Sup chillins? Today, we discuss gun sounds. This blog, by the way, is dedicated to Asparagus, because I feel bad for not going into the chatrooms and yes I will continue to make these stupid blogs LOL.

Anyway, what are we talking about? Ah, yes, gun sounds. Really it sounds like a minor detail, and it is, but I'm going to pick the nits out of this nitpick until nothing remains.

Gun sounds are in the same bucket o' fun as blood effects, it all helps the player's satisfaction for each kill, which once again will constitute their overall opinion of a game. What you need an example? Fine, take one. Half Life 2, heck even the original, had great sound designs. The generally weak pistol has, of course, a weak sound effect. A little *tick tick tick* to go along with the 25 mags to kill people. This is also why the double barrel blast of the shotgun sounds like God slamming his car door, or why the .44 revolver goes "PAKK!" instead of "*pew*" It's because those sexy people over at Valve know how to make each kill mean something the spray of blood, the *KAPOW* of the shotgun, the back-flipping of the ragdoll combine (we'll get to that later) makes it not only a kill, but a killGASM.

On the other more smelly side of things we have Halo. Halo I love you so much, no matter what people say of you. No matter what I say of you, you will always be mine *kiss* OH RIGHT THE BLOG. Yeah, Halo sounds like butt. Seriously, with exception of the Spartan Laser, you could probably mistake each gun for firing bits of rolled up newspaper by the sound they make. Lots of games do this (I'M LOOKING AT YOU BLOPS), they think the little things aren't important but they ARE, and then they screw up like Halo. The rocket launcher, which just sounds like it's breaking wind when you fire it, is the absolute nadir of the whole bunch.

So yeah, go play Half Life 2. Listen to the sound design. Then go play Halo. Listen to it. You'll see what I mean. Then go play Half Life 2 again. Then feel the urge to play Episode 1. Then Episode 2. Then since that's a cliffhanger I suppose you might as well go play OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT.

kbye