Whenever you pull the trigger on a virtual firearm, have you ever wondered exactly how accurate its real life counterpart may be? Wonder no more. Developers Philippe Therein and Phil Bossant know exactly how realistic they are. The answer is: "sort of."

Why "sort of"? One word: balance. Philippe Therein is designer for Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360). Bossant  is executive producer for America's Army (PC, Xbox 360). Both of these guys know their stuff.

They also know of the need to balance all the factors that go into the game in order to make it as fun as possible. Some of these include console hardware limitations, preconceived notions, game play, and fun factors.

Therein and Bossant explained that while developers such as Ubisoft try to make weapons as close to the real life originals as possible, this really isn't a feasible thing to do. Some compromises are usually made with regard to firearm realism in games such as Rainbow Six Vegas 2, America's Army and others.

For example, real life Uzis are normally far more reliable and accurate than we usually give them credit for, thanks to what we've experienced with their video game counterparts. Buckshot pellets from shotguns, likewise, have less perforating power in real life.

The moral of the story? If realism is what you're after, the best thing to do would be to go to a real life shooting range and try out the weapons there. If armchair shooting and fun take precedence over realism for you, then FPS games are the way to go.