Personal Computing
The five coolest weapons in video games
Marek `Meph' Walkowiak | August 2007
1. Demon Mode: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Normally in this game you are a young warrior who has to fight orcs, the un-dead and other enemies with his swords, daggers and magic spells. In the course of the story, however, you become obsessed by a demon from whom you gain the ability to transform into an alien-like demon with claws and a deadly tail. Slowly you lose health in this mode, but you can recover it by killing enemies. In demon mode you get into a rage to kill everything and everyone you encounter. This demon atmosphere, the red vision, the transforming sound and the contrast to a players’ usual weapons make the demonic form the coolest way ever to kill enemies in a video game.
2. The AR2 Orb: Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
One of the weapons available in Half-Life 2’s multiplayer mode was the AR2. Basically a better machine gun, it was a quite good weapon. However, what made this weapon so special was its secondary fire mode. The player could shoot energy orbs that bounced off walls and killed enemies on contact. Even though they only lasted 2-3 seconds, the energy orbs could kill up to three enemies. The weapon was exceptionally useful in small rooms and tight corridors. You could also catch your opponents’ orbs with your gravity gun and shoot them back if you were fast enough. Also, the sound of an orb being launched and bouncing off walls contributed a lot to its coolness.
3. The Smart Disc: Aliens vs Predator 2
Alien vs Predator 2 innovated with its new types of weapon. The Predator’s ‘visions’ made the races more visible, depending on which vision was switched on, and the Smart Disc was a truly impressive weapon. In its basic use, the disc (which was only available for Predators) was a simple throw-able razor disc. However, the disc was very slow and you had to aim precisely to hit an enemy. The visions helped: having turned the Marine-vision on, you had an auto-lock on every Marine player with the disc. The same goes for every race/vision and it was nearly impossible to dodge an auto-locked Smart Disc unless you hid behind an obstacle. Even though this sounds really unfair, it was extremely hard to use if you were facing several opponents, especially from different races. That meant you had to quickly throw the disc, return it, switch visions and throw again. All in all it was a very powerful weapon – and even cooler thanks to its shuriken-like look.
4. The Redeemer: Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament contained a well-overpowered superweapon – the Redeemer. Only available in a few maps, the Redeemer has always been hard fought-over. The weapon launched a mighty rocket. Hitting any obstacle caused the missile to explode and burst into a detonation way in excess of normal rocket detonations. On some maps the explosion and its shockwave killed enemies in a quarter of the whole map. In the secondary fire mode you could remote control the missile and lead it into buildings where it would chase your opponents. Although the Redeemer was considered extremely unfair (and it was even restricted on some online servers), it is an extremely cool weapon and deserves fourth place.
5. The yo-yo: Star Tropics
Released 1990 for the NES, the adventure game Star Tropics had an unconventional main weapon: the protagonist’s primary attack was his yo-yo. With this weapon the player had to kill slugs, snakes, zombies and other enemies. Even though the yo-yo was rather weak (and later in the game was upgraded to a morning star), it’s so unconventional that it makes it to the number-five spot in our list of the coolest video game weapons.
Team Dignitas / Marek `Meph' Walkowiak
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