Ever since some ancient barbarian first figured out how to stab someone with a pointy stick, human beings have been constantly coming up with new and inventive ways to kill one another. This drive for creative destruction isn’t limited solely to the real world, obviously: we’ve designed some downright devastating methods with which we can inflict violence upon our foes.
These are the weapons that every gamer wants. They’re the reason many of us play – the reason so many of us scramble our way up the food chain: to bring to bear one of these devastating devices against our foes. Today, let’s commemorate some of the most memorable, most powerful weapons of mass destruction in gaming.
The BFG
We’ll start with one that’ll be immediately recognizable to long-time fans of the FPS: Doom’s BFG 9000. This deadly weapon fires massive balls of explosive plasma which carve through virtually everything in their path. Against lesser enemies, it’s more or less an instant kill; even bosses balk at the sight of it. It is the original power weapon, the grand-daddy of pretty much every other big gun in the history of video games.
Both its sheer destructive potential and its status in the halls of gaming legend have earned the BFG this spot on the list.
The Experimental MIRV
I have but one word for you, my friends: boom.
What’s better than a mini-nuke launcher? How about a launcher that fires eight mini-nukes at once? The Experimental MIRV is probably the closest anyone in the fallout universe is ever going to come to toting around a shoulder-mounted nuclear holocaust, and it’s just as likely to kill the wielder as it is the target. Trust me, don’t use this thing unless you’re at least a full football field (let’s make it two, just to be safe) away from your target.
The Gravity Gun
The gravity gun might not be as glamorous or dazzling as some of the other weaponry on this list, but it’s got some seriously terrifying potential. This is a weapon which can turn virtually any object into a deadly projectile. As long as there’s junk around, you’ll never run out of ammo (and given that you’re jaunting through a post-apocalyptic world, there will always be junk around). Not only that, it could potentially be used to turn pretty much anything – from missiles to crawler mines to turrets – against its original users.
That’s to say nothing of the powers it wields later in Half-Life 2, when the developers decide to essentially turn it into a handheld antimatter ray.
The Cerebral Bore
One of the more unique (and nevertheless terrible) weapons on the list, the Cerebral Bore is one of the defining pieces of equipment in the Turok games. It fires a small projectile which literally drills itself into the head of an opponent, after which it explodes, taking their skull with it. Maybe it can’t create as much widespread destruction as some of the other gear here, but it’s nevertheless a downright horrific weapon (and definitely one you wouldn’t want to see used on you.)
The Hammer of Dawn
The Hammer of Dawn technically isn’t a weapon – it’s an orbital WMD which fires down a massive beam of superheated flame which burns pretty much everything in its path. What you wield in the Gears of War titles is essentially just a target painter. Charge it up, and you can direct where the Hammer fires its beam. Of course, you can’t really create the highest level of destruction of which the Hammer is capable: to do that, you’d have to destroy yourself and the entire city around you.
Soul Calibur/Soul Edge
Two legendary blades, both of which could easily destroy entire armies? Sounds like they’re an ideal – if a touch archaic – entry to this list, no? To make matters worse, both weapons are actually sentient, and there’s just as good a chance you’ll end up having a bad day wielding one of them as you will on the receiving end. See, a lot of people like painting Soul Calibur and Soul Edge as good and evil. In actuality, they’re both beyond morality. The choice between Soul Calibur and Soul Edge ultimately boils down to whether you’d rather be enslaved or turned into a nightmarish abomination and driven completely insane. It’s honestly just a matter of order vs. chaos.
At the end of the day, both weapons can bring down whole kingdoms on their own.
The Fierce Deity’s Mask
It doesn’t matter what any of you say, you won’t be able to convince me that Majora’s Mask’s Fierce Deity’s Mask isn’t a weapon, and an extremely potent one at that. Essentially, wearing the mask causes you to embody the form and spirit of an ancient and powerful demigod; one whose power easily dwarfs that of even Majora, the game’s central antagonist.
I’m going to give you a bit of perspective, so you can understand what a big deal that is. Majora casually manipulates time and space, imprisons gods, drives people insane with the flick of a wrist, and plans to use its power to end the world in a fiery cataclysm by striking it with the moon. Seems pretty insane, no?
Can you think of any other weapons which caused your jaw to drop after seeing them fired?