Shooter Games with Useable Ironsights

[Vorpalbob]

I've never been able to understand why game developers choose to leave iron sights out so often. I've always found them to be far more aesthetically pleasing than a crosshairs or targeting reticule. The original Call of Duty remains one of my favorite games to this day because it was one of the first games I played that had iron sights, and I loved it.

Playing the newer CoD games, I notice that most people seem to look down upon those who choose not to festoon their weapons with red-dot sights and laser sights. I've actually taken to picking up new weapons, just to see what their sights look like. I will choose a mechanically inferior weapon if I like the sights better.

Am I just weird? Why do so many games leave iron sights out? Why do the players of the games that do have them seem to go out of their way to avoid using them?

[Comet]

I find them to slow down gameplay and, as such, prefer to shoot from the hip.

Not every time, of course. Some games are cool precisely because of the slower pace and careful aiming. For the most part, though, running n' gunning just feels better. Ironsight can devolve into making you feel like you're on a shooting range if done badly.

[warty goblin]

I can't say I find many shooters leave them out anymore. Sure they're replaced with red dot or holo sights pretty often, but that's because those are usually preferable to have. To me that still counts because after all red dot sights are a real thing to put on top of your gun to make aiming easier.

That said I'll definitely alter my weapon loadout to get my preferred ironsights if the game makes heavy use of them. I almost always play Wehrmacht in Red Orchestra for instance simply because I prefer the German sights over the Russian.

[Ozymandias]

I'm not sure what games you are playing, but just about every modern fps has irons in it. Exceptions are... what, Source games? HL2 is 7 years old, TF2 is 4; not exactly modern, and they're much more arcadey than the norm (brown n' bloom) anyway.

The thing is, in most shooters you aim before you look down the sights (ideally). You put the target in the middle of the screen, aim down the sights for the better accuracy, and fire. So I've never found dot sights and such to be very useful. I also agree that the aesthetics of iron sights are better - red dots are too generic for me. I like a gun with personality.

Also, there's the paradox that it's almost always harder to actually line up a target with sights on, because visibility is obscured. There's usually a small amount of magnification, but only at long ranges (which very few fps games have) does this actually matter. So they have to essentially just give hip-fire artificially (though understandably) terrible accuracy past short range, or else sights would be essentially useless.

Of course, I take pistols in video games 9 times out of 10. Handguns will always be cooler for me, "realsm" or "effectiveness" be damned.

[Starwulf]

I can't say I find many shooters leave them out anymore. Sure they're replaced with red dot or holo sights pretty often, but that's because those are usually preferable to have. To me that still counts because after all red dot sights are a real thing to put on top of your gun to make aiming easier.

That said I'll definitely alter my weapon loadout to get my preferred ironsights if the game makes heavy use of them. I almost always play Wehrmacht in Red Orchestra for instance simply because I prefer the German sights over the Russian.

May be a real thing if you're out hunting deer or bear, but in a combat situation, not a chance. Scopes or Ironsights only. If you go around using Red-dots, you're giving the enemy a chance to spot the red-dot and the moment they do, they'll sound the alarm. Not realistic at all in that situation. Personally, even when I go out hunting, I'd never use a red-dot/laser sight. I don't even like scopes, I much prefer Ironsights, as long as your rifle is sighted in properly, I tend to have better accuracy that way.

[Zen Monkey]

The STALKER games have very realistic weapons. Iron sights, gun jams, recoil, realistic bullet physics, etc. It takes a little getting used to if you've mostly played games with more video-gamey accuracy and weapon behavior. Add in a realistic carrying capacity, and you have to put some thought into weapon choice for a mission's requirements.

[Ozymandias]

May be a real thing if you're out hunting deer or bear, but in a combat situation, not a chance. Scopes or Ironsights only. If you go around using Red-dots, you're giving the enemy a chance to spot the red-dot and the moment they do, they'll sound the alarm. Not realistic at all in that situation. Personally, even when I go out hunting, I'd never use a red-dot/laser sight. I don't even like scopes, I much prefer Ironsights, as long as your rifle is sighted in properly, I tend to have better accuracy that way.

Red dot/reflex sights are completely different than laser sights. Militaries use both kinds, but the laser sights they use are typically (I think) non-visible and paired with special goggles. The "obvious laser beam" attached to the scoped sniper rifle thing is essentially just a joke.

The STALKER games have very realistic weapons. Iron sights, gun jams, recoil, realistic bullet physics, etc. It takes a little getting used to if you've mostly played games with more video-gamey accuracy and weapon behavior. Add in a realistic carrying capacity, and you have to put some thought into weapon choice for a mission's requirements.

It implements some realistic factors, but that doesn't mean that it's realistic, exactly. For example, in real life pistol effective range is ~50m; in STALKER, the Makarov isn't reliable past maybe 5.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The Forgotten Hope 2 mod for Battlefield 2 immediately springs to mind as having beautiful ironsights. I love that mod. So many WWII guns, so many sights to choose from! I personally love the German K98 sight, and detest the American carbine sights.

[Mando Knight]

SPEHSS MUHREEN shooters (like Halo, Republic Commando, etc.) justifies not having iron sights by the characters having the reticules as part of their power armor. If the game is a more "realistic" shooter, then even if the reticule is available when shooting from the hip, I've developed a preference for aiming the gun (with the sights or scope or whatever it's equipped with) instead. Except when the appropriate tactic is spray-n-pray.

Using the iron sights is definitely an acquired taste, though. When the game doesn't reward using the sights (better recoil recovery, aim, no reticule from the hip, etc.), there really isn't much of a reason to use them. I don't know why people would ridicule you for using the sights when you've got access to other equipment... unless you're routinely missing your shots because you're lining the sight up wrong.

[factotum]

Borderlands has guns with iron sights, as well as ones with pretty much every type of scope you can think of...I like that approach, means you can pick the weapon that suits you!

[Cogwheel]

Borderlands has guns with iron sights, as well as ones with pretty much every type of scope you can think of...I like that approach, means you can pick the weapon that suits you!

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

[Eloel]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

Well, it's a good idea, to say the least. With a shotgun, if enemies are far away, you're not shooting at them, so you might as well peek through the scope so you can actually see if there's a sniper around waiting to give you an extra hole in head

Then again, I like using gun scopes as binoculars, since most games lack the latter.

[Ogremindes]

Then again, I like using gun scopes as binoculars, since most games lack the latter.

Telescopes, surely.

[Dhavaer]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

Yes. I find them easier to use than iron sights in Borderlands, and aiming seems to give a ridiculous accuracy boost. I tend not to use any non-scoped guns if I can help it.

[factotum]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Doing the "aim" thing with a shotgun in Borderlands does seem to reduce the scatter of the pellets somewhat--they still aren't sniper rifles, but you can do more damage to a mid-range target that way!

[Thanatos 51-50]

May be a real thing if you're out hunting deer or bear, but in a combat situation, not a chance. Scopes or Ironsights only. If you go around using Red-dots, you're giving the enemy a chance to spot the red-dot and the moment they do, they'll sound the alarm. Not realistic at all in that situation. Personally, even when I go out hunting, I'd never use a red-dot/laser sight. I don't even like scopes, I much prefer Ironsights, as long as your rifle is sighted in properly, I tend to have better accuracy that way.

You are aware that modern RDSs are an infrared beam, naked to the unaided human eye, right? The only way you can see them is looking through the special glass on the sight, itself, which gives it the "Red Dot" apperance that gives the sight it's name. Or though nightvision, but NVGs are expensive to outfit every single one of your soldiers with all the time.
Of course, with technology being technology, such things are getting monumentally cheaper as I type, which gives rise to such things as Holo sights.
"Can be seen by the enemy" is a factor wartime sights try very, very hard to eliminate.

[Cogwheel]

Doing the "aim" thing with a shotgun in Borderlands does seem to reduce the scatter of the pellets somewhat--they still aren't sniper rifles, but you can do more damage to a mid-range target that way!

What are these "pellets" you speak of?

We all know it's not a real shotgun unless it fires splitting acid rockets.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Doing the "aim" thing with a shotgun in Borderlands does seem to reduce the scatter of the pellets somewhat--they still aren't sniper rifles, but you can do more damage to a mid-range target that way!

Video games tend to make shotguns much, much more terrible than they actually are. You can be accurate at range with a shotgun, most shot groupings are relatively tight.

In a video game, however, you might as well just get your stab on.

[Science Officer]

As others have said, lots of games have iron sights, nowadays.

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[Triaxx]

I agree with you Warty, except on one occasion. I abhor the iron sights on the Karbiner 98k. Of course, it might just be the CoD variant.

[GloatingSwine]

Video games tend to make shotguns much, much more terrible than they actually are.

Except Borderlands.

Borderlands makes shotguns much more awesome than they actually are. After all, when was the last time you saw a real shotgun that fired a smiley face pattern of pellets that also set things on fire.

[Volthawk]

Except Borderlands.

Borderlands makes shotguns much more awesome than they actually are. After all, when was the last time you saw a real shotgun that fired a smiley face pattern of pellets that also set things on fire.

To be fair, this is Borderlands we're talking about here. Realism isn't exactly what they were aiming for.

[Fri]

I'm not sure what games you are playing, but just about every modern fps has irons in it. Exceptions are... what, Source games? HL2 is 7 years old, TF2 is 4; not exactly modern, and they're much more arcadey than the norm (brown n' bloom) anyway.

Indeed. as shown in this cracked article.

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[MrPig]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

Joking aside, shotguns loaded with saboted slugs may as well be scoped.

[warty goblin]

I agree with you Warty, except on one occasion. I abhor the iron sights on the Karbiner 98k. Of course, it might just be the CoD variant.

Nah, the Kar98 is about a third the reason I always play Germany, the other two third being split between the Stg-44 and the MG-34. Selective triggers rock and unusually enough, Red Orchestra actually does a good job modeling the MG-34's.

I did put a sniper scope on the shotgun in Crysis a couple times, mostly when I wanted to look at people far away and was worried about being attacking by people up close. It does bear mentioning though that the Crysis shotgun had a much longer effective range than is usual, helped along by the adjustable choke.

[Grif]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

Shotguns with sniper scopes are the only REAL shotguns in Borderland. Obviously they must be firing acid rockets. It's a shotgun damnit, not some pansy SMGs you picked up off the floor in Fyrestone.

[deuxhero]

Tell me, do the shotguns with sniper scopes suit, uh... anyone?

Except the easily amused (like me), that is.

STALKER lets you do it. They are quite effective long range weapon if you mod them for it (rifle the barrel, stack up on accuracy mods, and use slugs), though if you know what you are doing a proper sniper rifle can easily be found by then.


Even without making it a weird franken gun, the one shotgun that can equip a scope has iffy ironsights, so a 1.4x scope makes aiming much easier.


Personally, SoC complete with realistic weapons mod (which removes the exagerated features), and Operation Flashpoint do "realistic" weapons are far more fun to play than any frakenshooter with regenerating health the touts to be realistic. Give me a Duke Nukem 3d action game any day over CoD.

[Triaxx]

I love the Kara98k, but the sight with it's big ugly post gives me nightmares.

Love the StG44 though. It's my preferred gun, in single shot when I can get it. Though BAR with in slower fire mode is pretty awesome.