Clockwise from top left: Shovel Knight (Screenshot: Yacht Club Games), Super Mario Bros. 3 (Screenshot: Nintendo), Hitman (Image: IO Interactive), Mortal Kombat 11 (Image: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), Disco Elysium (Image: ZA/UM) Graphic: Karl Gustafson
There is nothing new in pointing out that a disproportionate number of video games focus on violence. After all, killing in games is very easy (and not just in a soft moral sense). It’s a simple and easy formula to implement: apply Bullet or Blade A to Enemy B, drop loot, repeat as needed until the game is complete.
Weapons are fascinating in games, however, because of the way they allow us to interact with the world (usually in a very “there’s a little less of that now” way, admittedly). They allow us to change things, alter things, affect things. If we are talking about guns and swords, these changes happen in a simple and binary way: stabbing, shooting, hitting, etc. But what about the other weapons? What about the less orthodox entries in the gaming arsenal?
That’s what we’re looking at here today: some of the most interesting weapons in all of gaming history that aren’t just a series of axes, spears, Uzis, or other simple implements of death. What lurks in the brush beyond your Super Shotguns or Master Swords?
Many of the entries on this list (presented in roughly chronological order of their first appearance) are as practical tools as they are for killing; quite a few care about movement, that other important way we interact with virtual worlds. But together they share a key element: they transform the basic assumptions about violence in games, taking the routine and making it, for lack of a better word, lighthearted. If games can never break their bond with killing, they can at least show a smidge of the unique interactive creativity that only the medium can possess.
Superball — Super Mario Land (1989)
Superball — Super Mario Land (1989)
Mario’s first Game Boy-based adventure saw the plucky plumber churn out a host of new hardware, taking to the seas and skies with a plane and a submarine to battle the forces of the strange alien Tatanga. But it was the humble Super Ball, which, once fired, bounced all over the screen in a way a boring old fireball never could, was the real game changer in 1989’s Super Mario Land. , and even a few fancy tricks, to Mario’s repertoire, Superball was apparently so good it was shelved for 30 years, making its triumphant reappearance as one of the most fun tools in the Super Mario Maker 2 arsenal in 2019. [William Hughes]
Power Pellet — Pac-Man (1980)
Power Pellet — Pac-Man (1980)
Why yes, we took this screenshot of Google’s playable Pac-Man doodle, thank you very much Screenshot: Google/Namco To see also : Most Whimsical Video Games.
The power pill in Namco’s 1980 Pac-Man arcade game and the 1982 sequel Ms. Pac-Man isn’t so much a weapon as it is something that turns your hungry protagonist into a weapon, a ferocious predator capable of devouring the colorful ghosts that haunt them. the map. They should be used strategically to clear a level, with the ideal maneuver being to hit one just as Blinky and Pinky are about to lock you in so you can turn around and eat them, ideally while yelling “the hunter becomes the hunted.” The euphoria is short lived so try to gobble up the ghosts and their dots as fast as possible and any other pills you can while you still have room to breathe then go to the next energy pill to start the process all over again. [Samantha Nelson]
Bubbles — Bubble Bobble (1986)
Bubbles — Bubble Bobble (1986)
Making his two reptilian heroes spit bubbles instead of fire was Fukio Mitsuji’s stroke of genius, a design decision that permeates every aspect of Taito’s 1986 action classic. The architecture of levels tests your ability to bounce around them, turning the traversal into a challenge, adding an almost puzzle-like element to the proceedings. Tactical dilemmas arise: immediately pounce on captured enemies so as not to risk them escaping, or catch them all before going in for the kill, with the goal of winning the top prize of 64,000 points for popping seven locked-up critters at once. To see also : Is DC League of Super-Pets on Amazon?. And even aesthetically, the shiny, clear balloons perfectly complement the adorable sprites and candy wrapper palette. Unsurprisingly, Bubble Bobble, one of the best platformers ever made, precipitated a wave of unorthodox weaponry into similarly genre-bending spiritual successors like Rainbow Islands and Snow Bros. [Alexander Chatziioannou]
The Bionic Arm — Bionic Commando (1987)
The Bionic Arm — Bionic Commando (1987)
One of two grappling hook-style weapons on this list, The Bionic Arm, wielded by the titular Bionic Commando, is more than just a great way to get around: it’s also a weapon, a tool, and, hey, a lover. (At least, if the bizarre plot reveals nearing the end of the 2009 franchise reboot game are to be taken seriously. To see also : Money Classic: Video Games You Can Actually Afford (1994).) For the most part, though, it’s a joy: one of those great “when all you have is a bionic arm, everything seems like one giant gap to get through,” those kinds of tools that help us remember that even a game with guns can be much more than a game with guns [William Hughes]
Kuribo’s Shoe — Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Kuribo’s Shoe — Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Most of Mario’s other power-ups transform him. They recolor his colors or give him new supernatural powers. Kuribo’s shoe, found in only one level of Super Mario Bros. 3, is just a large shoe. Mario wears it up to his neck, cowering over the edge like a little gremlin. It is a power that is not his, that he cannot possess and has to steal. So, briefly transform the game. Spikes are not obstacles, enemies offer more limited damage, you can jump forever with this big green shoe. Best and worst of all, it disappears when you finish a level. The kind of magic you can only hold onto for a moment. [Grace Benfell]
Marge’s Vacuum Cleaner — The Simpsons (1991)
Marge’s Vacuum Cleaner — The Simpsons (1991)
Konami’s coin-guzzling arcade beat’em-up lets up to four players lead the Simpsons on a violent quest to rescue Maggie from the clutches of Mr. Burns. Homer is an unassuming fighter, but the rest of the family members in the 1991 arcade game use unconventional weapons to dispatch Burns’s seemingly endless army of hired thugs. Bart’s skateboard doubles as a club, and Lisa attacks with a jump rope, but none of them are as dumb as the ever-diligent housewife Marge, who cleans the clocks with her vacuum cleaner. You have to admire the upper body strength that must be required to swing the bulky contraption so effectively through eight increasingly brutal stages. [Samantha Nelson]
Hookshot — The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past (1992)
Hookshot — The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past (1992)
Screenshot: The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past
While getting the Master Sword or Boomerang is nice in a Legend Of Zelda game, few elements guarantee a “yes, finally” like seeing Link pull the Hookshot out of a treasure chest. Basically, the item functions like Batman’s Grapple Gun, but since there are very few gargoyle-covered skyscrapers in Hyrule, Link mainly uses it to traverse small spaces or pull objects and enemies closer to him and his sword. Like the best elements of Zelda, it feels a bit unfairly sci-fi for another fantasy-style setting, which makes it feel like a bit of cheating. Does Ganon think he can conquer the world? Wait until an elf boy in a green hat appears with something that brings things closer! [Sam Barsanti]
Kung Lao’s Hat — Mortal Kombat II (1993)
Kung Lao’s Hat — Mortal Kombat II (1993)
Scorpion’s spear is the most iconic weapon in the Mortal Kombat series, but it’s not the best. You throw it at a guy’s chest, say “come here”, and that’s it. For a truly great and unorthodox Mortal Kombat weapon, there’s no better choice than the Shaolin Kung Lao warrior’s sharp-brimmed hat. You can use it as a circular saw, you can use it as a knife, it slices, dices, and it’s a stylish fashion statement. It even bounces like Captain America’s shield, and if that doesn’t work, the hat can teleport to Kung Lao’s head (he can even teleport to the hat, which is useful for controlling a fight or… leaving a party early) . ). [Sam Barsanti]
Translocator — Unreal Tournament (1999)
Translocator — Unreal Tournament (1999)
If anyone ever asks you about the versatility of the English language, just steer them toward “telefrag,” a term that originated in the world of first-person shooters and reached its apotheosis with the long-running Unreal Translocator. . Multiplayer shooter tournament series. A wrist-mounted weapon/tool that fires and then teleports the player to small disk-shaped beacons, the Translocator is a good way to quickly move around a map, but it’s a great way to assassinate an enemy, through teleportation of his body. disorderly within theirs. (Hence “telefrag”, one of the bloodiest and thickest trunks in all of gaming.) [William Hughes]
The Donkey Kong Hammer — Super Smash Bros. (1999)
The Donkey Kong Hammer — Super Smash Bros. (1999)
There’s a sound that Super Smash Bros. players have been taught to fear, and it goes something like this: Doo d-d-doo doo doo doo doo doo. That’s pretty much the jingle associated with the Hammer from Smash Bros., with the item and song coming from the original Donkey Kong game. As in its first appearance, the Hammer makes the user extremely powerful and effectively invincible (although Hammers sometimes break in Smash Bros., leaving you very vulnerable), but perhaps its most important utility is as a weapon of psychological warfare: a player with an unbroken Hammer can control the entire battlefield, if only for seven or eight seconds. [Sam Barsanti]
Your Musical Weapon — Rez (2001)
Your Musical Weapon — Rez (2001)
From a visual standpoint, the weapon your digital avatar wields as he makes his way through the computerized worlds of 2001’s Rez is almost nothing: a targeting reticle, an ascending hit counter, some rather fancy beams of light. . But sonically, it’s sublime: the little -tsk- when it locks onto enemies, the rising tones as the counter goes up, and then the musical sting as you unleash a reservoir of musical seeking energy. Every sound, designed to work with the pulsing backing track of whatever level you’re floating on. Almost unconsciously, you find yourself tuning into the rhythm, synchronizing your shots, not with your enemies’ patterns, but with the rhythm: the perfect achievement of the game’s synesthetic goals. [William Hughes]
Boxing Gloves Made Out Of Cars — The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (2005)
Boxing Gloves Made Out Of Cars — The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (2005)
Screenshot: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Let’s be honest, if you hit Start in a game titled The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, you won’t be surprised by a bit of overkill. Okay, for a gamma-irradiated behemoth who can casually grab a military tank by the mouth and send it hurtling toward a flying helicopter, snapping a sedan in half and using the resulting bits of metal, wiring, and faux leather as if they were gauntlets. a bit redundant – is bruce worried about sore knuckles or what? But at the same time it’s precisely that unnecessary extravagance that fits perfectly with the sense of unbridled force that the PS2 classic so persuasively conveys and justifies its existence in that game’s power trip. After all, if the Hulk wants to use your Ford Focus instead of boxing gloves, are you about to object? [Alexander Chatzioannou]
Portal Gun — Portal (2007)
Portal Gun — Portal (2007)
It’s easy to laugh or marvel at the various absurd uses of the Portal Gun, but the way it reflects is what has stuck with me. The second thing you do in Portal, after entering the titular door, is look at yourself through it. It is like a mirror, but so different from one, since you can see yourself looking away. It is a perspective that we will never have of our real bodies, despite the photographs. We’re not the first reviewers to notice this, but it’s still the deepest and most subtle observation in the game. After all the noise of mechanics and movement, we can’t get away from our bodies. [Grace Benfell]
Ripper — Dead Space (2008)
Ripper — Dead Space (2008)
Most of the weapons in Dead Space are apparently futuristic mining tools that turn out to be perfectly suited to chopping off the limbs of necromorph monsters. And if lopping off limbs is your goal, few things are more suitable than the Ripper, a weapon that launches spinning saw blades that hover a short distance from the user, or can be propelled lethally across the room. Imagine Doom’s chainsaw (or any chainsaw, really), but the dangerous part extends far enough to keep the bad guys from invading you. Or, you know, rocks and stuff. Because it’s supposed to be mining equipment and not something designed just to separate monsters from their limbs. He’s very, very good at it. [Sam Barsanti]
Remote Control Batarang — Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)
Remote Control Batarang — Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)
Batman has many wonderful toys in the Arkham series, such as the explosive gel (which he always applies in the form of a bat) and the two-way Line Launcher which is something only Batman would find useful. But none of them are as fun as the Remote Control Batarang, a physics-bending weapon that can be thrown and controlled in the air. Unlike the simple Batarang, which locks onto an enemy and only goes in one direction, the remote control version can be manually aimed directly at a bad guy’s butt, or piloted through ventilation mazes to solve puzzles. You can even speed it up and slow it down while spinning in the air, which, again, doesn’t make any sense. There’s no need; he is Batman. [Sam Barsanti]
Fus Ro Dah — The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Fus Ro Dah — The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
There are plenty of daggers, swords, axes, and other weapons to find, craft, and upgrade in Bethesda’s 2011 open world RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but one weapon you’ll always have with you is power. of your voice As the prophesied Last Dragonborn, your character is able to use Dragon Shouts, triggering magical effects by speaking words of power. The first one you’ll unlock following the main quest, and by far the most iconic in the game, is Fus Ro Dah, or Relentless Force, which allows you to knock enemies back, ideally throwing them off cliffs to their deaths. The ridiculous power has been relentlessly parodied, but never better than in the 2014 RPG South Park: The Stick of Truth, where the player’s stand-in Dragonborn must learn to harness the devastating power of his farts. [Samantha Nelson]
Evidence — Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (2011)
Evidence — Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (2011)
Of the many unlikely combatants in Marvel vs. Within the Capcom franchise, few are more unlikely than the alleged lawyer and general rule, Phoenix Wright, who spends his own (mostly text-based) games regularly getting beaten up both in and out of the courtroom. The brilliance of Phoenix’s appearance in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, however, is in the way his fighting game mirrors his arc in every instance of the base series: ineffective at first, but then, as it becomes collect more evidence, it becomes more and more powerful, until it’s time to spend all said evidence. to unleash the series’ signature “Turnabout”, allowing a lost cause to rise from the ashes (and unlocking the game’s most devastating Hyper Combo, “Ace Attorney”, in the process). [William Hughes]
A Shovel — Shovel Knight (2014)
A Shovel — Shovel Knight (2014)
Perhaps we should reclassify gardening as an extreme sport. Pitchforks have been used as video game weapons since at least the 1985 version of Friday The 13th; Shears has given us, in Clock Tower’s Scissorman, one of the most iconic antagonists in the medium; And, as anyone who’s ever played an adventure where you snoop around other people’s barns can attest, rakes can be dangerous of their own accord. Perhaps Shovel Knight was a way to highlight an unfairly overlooked farming implement? Whatever the impetus, Yacht Club Games has corrected the imbalance, equipping our hero with a multipurpose club in the process, one that he can also use to traverse (in the manner of a jumper, a la Scrooge McDuck’s staff from Capcom’s Ducktales, which would have fit perfectly on this list), defense (deflect enemy missiles), and more traditionally, digging for precious gems and nutritious carrots. [Alexander Chatzioannou]
Devil Daggers — Devil Daggers (2016)
Devil Daggers — Devil Daggers (2016)
The titular weapons in developer Sorath’s carefully crafted homage to Quake-esque shooters aren’t so much one unusual video game weapon as they are all distilled. The entire cacophony of rocket-propelled grenades and shotgun and machine gun fire honed to a knife edge. Each session of Devil Daggers sharpens you against that knife, slams into the ground to jump, or constantly fires daggers into the black abyss. Other than the demonic things you kill, the dagger and what it makes of you is all you see. Your body, with its fingers raised, is nothing more than an extension of this new horror, this seductive curse that drags you back to hell. [Grace Benfell]
Explosive Golf Ball — Hitman (2016)
Explosive Golf Ball — Hitman (2016)
The best kills in the Hitman series aren’t the ones Agent 47 executes himself: the garrote, the drowning in a toilet, you name it. They’re the ones that seem like weird twists of fate, where you’d never know 47 had been there if it weren’t for the naked thugs stuffed into dumpsters. To that end, the exploding golf ball is one of the best tools of the hitman trade. You can throw it like a grenade (if you’re not a true assassination artist), but the real joy is casually putting it in the spot of an actual golf ball belonging to your target 1 percent asshole as they get ready to fuck some balls. and then just… leaving. Pack your things, head to the door and wait for the boom. [Sam Barsanti]
The “Down With The Sickness” Card — Dropmix (2017)
The “Down With The Sickness” Card — Dropmix (2017)
Dropmix, the hugely fun card game created by the developers of Rock Band at Harmonix, is simply too cool for this world. Using an expensive cyberpunk board that plugs into your phone, you play cards that trigger different audio tracks that are then combined into a new song. So you can play a card with, for example, the drum beat from “The Mother We Share”, the strings from “Call Me Maybe”, the guitar from “Take Me Out” and the horn part from “Fireball” and dropmix. the technology is so good that it will sound pretty impressive. But then, there are special cards, the ones that will remix everything else around them to dominate the track, the biggest and most powerful of which is “Down With The Sickness” by Disturbed. Imagine having the power to instantly ruin any song with an “OOH AH AH AH AH”, and you’ll know the true destructive power of a video game. [Sam Barsanti]
A Common Window — Heat Signature (2017)
A Common Window — Heat Signature (2017)
Many of the “weapons” in Tom Francis’s deeply expressive spaceship heist simulator Heat Signature can double as tools, from exotic teleporters and hacking devices to the humble wrench. But none are deadlier or more fun to blow up than a single pane of glass that probably shouldn’t have been installed on a deep space ship in the first place. There are few moments in gaming more satisfying than seeing that a super-powered, armored Heat Sig guard has dropped your plucky astro-rogue, only to notice that they’re standing a few inches too close to a window, allowing you to launch the two of you into the air. empty with an accurate shot. You have a space suit and a remote control ship to come and get you; they don’t. Have a good death in a vacuum, you fool-fool. [William Hughes]
A Horrifying Necktie Shoved Into A Bottle Of Pure Alcohol — Disco Elysium (2020)
A Horrifying Necktie Shoved Into A Bottle Of Pure Alcohol — Disco Elysium (2020)
ZA/UM’s incredibly beautiful Disco Elysium is not, in general, a violent game. But it does contain some shocking moments of violence, and when they do happen, it always helps to have fashion on your side. Since the clumsy, drunken, amnesiac detective you play in DE has managed to lose his gun by the time the game starts, it’s entirely possible that you’ll arrive at the deadliest encounter in the game seemingly unarmed. But no man is truly defenseless when he has a flashy tie, one that whispers to you as you walk the war-torn streets of Revachol, encouraging you to (among other things) buy a bottle of near-pure booze to dip your tie in. to make an impromptu Molotov cocktail. Deployed at the right time, in the right way, this surreal, ridiculous and absurd object can save several lives, not unlike its offbeat but potentially heroic owner. [William Hughes]
