Steam sale started today and many/most of the games mentioned are on sale. And for fairly cheap too since they’re mainly older titles.
Thanks for the heads-up! Steam is down for me right now (probably too busy), hopefully better luck in an hour or so.
Yeah, sales go live at noon CST so it’s usually pounded around that time but the prices are good throughout the weekend.
Going to go way back and suggest Marathon games. They were kind of the Doom game series for the Mac. The trilogy is available for free at Aleph One as an open source project. It has more story stuff than Doom or Quake, but it’s very light and skippable.
Also might be into for you is Halo, also by Bungee.
I remember the first as pretty light on story stuff.
On the other hand, I’m going to be not recommending the most recent Wolfenstein games. I just recently started them looking for a simple, straight forward shooter to play. And while I was enjoying the earlier levels, I was also going around stealthy and sneaky a lot because BJ has so little durability. And later levels turn enemies into bullet sponges. It’s not a bad game, but it might not be scratching your itch either. (Or me and my friend i was talking about it with are just that bad 
)
The first new Wolfenstein game (New Order) is best for run & gun shooting. But even that game takes an hour or so to really open up and get moving. I hate saying “Well, it gets better after…” since you shouldn’t have to wait for a game to get “fun” but New Order is a rare exception where I think it’s worth it.
New Colossus starts off with you being very weak and eventually gets better but never fully recaptures that “Here to kill Nazis” feeling from New Order, in my opinion. The Old Blood is essentially a stand-alone expansion for New Order and is all about shooting people without much story. I forget what the newest one with the twins is called but I wasn’t really feeling it with that one and, since I was playing it on Game Pass and didn’t have any money directly invested in it, gave up on it. Might be more fun co-op though since each of you can play a twin rather than just having your AI-controlled sister following you around.
They say the long-awaited XIII remake sucks 
But you can play the original.
It’s Wolfenstein: Youngblood. It’s a fairly short game, which I smashed through in relatively little time (30-ish hours?) with my wife. Absolutely brilliant coop, the sisters sass each other and get a bit geeky, and they have mechanisms where they can buff each other by shouting encouragement. Also if you shell out just a little more for the “deluxe edition” upgrade, you can have your coop partner play for free. It’s terrible solo, and brilliant coop.
But what I liked most is that Youngblood is relatively light-hearted for the most part, especially when compared to the other recent Wolfensteins.
(I’d like to put a vote against Halo, though. I played it recently. The extra-short executive version is that it felt like a console shooter moved to PC, and I didn’t greatly care for the experience at all.
Personally, I agree. It’s been years since I played Halo, but I didn’t really enjoy it. However, many people do/have, perhaps the sequels and pvp on xbox more, but it’s pretty much just gunplay and wrecking havok, and not much more to it which felt like a possibile interest for the OP
Wolfenstein I just wanted to offer a contrary opinion especially since I’m playing it currently already.
As said, I really appreciate the different opinions which help me form an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the games, better than ordinary reviews do. From what I read and saw of Halo back in the day was that it was primarily a multi-player experience, therefore I never considered it.
I’ve taken advantage of the sale to buy most of the games recommended here. Hope to like at least a few of them.
If you play a game for less than two hours within the first two weeks of purchase, you can refund it with Steam of you don’t like it. Not that you probably want to start six games at once but at least if the first game or two feels like a bad choice you can get your money back from them.
Good, didn’t know that. Frankly, for the discount during the sale I’ll probably pass it up: I don’t mind the game developers keeping the money for all the effort they make. Did a brief run of Bulletstorm and it looks like fun (and is graphically very impressive already). Also downloaded Doom (almost 50 Gb! I’m really out of the loop). I’m really grateful for all the recommendations, severall of these games were completely unknown to me.
B.T.W. it does appear as if most shooters are about soldier missions (or civilians getting caught up in fighting).The spy genre of Goldeneye and No one lives forever seems to be languishing, no?
Actually, not entirely. Keep an eye on “Operation Tango”, which looks like a revisit of “Clandestine”. Both games are asymmetrical coop: one person plays a spy in pure FPS, and the other plays a hacker taking down security systems for the spy.
Superhot seemed like a fun and original concept.
I remember the single-player Halo being OK, but it is not fresh in my mind.
Not a modern spy game but you might find Dishonored interesting.
Wow, it’s only three bucks now on sale.
I’m actually quite surprised by the consensus on the Halo games. I tried them about three times and gave them up, one of the few shooters I actively hated. The vehicles just annoyed me, and I felt as if I was firing peanuts at the enemies and were more likely to be drowning them in a pile of my ammo than hurting them from it.
I always assumed that I was the exception to the rule that everyone loved them. The critics seemed to, and it sold really really well. Was it just that they had really low standards for FPSs on the Xbox (where it mainly sold, I ran the PC versions)?
Superhot is pretty fun. To me it is more of a puzzle game than a FPS though. It’s more about decision-making than reflexes… “If I shoot the guy on the left can I throw my gun at the guy on the right before he can get to me…”
You’re no doubt full up on first person shooters by now but I just thought of an off-beat title that hasn’t been mentioned yet: The Darkness II. Fairly short with some great voice acting and a cell-shaded comic book style (the game was based off a comic) and some pretty violent gameplay. You’re a low level criminal who is host to a demon and exacting revenge against the crime mob who killed your girlfriend. In play, you can both shoot guns like any FPS and/or manifest the darkness into tendrils that grab people, tear their hearts out (and consume them for energy), hold up a car door as a shield, fling rebar to staple people to walls, etc. Probably not as gory as some modern stuff but nothing you’d want to play with kids or your mom watching.
Thanks, I am about 60% through the single-player campaign and it has been surprisingly good. Great recommendation.
Cool! I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
I actually like that:
- it has platforming, but very manageable
- it is very good at showing you where to go
The time-travel stuff is very well done and incorporated.