general, it is not at all necessary to shoot accurately.

Remedy uses a mechanic in every game that was not in the genre before – and if it did, it didn’t work so well. In Max Payne it is bullet time, in Alan Wake it is light as the main weapon. Moreover, in “Alan Wijk” a potentially cool idea actually worked so-so: not everyone liked to shine a lantern at the enemies during the whole game, and spectacular moments when it was possible to arrange a hell of light with the help of signal lights rarely happened. Perhaps that is why in Quantum Break the developers returned to time management, but the abilities for the hero came up with completely new ones.

And these abilities are a key element in the gameplay of Quantum Break. Sitting behind cover is the last thing to do when opponents approach Joyce from all sides. One of the skills allows you to move around the level at the speed of light – and if immediately after using the ability to aim, time will slow down and give the hero a tactical advantage. With the help of another skill, you can freeze time around the enemy and land the entire clip in this area – when time comes to its senses, the bullets collected in one place will explode, which removes the need to make headshots.If the enemies do corner Joyce, a temporary barrier that acts as a shield will help.

Abilities are few, but they are enough for you to have an answer to any situation. There can be hundreds of combinations, no one forces you to use specific skills in battle – on the contrary, the more often you improvise, the more the mechanics invented by the developers are revealed. And again – nothing like that in other games can be found. Quantum Break can only be compared with Vanquish (by drive) and The Last of Us (by the number of situations when you need to change tactics on the go), but even these comparisons are far from how the game Remedy really feels.

Quantum Break has another merit – it’s a game written by Sam Lake. It has exactly the same storytelling, recognizable presentation, tons of details and rich lore that is fed through TV shows, newspapers and recordings on computers. And even more her world is revealed in the series with real actors – there are a lot of extras, which gives the impression that the world of Quantum Break really exists outside the locations in which Jack Joyce finds himself. In the game itself, by the way, there are quite a few characters, but thanks to the series you don’t notice this.So Remedy used not only unique mechanics, but also a special storytelling – it may have been in other games, but it does not work anywhere else like in Quantum Break.

Sergey Tsilyurik, head of the news section

Usually in cooperative shooters, enemies pay attention to this or that player for their incomprehensible principles. Army of Two, on the other hand, made this principle clear, intuitive and key to all of its mechanics: inconspicuous weapons with a silencer do not attract attention, and their golden, loud and powerful barrels make their owner the number one enemy for everyone in the area.

For both players, the “aggro” scale is shown on the screen, according to which it is clear how much opponents hate him: if one has an empty scale, then he is virtually invisible, can move freely and perform the necessary tactical tasks, but this means that the other has full , and under a flurry of fire from all enemies at the location, he will not live long. The active participation of both players is necessary in every battle: here one is not a warrior in the field.

The constant need to control the attention of enemies and many other mechanics, designed specifically for two participants, make Army of Two and its sequel The 40th Day the best co-op shooters to this day.

Nikita Kazimirov

When Remedy lost the rights to the Max Payne series and completely concentrated on the game about the writer Alan Wake, for many it came as a real shock. After all, Max Payne is a character without further reservations by a cult. Alas, Wake was never able to surpass him. But Alan Wake has become the quintessence of all the best in video games, movies, TV series and horror novels.

Yes, you may not like the central mechanics, because of which it is enough to shine a flashlight before killing enemies in them.But Remedy is to be commended for the very attempt to change the standard TPS formula. Moreover, the gameplay becomes an excellent narrative tool for the story of the confrontation between an eerie, all-consuming Darkness and ordinary people.

Alan Wake is one of the most outstanding storytelling experiments in history. In it, the real is mixed with the objective, borrowings from Twin Peaks and the work of Stephen King are closely intertwined with original ideas, and you will remember the ending hanging in the air forever.Dreams about the second part are gradually moving into the category of “Half-Life 3 will still be released”, but no one can forbid us to dream, right?

By the way, a small spin-off of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare proved that even from an exclusively gaming point of view, the series is quite successful. And personally, I can only say one thing – go and love Alan Wake! He suffered enough to deserve recognition.

Denis Knyazev

The Last of Us – seems to be a survival horror, to which we will devote a separate top, but in reality everything is more complicated.The game Naughty Dog really creates very harsh conditions around the heroes and even seems to limit resources – at least so it seems at first. In fact, at its core, it is a 100% third-person shooter that borrows elements of survival horror, but ultimately does not become a game of this genre. This is the main merit of the incredibly talented team: they used many different genre elements (stealth, craft, resource gathering) to create an exciting and brutal adventure.And just for this – none of these elements have become more important in The Last of Us than shooting.

In addition, the game does not punish mistakes like “survival horror” do. If you did not collect resources before the shootout, nothing terrible will happen – in battle, the hero will have a lot of options not to die. In the end, you can just hit enemies on the head with bricks – this is also a working scheme, but there will be no real shortage of cartridges. The Last of Us pretends that it is about to take all your resources, deftly creates tension, but at the same time gives dozens of opportunities to win, because the main thing in it is not survival, but the story.

History is what The Last of Us received its “tens” and “games of the year”. A story of self-sacrifice and selfishness, mature and as true as the story of the end of the world due to the mushroom virus can be made true. The story of the ending, which we at “Kanoba” called one of the best in video games.

There is no point in talking more about The Last of Us and why it got to the top. This is one of the best games of the two PlayStation generations, the pinnacle of Naughty Dog’s writing and one of the proofs that games are art.

Nikita Kazimirov

Uncharted 4: A Thiefʼs End had high expectations from the beginning. After all, it was the first Naughty Dog game for PS4, and it also had to adequately complete one of the most successful console series. Of course, it was not without difficulties, so we will never know what the fourth part would have turned out if Amy Hennig had brought it to the end. But the final result is at least legendary.

Uncharted 4: A Thiefʼs End offers a fresh take on the familiar concept of crazy adventure stories around the world.Indeed, behind every treasure and ancient temple there have always been living people with their dreams and problems, and archaeologists themselves sacrifice a lot for their discoveries, sometimes forgetting about really important things. Nathan Drake’s latest adventure is a parable about family values, atonement for sins and attempts to renounce a dark past.

However, and without all this, Uncharted 4 is a great game. By making the arenas of skirmishes much more spacious than in previous parts, the developers have achieved incredible variability in battle.Each battle is a kind of puzzle, a test of your creativity. Therefore, the battles, which were always only distracting in the series, became extremely pleasant in the fourth part.

And Uncharted 4 also features some of the best PS4 game graphics, breathtaking cinematic moments, good stealth, and so much more to love. It gives the feeling of a vivid journey that you can never forget. And it’s just nice to come back to it every few months to be amazed by the beauty of Libertalia again.

Denis Knyazev

The

Max Payne is loved for its noir setting and stylish comic screensavers, a hero with nothing to lose, and his story of revenge, for outstanding gameplay and bullet timing – but few seriously thought that Remedy’s shooter mechanics could not be surpassed. still. Including Remedy itself.

There is one problem with the Third Person Shooter genre: it is almost impossible to make comfortable shooting in it. The camera behind the hero is an extra game design task that does not exist in FPS.In a third-person shooter, you need to prescribe the animation to the hero, otherwise go to the structure of the locations (if the camera can peer around the corner, you should either turn it into a feature, or completely deprive the player of such an opportunity) and get confused with hitboxes and the size of the sight, because shoot at enemies ” to the point “and over the shoulder of the character are very different things. Shooter developers can choose a third-person view for their game in two cases: if they are sure that they can solve such a game design problem, or if they are not sure what kind of game they are creating at all.

The question arises – why the hell are they making games in the top where it is inconvenient to shoot? And who said that we were the top only by this criterion? I did not say.

Max Payne appeared here for several reasons – choose for yourself one of those indicated in the first paragraph. For me this reason is the best shooter mechanics in the genre.

Max Payne is the only third-person game that has gotten close to the best FPS in shooting feel, and easily bypassed the average and worst.It is necessary to write books on game design about how she did this: it is not only about the mechanics, but also about the design of levels, the placement of enemies on them, the ability to jump out of the corner in slow motion. However, the main trick is that in Max Payne you control not Max, but the sight – a barely noticeable white dot in the center of the screen. Everything in the game world comes down to her, concentrates on her. And the main character is the very weapon from which we usually shoot in FPS. Max cannot move a single frame off the line that runs from the player’s eyes to the center of the screen.This is the secret of Max Payne: it is a TPS that works on the principles of FPS.

It is also a very stylish game, the authors of which perfectly understood the depth of the invented mechanics. That is why they came up with a trick with “finishing off” the last enemy – they specifically did not take control at such moments so that you could in slow motion put a few more bullets into the falling enemy.

There is nothing like Max Payne in the industry. Before and (especially) after it, the developers tried to solve the aforementioned genre game design problem in different ways: the majority either failed at all, or had enough talent to make just another third-person shooter that doesn’t hurt to shoot.There were, however, those who, in their attempts to reinvent the genre. Someone endowed him with the dynamics of a slasher, someone brought the use of cover to a new level, and someone destroyed this genre to the ground in order to make a new brilliant third-person shooter on a familiar foundation – Max Payne 3.

P. S. It is worth explaining why three Remedy games hit the top at once. This contradicts our rule: we do our best not to repeat ourselves within the same episode or one studio, but in the case of Remedy it was impossible otherwise.Quantum Break, Alan Wake, and Max Payne are some of the best games in the genre, while radically different from each other. If they exploited one mechanic, then there would be enough space for one person, but Remedy employs people who, in each of their games, come up with something that no one else has done before. This command will have to be reckoned with.

In the case of Naughty Dog games, the same principle, by the way.

Alexander Bashkirov

In 2010, another side-project of the great Shinji Mikami proved that Platinum Games can do more than just slashers and three-dimensional beatʼem ups.Vanquish combines the features of typical Western TPS (time dilation, use of cover) with an insane Japanese feel.

The main mechanic of the game, the ability of the protagonist to slide forward on his ass with the possibility of shooting and switching to close combat, turned out to be so spectacular and crazy that it could only be born as a bug during beta testing – like juggling enemies in Devil May Cry. Sliding boost is used so creatively and out of the box, and the pace of action it sets is so many orders of magnitude ahead of Gears of War that it’s hard to say where the fantastic action ends here and the typical Asian bullet hell begins – only with a camera suspended from the west behind the character’s armored back.

As in his best previous works, Mikami turns the genre inside out, takes the usual ground from under the player’s feet – this time in the literal sense of the word! Vanquish’s setting is definitely the most unusual in this top: a cylindrical orbital city, in which, closer to the end, you see the crushed levels from the beginning of the game over your head. Vanquish uses a deliberately provocative story about a war with Russian robots, which Hideo Kojima himself would be ashamed to save in the “Not for publication” folder, but the developers again approached the issue very creatively, both at the micro and macro levels.

At the level of ordinary enemies, the game is saved by animations, visual gags, the behavior of these blood-red robots in battle and in everyday life, turning them into the most distinctive, expressive and funny opponents on this side of Gunstar Heroes. Well, on the macro level, these are huge, multi-stage bosses that require a dozen, if not hundreds of attempts at God Hard difficulty, and each such attempt gives incredible pleasure to the very process of tearing a giant, transforming enemy into parts … which, you mean, it was not the final boss of the stage, but just the FIRST MINI BOSS ?!

Denis Mayorov

This position represents the entire Gears series at the top, because all its parts are, plus or minus, the same in terms of quality.Everyone is important, everyone needs to be played, because no one has done better shooters with cover than Epic Games (and now The Coalition) and will not do it anymore. The only exception is the studio People Can Fly and its Gears of War: Judgment, so it was on the level.

In addition to the completely crazy in its brutality shooting mechanics, Gears of War has deep lore, powerful heroes and a unique visual style – you may not like the Gears universe, but you will not confuse it with anything. The clanking of Lancers’ rifle chainsaws and Joe DiMaggio’s “Niiice” have become real elements of pop culture, even out of the context of the game.

Each part of the series is good in its own way, but for the top we chose a remaster of the very first game. The original Gears of War is the most concise and focused in the series. She does not spray on long cut-scenes and staged shooting episodes. It’s about shooting and cover, only about them. Every shootout here is a challenge to your agility and tactical thinking. The design of the levels pushes you to constant movement and risky moves, cover with shelters, and the dynamics in the game is electrified – sticking to one log for too long is not boring, but simply impossible.It is the first part, which is logical, represents the Gears universe in a “basic” form, with all its brutality and understatement. We will leave the personal dramas and historical complexities of the history of the planet Sera for later – this story is not even about a war, but about one specific battle, long and difficult. Therefore, I recommend this game to any beginner.

Well, I think it’s obvious why we chose the Ultimate Edition and not the original. The Coalition thoroughly transferred the mechanics of Gears of War to a new engine (that is, did the main thing), tweaking the balance of difficulty and overhauling the game along the way.She reshomed all the videos, adding directing to them, reworking the appearance of the characters, making normal facial animation, increasing the details of the locations at times, filling them with pleasant volumetric light, diluting the overall grayness with bright, but not too catchy colors. The Ultimate Edition looks like a modern game. Still gorgeous. And still cooperative – don’t forget that too!

Denis Knyazev

Rockstar disrupted the third-person shooter genre and then reassembled it in Max Payne 3, adding the elements it deemed necessary – the shooting mechanics and bullet timing from the previous installments of the series, cover and euphoria technology for believable animations.The result is a shooter very similar to the Remedy games and at the same time noticeably different from them.

In Max Payne 3, you still control the crosshair, not the main character. Max, however, has become more agile and now reacts correctly to collisions with objects – if you hit a wall with all your might during a firefight, he will lose a little health. But the former cop who works as a bodyguard for the Brazilian rich in Max Payne 3 is still a first-person shooter weapon, albeit with a hundred additional animations.

The assignment of the bullet time has not changed either – this is still Max’s main advantage. Although his one is no longer enough – there are too many enemies, and they do not wait for the hero to burst into the location and shoot everyone in slow motion. In Max Payne 3, they rush in on their own, and their main goal is to get the hero in any way. Therefore, Rockstar added cover: you won’t be able to hide behind them forever, the enemies will still find it, but you can wait out the next automatic burst behind a concrete column.

This is the main difference between the third game and the previous parts.Max Payne 3 takes a different approach to the design of locations and the game itself. The levels in it are not mini-sandboxes, as was in Max Payne, the shootings are less tactical, but more situational – you have to improvise a lot and make many decisions over a much longer time. They last longer and take place mostly on long straight locations, where Max fights his way from point A to point B, to the finale.

I like this approach less than the one in Max Payne, so in my personal top the third game would take second place, and the first would go to the original.But this is not my personal top, but an editorial one, and among the readers, I am sure, there will be those who disagree with me. True, I’m not saying that Max Payne 3 is not worthy to be in the first place. How worthy! It’s just that, in my opinion, this is a slightly less brilliant game.

Still brilliant, though.

What third person shooters would you include in this top?

7 chips to improve your aim in Valorant

Registration in the international tournament for VALORANT Red Bull Campus Clutch for university students has already STARTED! During three qualifying stages, Russian students will compete for the prize fund.Having successfully completed the qualifications, students will be able to compete in the National Final and advance to the International Stage. Look for teammates right now in the tournament’s discord channel!

Heroes in Valorant have a whole range of skills and weapons that help them defeat opponents. Ultimately, however, the point of the game and your goal is to successfully complete most of the missions in Riot Games’ team-based tactical shooter. While hero abilities are key elements of the game, you’ll easily notice that Valorant has much more in common with CS: GO (Counterstrike: Global Offensive) than competitive shooters like Overwatch.

So even if you have a hard time in the narrow passages of the Bind map, or you have a hard time pushing C-long on Haven, this guide will help you become the one who successfully sends opponents to the bench.

1. Equalizing the Odds: Aiming

Aiming is undoubtedly the most important skill to help you dramatically improve your K / D performance in Valorant. You need to try to keep the crosshair in the center of the screen exactly at head height while you attack enemies or save allies in a round.The idea is to minimize the moment of aiming at the time when you see the enemy. If the crosshair is at head height, only a slight horizontal adjustment will be sufficient. It takes time and the right attitude to break with the bad habit of keeping the scope on the floor or aiming at the clouds. Just try to adapt to this style of play, and you will immediately see how much better your results will be. You have to understand that it is focused efforts that will lead to success at Valorant.

As the saying goes, to become a master, you first need to practice 10,000 hours. As many as ten thousand? Come on, this is too much. Before queuing up for a human game, it’s best to practice at the range: practice aiming from any position and with any weapon in Valorant’s arsenal.

Do you want to take Operator? Go ahead, this is OP, but even to it you have to get used to. You will have to make an effort to adapt to the different shooting distances, to the spread and power of each type of weapon, and to understand which one is most convenient for you to play with.However, it will come in handy for you if the number of credits decreases, and the available options become less and less. But still, don’t get too carried away with practice on the range, so as not to overwork even before the start of the game. In the beginning, just take your time, and in half an hour you will see that your efforts are yielding results.

3. Be calm

Call of Duty and Battlefield have already taught us a lot of useful skills, but they are unlikely to be useful in this game. Short dashes across the terrain, offhand shooting with a machine gun are all pretty useless when playing Valorant.If you shoot on the run, you will certainly miss, even if you aim below the line of sight. So take your time around the bends and keep your feet firmly on the ground. Vandal easily penetrates heavy armor with one shot, but for this you have to hit the enemy directly in the head. In Valorant, the harder your hand, the more accurate and faster you shoot.

4. You and your scope. Something went wrong?

Some will say that this is not so important, but in fact it is not: choosing a scope that suits you and your play style is the solution to many problems.Simplifying the outer lines and choosing a color for the crosshairs to stand out against the dull background of Bind will help a lot. Plus, this will help you develop more precise positioning so that the headshot always hits the target. All this will benefit your game. And when you get along with your scope, you will simply be surprised how much better your results will improve. In short, the crosshair should be simple, small, non-distracting, and always the same. Choose a static crosshair more often than a movable one that adapts to your movements and shots.If the crosshair of the sight moves, the accuracy of the shot is reduced.

5. Hip Hop

Hip Hop is generally not the best option in standard shooters. And yet, if your feet are firmly on the ground at the time of the shot and you have a reliable sight you can trust, zeroing is the method to choose to secure your way around the corner in Valorant. If you aim below the line of sight, the shots are more accurate, but the rate of fire will decrease.For shooting from afar, this is optimal, but if you shoot from close range, when the whole thing can be solved with a single shot, then such offhand shooting will increase your field of view and increase the rate of fire, because not only Sage can wait for you around the corner.

6. Before you start playing

All these tips will be wasted if you are not in the right mood for the game. For the bulk of the players, to whom they seem too simple and obvious, we explain: this is for those few beginners who have not yet had time to get used to it.If you haven’t figured it out yet, the important thing is: determine the level of mouse sensitivity (sensa) that is right for you.