Recently I was looking at my old WoAP post and thinking about how the fundamentals of creating a good, solid-feeling weapon are evolving, and which basics are the same as they were 15 years ago.  Developers are definitely better at these things, but experiences are still all over the board.

I gathered more footage from games released in the last year in preparation of a WoAP section on this site (which is still locked for now), but I fell behind in capturing the newest of the new.  While that certainly won’t deter me, I did realize that I did have one source of state-of-the-art titles with readily-prepared footage…  E3 2010!  Sure the games are in-progress and the available footage varies in quality, but I thought it would be fun to see what the next year could be like in terms of nice, beefy implements of destruction.

As usual, I examined a number of elements to consider whether they contribute to a sense of power.  Check out the original article if you wonder, for example, why a real-world weapon still needs to follow these rules:

• Gun Visuals: The visual effect of the weapon’s muzzle flash and bullet trail, and the animation of the weapon itself firing. It’s the first thing people think of when they consider how the gun looks and feels.
• Sound Effects: How’s the audio, from the firing to the impact sounds?  This can be one of the hardest to get right, because the sound has to bear repetition thousands of times, and it has to compliment the rest of the arsenal.
• Effect on Environment: Here we look at the visual impact of the bullet on a wall or floor, as well as environmental shifts such as lighting. We need these because the results of stray bullets give the player a sense of affecting their environment and with a potent weapon.
• Effect on Opponent: This refers to the visual impact on an enemy, and how the enemy reacts to being shot, which is critical to give the player feedback that he is successfully damaging the foe.
• Combat Effectiveness: I’m completely subjective here, which can be unfair when taken out of context, but it’s worth talking about. If I see a weapon limply pile bullets into an enemy with little sense of accomplishment, that weapon doesn’t get high marks.  Maybe it’s designed to be a pathetic weapon, I don’t know.

Each weapon is grouped with its general type:  They aren’t all identical models, weights or even technology, but each group of weapons fills a general role for players.  I found as much unadulterated footage as I could…  nothing from trailers or anything less than the game being played.  This is obviously not final weaponry, and I had to make adjustments for the situations where the audio or visual quality wasn’t the best.  Suffice it to say, they previewed their games to us and basically I’m previewing the weapons right back.  Wah.

I didn’t get footage from everyone I wanted (technical issues denied me Brink and Killzone 3), but there was plenty of material (in unbiased alphabetical order of course):

• The Agency, Sony Online Entertainment
• Blacklight: Tango Down, Zombie
• Bodycount, Codemasters
• Breach, Atomic Games
• Bulletstorm, People Can Fly
• Call of Duty: Black Ops, Activision
• Crysis 2, Crytek
• Halo: Reach, Bungie
• Medal of Honor, Electronic Arts
• Rage, id Software
• Vanquish, SEGA

(Too many one-word titles that start with “B” this year…)

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