Gravity Gun
Half-Life 2 was a ground-breaking first-person shooter that innovated not only shooters, but games as a whole. It’s seamless integration of narrative and gameplay forever changed environmental storytelling. Logic-based physics puzzles made sense in the world, but easily the biggest contribution to gaming as a whole is the full-spectrum of just how fuckin’ awesome the Gravity Gun is in players’s hands.
The Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator is a tractor beam-like weapon that allows players to pick-up just about anything in the environment to use as a weapon. Run out of ammo? No need to fear. Pick up a loose toilet and let it rip. But easily, the best use of the gravity gun is in Ravenhold. Zombies are scary, but with giant saw-blades laying around and the gravity gun in hand – you’re in for a good time.
Experimental MIRV Launcher
A shotgun is a devastating close-range weapon that unleashes a wall of lead at whatever foe is unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of the gun. A nuclear missile is a catastrophic weapon of mass destruction meant for long-range use. Fallout 3 poses the profound question: What if we combined the two?
All this build-up, but what can this baby do? The MIRV looks like an ordinary Fat Man, but instead of firing a single nuke, it launches eight. Yes, you read that correctly – eight nukes. The force of this weapon is so great, that if you accidentally aim it anywhere near the ground, upon detonation it promises to send you high into orbit – or as high as the game”s skybox allows, which is roughly the size of Tenpenny Tower.
Fun Fact: MIRV is a military term for Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle. It’s a collection of nuclear weapons carried on a single intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It’s meant to strike several targets, or few targets multiple times and was developed in the 20th Century as a weapon system mean to take out an enemy country in a single missile attack before the opposing nation could respond.
Hyper Beam
Super Metroid originally released on the Super Nintendo in 1994. The game is universally praised for creating the exploration-platformer genre that would later go on to be named Metroid-Vania. Super Metroid capitalizes on the idea of loneliness. The player, as Samus Aran, is trapped on a derelict space colony. Alone and weak against an environment that want’s nothing more to open up Samus’ Power Armor like a can of tuna.
Roughly 95% of the game is spent narrowly scraping by enemy encounters, scrounging up enery to refill Samus’ health, and carefully placing missile shots so not to put any to waste. After surviving the horrors aboard the Ceres Space Colony, Samus is once again put face-to-brain with Mother Brain.
This time, Mother Brain has some new moves, and just before she can strike the killing blow against Samus, the baby Metroid Samus developed a close bond with sacrifices itself to protect her. The resulting explosion covers Samus in raw energy that alter’s her Power Suit, thus turning her into an unstoppable killing machine that will leave you shouting, “taste the rainbow,” to Mother Brain as you strike your mortal blow.
What makes the Hyper Beam so badass is it’s ability to make it feel like you turned the table on the game. Long gone are the days of scrounging for power ups and energy tanks to make it by. With the hyper beam, you are the one who sends enemies running for their lives. That is smart game design.
Knights of the Round
As is tradition in the Final Fantasy series, each game houses one “super weapon” that can be a real chore to get to. Once you acquire it, though, it turns you into an unstoppable killing machine. Final Fantasy VII is no different. In this game it takes the form of a summon materia known as the Knights of the Round.
Locked away on an island hidden on the world map, the only means of acquiring this power weapon is through an extensive course in Chocobo breeding. After a series of professional Chocobo races, failed breeding attempts, and tears, you finally earn a Gold Chocobo which allows you to traverse any thing on the world map – including the ocean.
Thankfully, all that time and gil spent on breeding giant birds pays off. This powerful spell summons the legendary knights of Arthurian legend who each come onto screen in a flashy show of skill and strength to deal massive damage over and over again. The entire scene plays out over the course of about a minute and a half. Suddenly the thought of all that time spent breeding big-ass birds doesn’t seem so bad when you realize you’re going to be casting this spell for the rest of the game.
The BFG9000
The Bio Force Gun is considered to be the original “ultimate” weapon. It’s name, derived from the underwhelming 2005 Doom movie, is first uttered by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and — wait a second, the Bio Force Gun? Seriously? Go the fan route and just own the name. “Big Fuckin’ Gun” is more in line with the spirit of the game. There’s also “Big Feckin’ Gun” or “Big Friggin’ Gun.” But anything other than the Bio Force Gun.
Doom is a game about literally going to hell to fight Cyber Demons, Arch Viles, and Spider Mastermind, so a gun worthy of your adversaries is more than necessary. The “Big Fucking Gun 9000” is a large, solid metal gun that fires large green balls of plasma that turns enemies into bloody chunks of gore. And after using it once, everything else will feel like a toy.
Scarab Gun
Load up Metropolis in Halo 2 or the Master Chief Collection and let the headaches begin. In essence, finding the Scarab Gun involves luring a Banshee into the city tunnels and riding the Banshee the second the game attempts to create a checkpoint at a key point somewhere along the tunnel. The biggest headaches come from attempting to keep the Banshee interested in you, and of course, keeping it alive.
But players patient enough to pull off this feat are rewarded greatly, albeit, shortly. After riding the Banshee out of the tunnel, you fly directly towards the city’s skyline. Tucked away safely on a rooftop, is what appears to be a totally normal plasma rifle. You know that walking super tank the Covenant unleashed throughout the level? The Scarab? This gun is the hand-held equivalent of that!
When fired, the Scarab Gun shoots giant plasma rounds that are effectively plasma grenades in machine gun form. Just be careful – it’s really easy to kill yourself with this weapon during normal use – it’s that powerful. Once you finally square-up against the real Scarab, you make quick work of the Covenant’s super weapon with this handheld behemoth. Enjoy it while you can, once the level’s finish, the gun is ripped away from your hands.
Golden Gun
It’s odd how one blurry mess of pixels that vaguely resemble a gun could be such a powerful memory for gamers everywhere. The Golden Gun, first introduced in Goldeneye, quickly became the staple weapon whenever you had a group of friends over and three additional N64 controllers. The resulting madness that ensued left players either scrambling for this mythic gun, or for their lives.
First making it’s iconic appearance in 1974 in the James Bond film, The Man With the Golden Gun, the weapon has been passed down from cinema to the world of gaming. With it, players could kill any unfortunate soul who found themselves in your cross-hair with a single shot. The resulting kill often led to the player on your left or right sucker-punching you out of frustration. That right there is power you can’t buy.
Hammer
What makes a weapon powerful? Is it how strong it is? How cool it makes you look while you use it? Or maybe it strikes fear into all who lay eyes on it? The correct answer is a healthy combination of all three. Cue: The Hammer from Super Smash Bros.
No other weapon in Smash Bros can turn the tides of a battle faster than the Hammer. As soon as it appears in the arena, every player stops what they’re doing and make a mad dash for the chance to wield this mighty weapon. The first player to make contact can smile as those weaklings attempting to procure the weapon for themselves are sent flying off the screen due to the Hammer’s might.
Megaman’s Hadouken
Dr.Light wasn’t content with turning Megaman into a killing machine. No, science could push the boundaries of the physical world further, turning Megaman X into the Reckoning of Robot Lords everywhere.
This mighty new weapon is the Hadouken. This is an obvious reference to Ryu’s Hadouken projectile move in Street Fighter, another Capcom game. This move, capable of slaying bosses with a single shot is complete with a high-pitched hadouken battle cry that Megaman X utters before wiping his enemy off the face of the world forever.
The Blue Shell
Much like the Hammer, the Blue Shell is a devastating weapon of mass destruction. At the simple press of a button, you can effectively cause someone to rage quit and quite possibly, end a Mario Kart career.
What makes the Blue Shell even more insidious is the algorithm at which the game hands them out to players other than the racer in first place. If you’re in first, you won’t be long. Rest assured – the blue shell is coming.
Dubstep Gun
Unleash the phat bass on the world around you, as simply being in the presence will force pedestrians and cars alike to dance to the tunes of your Dubstep Gun. That’s right – cars. Not only is the Dubstep Gun powerful, it also alters the laws of matter by giving cars hydraulics, even if they didn’t have them in the first place.
Upgrading the gun further will allow you to turn it’s normal wubs into explosive wubs. Growing tired of the same old dubstep? Equip the gun with a different costume, changing the beat and rhythm of the song, along with the weapons rate of fire and intensity of shots. Rule the dance floor first, and then the world with the Dubstep Gun.
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