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Best (and worst) Shotguns in gaming

DISSESHOWEDO said:
The King! Just feels too good!
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Underrated choice and weapon, there's plenty of times I have wiped out the enemy team in tunnels on d/d2, so good.

Doom II super shotty
Doom 2016 super shotty
Gears Gnasher
UT Flak Cannon

All great choices.

Bulletstorm shotgun was pretty fun IIRC, sent people flying I think. Been a long time since I've played it.
 
Quite possibly the 870 with slugs on Bad Company 2. Mind you, all the shotguns in that game were an absolute joy to use. PAYDAY 2's equivalent pump actions are incredible too, they sent enemies flying back with the meaty kick.
 
You know what shotgun is unbelievably underrated? Any shotgun that has been fully upgraded and combined with incendiary shells in Rise of the Tomb Raider. All of them are GOD tier! So powerful and satisfying!
 
I am fond of the Scatter Gun from Star Wars Battlefront, it's very satisfying to use on those smug players who too eagerly pop their personal shields.
 
WM645k0.jpg

Marathon 2: Durandal.
Dual wielded shotguns, with the a great reloading animation (they're spun, which leads to people suggest that spinning them provides power for teleporting the shell to the weapon).
 
Leunam said:
https://youtu.be/ZLJ8PhZlso8

I like the Melta Gun in Warhammer Space Marine. Treating it as a video game shotgun makes a lot of sense when you consider its profile in the tabletop game: short range, high damage, single shot, and punches through all sorts of armor. Space Marine had lots of very satisfying weapons, the Melta Gun is no exception.
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Cosign it's a Shotgun that blasts the power of the stars in the faces of Heretics and Xenos Scum, in my book that's an instant win.
 
This, for me:
latest


The USAS-12 in Battlefield 3, pre frag round nerf. That was an armour piercing cannon of doom. With a support ammo box, you had infinite ammo. It was GLORIOUS.

Really though, all the shotguns in 3 and to a lesser extent 4 felt satisfying. I like BF3's SPAS-12 that came with one of the DLCs, and the Jackhammer is always a fun gun, with a great sound in 3, too.
 
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Halo 1's shotgun carries an absurd amount of shells combined with a pretty darn good range. If you wanted to fight a warthog on foot with it, that's totally possible.

Also really fond of the 870 MCS in Bad Company 2. Super versatile weapon. Throw slugs in it and you have a sniper rifle.
 
I am partial to the first one in Resident Evil 4, the one you get in the Village house

I think taking it triggers the chainssaw guy appearing, which results in mass hysteria.

ResidentEvil4_SS13.jpg


biggest life saver in a game.
 
Blood's sawn-off double barrel is pretty great. The combination of the sound from a double blast and the over the top death screams from enemies is a sort of visceral feeling that is absent from many shooters.

Also, when you have a dual-weilding power up, the reload animation is gone, so you can fire them like they're a pair of fast firing pistols.

Worst probably goes to Deus Ex or System Shock 2, although the gunplay in those games isn't great to begin with.
 
Doom 2016, Doom 93, and FEAR jump to mind as immediate bests.

Is it weird that despite being so effective, I think the Gears of War shotgun is trash? The nuance of the aiming placement vs distance vs damage fall-off is so particular (without even getting into the meta-game of network performance), and I know people who live and breathe that nuance love it, but man, that would be my last choice.
 
Best in my experience would probably be the shotties in Killing Floor 1 and 2 (leaning a little bit towards the former). They look the part, sound meaty, and pack an appropriate punch ... like most every firearm in Tripwire's shooters.

Worst in my experience would be the shotgun in Wolfenstein: TNO. I was rather disappointed after using them, even in the dual-wield configuration, and that feeling applied to most weapons in the game. Somebody earlier used "limp" to describe firearms in the game, and I think that is an apt description.

blame space said:
far cry 4 - 700 nitro
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Is actually a rifle. But if it was a shotgun, this would be my pick.
 
meppi said:
Barely anything really. Still does the same thing it always did.

It's not even a great shotgun, just overpowered at the moment.
It doesn't even give any good feedback or anything when firing.
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The only feedback you need is the person you 1-hit from 10m dying. It is the ultimate assault weapon for clearing the tight confines of some of the capture points. Bang! bang! bang! bang! OK, they're all dead, let's cap this point.

In the context of the sniper rifles of the game I don't feel it to be overpowered at all, considering they do effectively the same thing the hunter does but at practically every range and in their "sweet spot" range do it even better.

Tossing smoke/gas on the point and then running in with a non-scoped weapon is the only way to consistently nullify most of the people in a given match who are playing Sniperfield 1.
 
Most of my favorite ones already mentioned


As for worst:
Probably the division for me. Low mobility + bullet sponges just doesn't work well with shotguns.
I would move close to a character, shoot him like 4 times in the face with the shotgun and he would take like 20% damage.... And then kill me.


Wolfenstein the new order had the same issue. It's mabye even more frustrating because the shotgun actually felt great to use. But again, low mobility + bullets sponges isn't fun for shotguns.
 
Nephtes said:
Worst Shotgun Candidate:
Quake III double barrel shotgun.

WTF is this shit!?
Where is the meaty reload animation!????

If your game features a double barreled shotgun that doesn't feature the break action gun opened, the shells ejecting and new shells being slammed into the tubes before the gun is closed, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
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Bro wtf, you can't have reload or any kind of animation in a game like Quake 3.
 
Gears would be a contender if shit was consistent. Feels too much like a peashooter online.

And in campaign it's practically useless on Insane because it takes like 5 shots to kill someone.
 
The sound of the shotgun in Doom is still one of the best to me.I played hours and hours on Playstation and the sounds for weapons combined to the special music of Doom in this version were awesome.
 
Despite some of the criticism over Mass Effect 1's combat, the shotgun was pretty awesome! Especially if you added explosive rounds on it:

JZX1Nv.gif
 
atpbx said:
Worst shotguns in gaming?

Every shotgun in Destiny.

utter garbage after repeated nerfing to the point where they are completely ineffective beyond melee range.

Best shotgun, hard to think of any as developers like to make them complete trash, but the sancti Tigris in Warframe is pretty good.

As is the khom.
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Before they were nerfed, they were really fun to play. I think Found Verdict is one of the best video game shotguns, period.
 
Zeta Oni said:
How do these compare to the sobek?
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It's a different play style. Sobek is mostly just running forward and just spraying at everything. The Tigris line revolves around burst and precision hits because of its duplex trigger (two rounds per magazine, one shot when you click LMB, another follow up shot when you release LMB).

I think Sobek is outclassed by Tigris Sancti and Tigris Prime, personally. Or even the Velkor Hek, which is semi-auto but doesn't have that massive reload time. If you're interested I suggest making the vanilla Tigris and taking it for a spin? It needs some modding before it does well though.
 
The Fourth Horseman in Destiny was my go to weapon during House of Wolves.That fire rate is laughable. Lowest TTK in the PvE side during that time.

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Those sights are ugly though, and useless.

Also, Doom 2016 super shotgun.
 
Even some of the best shotguns fall victim to this trope, but I really hate short range shotguns. When you give me some badass shotgun that can blow a man in two, and then it only tickles them if I'm more than 5 feet away...

In recent memory, this has bothered me the most in Destiny and Doom 2016. Destiny because you literally have to me in melee range for full damage. Doom 2016 because the shotguns in Doom 1 and 2 had enough range that they were the workhorse weapons of the games, and then in Doom 2016 they become short range like other games. Trying to make a classic map in Snapmap? It won't play the same, because you can't kill that imp from across the room with 1 shot anymore.
 
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