Bullet Sponges - Which Games Are the Worst Offenders?

[Haunted]

Any shooter where enemies need more than one headshot to go down already failed the test.

 

[Jedeye Sniv]

Uh... I'm going through Elite right now (only achievement left for 1000gs/Platinum for me), and minus the HUD they die just as quickly as they did recruit/one below Elite.

Don't get where you're thinking they're sponges.



Can't care. If I empty an entire assault rifle clip into you from medium range, at your chest. Your shield's should've popped and you should be halfway dead. I shouldn't have to "SPRINT->BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMRELOADWARNING->MELEE->MELEE! (WIN BATTLE!)"

Halo's multiplayer is THE definition of bullet sponge gameplay.

Sure, you have means to strip shields (Plasma Pistol) but it's still goddamn annoying at the start of the match to kill people.

If you empty an entire AR clip on someone they will die. If you throw a nade first and it hits the oppenent you will almost certainly win a 1-on-1 fight. Halo gives room for strategy that insta-death shooters like CoD can't give you, which is why it's a great game and a valid alternative to other MP shooters. Also, the BR will win almost everytime against an AR spammer, staying calm and keeping your distance will always give you the upper hand.

My point still stands though that fictionally there's no disconnect - energy sheilds and a bigass suit of armour will most definitely make you a bullet sponge. It's other games where a dude running about in a hawaiian shirt takes multiple bullets without dying that there becomes a disconnect.

 

[TheSeks]

Try throwing a grenade or feathering the AR's trigger a bit at medium range. Or using the pistol (in Reach) or the battle rifle (in 3).

I use the battle rifle. It's still a shitty sponge.

You have to resort to headshots to get any decent damage rate in Halo.

I love the game and I love the multiplayer, but it's killing speed is atrocious. I'm not calling for it to turn into Call of Duty's "See you, you dead!" gameplay, but it could be a little less... "slow" in kill speed.

 

[Guevara]

At least in Halo there is a fictional reason for it - energy sheilds. htey show the feedback of your shots and have a valid reason for taking so many hits. And then when they're down every enemy in the game is a one-shot head-shot kill. If you play it right Halo is not bullet-spongy at all.

Gears of War on the other hand is ridiculous. And not only are you pumping bullets into someone's cranium, but there is blood spurting out too. It breaks the immersion for me when an alien is squiting blood from his head for 10 seconds as you shoot him, so stupid.

Totally agree on Halo, in fact I'm surprised to see it mentioned in this thread. The gameplay mechanic is that you and many enemies are shielded. You have to work down their shields then quickly kill them when they are vulnerable. If you fail to kill them when their shields are down you start over and I can see how that could be frustrating. Also, Halo's headshots are second only to RE4 in terms of their efficacy and entertainment value.

 

[Alucrid]

Uncharted 2. I never played 1 but I kept thinking to myself, "WHY THE FUCK DON'T THEY DIE?"

 

[Guevara]

I knew, coming into this topic, that Uncharted would be mentioned. It turns out that the enemies in Uncharted 1 aren't actually bullet sponges, the hit detection is just not too good.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5883/a_deeper_look_into_the_combat_.php



Personally, I prefer it when enemies take a 4 or 5 hits to kill (on a non-headshot) than the call of duty method where everything goes down in one or two shots.

Awesome, I appreciate the link. Sometimes I hate being really late to games because I miss stories like this (which I realize is not that old).

 

[Dead Man]

The only one I can think of right now is UC1. Some of those guys could take ungodly amounts of damage, It worked, mostly, since the game was balanced around that, but I think it would have been even better without it.

 

[Coldsnap]

I couldn't finish Uncharted 2 because of this

 

[OmegaDragon]

I remember GoldenEye being pretty notorious in this regard.

Yeah Golden Eye and Time Splitters 2 are pretty bad in multiplayer. Once you hit someone, they become invincible for a short moment, the next few bullets don't register. So most rapid fire, low damage weapons are pretty useless (hello plasma rifle!)

Far Cry rocket mutants are also incredibly annoying

Also shooting with with normal, non armour piercing bullets at armoured human enemies in Stalker is pretty annoying as anything but a headshot doesn't seem to do any damage. Once you load armour piercing bullets they drop easily though. By the time you meet heavily armoured enemies you should have AP bullets.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Few non-fans seem to grasp the fundamentals of Halo (plasma weaponry against shields, bullets against unshielded flesh, for example), and I've seen friends barrel around holding down the trigger on the Assault Rifle expecting everything to die, and then complaining when they don't.

But if you understand the mechanics and the weapons, the only bullet sponges are Hunters (by design) and the Halo 2 Brutes (really annoying). In multiplayer people die super fast if you know what you're doing.

 

[MjFrancis]

Kane and Lynch 2 is really bothering me because of this.

The recoil on the guns contributes to the difficulty of killing the cannon fodder in this game, too, but it is unrealistic that they keep on truckin' through the first few shots to the chest.

Come to think of it, most third-person shooters are dependent on bullet-sponges. Resident Evil 5, Mass Effect, Army of Two, Gears of War - it might make a shorter list to come up with a TPS where the baddies drop like flies.

 

[WJD]

Uh... I'm going through Elite right now (only achievement left for 1000gs/Platinum for me), and minus the HUD they die just as quickly as they did recruit/one below Elite.

Don't get where you're thinking they're sponges.



Can't care. If I empty an entire assault rifle clip into you from medium range, at your chest. Your shield's should've popped and you should be halfway dead. I shouldn't have to "SPRINT->BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMRELOADWARNING->MELEE->MELEE! (WIN BATTLE!)"

Halo's multiplayer is THE definition of bullet sponge gameplay.

Sure, you have means to strip shields (Plasma Pistol) but it's still goddamn annoying at the start of the match to kill people.

edit: And assault->melee/melee is practically THE definition of default "double melee" deaths in Halo 3 as that's pretty much what every player does. Here's hoping Halo Reach at least gives the assault rifle a chance to kill someone without having to rush/melee beat them down after shield pop.

There's your problem. The assault rifle sucks dick. That, coupled with the fact you probably suck (one clip of an assault rifle is more than enough to kill someone) probably isn't helping your experience.

 

[carlosp]

Black 1 PS2. I usually needed unload my full clip to kill one single person. It was ridicules. Uncharted was nothing compared to that but headshots in Uncharted was real fun.

 

[Dr.Hadji]

El Gigante, RE5. He took so many bullets it was hard to tell if you were shooting the right part at the right time. UhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhgUhg for 5 minuets. Goodness.

 

[_Alkaline_]

I know you're being sarcastic but in the real world, you generally shoot for center mass. In video games because of the bullet sponge issue, you're pretty much forced to go for headshots.

It's kind of silly, unless someone's wearing body armor you should be able to neutralize them by shooting them in the chest. I wish video games were a little more realistic in this respect, it'd be nice to use real world tactics instead of decade old video game tactics.

Agreed, but some games do allow this - GRAW for instance is very reasonable with the amount of shots it takes to kill, and it's particularly balanced on Hard Mode since you also die in one or two shots. The COD series as well is good with this. Unfortunately it does appear to be more the exception than the rule.

 

[ConcealedBlaze]

You guys have missed the absolute worst offender. HALF-LIFE 2

Oh you aren't going to react to my shots at all even when I'm shooting you in the face? Oh but now all of a sudden you're dead. Awesome.

Keep in mind, HL 1/2 & Eps are my favorite "old school" shooters of all time, but damn the enemies are just bullet sponges.

 

[RockmanWhore]

Any online shooter?

I don't mind enemies with lots of HP per se. What really bugs me is when they don't react to bullets. I've been playing a bit of Doom 3 this week, and it's crazy how you can shoot a marine in the face, and that doesn't seem to bother him that much, he still shoots you like nothing happened. He just lost a lot of HP. In Uncharted or Killzone, baddies have a lot of HP too, but it's not a problem because whenever a bullet hits them, they react.

It really piss me off to see shooters with poor/no reactions to hits, hell, old games like Doom and Goldeneye did this kind of things well :/

 

[explodet]

I can forgive Borderlands because of the RPG element. That and the game is so fanciful to begin with.

It also helps if the sponges in this game absorb bullets that are element based they keep doing damage!

I don't know if it's the same in other games, I've been keeping my FPS'in limited to a few games.

 

[acevans2]

I can't believe Uncharted is getting mentioned so much. Compared to what I thought of first, it's nothing.

My biggest gripe in this category is with Ratchet & Clank. It only became a problem with me in the Future series, but I really didn't enjoy the tougher enemies or bosses that require you to just hop around while constantly unloading all the ammo you have to bring him down.

I remember playing it wishing for there to be a way to finish off an enemy quicker by removing some kind of armor from them with your wrench first, lowering the # of bullets required. Kind of lame example, but it just got pretty tedious dealing with sponges over and over.

 

[-viper-]

Halo series
Gears Of War
Resistance 2
Resident Evil 5

Bullet sponges fucking suck. You shoot them and they are not affected the slightest by incoming shots. Fuck that shit.

Halo 3 multiplayer really does piss me off too. It takes a WHOLE CLIP to kill someone.

BTW people are mentioning Uncharted? In single player it takes 3 pistol shots to kill someone. 1/2 for headshots.

 

[BobsRevenge]

Killzone 2. If you're not getting headshots you're fucked.

Also: The current emphasis on headshots in general is ruining the FPS genre. That and cover-mechanics.

 

[ultron87]

Halo 3 multiplayer really does piss me off too. It takes a WHOLE CLIP to kill someone.

You have tools beyond your guns!

 

[Somnid]

The selections in this thread are terrible.

Try Metroid Prime 3 (Armored Space Pirates) and Bioshock (Late Game Splicers).

 

[spandexmonkey]

Uncharted 2, perhaps as a credit to it's immersion, the bullet sponge nature of the enemies and hero really bugged me. It made me dread long combat sequences because I just didn't think they were that much fun. Fire a burst at a guy, he falls back behind cover. Gets back up, fire another burst, he spins behind cover. Wait... He's back, finally third burst he drops for good, yay now another 15 guys to play this with.
At least in Gears the enemy stayed put and you have satisfying squirts of blood as you try to pump enough lead into them.

Personally the fact everyone in APB was a bullet sponge ruined the game for me. I can play Global Agenda and I accept that people in power armor with shields can absorb a certain amount of fire. But in APB where we're all wearing normal clothes there's no reason my assault rifle takes a full clip to kill someone.

 

[BobsRevenge]

Borderlands, oh man.

Borderlands is an action rpg. You can't complain about bullet sponges in the genre. It is simply part of how the game must work in order to be what it is.

 

[Luigiv]

RE5. It's part of the reason the game's not as good as 4. You're guns just don't feel powerful enough.

Edit: Mind you, the absolute winner for Bullet Sponges would have to be Monster Hunter, though mind you the game is meant to be that way :lol.

 

[dark10x]

Few non-fans seem to grasp the fundamentals of Halo (plasma weaponry against shields, bullets against unshielded flesh, for example), and I've seen friends barrel around holding down the trigger on the Assault Rifle expecting everything to die, and then complaining when they don't.

But if you understand the mechanics and the weapons, the only bullet sponges are Hunters (by design) and the Halo 2 Brutes (really annoying). In multiplayer people die super fast if you know what you're doing.

Pretty much. You can take down people so fast in multiplayer they might wonder if you're actually cheating! It's all about using the right tools well.

 

[Proelite]

I like it when enemies take a long time to kill, provided that they show feedback when hit. My biggest problem with shooter these days is the decline of circle strafing. Stop and pop, cover mechanics, and slow moving iron sights, is what's killing fpses imo.

 

[Green Mamba]

The selections in this thread are terrible.

Try Metroid Prime 3 (Armored Space Pirates) and Bioshock (Late Game Splicers).

Nothing in Metroid Prime 3 is like this provided you use Hypermode on anything and everything you feel you need to kill (outside of small crawling enemies) like you're supposed to.

 

[Ducarmel]

I forgot the name of the game but it was last gen. The enemies would get in some animation sequence if you shot them in the leg or arm and in that animation sequence they were invincible you can empty a clip in them and they would not die because of that stupid animation they are in.

I think it was Black, I'm not sure though.

 

[Ceebs]

Same for TF2 multiplayer

What? This is probably one of the absolutely best balanced games out there in terms of bullet damage.

 

[DY_nasty]

Sin... ugh

 

[2San]

I don't have anything against bullet sponges sure it isn't realistic, but for some games it improves the gameplay(though this mostly the case for online shooters).

Though it's nice to have in singleplayer as well, some bosses would just die way to quick if a simple headshot would be enough to kill em.

 

[Guevara]

Nothing in Metroid Prime 3 is like this provided you use Hypermode on anything and everything you feel you need to kill (outside of small crawling enemies) like you're supposed to.

Aye - MP3 was too easy with Hypermode (aka Overkill). I tended to limit my time in Hypermode because the game went by too quickly. Echoes, now that is a game that could use Hypermode.

 

[Host Samurai]

I don't think it a big deal if the fodder are monsters or aliens. When against humans its pretty retarded, but at the same time its a video game. Games would be way too easy if the characters die after 1 hit.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Both Resistance games are sort of bad for this; it's not so much the number of bullets enemies take, it's the way that they don't react at all to being shot until they fall over dead.

 

[zorbsie]

I have to put my vote in for far Cry series and Crysis. I'll never know how a guy wearing a wife beater can take more than 2 shotgun blasts from close range and still live.

 

[RockmanWhore]

Few non-fans seem to grasp the fundamentals of Halo (plasma weaponry against shields, bullets against unshielded flesh, for example), and I've seen friends barrel around holding down the trigger on the Assault Rifle expecting everything to die, and then complaining when they don't.

But if you understand the mechanics and the weapons, the only bullet sponges are Hunters (by design) and the Halo 2 Brutes (really annoying). In multiplayer people die super fast if you know what you're doing.

Why don't they explain it in the game? I've played all 3 Halo and I never knew, I should check out Halo 3 again and give it a try :lol

 

[Zeliard]

Both Resistance games are sort of bad for this; it's not so much the number of bullets enemies take, it's the way that they don't react at all to being shot until they fall over dead.

Yeah this is a huge pet peeve of mine in certain modern shooters. Proper feedback is highly critical to a feel of solid gunplay.

 

[DonMigs85]

Lost Planet 2's bigger enemies and bosses sure can take a lot of punishment

 

[nolookjones]

kane and lynch 2, borderlands, uncharted 2, metro 2033 and singularity

 

[RockmanWhore]

Both Resistance games are sort of bad for this; it's not so much the number of bullets enemies take, it's the way that they don't react at all to being shot until they fall over dead.

That's not true at all in R2's SP, the regular chimera stop whatever they're doing whenever you shoot them. In coop they all are bullet sponge though, I hope they'll fix that in R3's coop, Left 4 Dead proved that it can work :lol

Here is a video of R2 to prove it :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r1ehHy0674

At every damn bullet, they react.

 

[Host Samurai]

Lost Planet 2's bigger enemies and bosses sure can take a lot of punishment

Thats why they are bosses. What do you expect? 2 shots for a giant dino to go down?

 

[Shake Appeal]

Halo 3 multiplayer really does piss me off too. It takes a WHOLE CLIP to kill someone.

The following things will kill a shielded enemy in an instant or close to it in Halo 3: spartan laser; rocket launcher; missile pod round; single shot from a tank, gauss hog, or banshee; sniper or beam rifle round to the head; shotgun; mauler with follow-up melee; brute shot with follow-up melee; sticky grenade; sword; gravity hammer; an accurate burst of needler.

The following things will kill an unshielded enemy in an instant: BR, carbine, or pistol shot to the head; sniper or beam rifle round anywhere on the body; a single melee; a single grenade; a burst of fire from almost any weapon at the appropriate range; anything exploding reasonably close to them.

The following things drop shields instantly: power drainer; overcharged plasma pistol burst; close range burst from a plasma rifle; splash damage from a grenade; mauler shot; brute shot; shotgun at range; a single sniper or beam rifle round anywhere; a single melee; anything exploding reasonably close to them; a few seconds of carefully sustained fire at the right range from any weapon.

Other things can take longer (the key to Halo multiplayer at a competitive level is four perfect shots with the BR, which takes a couple seconds), but not by much if you understand how and when to use them. If you take the time to learn how the game is played, and how shields work, Halo is not a game of bullet sponges. But most people try and play it like every other shooter, and fail.

 

[Forkball]

Black 1 PS2. I usually needed unload my full clip to kill one single person. It was ridicules. Uncharted was nothing compared to that but headshots in Uncharted was real fun.

This immediately came to mind. Too be fair, it looked like the baddies in Black were wearing a ton of armor, but these guys simply would not die. Those bullets on the cover of the game is how many you need just to kill one grunt.

 

[Mr. B Natural]

Gears of War 2 Horde Mode

Gears of War multiplayer

Halo Reach Beta if you bothered with mid-range combat.

Doom series, which I think invented this awful trend when it comes to fps's and bullet sponging.

 

[Backfoggen]

Stalker
Man if you just simply stroll towards that first bridge without any experience on the gunplay in this game you're fucked. I got my ass kicked so bad the ragdoll of my player spazzed around the place.

 

[Scythesurge]

Gears was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread.

Surprised at the mentions of Uncharted.

 

[Mr. B Natural]

I forgot the name of the game but it was last gen. The enemies would get in some animation sequence if you shot them in the leg or arm and in that animation sequence they were invincible you can empty a clip in them and they would not die because of that stupid animation they are in.

I think it was Black, I'm not sure though.

That reminds me, Goldeneye multiplayer for the N64 was very bullet spongey thanks to the good full second of invincibility the enemy had after each shot.

 

[Ninja-Matic]

Warhawk, hands down.

Pissed at 5 or 6 bullets? Try a clip and a half with LOCK ON.

Insanity.