Gaming’s Best Guns

The time of the heavy hitters has come again. That’s right, the holiday season brings with it a tide of the blockbuster video games, and you know what that means? Shooters! Shooters out of and into every orifice that you can possibly imagine, waiting to unleash their tools of mass destruction upon your console or your PC.

Playing all of these recent titles really gets the noodle going, and it brought to mind visions of ordinance past, guns of yore, weapons that have entertained and slayed in the bygone days of gaming.

I wanted to take this opportunity to look at some of my favorite video game guns of all time. These range from the most fun to the most utilitarian to the most destructive that I can remember. They do have one thing in common, though. They all kick ass.

 

 

 

Counter-Strike: AK 47

Talk about a gun that you’d want to put a wedding ring on and take home to mama. The AK-47 in Counter-Strike remains one of my favorite video game weapons of all time because of how useful and freaking accurate it is if you know how to use it.

The first couple of bullets are some of the most accurate in the entire game, rewarding skilled gamers with the beloved headshot icon proudly displayed after your handle. There’s almost nothing in CS more satisfying than pulling off the successful 2-shot burst to the skull. Well, maybe the humiliation of the shank to the back. But that’s just cheap thrills, son.

 

 

 

Halo CE: Pistol

I know that the age old debate of console versus PC gaming explodes into incendiary proportions when you drop the four letter “H” word into the mix, but Halo CE’s M6D is the closest I have ever felt to PC level skilled shooting in a console game.

Nothing beats the classic battles that would happen at short, mid, and long ranges with this bad boy, forcing players to garner skill in a way that no console shooter has seen since. While I understand Bungie removing this weapon from future iterations of the franchise, I still think it’s Halo’s best (if overpowered) weapon, and it really took some brass balls to master the thing as your preferred vehicle of domination.

 

 

 

Team Fortress 2: The Spy Knife

Ok, it’s not a gun, but it might as well be one in this game. You may look at this little butterfly knife and say to yourself “qua”, but in truth, this weapon is one of the most deadly in the entire game, especially in the hands of a master, coaxing life out of his victims with but a deft stab and the slightest of treachery. Anything that can kill with one hit deserves to be regarded as one of the great damage dealers in gaming, and the Spy Knife fits the bill. Check this TF2 Spy video for an example of just how freaking effective this thing is when wielded by a savant.

 

 

 

Doom: BFG-9000

Ok. I know it’s lame, and I know it’s predictable. But let’s get real, people: any gun that kicks your own ass when you shoot it deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest weapons of all time.

Playing on a LAN after school with my friends always jumped into the ridiculous level whenever someone busted out the BFG. Soldiers would run for cover, aliens would explode, gren light would fill the screen, and then all was lost behind an explosion that rivaled a megaton bomb. All that was left was heaps of gooey dudes who may or may not have been your allies or enemies. And maybe even you. Really, did it matter at that point?

 

 

 

Gears of War: The Lancer

I can’t remember enjoying a kill as much in a video game as I did the first time I ran up to an enemy locst in Gears of War with the chainsaw revving. Seeing the crimson shower as the Lancer did its beautiful work made me erupt in laughter and unintelligible noises of awe. I couldn’t believe the stock default weapon was so fun to use. It was also good at short and long distances. And it just flat out ruled.

 

 

 

Contra Series: Spread Gun

One of the most coveted weapons in the series has always been the Spread gun, dropped from above in a bird shaped icon, a phoenix coming to bless you with its tears. Grabbing that “S” meant that you were going to kill steal all those bitches running at you, and there was nothing your teammate could do about it. Laugh maniacally while you mow down legions of baddies with your spreaded torrent of bullets, covering the screen like a fan of ownage.

 

 

 

Quake 2: Rail Gun

A teammate goes down in a CTF game, blasted into oblivion with but one shot. A twirling stream of particles is left in the wake of the shot, eliciting a similar reaction in every enemy team member- sheer terror. In continuing with the theme of dominating weapons that can kill in one hit, the Rail Gun from Quake 2 was truly a deadly instrument, and skilled users could play a concerto on it long into the hours of the night.

 

 

 

Crackdown: Firefly Rocket Launcher

This thing almost needs no description. It’s a rocket launcher, with heat-seeking missiles. Try juggling a car or a human with it. Just try it. It’ll be fun. For you, that is.

 

 

 

Half-Life 2: Gravity Gun

The gravity gun is maybe one of the coolest devices ever conceived of in a videogame. Utilizing crazy technology, Gordon Freeman wields this god gun to manipulate the environment and/or chunk things at unsuspecting enemies. Maybe the coolest sequence of the entire game is when it becomes the overpowered super gravity gun inside of the Citadel, transforming Freeman from a meek physicist into an all powerful alien-overlord-conquering mofo.

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So, that about sums up some of my favorite guns in all of video game-dom. Some honorable mentions go to the hyper beam from Super Metroid, the STINGER missiles in MGS, almost anything from Worms and the RCP90 from Goldeneye. What about you guys? What are your favorite guns in video games?