Topic: IGN's top 100 shooters

[idolminds]

Don't bother clicking, I'll just list them.

Judging Criteria:
All the shooters on this list must all obviously exhibit very high overall quality. Other considerations for inclusion include legacy and influence on the genre; popularity; historical quality (was it incredible at the time?); modern quality (does the experience hold up?); and lastly pure editorial preference.

#100 - XIII
#99 - Black
#98 - Tron 2.0
#97 - SiN
#96 - Halo: Reach
#95 - Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
#94 - Red Faction 2
#93 - Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
#92 - Crysis 2
#91 - Heretic
#90 - Battlefield 3
#89 - Doom 3
#88 - Unreal Tournament
#87 - Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force
#86 - STALKER: Call of Pripyat
#85 - Deus Ex: Human Revolution
#84 - Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
#83 - Aliens vs. Predator (PC)
#82 - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
#81 - Counterstrike: Source
#80 - Tribes: Ascend
#79 - Timespliters: Future Perfect
#78 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
#77 - Crysis 3
#76 - Blacklight Retribution
#75 - Red Steel 2
#74 - Clive Barker's Undying
#73 - Hexen
#72 - Red Orchestra 2
#71 - Red Faction
#70 - Kill Zone 3
#69 - Rainbow Six: Vegas
#68 - Halo 3
#67 - Borderlands
#66 - Bulletstorm
#65 - Far Cry 2
#64 - Prey
#63 - Singularity
#62 - The Darkness
#61 - Soldier of Fortune 2
#60 - Timesplitters 2
#59 - Rise of the Triad
#58 - Return to Castle Wolfenstein
#57 - Halo 3: ODST
#56 - Painkiller
#55 - Perfect Dark
#54 - Marathon
#53 - Metro 2033
#52 - No One Lives Forever
#51 - Serious Sam
#50 - Quake
#49 - Doom 2
#48 - Unreal
#47 - Call of Duty 2
#46 - Halo 4
#45 - Left 4 Dead 2
#44 - Call of Duty: Black Ops
#43 - Borderlands 2
#42 - Battlefield: Bad Company 2
#41 - Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
#40 - Aliens vs. Predator (Jaguar)
#39 - Far Cry
#38 - Rainbow Six 3
#37 - Star Trek: Elite Force II
#36 - Star Wars: Republic Commando
#35 - System Shock 2
#34 - SWAT 4
#33 - Far Cry 3
#32 - Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
#31 - Bioshock Infinite
#30 - PlanetSide 2
#29 - Star Wars: Dark Forces
#28 - Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
#27 - The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
#26 - F.E.A.R.
#25 - Crysis
#24 - Left 4 Dead
#23 - Battlefield 2
#22 - Tribes 2
#21 - Duke Nukem 3D
#20 - Medal of Honor
#19 - Ghost Recon
#18 - Team Fortress 2
#17 - Quake III
#16 - Unreal Tournament
#15 - Rainbow 6
#14 - Deus Ex
#13 - Battlefield 1942
#12 - Metroid Prime
#11 - Wolfenstein 3D
#10 - Quake II
#9 - Counter-Strike
#8 - BioShock
#7 - Halo 2
#6 - GoldenEye
#5 - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
#4 - Halo: Combat Evolved
#3 - Half-Life 2
#2 - Doom
#1 - Half-Life

I mean, all things considered it's not a terrible list. But...you include five Halo games but not NOLF2? Quake is way down at #50? Tribes 2 is good to be there, but Tribes Ascend is included over Tribes 1?

Anyway, you can decide for yourself what you think.

(click to show/hide)

Doom should be #1.

[Xessive]

Tron 2.0 should be in the top 10!

[W7RE]

#17 - Quake III
#16 - Unreal Tournament

Bold statement. Wars have been fought over this.

[Xessive]

Damn arbitrary lists!

[Pugnate]

Bold statement. Wars have been fought over this.

Agreed. Very controversial. UT should have been much better placed on the list than simply one position better.

[Xessive]

Agreed. Very controversial. UT should have been much better placed on the list than simply one position better.

Oh yeah!

[MysterD]

Since games have so many damn sequels, it's ridiculous to list tons of titles. It's be better if they did a "Best 100 Shooter Franchise/Series List."

Halo 1 might've been important to console gamers (b/c a FPS finally worked great w/ a gamepad), but it honestly was just another sci-fi shooter - one laced w/ lots of back-tracking and a bunch of copy & pasted areas (Monitor areas, anyone?). Sorry, guys - but those problems are major (like they were in Dragon Age 2); Halo 1 don't belong so high up on the list, IMHO.

I won't debate much of this list b/c I'd be here all day picking about the whole entire list - and it'll turn into tons of walls of text.

[Xessive]

Also, does Deus Ex qualify as a shooter? It was a great game but the shooter parts were sub par.

[W7RE]

Agreed. Very controversial. UT should have been much better placed on the list than simply one position better.

ROFL. I chose UT over Q3 when they came out, but ended up with both pretty early. I still don't know which I like better. Q3 feels like it's aged better, or maybe it's that the UT series has continued incrementally and I now look back to UT2004 as "the one".

[scottws]

Since games have so many damn sequels, it's ridiculous to list tons of titles. It's be better if they did a "Best 100 Shooter Franchise/Series List."

It's tough.  I agree on some level.  While it is pretty easy to debate the merits of each Call of Duty game within the confines of its own franchise, it is much tougher to compare all of them amongst every shooter.  That said, sometimes within a franchise you have things where the publisher farms the franchise out to some pretty crappy devs and the whole franchise suffers.

Halo 1 might've been important to console gamers (b/c a FPS finally worked great w/ a gamepad), but it honestly was just another sci-fi shooter - one laced w/ lots of back-tracking and a bunch of copy & pasted areas (Monitor areas, anyone?). Sorry, guys - but those problems are major (like they were in Dragon Age 2); Halo 1 don't belong so high up on the list, IMHO.

I agree with you here.  For PC gamers already experienced with FPS games, Halo was very mediocre by comparison.  Granted, for console-only gamers it was a pretty big deal, especially for the multiplayer.  But if you look at console-only, I think Goldeneye deserves to be over Halo because it did the things Halo did years earlier and really was the first major success in a console FPS game.

Speaking of Halo, I'm a bit surprised by the ordering.  I did end up playing most of the games and the only one I really liked was Reach yet it is ranked last amongst Halo games on the list.  Meanwhile, ODST is ranked pretty high and I thought that game was awful.

In the end, it's all a matter of opinion I guess.

[MysterD]

Also, does Deus Ex qualify as a shooter? It was a great game but the shooter parts were sub par.

It also combined RPG elements, so - yeah, that's a good question. It was good for its time, at combining RPG and FPS elements.
Same goes for Vampire: Bloodlines, as well.
Damn genre-benders.

DE:HR did a better job w/ the shooting elements, since it's a more modern game.
Plus, DE:HR didn't have many melee weapons, unlike Deus Ex 1.

Bold statement. Wars have been fought over this.

I don't know how gamers could go wrong w/ either Quake III or UT. {shrug}
Both = all kinds of awesome.

[MysterD]

It's tough.  I agree on some level.  While it is pretty easy to debate the merits of each Call of Duty game within the confines of its own franchise, it is much tougher to compare all of them amongst every shooter.  That said, sometimes within a franchise you have things where the publisher farms the franchise out to some pretty crappy devs and the whole franchise suffers.
I agree with you here.  For PC gamers already experienced with FPS games, Halo was very mediocre by comparison.  Granted, for console-only gamers it was a pretty big deal, especially for the multiplayer.  But if you look at console-only, I think Goldeneye deserves to be over Halo because it did the things Halo did years earlier and really was the first major success in a console FPS game.

Speaking of Halo, I'm a bit surprised by the ordering.  I did end up playing most of the games and the only one I really liked was Reach yet it is ranked last amongst Halo games on the list.  Meanwhile, ODST is ranked pretty high and I thought that game was awful.

In the end, it's all a matter of opinion I guess.

Yeah, all these lists are all opinion, anyways. For example - as important as HL1 and HL2 were to PC shooters, I still prefer FEAR 1.
I'd say Bioshock: Infinite belongs further up on the list, as well.
And where the hell is NOLF 2?
Why are both of the great STALKER games (SOC and COP) so low on the list, anyways?

Since I never bought Halo 2 PC (For some reason) and since M$ stopped porting Halo games here, I'd still like to see PC ports of the rest of these, some day and age.

I ain't owned a consoles in years (i.e. since original PSX) - but, I never played Goldeneye. So, I can't speak on that personally.