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[Paul Eres]

you could always give guns a "miss rate" and make it so that a bullet travels "instantly" (has an unlimited speed) but has a chance to miss, and that chance to miss is dependent on various factors, such as whether the target is moving, standing in shadows, the distance between the shooter and the target, and so on. that'd be more realistic

[Danmark]

In many games, you know you're being shot at when you hear the sonic booms of passing supersonic bullets.

For machine gun fire you can visualize tracer ammunition.

Since tracer rounds can be used with any weapon, it's not taking too much creative liberty for tracers to be used exclusively in a game.

[gunswordfist]

Have them pause and yell out 'halt' before they start firing.
Play Flashback for an example of a game that does what you're trying to do.  Another World too.
I like CoreXii's solution best.

...That reminds me, I need to get that game again.

you could always give guns a "miss rate" and make it so that a bullet travels "instantly" (has an unlimited speed) but has a chance to miss, and that chance to miss is dependent on various factors, such as whether the target is moving, standing in shadows, the distance between the shooter and the target, and so on. that'd be more realistic

Distance will most likely be factored in.

[Chromanoid]

have enemies shoot, but miss.

this and auto-cover-animations that show why the enemy is missing. Maybe you can introduce shouts and stuff to warn the player. Muzzleflash-symbols at the edge of the display area with an auto-cover reaction for sniper shots might help too. For machine gun fire you can visualize tracer ammunition.

What's auto cover.

I don't know if it's a real gaming term, when googling I found this: http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/editors/b/gijeffm_blog/archive/2010/01/22/blog-thats-not-right-stupid-things-in-video-games-auto-cover.aspx
What I meant is that the player character automatically ducks down or tries to dodge bullets by leaning at walls etc. when somebody fires at him. Maybe animations are convincing enough, a real cover system might lead to the problems mentioned in the article.