Great games are hard to come by, let alone games that have great combat and fighting mechanics. Over my years of gaming i have found that most games, while good, don’t have fun combat worth a damn. The guns are either weak sounding or have unrealistic aim, the melee feels like I’m flopping around a hose when i should be smashing faces in or it isn’t innovative enough for me to even care. I don’t want to play games that are rehashing the same weapons I've been using since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Here are some games that I think have excellent combat and why!

1)      Bioshock

Talk about a game with great combat mechanics. I think Bioshock has some of the most fun monster encounters in any game, but that wouldn’t matter if the weapons felt horrible. The weapons feel like they have weight to them while you are fighting. The combat is simple enough to pick up and doesn’t make you feel stupid. Once you understand the simple plasmid-weapon mechanics you will become a plasmid shooting god.

The gameplay of Bioshock (if you can’t remember or shamefully haven’t played it before) revolves around the use of your plasmid-shooting left arm and your gun-weilding right arm. You can have multiple plasmids and multiple weapons in your arsenal. The plasmids vary from shooting lightning, making trip mines out of air, and shooting fireballs. Each can be paired with a weapon to maximize its efficiency. The weapons are a wrench, a pistol, a machine gun, and a couple more strange weapons like a crossbow. The wrench specifically is a good weapon to use with plasmids. It also has a very weighty feel to it. The hit collision with enemies really makes you feel like you are pounding the citizens of rapture in the face with a heavy heap of metal. Combined with the best plasmid in the game, lightning, you became unstoppable, stunning and whacking your foes with delight.

2)      Dead Island

This game is brand new but is already one of my favorite games, mainly because of its fun combat. I treasure Bioshock for how solid everything feels, but I think this game excels at letting you have complete control over any encounter. I’m not going to lie, the controls are a bit floaty. Sometimes i want a to hit a zombie's head and and end up hitting him in the shoulder. However, the diverse amount of weapons and four classes, each with their own skill trees, makes up for it.

Some of the fighting mechanics include punching, kicking enemies away, beating zombie skulls in, and throwing your weapons at zombies. There are four classes that are each good at either throwing weapons, hitting with blunt weapons like pipes, shooting with guns, or stabbing zombies with sharp weapons like katanas. I’m playing the guy who can throw stuff. Each fight goes a little something like this: 

Step One: Throw hammer or blunt weapon into zombie to stop them from running
Step Two: Kick them while there down
Step Three: Throw two machetes
Step Four: Kick or punch the zombie in the face till dead or head is turned into a pulp.
Step Five: Loot and Enjoy!

This is just a normal fight. Sometimes you have to worry about multiple mobs, heavy guys that can take like 10 machetes to the face, and several other more enemies that require you run them over with a truck. Killing zombies has never been so much fun!

3)      Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Sadly I’ll admit I’ve packed away around 200 hours of my childhood life to Oblivion. Whether that’s the story or exploring, either would be about as fun as sitting in English class if it didn’t have a fun weapon and magic system.

The best part of the combat in Oblivion was when you could create your own spells after questing with the  mages. When I first unlocked the ability I think I  spent like a good hour or two making the most  ridiculous spells in the game. I went into the forest  and lit deer on fire, sent an army of undead to fight  trolls, and killed a vampire while carrying 500  pounds of weapons and loot.

 The weapons are a totally different story. They  were extremely fun to collect, much like Pokémon,  and I spent many a day trying to get Mehrunes  Razer. Honestly I think the magic was better though.

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Watch the video below to watch the second episode of our podcast about games we think have good fighting mechanics!