But in real life, you’re probably (rather painstakingly) loading magazines yourself, so you’re more familiar with how many rounds are in each one. Most video games skip such mundanities, which makes things a lot less tedious, but it does mean you’re not automatically familiar with the magazine capacity of the gun you’re using, especially when switching to a different gun. So it can be helpful to have a reminder of magazine capacity, at least.
Or, if you’ve picked up a gun from a recently deceased enemy… In real life, if you had time, you’d pull the mag and check to see how many rounds it had left. But few if any games have a mechanic allowing you to do that. (Maybe some more realistic VR ones?) So in lieu of that, it’s helpful to simply have a number on screen telling you that important information.
My favourite gun handling mechanics are currently found in into the radius 2. Loose bullets were annoying at first but really grew on me. Also the most fun I’ve had with shotguns and bolt action rifles in a game. The realization I could grab 2 mags, or loose rounds for the shotguns or bolt action in one hand was one of those moments where I just stopped to play with the mechanics. Now I’m just waiting for anyone to come up with a good feeling input for quad loading.
Many mags do have a little view windows to answer this question. For pistols this generally means removing the mag, for rifles, would involve turning the rifle on it’s side briefly.
This is actually an interesting debuff for pistols in a game, as the same action inherently takes longer for them.
Yeah, it’s really different for every gun, though, and some magazines don’t have witness holes (or transparent sections) at all, so the best you can do is to look in through the top of the mag and try to guess how many rows you can see – at least that will usually tell you whether there’s a lot of ammo or only a little in the mag.
But in real life, you’re probably (rather painstakingly) loading magazines yourself, so you’re more familiar with how many rounds are in each one. Most video games skip such mundanities, which makes things a lot less tedious, but it does mean you’re not automatically familiar with the magazine capacity of the gun you’re using, especially when switching to a different gun. So it can be helpful to have a reminder of magazine capacity, at least.
Or, if you’ve picked up a gun from a recently deceased enemy… In real life, if you had time, you’d pull the mag and check to see how many rounds it had left. But few if any games have a mechanic allowing you to do that. (Maybe some more realistic VR ones?) So in lieu of that, it’s helpful to simply have a number on screen telling you that important information.
My favourite gun handling mechanics are currently found in into the radius 2. Loose bullets were annoying at first but really grew on me. Also the most fun I’ve had with shotguns and bolt action rifles in a game. The realization I could grab 2 mags, or loose rounds for the shotguns or bolt action in one hand was one of those moments where I just stopped to play with the mechanics. Now I’m just waiting for anyone to come up with a good feeling input for quad loading.
Many mags do have a little view windows to answer this question. For pistols this generally means removing the mag, for rifles, would involve turning the rifle on it’s side briefly.
This is actually an interesting debuff for pistols in a game, as the same action inherently takes longer for them.
Yeah, it’s really different for every gun, though, and some magazines don’t have witness holes (or transparent sections) at all, so the best you can do is to look in through the top of the mag and try to guess how many rows you can see – at least that will usually tell you whether there’s a lot of ammo or only a little in the mag.