Standard FPS Guns

...the usual line-up of melee, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, overpowered exotic thing that you never get ammo for and only use in boss fights anyway...

—Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

An FPS may boast a variety of original weaponry with some fairly creative names, but when it comes right down to it, there are effectively less than twenty different weapons in every single FPS game ever made. This is mostly because FPS guns are mostly based off standard Real Life weapons, which aren't exactly bursting with variety. (note that this also applies to other FPS-like genres:)

• Knife: Melee attack used as a last resort. Sometimes, this is just a punch, kick and/or swipe with another weapon's butt, and an actual knife is upgraded to Chainsaw status. In order to compensate for its notorious uselessness, many newer games give it stealthy instant kills or encourage you to break stuff with it. Frequently it also has the ability to let you run faster while it is equipped, since you're not carrying anything heavy in your hand, and it's not like you're carrying anything else. Often used for Cherry Tapping.
  • Chainsaw: Melee weapon of outstanding power and coolness, but actual usefulness varies from game to game. While an actual chainsaw is the original, any melee weapon that's designed to compete with the rest of one's arsenal (even if it's your only one) fits the definition.
  • As more and more games incorporate melee attacks using guns, this is quickly becoming Discredited, except where Rule of Cool is concerned.
• Pistol: Weak beginning weapon with plentiful ammo. In many FPS games, often for balance purposes, the pistol will be more accurate and/or more lethal than an automatic weapon shooting the same (or more powerful) caliber.]] In many others, however, the pistol will be an Emergency Weapon, used only when you're out of ammo for everything else. Oftentimes in the latter situation, the pistol will be given unlimited ammo and take the place of the knife. Also tends to be the only weapon that can be silenced or usable underwater.
  • Revolver: Sometimes called a magnum, this is usually the larger, more powerful counterpart to the regular pistol, capable of killing most enemies in one or a few shots. Can alternatively be a more modern Hand Cannon like a Desert Eagle. Sometimes, it will function as a dinky Marksman Gun or even a sniper rifle in its own right.
  • Dual Pistols: An occasional upgrade to the otherwise weak pistol is to let you wield two of them and at least shoot faster.
• Shotgun: Deals a lot of damage up close, but nearly useless at long range (with a few exceptions - early games like Doom in particular) and slow to reload (although it almost always lets you 'top off' its ammo, even in games without One Bullet Clips). Even cooler when cut down to size.
  • Super Shotgun: Occasionally found as a more potent alternative to the basic shotgun. In this case, the basic shotgun will often avert Short-Range Shotgun by having a more realistic spread, while this weapon will play the trope straight. Normally either a double-barreled or an automatic shotgun. In old-school first-person shooters, both the single and double shotgun usually have enough ammo so you'll rarely or never run out.
• Automatic weapon: Shoots fast and has lots of ammo. While they range in size from tiny SMGs through assault rifles to hulking machine guns and gatling guns, they tend to be less accurate than a pistol and do less damage per slug no matter how large they are.
  • Old-school first-person shooters usually have at least one which shoots hitscan projectiles and one which shoots fast but non-hitscan projectiles. The classic-style automatic weapons can include
    • Nailgun: Rapid fire and powerful, but shoots relatively slow and visible projectiles.
    • Chaingun: A powerful chaingun or minigun. Chugs ammo like nothing else and usually takes a while to spin up, but absolutely devastates everything you point it at. Also tends to be heavy and recoil-prone. Often suffers accuracy issues.
    • Lightning Gun: Creates a focused, sustained lightning bolt of death. Powerful, but ammo will be scarce and incompatible with other weapons.
  • In attempts to follow guns more realistically, games may have their automatics follow this pattern:
    • Assault Rifle: Likely to not have mobility penalties or not very heavy ones, is rather balanced in usefulness, and may be the most plentiful weapon in the game.
    • Submachine Gun: Likely has no movement penalties, but suffer from range and magazine issues forcing them to be relied on only in closer ranges. If a shotgun is in the game, the shotgun will tend to beat the submachine gun within a certain range (in which they usually inflict a One-Hit Kill), and the submachine gun will likely beat the shotgun outside of that range.
    • Machine Gun: Will probably have movement penalties disallowing the user to run toward their enemy and shoot them, and reload slowly, but have large magazines and powerful stats which will allow their users to mow down enemies that run into their sights easily.
• Grenades: An indirect attack. Can be either thrown by hand or launched from a weapon. Pipe bombs, bundles of dynamite, etc. fall under this category. Grenades are also the most likely weapon to have side-effects (fire, gas, flashbang, cryo, EMP, etc.). Timed 'nades can often be "cooked" (held for a few seconds after pulling the pin) for better timing. If anything in the game has a physics simulation, it'll be these first, and ragdolls close after. Grenades are a prime way to deal with campers. Usually does Splash Damage.
  • Mines: Dropped where you are, or sometimes thrown to stick to walls. Explode messily. Most mines are proximity mines, which explode when an enemy gets close enough. Players can often trigger the explosions as well; in multiplayer, Hilarity Ensues, especially in places where players can't see where they go or can't stop. Other types include remote mines, which require the player to trigger the explosion via a handheld detonator, and timed mines which automatically detonate after a specified time. Hybrid timed mines even more with grenades and you get the Sticky Bomb, which bounces around until it touches an enemy, which it then sticks to. Usually does Splash Damage.
  • Demolition packs: like a mine, but always manual triggered, and ludicrously powerful. The weapon of choice for destroying parked vehicles or mission objectives.
  • Grenade Launcher: Same deal, but usually with better range and speed. A large gun that fires explosive shells. These rounds usually fly in an arc, giving them a limited range but allowing the player to hit enemies behind cover. Sometimes your grenades bounce off walls, allowing for kills around corners as well, though it also allows for occasional accidents where it bounces off a wall and ends up coming right back to you and blowing you up. May be the cheaper, more common alternative to the rocket launcher. Often appears as a secondary fire function for assault rifles. Usually does Splash Damage.
• Marksman Gun: While not as powerful as a full Sniper Rifle (though it usually has a simple scope) or rapid-fire as an Automatic, this selective fire gun has enough punch to kill in one headshot and groups tight enough to land them all in skilled hands, while its firing rate and mag size allow many consecutive kills. Most historical FPS fill this role with a semiautomatic rifle, such as the M1 Garand.
  • Crossbow: Distinguished by a slower projectile, and usually requires the player to compensate by aiming higher. Could be quieter than standard guns, able to fire a variety of different bolts such as non-lethal or elemental ones, or they could be more precise than guns. Also, you will almost never be able to recover ammo, and you have an abnormally high chance of wielding preposterously rare repeating crossbows. Longbows are reserved for a true Badass, usually with Native American influences.
• Sniper Rifle: A powerful rifle that needs careful aiming, but can kill from a great distance. Usually has a scope and/or a Laser Sight. Also tends to have limited ammo available. In more modern incarnations, to prevent a particularly good shot of a player from dominating everyone else far too easily, using a Sniper Rifle may leave the user extremely vulnerable to anything that they aren't aiming at already due to being slowed down or requiring it to get into position in some way leaving its user vunerable when not already prepared to fire, or slow fire rates making it unlikely to kill many players quickly at once where other guns can do so much more easily.
  • Rail Gun or Gauss Rifle: Capable of overpenetration, this weapon fires right through people, vehicles, and sometimes even walls. In the latter case, it usually comes with some way to see through walls. In short, an up-gunned Sniper Rifle or Marksman Gun. Typically leaves a brightly colored trail behind (caused by the sheer speed of the projectile ionizing the oxygen in air, which then converts into blueish ozone), exposing the shooter immediately upon firing. Its lack of stealth is a trade-off for its tremendous firepower.
• Rocket Launcher: A powerful weapon with limited ammunition. In most cases, it's basically a more accurate version of the Grenade, exploding on contact with solid surfaces or enemies. Do not fire in close quarters. Some games, however, let you Rocket Jump, and some encourage it (Team Fortress 2, for example). In manuals, it's common to warn a reader to not use it up close, even if that warning is not present for other weapons in the game, even if they can do more damage. Encouraged to be fired near the target's feet (rather than directly at his body) to deal splash damage. In more realistic games, rocket launcher can have one to few shots with relatively long reloading time but the projectiles are fast and leave a powerful explosion. In classic ones, it's possible to fire tens of rockets without needing to reload but in return, the rockets are relatively slow and have an explosion radius of about a meter.
  • Missile Launcher: A version of the Rocket Launcher with lock-on ability or manual guidance, sometimes useless against anything but vehicles.
• Flamethrower: A medium-range weapon that slowly kills foes by lighting them on fire. While Real Life military flamethrowers operate more like pneumatic squirtguns that propel an arcing stream of gluey napalm over 120 feet away, they are typically portrayed as atomizers that jet out a hazardously inaccurate cloud of burning aerosol for about 30 feet (this isn't their fault though, since they're just imitating Hollywood).
• Energy Gun: Can be charged before firing to increase its effect. Very often is just a cosmetic variation of one of the above, with increased damage and decreased ammunition availability. If any weapon in the game can recharge its own ammo over time or take unlimited total amount of ammo from map ("recharger" vs. "ammo box"), this is the one.
• BFG: Extremely slow, and chews up a lot of ammo (or has very little ammo to begin with,) but annihilates everybody in the room.
  • Target Designator: A signal flare, laser designator, homing beacon or other tool used to mark targets for air strikes, Kill Sat strikes, or other massive damage from above. Which is balanced by being completely useless indoors.
• Gimmicky Weapon: A peculiar weapon that operates more on the Rule of Funny than any practical usage. Like Duke Nukems shrink-ray and freeze-ray, Unreal Tournaments translocator and link gun, Doom 3s soul cube, Portals portal gun, Half-Life 2s gravity gun, Battlefield 2142s EMP grenades and countless Grappling Hook Pistols. Often helps in puzzle solving, sometimes to the extent of being a Magic Tool.
  • Utility Weapon: A gun which is mainly there for the afformentioned puzzle solving. Typical examples are barnacle "gun" in Opposing Force, portal gun in Portal and gravity gun in Half-Life 2.
• Secondary options: Simply put, things you can do with the weapon in addition to its primary fire and method of killing. Not to be confused with scopes, silencers attached or different kinds of (lethal) ammo, as it is still the same weapon being utilized in the same way, aided toward a certain role. Examples include grenade launcher (frequently to assault rifles) or bayonets attachments, or just plain hitting something with the weapon.
• Gun Turret: A very powerful, rapid-fire, high-accuracy weapon, usually with unlimited ammo. Would be perfect and utterly overpowered if it wasn't bolted down in a fixed location (sometimes facing a fixed direction only, giving it a limited area of fire). Expect More Dakka, maybe even a minigun. When you see this gun, prepare for a scripted ambush.
  • A recent trend in shooter games with superhuman protagonists (Halo 3, Gears of War, WH40k: Space Marine) is to give the player the option of tearing the turret off its stand and carrying it around. It maintains its power, fire rate and accuracy whilst becoming portable, but sacrifices its infinite ammo for a finite number of rounds in return. Alternatively, it can be unusable and slow down the player until properly set again (which always takes a lot of time).
  • A Sentry Gun is like the above, but it does the shooting without a player present. Both of these provide a valuable game balance, by letting a small number of defenders fixed in place cover an area against superior numbers, thus allowing the bulk of the team to take the field for offense.

Some games may try to spice things up by adding a few others, which will usually be modified versions or combinations of one of the above. Alternatively, they'll try to come off as original by giving genre thematic names to some of the weapons, like calling the Flamethrower a "Thermal Destroyer" or the Pistol a "Chi Blast"—but when it comes right down to it, it's really all the same. This is arguably taken to its extreme in the Time Splitters series, which has the same basic weapons with variations from different eras (for example there's the Tommy Gun, the Soviet S47, the SBP90 Machinegun and the Plasma Autorifle).

In the wake of Doom, almost every FPS had a shotgun or shotgun equivalent with a cool reload animation that was basically the standard weapon for most players. These days, however, shotguns are generally treated as specialist items that should only be used for close-up attacks on soft targets, since the pellets (shotguns almost never use slugs in computer games) spread out over much wider distances than they would in reality.

The traditional order of weapon inventory is: knife - pistol - shotgun - machinegun - grenades - rocket-launcher - various unusual weapons - BFG, with each new weapon typically rendering all others totally useless. In many shooters, especially older titles, you can easily carry every one of these weapons in your Hyperspace Arsenal. However, many games these days offer unique or limited inventories that make this system impossible.

Some FPS games will mix up the order of effectiveness. For instance, the pistol in Halo is arguably the most effective weapon in the game, despite it being the first weapon you receive. Similarly, the gravgun in Half-Life 2 is possibly the most useful weapon in the game but is one of the first you receive in Episodes One and Two. (In Half-Life 2 itself, it's the fifth of nine.) One other way of mixing things up (especially in multiplayer games, which tend to involve getting killed and respawning with the basic peashooter frequently) is to let you use two weak weapons to make one decent weapon.

Most class-based FPS games, such as Team Fortress 2 or Star Wars Battlefront have an interesting variation on Standard FPS Guns; character classes are given the roles of the weapons (as well as the weapons themselves). For example, in Team Fortress 2, the Pyro fulfills the flamethrower role and the Demoman is armed exclusively with grenades and mines.

Examples of Standard FPS Guns include:

Knives

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a knife that will instant-kill if you stealthily backstab an enemy. It also features the return of the good old boot.
• Doom has brass knuckles to fill this role. There is a pickup available that makes them insta-gib most enemies in one if not two hits. The red haze from said powerup only lasts about a minute but the insta-gibbing lasts until you begin the next level. Very abusable in levels with lots of low-level demons and zombies that have low health to begin with.
• Quake has an axe. Note that actually attacking any enemy with it, except the extremely weak piranhas, is a terrible idea. It is useful for discovering secret passages, though.
• Duke Nukem 3D used Duke's boots for this role; a secondary button was placed for a 'quick-kick'. Both could be used at the same time in the earliest version resulting in seeing both feet kick an enemy at the same time, even while running.
  • You could even run up to a frozen monster to perform an auto-quick-kick, and then use both 'manual' kicks, thus getting three feet on the screen!
  • Postal 2 also had a kick key. Rather weak, but useful for other purposes.
  • Speaking of Postal 2, there were three knife-type weapons used mostly for torturing innocent bystanders, the baton, the shovel, and the taser.
• Shadow Warrior's Lo Wang, when he's not using his sword, likes to break out the fists for some kung fu.
• Blood uses a pitchfork.
• Commandoes in Battlefield Heroes can use a knife - as opposed to other games, it is a legitimately useful weapon at close-range, with the class' Stealth ability making it easier to get in range with.
  • In Bad Company 2 the knife is almost exactly the same as in Modern Warfare 2 (albeit a little slower). It also allows you to collect the dogtags of your victims. In previous games of the series, the knife was almost completely useless as a weapon and only found some use in humiliating careless snipers.
• Redneck Rampage uses a crowbar.
• Heretic starts you with a staff.
• In Hexen, fighters get spiked gauntlets, and clerics get a mace.
• The crowbar in Half-Life is iconic and great for opening boxes.
  • Half-Life: Opposing Force had the wrench, would could be charged down for a secondary, slow, but powerful attack, and a knife which was weaker than the wrench but was much faster.
• In Counter-Strike, the knife is used for slashing foes that get too close and widely used for boosting speed.
• Halo was one of the first games to have the player use pistol-whipping or rifle-swinging as an alternative to an emergency weapon.
  • Reach gives everyone knives, but they're only used for extended Assassination kills.
• XIII. Also allows you to throw the knife.
• The combat blade in Warhawk (1995 video game) is an instant kill and doesn't give away your position on the map.
• The Spy in Team Fortress 2 is armed with a Butterfly Knife that like Wolfenstein above, instantly kills an enemy with a backstab. The rest of the characters each have a standard melee weapon, ranging from a metal baseball bat to a shovel to Good Old Fisticuffs.
• Far Cry (1 and 2) has the machete. It has an ability to instantly kill stunned, unaware, or downed enemies, and is very useful for breaking stuff, just like a real machete.
• The 2008 Turok has a knife which, although normally slow and useless, can be used to perform special instant-kill attacks by pressing the fire button whenever a special prompt flashes on screen.
  • The Original series had a different melee weapon per game - sometimes more than one. Dinosaur Hunter had a small knife, Seeds of Evil had two different bladed gauntlets, Shadow of Oblivion had a machete AND a tomahawk, and Rage Wars had a rocket-propelled warhammer.
• BioShock (series) Had a wrench. It was the first weapon you pick up and, arguably, with certain plasmids, the best weapon you'll get.
  • In the sequel, you get a drill in the single player mode, which also lets you bore into your enemies, and after learning a certain technique, perform a powerful dash attack. Meanwhile, in the multiplayer campaign, you have a wide assortment of skins for your melee weapon, among which are various types of pipes and wrenches, mallets, axes, clubs, both of the normal and golf variety, trophies, canes, knives, and cooking implements.
  • One more for the wrench: Prey. Note that in each of these, the wrench is specifically a large, red, pipe wrench.
  • System Shock 2 also features a wrench. A large an yellow one that's probably responsible for the wrench in Bioshock, what with that game essentially being System Shock 2 with a new setting.
• Serious Sam has a knife. It's surprisingly useful in the First Encounter for doing more damage per minute than double shotgun and having a faster rate. Its role is largely replaced by chainsaw in the Second Encounter though.
• Left 4 Dead permits the use of a melee attack no matter what weapon you have equipped. This attack deals little damage to zombies (unless you strike them before they're alerted to your presence), but shoves them away and stuns them, and frees any allies that have been snared by Special Infected. This is a very important ability, since you are somehow able to bash zombies WHILE reloading, and knocking back Boomers is an effective method to distance yourself so you can shoot them safely. In the sequel, you have the option of swapping your pistol for a dedicated melee weapon that kills regular zombies and most Specials in one hit.
• In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the knife is an invaluable offhand weapon that kills in one hit.
  • The One-Hit-Kill knife returns in Call Of Duty:World At War, with a spiffy new perspective on close combat neck-stabbing. Some weapons can even have bayonets on them to allow you to strike from farther away.
  • Modern Warfare 2 created the 'Commando' perk in multiplayer to allow you strike from farther away instead, as well as putting in the 'Tactical Knife' attachment for pistols, allowing you to hold your knife out with your pistol at the same time to melee attack faster. Combine those with the 'Lightweight' perk to make you move faster as well as 'Marathon' to sprint forever, and you have a Knife Nut class ready. Then add in nigh-impenetrable riot/ballistic shields...
• Quake III Arena's Gauntlet.
  • Unreal Championship 2 The Liandri Conflict has a large array of sharp and beaty things for each playable character, ranging from a cryogenic staff to massive robot fists to a pair of kama dripping with molten steel.
• Golden Eye 1997 has Bond using karate chops to dispatch enemies while unarmed. If you have the sniper rifle in your inventory, the unarmed setting is hitting enemies with the rifle butt, but it's not any stronger or better ranged.
• Resident Evil has a knife in the player's arsenal, allowing them to conserve the precious amounts of ammo they got for the more difficult enemies. This was continued in Resident Evil 5, though some argue that due to the abundance of ammo in the game, it is unnecessary.
  • Part 5 later gives you an option to purchase a stun baton like some enemies use, which can come in very handy at times.
• In Descent, it is technically possible to kill enemies by bumping into them. This is not good strategy.
• The knife Killzone is the insta-kill variety, it is, however, a standardly sized combat knife, meaning it has a more limited range. You also can Melee with your weapon, which is not always an Instant Kill.
• The very cool knuckle knife from Republic Commando.
• The Shishkebab in Fallout 3. Basically a sword...on fire! It actually does pretty good damage. There are other melee weapons, too, of similar or lesser capability.
• Outlaws (1997 video game): At first you have fists later you get a knifes which you can use to stab or throw at enemies.
• The granddaddy of all FPS's, Wolfenstein 3D, had a knife.
• Dark Forces in the first 2 games you have fists, in the third you get a "Stun baton"
• Tribes 2 has the Shocklance, an instant-kill for almost any enemy if you zap them in the back. (Usually used together with the cloak pack.)
• Perfect Dark had both your fists and a knife. Your fists could be used to disarm foes or knock them out if you didn't want to kill them, but the knife dealt better damage and could be thrown, which would poison any enemy it hit.
• Singularity gives you a knife to start with, but it is quickly replaced by the TMD.
• Bulletstorm lets you kick enemies. Damage is minimal (but can be upgraded in multiplayer), but it is otherwise extremely useful for setting up many "Skillshots".
• Killing Floor gives every player a dedicated combat knife. The machete and axe also fit here, and possibly the claymore and katana.

Chainsaws

• The original Doom and its successors have the original FPS chainsaw.
• Doom 64 was set in a world apparently inspired by Doom, as it gave the player a combat chainsaw with dual blades.
• The classic Chainsaw-like weapon (aside from the Chainsaw itself) would be Lightsabers in just about every Star Wars First- or Third-person game that uses them.
• The Ripper in Fallout.
  • The Auto-Axe, from The Pitt. It throws gibbed parts around!
• The Dragon's Tooth in Deus Ex is a nano-forged blade that is the most deadly weapon in the game, save for the anti-tank rockets.
  • The Dragon's Tooth in Deus Ex Invisible War was a katana, but wasn't better at all.
• The Energy Sword in Halo 2, as well as the Gravity Hammer in the third.
• The Laser Rapier in System Shock. The Laser Rapier in System Shock 2, however, is very emphatically not a Chainsaw.
  • But the Crystal Shard is.
• Heretic had Gauntlets of the Necromancer, which shoot green lightning at close range. A chainsaw in every way except appearance, and in Tome of Power mode, it can vampirically replenish health.
• The much-beloved Lancer's chainsaw bayonet. Instantly kills anything it's applied to.
• Clive Barker's Undying had a giant scythe known as the Scythe of the Celt, a major plot element that was the only weapon capable of killing the game's Quirky Miniboss Squad. It basically cut enemies in half with one strike, and had a secondary mode that drained enemy health and your mana.
• Rise of the Triad had the Excalibat, an enchanted slugger that could not only send foes (and incoming projectiles) flying, but could also send out a 180-degree spread of exploding baseballs.
• Shadow Warrior, in addition to Lo Wang's rapid-fire fists, also had a sword that could deliver the Diagonal Cut to just about any of the weaker enemies.
• Serious Sam - The Second Encounter has a chainsaw which is very useful against some types of enemies. It is replaced by circular saw in Serious Sam II.
• The melee options in Team Fortress 2 do a lot of damage and have a high chance of scoring a Critical Hit, making them better than a lot of the guns in close-quarters. The only exception is the spy, whose knife doesn't do much damage and cannot critical, in order to balance its One-Hit Kill Back Stab ability.
  • The unlockable melee weapons have special abilities which can make them extremely powerful. The Pyro's unlockable axe in particular; it does a guaranteed critical hit as long as the target is on fire, killing many classes outright.
• Tribes: Vengeance has a sort of wristblade as an Emergency Weapon, and Tribes Ascend gives everyone a sword for quick melee strikes. Tribes 2, by contrast, has a Shock Lance that's more of a short-ranged lightning rod.
• Red Faction: Guerrilla has the sledgehammer. Always useful for knocking down buildings without resorting to explosives, and downs enemies in one shot. In multiplayer, a very useful weapon when combined with either Fleetfoot or Stealth pack, and the most effective way to kill players with Heal pack. You can also hammer enemies with melee attack from your gun, but it's much less powerful.
• Unreal Tournament's Impact Hammer and Shieldgun are incredibly powerful, balanced by a lengthy charge-up time and the obvious range limit. The original also had an actual chainsaw.
• The Ratchet and Clank series has had a few, on both ends of the spectrum. The third game's Plasma Whip was nigh worthless, with piddling damage and incredibly limited ammo, while the fourth game's Scorpion Flail was a much more satisfying weapon with more power and some splash damage on impact. Tools of Destruction featured two: the Plasma Whip (which, while only about twice the power of your pistol/automatic, both chained damage and had a range comparable to game's grenade launcher) and the Razor Claws (which had about the same range as the wrench, but second only to the rocket launcher and BFGs in terms of damage).
• In all of the Dark Forces games except for the first you get a lightsaber.
• The titular Painkiller is a sort of clockwork glove which opens up into a spinning fan-like blade array when you activate it. It literally MINCES any enemy you introduce it to (as well as stun-locking them as well), sending limbs flying everywhere. Plus you can shoot it out in front of you. Gloriously good gory fun which is useful right up to the end of the game.
• Singularity has the TMD, which on top of being a rather significant Plot Coupon, can inflict lots of close-range damage.
• Killing Floor has an actual chainsaw. It stops most weaker Specimens in their tracks, but oddly does reduced damage when applied to their heads.

Unlimited-ammo pistols

• Rise of the Triad starts the player out with one of these. The game's machine guns had unlimited ammo, too.
• Quake II and Quake IV had the Blaster.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force and Elite Force II had the Phaser.
• In Hexen, the Mage class gets the Sapphire Wand.
• Left 4 Dead starts you off with a pistol that has effectively unlimited ammo. Although you have to reload every 15 shots, you never run out of magazines for it. When you find another pistol, you can dual-wield them to fire shots twice as fast. The only downsides are it takes longer to reload dual pistols, and they're less accurate.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 adds the option of taking a Desert Eagle over a pair of pistols or a melee weapon. While it only holds 8 rounds in the magazine, it's massively powerful and kills zombies in one hit. It also takes slightly longer to reload than a single pistol.
• Present in Serious Sam series where it's the weakest weapon in the game in terms of damage.
• Just Cause
• Battlefield Heroes has pistols for Soldiers and Commandoes that are unlimited in magazines, but all other weapons in the game do also anyway. Pistols are less Emergency Weapons in this game as they have variants for close, mid and far range, all of which do respectable damage in their range, though they generally require being used with another weapon to assuredly finish off the target. The close-range one fires in bursts.
• Unreal's Dispersion Pistol.
  • Unreal Championship 2 The Liandri Conflict gives each playable faction their own variant, most of which are dual-wielded pistols because everyone in the Tournament is a badass.
• The sidearms in Killzone 2 require reloading, but you have infinite magazines.
• The Engineer's pistol in Team Fortress 2 deserves a mention; it doesn't have unlimited ammo but the Engie carries far more bullets than you'll ever need, not to mention that he can build a dispenser to replenish his own ammo.
• The base pistol in Battlefront2, carried by almost every class, has unlimited ammo, takes three or four headshots to down most enemies, and has an overheat bar.
• Tribes 2 has the Blaster. Justified in that it's powered by your suit energy.
• In Borderlands it's possible to find pistols that regenerate ammo or don't use up any.
• Blake Stone gets the Auto-Charge Pistol, which has a long recharge time but is also silenced.
• In Frontlines: Fuel of War, the multiplayer pistol had unlimited ammo, but the campaign version didn't.

Pistols that don't have unlimited ammo

• Present in Wolfenstein 3D
• Present in every Doom game.
• In Duke Nukem 3D, the pistol was almost like a machine gun with a very small magazine due to its rate of fire.
• A revolver is used in Redneck Rampage
• In Half-Life, Gordon Freeman uses a Glock 17 in the first game, and a Heckler & Koch USP Match in the sequel.
  • In both games he also uses a generic magnum revolver.
  • In the expansion pack for the first game Opposing Force you get a Desert eagle.
• The first Halo's pistol was rather powerful and accurate, and even included a sniper scope. The scope and most of its damage was removed in Halo 2. Cue rioting. The scope returns in Halo 3: ODST, and Reach raises the damage. Cue cheering.
• Heretic's pistol is called the Elven Wand, which is mainly usable against the weakest enemies and gets slightly more powerful when used with a Tome of Power.
• The Scout and Engineer of Team Fortress 2 have pistols as secondary weapon; the Engineer has so many bullets (212) they may as well be infinite but the Scout has so few (48) it's one of the weapons most likely to run out of ammo. They are programed as an automatic weapon due to the speed at which the characters can pull the trigger. The Spy's only projectile weapon is a revolver that is quite accurate.
• Three variations in Gears of War, with the semiauto standard-issue Snub Pistol, the Boltok Pistol, and the Gorgon pistol, which fits under automatics.
• The Enforcer in Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament III, default weapon at spawn, and rather powerful if dual wielded.
  • Unreal Tournament 2004's Assault Rifle may qualify here since it replaces the Enforcer and is equally pitiful, but can also be dual-wielded.
  • The Automag in Videogame/Unreal, the precursor to the Enforcer- though it couldn't be dual wielded.
• Resistance 2's magnum is quite devastating, just like Halo 1's pistol. Bonus points for being able to explode bullets once they're implanted in enemies.
• Can be wielded akimbo in the Primal Hunt expansion pack for Aliens vs. Predator 2.
• Several versions exist in each of the Call of Duty games. Call of Duty 4, for example, offers the M9 Beretta, the M1911 .45, the USP .45, and the Desert Eagle .50 AE
• Golden Eye 1997 had Bond's signature PPK (called a PP 7) and a TT-33 Tokarev (called a DD-44 Dostovei). For more powerful weapons, Natalya's Cougar Magnum and the infamous Golden Gun are also available.
• The Warp Pistol in The Conduit is nominally an alien version of the pistol, but its shots can be bounced off walls to hit hidden targets. It can also be charged.
• The pistol from Crysis (and full-auto SMG in Warhead). Dual wieldable and upgradeable with silencer and flashlight/laser sight.
• Descent, the regular laser. Upgradable to four power levels, six in the sequel, plus the equivalent of twin pistols, the Quad Laser.
• Ratchet and Clank has a new one in every game, gradually veering into "automatic weapon" territory.
• In Outlaws (1997 video game) you get a revolver.
• In the first 3 Dark Forces games, you get Kyle's trademark weapon, the Bryar pistol.
  • In the fourth game you get a DL-44 pistol similar to the one used by Han Solo.
• BioShock (series) has a revolver.
• The award pistol in Star Wars Battlefront 2 does as much damage as a normal sniper rifle and has six sixteen-shot magazines.
• Blood has a flare gun.
• Blake Stone has the Slow-Fire Protector.
• Perfect Dark has the Falcon 2, which can be fitted with a scope or silenced, and the rather weak MagSec. For alien weapons, there is the Phoenix (laser pistol with a setting for explosive rounds) and the Mauler (single or charged-up shot).
• Singularity has a revolver.
• Darkwatch has the Redeemer and the Wargivers, a large revolver and a pair of smaller ones, respectively. The Redeemer fired slowly at first, but if the trigger was held down the protagonist would begin to fan it's hammer, firing much more quickly but with reduced accuracy. Both have blades. There's also an ordinary six-shooter only used in the opening level.
• Killing Floor starts every player with a Beretta M9. You can dual-wield them, as well as the more powerful .44 Magnum and Desert Eagle Hand Cannon.

Shotguns

• Doom had one of the first shotguns, but Doom 2's super shotgun and Doom 3's shotgun more closely matched the gameplay described. The original was longer-range, faster, and weaker in comparison.
• Garden-variety, sawed-off, and double-barrel shotguns also appear in Duke Nukem 3D, Redneck Rampage, Blood, all of the Quake games, the Call of Duty games, the Aliens vs. Predator games, Halo, F.E.A.R., Singularity...
• Shadow Warrior has a four-barreled rotary shotgun that fires either single shots or four-shot bursts. Awesome.
• In Team Fortress 2, the shotgun is the default secondary weapon of the Soldier, Pyro and Heavy, and the primary weapon of the Engineer. It has comparatively tight spread, but only moderate damage. The Scout has a Sawn Off Shotgun as his primary weapon, which is lethal at point blank but with much higher spread.
• Battlefield Heroes' shotguns can be used by Soldiers and Gunners and have designations for close, mid and far range, having a larger magazine and fire rate for closer ranges, or better accuracy for farther ranges. All do the most damage at their made-for range.
• Both STALKER games contain a rare case where the shotguns (there are four different ones, ranging from break-open to semi-automatic) do have the option of firing slugs.
• The Stasis Weapon from Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force is a fairly unique variation. Its primary fire mode was an energy pulse that was quite wide like a shotgun blast, but also coherent so it didn't spread out no matter how far the target was, so if it hit it was always for full damage. It also had a somewhat more typical alternate-fire that shot a spread of five beams. The Assault Rifle in Elite Force 2 fills this niche more accurately (and was apparently named by someone who had no idea what "assault rifle" means in real life)
• Flak Cannon: A variation introduced by Unreal that fires shards of molten shrapnel, which can be bounced off walls and around corners.
  • Secondary fire allows it to double as a grenade launcher.
    • Sadly, Jedi Outcast took a perfectly good fragmentation missile launcher and turned it into a direct copy of Unreal's Flak Cannon... while removing the spectacular gibbage that was all the fun of it.
• Halo had the shotgun, and then a smaller, weaker, dual weldable "Mauler" shotgun.
• Marathon had you dual-wielding double-barreled shotguns, despite the obvious challenge reloading should present.
  • As did Time Splitters 2.
    • And a recent example, Modern Warfare 2 has you dual wielding the same. We don't get to see how to reload them, as the animation is just lowering the gun below the screen for a bit.
• Every Turok game has a Shotgun, but Seeds of Evil gave us the Shredder, which is some unholy hybrid of lightning-gun and Flak Cannon. Excellent for clearing corridors.
• Heretic. See below under "Crossbows".
• Blood has a double-barreled shotgun. You can fire each barrel in rapid succession or fire both at once, but then the gun has to be reloaded.
• The Resident Evil games have always had shotguns and mostly followed the pattern of making them best used as melee weapons that use ammo, but the more recent games have begun to move away from this; in Resident Evil 4, one of the shotguns can be upgraded to be more effective at longer ranges. Also, in Resident Evil 5, one shotgun is as useful as any other non-scoped gun at long range since one of the pellets will always hit where the laser is pointed. (And I'm is sure that that shotgun actually gets STRONGER when used at long range, since I always seems to kill enemies I hit in the head at long range with that perfectly accurate pellet, but enemies shot in the face at close range have a tendency to get back up.)
  • This is because 'sniper-type' enemies in 4 and 5 were generally much weaker than the mooks who would get up close and personal, and would go down in fewer shots as a result.
• Ratchet and Clank has a new shotgun in each installment, and since the introduction of weapon upgrades has included such wondrous devices as one that shoots homing lava and one that fires exploding corrosive icicles.
• Both Half-Life games have the SPAS-12 shotgun (unlike the real SPAS-12, it only fires in pump-action mode and only loads 6 shells).
• Outlaws (1997 video game) has three shotguns, single barreled, double barreled, and sawed-off double barreled.
• Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy have a "flechette launcher" which is basically a shotgun.
• Battlefront 2 has the normal shotgun, carried by the Engineer class, which shoots a spread of green laser beams and is only dangerous up close. The award shotgun shoots purple beams and has a much tighter spread. Curiously, the V-wing bomber on space maps has a starfighter-sized version.
• BioShock (series) and BioShock 2 both include shotguns. The first one has special electric buckshot ammo, and the sequel's double-barreled shotgun can be loaded with very powerful slugs.
• Ghostbusters Shock Blast acts very shotgun-like.
• Quake I has two shotguns: a single-barreled version which is weaker but more accurate, and a double-barreled version which is powerful at close range but very inaccurate at long range.
• Video Game/Goldeneye1997 has two shotguns, but the differences between them are mostly cosmetic. The Automatic Shotgun (actually semi-automatic) has a magazine of 5 and deals the most damage per hit of any weapon but the Golden Gun. The Shotgun (unlockable with cheats) is the same thing, but noisier.
• Perfect Dark has a shotgun with a magazine of 9 which can be set on single or double blast. It's powerful, but suffers from a very long reload time (the animation is putting each individual shell into the gun one by one).
• Video Game/Rage has a shotgun that can be loaded with a variety of rounds, including slugs and "Pop Rockets", which turn the weapon into a weaker rocket launcher.
• Darkwatch has a quad-barreled, pump-action shotgun that fires two rounds with each shot. It's also bladed.
• Killing Floor has four different shotguns- a Benelli M3 pump-action, double-barreled hunting, Benelli M4 semi-automatic and the fearsome AA 12 automatic.

Automatics

• Wolfenstein 3D has two of these: a machine gun and a "chaingun" (which was really a minigun)
• Doom and Doom II has the chaingun (really a minigun) and plasma gun.
• Doom 3 has both of the above, plus the machine gun.
• Heretic has the Dragon Claw, the Hellstaff, and the Firemace.
• The machine guns in Rise of the Triad had unlimited ammo.
• Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem Forever used a triple-barreled Nordenfelt-type machine gun called the "Ripper".
• Machine/nail/plasma/lightning guns exist in all of the Quake games in various forms. Quake had the nailgun, super nailgun, and lightning gun; Quake II had the machine gun, chaingun (really a minigun), and hyperblaster; Quake III Arena had the machine gun, plasma gun, and lightning gun; and Quake IV had the machine gun, nailgun, hyperblaster, and lightning gun.
• The Unreal franchise has numerous machine guns, miniguns, plasma guns, and crystal-shard guns. In particular, the Pulse/Link Guns have a Plasma Gun-style primary fire and a lightning gun-style secondary. A kill from the secondary will reduce the victim to a charred skeleton.
• Blood has a Tommy gun. Blood 2: The Chosen has Uzis and M16s, the first of which can be dual-wielded.
• Numerous weapons from Halo.
• Submachine guns for Soldiers and machine guns for Gunners in Battlefield Heroes have close, mid and far range designations, doing more damage in the range the gun is made for, as well as having a larger magazine and faster fire rate for closer ranges, or better accuracy for farther rangers.
• There are a few Automatic weapons in the Half-Life series:
  • The first game has an MP5 and the Tau Cannon.
  • One well-known example of a lightning gun is the Gluon Gun (or EGON) from Half-Life, itself modeled after the Proton Packs in Ghostbusters.
    • The expansion Opposing Force has an M249 SAW.
  • The MP7 and Pulse Rifle from Half-Life 2. Secondary fires match other tropes more closely.
• In Team Fortress 2, The Sniper's secondary weapon is a "grease gun"-style submachinegun.
  • Notably there is no assault rifle in TF2 for Competitive Balance reasons.
• The Mulcher of Gears of War 2 is a minigun that has to be set down and braced for anything resembling accuracy, while the Lancer of both games is the all-purpose automatic, and also your default weapon.
  • And it has a chainsaw bayonet built into it.
• Most of the guns in Halo are automatic; but Halo 3 added some overkill with the ability to tear chaingun turrets off their tripod and go to town (It slows you down and runs out of ammo fast, but damn it looks awesome).
• As can be expected, every WW 2 game in existence features at least four of these. The Tommygun, MP-40, and Sturmgewehr-44 are the most commonly seen.
  • And don't forget the PPSh-41 'burp gun'.
• Call of Duty 4 features about twenty representatives from this group.
• The FY-71 and SCAR from Crysis fit this niche.
• The Scavenger Rifle in Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force and the Enhanced Compression Rifle in Elite Force 2 fulfill the "assault rifle" niche, while the Tetryon Pulse Disruptor in Elite Force and the Tetryon Gatling Gun in Elite Force 2 fulfill the "minigun" role. The Arc Welder in the first game fills the "lightning gun" niche.
  • The basic Phaser also behaved like a lightning gun, though in terms of power and role, it was a {weapon of last resort.
• Aliens vs. Predator 2 has the pulse rifle and "smartgun", as seen in the movies, and a 3-barreled minigun, which was not seen in any movies.
• American McGee's Alice sports a magical deck of razor-sharp cards that track their targets.
• The alt-fire of the Drakk laser in Unreal II the Awakening is like this, but also slow like a flamethrower.
• The Electro (/Driver) from Painkiller also arcs toward enemies.
• Dark Forces and its sequels include the comically inaccurate E11 Stormtrooper Rifle, prototype repeater guns, and a heavy repeater.
• Descent has the Vulcan and Gauss cannons, the shots of which travel much faster than laser beams.
• Shadow Warrior let the player operate one or two Uzis.
• BioShock (series): You get a Tommy gun.
  • The sequel has a Gatling gun.
• Star Wars Battlefront 2 has the standard base class for every faction with an assault rifle. The award version shoots pulses of three bolts instead of being full-auto, but two hits will down anything short of a Wookie. The Clone Commander and the Destroyer Droid also have specialized high rate of fire unlimited ammo guns.
• Blake Stone has both the Rapid Assault Weapon and the Dual Neutron Blaster, analogous to the MP 40 and minigun from Wolfenstein 3D.
• Golden Eye 1997 has quite a few automatics, including models based on the MP5, MAC-10, Škorpion and others. The most common is the AK-47 knockoff, though.
• Perfect Dark has automatics based on the Steyr TMP, FAMAS and more, including a few completely original designs.
• The M4 assault rifle with square holographic reflex seems to be the automatic weapon of modern FPS gaming, to the point that 80% of FPS games either have it or a gun based on it. This inspired a tongue-in-cheek post on Cracked.com decrying the lack of variety in modern game design.
• Singularity has an assault rifle and minigun.
• Killing Floor has the Bullpup, (LL 2 A 1 carbine) , AK-47 (Draco AK carbine), M4 carbine, SCARMK 17, and MAC 10. The Bullpup, M4 and SCAR all have scopes/dot sights, while the AK makes due with iron sights. A different M4 can be purchased that has no scope, but has an attached M203 Grenade Launcher. The MAC 10 has incendiary rounds if used with the "Firebug" perk.

Nailguns

• Quake and Quake IV's Nailgun and Super Nailgun, the former of which has a homing ability when zoomed in.
• Team Fortress 2's syringe guns, as wielded by The Medic.
• Painkiller's shuriken gun.
• The Tarydium Stinger in Unreal and Unreal Tournament III.
• The Railway Rifle in Fallout 3, which shoots rail spikes at your foes. The slow speed of the projectiles is compensated for by its ability to more quickly cripple limbs than a normal rifle.
  • Plus the cute "woo-woo" noise it makes when it fires. And it nails body parts to walls.
• The HV Penetrator, One of First Encounter Assault Recon's guns. Also nails foes to walls. A more powerful version, the Hammerhead, appears in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
• In Gears of War, the Boltok pistol's shots move slower than other guns in the game. In Gears of War 2 multiplayer the players' characters duck their head if fired at, and it's slow enough to actually be dodged that way.
• The insanely powerful Dark Trooper assault cannon from Dark Forces.
• Halo has the "Needler", which shoots pink, exploding, homing crystal needles.
• Killzone 2 has the Bolt Gun, which is like the Needler from Halo only bigger, slower firing, and less pink. Also, instead of homing in on your target, it pins them to the nearest wall.
• Turok 2's Firestorm Cannon. A plasma spewing chain-gun.
• BioShock 2 features a rivet gun as your first gun, and it's very powerful, though the rivets themselves aren't visible.
  • It must be noted, however, that the Rivet Gun actually works more like a Marksman Gun. A more traditional example would be found in the multiplayer, the aptly named Nailgun.

Grenades and launchers

• Grenades in Quake II are thrown at first, but can be used in a grenade launcher once you get the appropriate weapon.
• Duke Nukem 3D has pipe bombs for this purpose; the player can throw as many as desired, then detonate them all at once.
• Blood and Redneck Rampage have bundles of dynamite that must be lit, then thrown. Holding on to these after lighting them is not advised.
• Shadow Warrior not only gives you a grenade-launcher, but also gives you Sticky Bombs that stick to enemies.
• Halo has fragmentation and plasma grenades.
  • The third had flame and spike grenades added.
  • Did we forget about the Rocket Launcher (Halo 2 added a homing missile feature), Missile Pod, Fuel Rod Cannon, Brute Shot, and Halo: Reach's Grenade Launcher, Concussion Rifle and Plasma Launcher?
• The Demoman in Team Fortress 2 is armed with two grenade-launchers, one launching regular grenades and the other with remotely activated sticky bombs.
  • That said, he apparently never learned that a bomb is a bad choice for close-range combat.
  • Thrown hand grenades were explicitly removed from the game because they were such a Game Breaker and barrier between newbie and veteran players in the original Team Fortress Classic.
• Gears of War has ink (which causes damage over time to all in the blackened area of its effect), smoke (which were more like flashbang but got nerfed), and frag grenades.
• Unreal's rocket-launcher also doubles as this, allowing the rockets to be lobbed instead of launched at will. Unreal Tournament 2004 had an actual grenade-launcher, grenades from which would stick to a target and could be detonated remotely, as well as a mine-layer for deploying autonomous robotic mines that chase the target.
  • The semi-official mod ChaosUT adds hand-thrown mines with smiley faces that follow the target, saying things like "My grandma can run faster than that!" in an annoyingly cutesy tone of voice.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod adds three grenades (frag, flame and toxic), remote-controlled explosives that double as laser-controlled tripmines as well as actual land mines that can be switched between anti-vehicle (larger damage) and anti-infantry (larger blast radius) modes.
• Resistance really likes their grenades. Ranges from standard HE to frag grenades to air-fuel grenades.
• Aliens vs. Predator 2 had a grenade-launcher similar to the Milkor MGL. It could fire 4 types of grenades: timed, proximity, spider, and EMP.
• Bulletstorm brings us the flailgun, which shoots out a pair of grenades connected by a chain that can be wrapped around enemies and remotely detonated.
• Battlefield Heroes has TNT for all classes to use against vehicles as it clings to them but is otherwise hard to use against infantry with its long detonation time, small damage radius and loudening sound toward detonation. Gunners can instead use a rocket launcher against infantry and vehicles, while Soldiers can get an antipersonnel grenade that blows up faster (though it blinks red) and use the GrenadeSpam which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, throwing several grenades at once that explode even faster.
• Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force sported a grenade-launcher that could fire bouncing delayed grenades or sticky timed/proximity mines.
  • The Scavenger Rifle alt mode also qualifies as a grenade-launcher, though it always detonates on impact rather than bouncing.
    • The Pulse Rifle from Aliens vs. Predator 2, like the Scavenger Rifle, also doubled as a grenade-launcher.
• Postal 2 had grenades which technically had three modes. Throw them, drop them as mines, or drop them and then kick them into enemies. There were also other such thrown weapons, among them scissors, molotov cocktails, and anthrax-filled cow heads.
• Turok 2 introduced the PFM Layer (Personal Fragmentation Mine Layer) that laid mines which, when activated, bounced into the air and severed an opponents legs at the knees, leaving them to bleed to death.
• The Shrieker in The Conduit fires flying bombs that can be steered to targets.
• Descent has plenty of missiles, of course.
• Ratchet and Clank has tons of these, including one that scatters dozens of bouncing cluster bombs and one that fires miniature nuclear warheads.
• Operation Flashpoint has two revolver-type grenade launchers, the MM-1 and the RG-6, and funnily enough, they are two of the least useful weapons in the game. In both cases, you can only carry 12 grenades at a time, they have no functional sights to speak of (so hitting anything at a distance is pure guesswork) and the grenades are no more powerful than your garden-variety hand grenade anyway.
  • Then there are the mortar shells that are used in a manner similar to real-life rifle grenades.
• Fallout 3 has the "Nuka-Grenade" in addition to more conventional fare, which uses radioactive sodas as its incendiary component.
• Both BioShock (series) games have grenade launchers, both of which are also compatible with proximity mines and heat-seeking rockets.
• Both Half-Life games have fairly standard frag grenades.
  • The SMG also has an under-barrel Grenade Launcher in both games.
• Outlaws (1997 video game) has Dynamite.
• Star Wars games typically have thermal detonators serve this purpose.
  • The first game also has a grenade launcher, the Packered Mortar Gun.
• Almost everyone in Star Wars Battlefront 2 has at least a few grenades, and three of the four factions have unlockable classes that carry grenade launchers. Special mention goes to the Wookie Warrior, who carries four normal grenades and has fifteen shots for his grenade launcher.
• Tribes 2 has four types of hand grenades available: regular grenades which explode normally; concussion grenades which causes everyone in the blast radius to drop their weapon and pack; whiteout grenades which temporarily blind everyone nearby; and flare grenades which redirect incoming missiles. Players could also trade their grenades out for deployable cameras that stick to walls and can be used from the CC to remotely view the surroundings and to defeat sensor jammers. Additionally, Assault and Juggernaut armors could pack an actual grenade launcher that bounce around for a while and then detonate on impact, as well as the Juggernaut-only Fusion Mortar that overlaps with BFG.
• Blake Stone has the Plasma Discharge Unit, which not only has an arc trajectory and splash damage, but a rather rapid fire rate as well.
• Golden Eye 1997 has a rotating grenade launcher with a capacity of three magazines.
• Perfect Dark has two grenade launchers: the SuperDragon (assault rifle with M203-like underslung launcher) and the Devastator (more powerful grenades with a Sticky Bomb option).
• Singularity has a weapon that drops a rolling grenade on the ground that can be steered. It's more useful for puzzles then anything else.
• Killing Floor has three, the single-shot M79, the six-shot, rotary M32, and the M203 launcher attached to one of the available M4 Carbines.

Rocket Launchers

• Used in all of the Doom and Quake games. In Quake, it uses the same ammo as the grenade launcher, and one of the monsters is particularly resistant to that overpowered weapon.
• Heretic's Phoenix Rod.
• Used in Duke Nukem 3D, as the RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade launcher).
• Rise of the Triad had a Bazooka, Heat-Seeking Bazooka, Drunk Missiles, Flamewall, and Firebomb (bordering on BFG). That game loved its missile launchers.
• The spinfusor in Starsiege: Tribes launched fast, deadly discs with a large explosion, while the plasma rifle launched slower, less deadly plasma balls with a smaller blast radius.
  • Tribes 2 had an actual Missile Launcher that was heat-seeking and was used mainly against vehicles and turrets (jetpacking players could be targeted and hit as well if their heat level has gone above a certain threshold). Throwing a flare grenade was the only was to defeat a missile lock. A larger version could be equipped onto base turrets which the AI used decently.
• The Tri-Rocket Launcher in Unreal Tournament III, which may be fired singly, spread or in a spiral. Earlier entries in the series allowed 6 simultaneous rockets or grenades to be fired. Both versions could track targets.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod adds the G5 RPG that behaves like an actual shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and can be used in three modes: dumb-fire, laser-guided and heat-seeking mortar. It's extremely overpowered, capable of one-shotting a tank with a direct hit and targeting other players, Making it very useful on VCTF maps.
  • Unreal Championship 2 The Liandri Conflict featured rockets that were actually two rockets stuck together, which could be disjointed for a massive six-missile bombardment.
• The signature Weapon of Choice for the Soldier in Team Fortress 2. One of the few games to openly encourage Rocket Jumping.
• In Team Fortress Classic, the Soldier also had this weapon.
  • TFC also gave the Pyro a rocket launcher - that SHOT FIRE!
• The Photon Burst of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force and Quantum Burst of Elite Force 2 fill this niche. The Quantum Burst also fit the missile launcher subtype, since it had the option to guide its torpedo with a laser designator.
• Used in Aliens vs. Predator 2 with both tracking and non-tracking ammunition.
• Probably the best fit for the concussion rifle (don't let the name fool you, it'll do a lot more to your enemies than give them a Concussion) in Dark Forces and Republic Commando. The original incarnation would fire an invisible bolt that caused blue flame to erupt at the enemy's feet. Later it would fire an explosive bolt, or a beam that caused an explosion.
  • Dark Forces 2 also has a more traditional rocket launcher, the Rail Gun.
• Blood has a "napalm launcher" that works like a rocket launcher. It's Handwaved that the weapon shoots balls of napalm.
• The original Turok had the Quad Rocket Launcher, which fired four rockets at once. Seeds of Evil, its sequel, introduced the Scorpion Missile Launcher, which only fired three missiles, but each one was computer guided and chased the target down.
• Shadow Warrior had a missile launcher that could fire regular rockets. Optionally you could get a heat seaker card to make a few rockets heat seaking. And, rarely, you could get a nuclear warhead.
• Ratchet and Clank loves its rockets, with such gems as a triple-rocket shotgun and a launcher whose rockets burst into a dozen homing mini-missiles.
• The "Miss Launcher" special weapon from Fallout 3 provides an interesting case; It is technically a missile launcher, (it even uses missiles for ammo,) but it has been modified to launch the missile without igniting the missile's delivery system, causing it to behave more like a grenade launcher. (The extra damage it does is attributed to the unspent jet fuel still in the missile.)
• Battlefront 2 has the rocket launchers carried by the Vanguard class, which can lock onto vehicles to help you take down those pesky snowspeeders. The award version allows you to remote-pilot the missile, though it has limited fuel.
• Golden Eye 1997 has a rocket launcher which holds four rockets at most.
• Perfect Dark has two rocket launchers: one with homing abilities and the other which can be remotely steered (leaving the pilot vulnerable while firing it).

Darkwatch has a naval signal flare launcher modified to fire explosives, with a studded maul built into it.

• Killing Floor has the L.A.W., which is so heavy that no other weapon save your starting knife and pistol can be carried in conjunction with it. It inflicts horrific damage to compensate for this.

Marksman Guns

• In Red Faction, the precision rifle is the most common weapon among mercenaries in the last part of the game. It is laser-accurate, scoped and fires as fast as you can click the mouse.
• The Sig 500 is not very well liked in Counter-Strike for this reason.
• Wolfenstein 3D's FG-42 uses the same ammunition as the more deadly bolt-action scoped Kar 98, meaning it's almost always a bad choice for sniping.
• Day Of Defeat's M1 Garand and Mausser Kar-43 fits this trope.
• Vietcong has the semiautomatic SKS Simonov and M1 Carbine, and the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant and Winchester rifles.
• The M16A4 from Call of Duty 4 fits this mold closer than it does the "automatic" one, as it always fires a burst (on multiplayer) and is incredibly accurate even with plain iron sights. There are also the semi-automatic G3 and M14, whose lack of automatic generally has them out-matched in close-quarters.
  • In Call of Duty: World at War, most rifles fell under this, being semi-automatic or bolt-action which usually causes them to get completely outmatched at close-enough ranges by submachine guns and shotguns. In a less standard example, the StG44 is automatic and causes very little recoil, but has a slower fire-rate and/or power than submachine guns or shotguns, once again causing them to get outmatched by them frequently at close-enough ranges, but allowing it to be far more effective from a farther distance.
• Battlefield Heroes has versions of all guns that are more accurate, slower and do more damage at the far range they're made for. They are all Marksman Guns.
• The Hammerburst rifle fits this best in Gears of War 2, while it was mostly the Lancer in the original.
• Unreal Tournament's ASMD Shock Rifle usually fills this niche, though it can also be used to knock people off very tall buildings/ledges. In Zoom Instagib mode, it's more like a railgun.
  • The rifle in Unreal, and the sniper rifle in Unreal Tournament could also be used as such; they had a rather high firing rate, making them quite powerful at medium distance combat.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 has the SRS-900 Battle Rifle with thermal scope, zoom capabilities and toggleable silencer. Unlike the mod's dedicated sniper rifle, the Battle Rifle has a 20-round magazine and can be set to burst-fire and full-auto as well as semi-auto.
    • Unreal Championship 2 The Liandri Conflict combines this with the sniper rifle, firing either a burst of shots or a single powerful round.
• Resistance 2's Marksman Gun.
• The Phaser Compression Rifle and Infinity Modulator of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force and Elite Force 2 fill this niche, the Compression Rifle less so because it has a small amount of splash damage. The Compression Rifle's alternate fire in the first game is more like a sniper rifle; in the second game, this was removed, and a sniper rifle was offered as a separate weapon.
• Halo 2 and Halo 3 had the Battle Rifle, which fires three bullets per shot, and can kill in 4 headshots. Reach has the Designated Marksman Rifle, which is a semiautomatic weapon with a very similar role. On the Covenant side there is the carbine in 2 and 3, and in Reach the Needle Rifle, a weapon that works the same as the smaller needler.
• Almost any modern day game that has the M-14 in it.
• The Spy's alternate revolver, the Ambassador, in Team Fortress 2, deals criticals on headshots but is otherwise fairly weak and becomes inaccurate for a few seconds after each shot.
• The StA14 Rifle in Killzone 2 is a semi-automatic gun with an 8-round mag. It's only got a dot sight, but it pretty powerful and accurate.
• The SCAR from Crysis makes a useful improvised sniper rifle when you attach the sniper scope and fire on single.
• While hunting rifles provide early range in Fallout 3, a better example can be found in Lincoln's Repeater. (Yes, that Lincoln.) Excellent range, excellent damage, and excellent accuracy short of an actual sniper rifle, it is truly a weapon any red-blooded American would be proud to wield.
  • Or, if you prefer, Scoped Magnums, which are magnum pistols with scopes attached to them.
• The Magnums in the Half-Life games.
• The lever-action rifle in Outlaws (1997 video game) although it basically becomes the de facto sniper rifle when you get the scope, as it's the only weapon in the game with a scope.
• The pistol in the Dark Forces games.
• The award pistol in Battlefront2 is called the 'precision pistol' and can kill in one headshot, but it can be fired much more quickly and carries more ammunition than most examples in this section.
• The Meson Collider is the long-range weapon for Ghostbusters. It has no scope and thus does not qualify as a sniper rifle.
• Darkwatch has the Blackfish carbine, a repeating rifle.
• Killing Floor has a Winchester Model 1894 lever-action rifle and an M14 EBR.

Crossbows

• Heretic's Ethereal Crossbow may have been the earliest example.
  • While literally a crossbow, the Ethereal Crossbow probably was that game's version of a Shotgun: it was weapon number 3, fired multiple projectiles, was less effective at long range, and had plentiful ammo.
• The stakegun in Painkiller impales foes and nails them to walls. The bolts spontaneously ignite once they have traveled a certain distance, dealing double damage if they hit.
• XIII had two, for some reason. Gruesome deaths occurred.
• While not an FPS, Syphon Filter had this as a non-lethal weapon.
• The Half-Life games had sniper crossbows. The first game's bow fired silent tranqualizer darts, while Half-Life 2 and it's expansion episodes had the bow fire red-hot rebar that pinned bad guys to the wall.
• The crossbow in BioShock (series) shot extremely deadly bolts and incendiary bolts, and created electric line traps which the monsters never managed to avoid. Webbing up a few choke points with electric tripwires is usually the safest way to dispatch a Big Daddy.
  • The sequel replaces it with a spear gun with a somewhat similar firing mechanism capable of pinning enemies to walls.
• No One Lives Forever had an underwater speargun, which functioned in more or less the same way as a crossbow.
  • The game had an actual crossbow as well.
• The speargun and net gun from Monolith's Aliens vs. Predator games fall into this category.
• The Razorjack from Unreal fired shuriken-like blades that could bounce off walls and take people's heads off. Unreal Tournament took the design and reworked it into the Ripper whose secondary fire launches exploding discs.
  • The ChaosUT mod for Unreal Tournament, included in the Game of the Year Edition, adds a crossbow that can fire explosive or poison-tipped arrows in addition to the regular variety.
  • ChaosUT 2 for UT2004 keeps the crossbow and adds the C.U.T.T.E.R., a reworked version of the Ripper: secondary fire causes the disc to shatter on impact, acting as an impromptu fragmentation bomb.
• The Turok series has always had a bow weapon of some kind, but not until Rage Wars was it an actual Cross Bow.
• Team Fortress 2 added a recurve bow to the Sniper in an update. The arrows can be lit on fire while aiming by a Pyro.
  • The Medic has an actual crossbow as an alternate primary weapon, with the ability to hurt enemies and heal allies with the same ammo.
• The Wookie Bowcaster in the Dark Forces games.
• Perfect Dark had a very useful crossbow. It had tranquilizer and instant kill functions, was very accurate, and had a fast rate of fire. It's main problems were that it was only used in one mission and in multiplayer, and that it had a slow reload speed.
• The Mule shotgun from Resistance: Burning Skies has an attached crossbow that shoots explosive bolts.
• Darkwatch features a "double-barreled" example that fires explosive bolts.
• Killing Floor has an otherwise plain compound crossbow, which has the single highest headshot damage multiplier (quadrupled) of any weapon in the game.

Sniper Rifles

• Rail Guns in Quake II, Quake III Arena and Quake IV. Quake IV's even comes with a scope and an enemy-penetrating upgrade.
• Counter-Strike's AWM ("AWP"), which is quite infamous.
• The Lightning Gun in Unreal Tournament 2004, though it has a railgun's trail. The actual sniper rifle counters it by only leaving a small puff of smoke cloud your view, however, it's weaker.
  • If you're playing with Zoom Instagib, the Shock Rifle becomes a sniper rifle.
  • The Rifle from the original Unreal filled this role.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod for UT2004 adds the very powerful R 78 A 1 sniper rifle that can instantly kill with a body shot if the target doesn't have armor.
• The Sniper class in both Team Fortress Classic and Team Fortress 2 obviously specialize in this, but their gun is also a Charge Gun.
• Battlefield Heroes has sniper rifles for the Commando class, which either do more damage and have more recoil, or have a faster fire rate and larger magazine. All do more damage from farther away.
• Gears of War has the Longshot sniper rifle. Railgun trail, but still a rifle.
• The Farsight XR-20 from Perfect Dark is a perfect sniper railgun - extreme penetration factor, and an alien phlebotinum X-Ray visor to see through walls, up to almost a kilometre. Needless to say, extremely useful.
  • There is also a regular sniper rifle which is essentially a clone of the one from Golden Eye 1997.
  • Same with Resistance - the alien Sniper rifle can even slow down time.
• Aliens vs. Predator 2 and Star Trek Elite Force 2 both have sniper rifles.
  • In AVP2's singleplayer, the sniper rifle is picked up right at the end of the game, making it useful for only about three enemies.
• Sniping is a common feature in the Call of Duty series and other World War 2 games.
• The Halo games feature the UNSC Sniper Rifle as well as the battery powered Covenant Particle Beam Rifle often employed by Jackal snipers.
• Crysis' Sniper Rifle and Gauss Rifle (with the ability of a holo or ACOG sight instead of sniper scope, and attachable laser)
• Ratchet and Clank includes one in each game, which can usually shoot through multiple targets and often explodes on impact with each one. The exception is Tools of Destruction, which instead switched out the sniper for a handheld Wave Motion Gun.
• In the Half-Life 1 expansion Opposing Force you get an M40A1 bolt-action Sniper Rifle.
• The Disruptor Rifle in Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast.
• As mentioned above the Lever-Action rifle in Outlaws (1997 video game) lies somewhere between marksman gun and sniper rifle.
• Battlefront2 has the sniper rifle, which can kill in one headshot or two body shots, and the award version kills in one hit regardless of where you hit the enemy with it. Yes, that's right, I just killed a stormtrooper by hitting him in the toe.
• Golden Eye 1997 has a sniper rifle with an extremely long range, but it's rather underpowered for its size. There is also no way to get rid of the Sniper Scope Sway.
• Singularity 's sniper rifle also has a time-dilating scope. There's also the Seeker, which has a scope that can see through walls and projectiles that can travel through them.
• Darkwatch has one. It's only feature of note is the blade on the stock.
• Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 both had a laser rifle that ran off the player's backpack energy supply. Tribes: Ascend has a more traditional bolt-action rifle which charges up its shot like the Team Fortress 2 example, but also a "Phase Rifle" that uses both energy and ammo, but does not need to charge.

Flamethrowers

• Heretic's Phoenix Rod, when powered up with the Tome of Power, transformed from a rocket launcher to a flame thrower.
• Clerics in Hexen have the Firestorm.
• The flare gun in Blood is a pistol with incendiary bullets, and there's also the spray can and lighter.
• Turok: Evolution's flamethrower was particularly satisfying. It sent even elite Sleg troopers screeching in agony, and would gib one if you cooked one long enough.
• The signature weapon of the Pyro of Team Fortress 2 is predictably a flamethrower. It sets people on fire. In addition, all the available flamethrowers have the ability to fire a blast of compressed air for deflecting projectiles. Currently, one alternate flamethrower trades damage for faster weapon switching and the other deals more damage (and gets Critical Hits when you torch a player from behind) while requiring more ammo to Airblast with.
  • His/her alternate secondary weapon, the Flare Gun, could fit into a variety of categories- it fires a single long-ranged flare in an arc that sets any enemy it hits on fire.
• The Scorcher has a deceptively long range, and can be used to light enemies on fire, causing them to go straight from burning to dead.
• Halo 3 introduced a flamethrower; oftentimes lying around during levels with the Flood. It's awesomeness was mitigated by the fact that it slowed the user down significantly. The PC version of the first Halo had a flamethrower that did not have this negative effect, but it was only found in multiplayer maps.
• Far Cry 2 has a flamethrower that has a surprising variety of uses, due to the fact that the game world contains a lot of foliage that can be ignited to create walls of fire, and ammo crates that you can light on fire to wreak havoc on an enemy guard post. Alternatively, you can use it to burn down herds of whatever for absolutely no reason.
• Serious Sam - The Second Encounter has a flame thrower which is notable for getting this weapon very early in the game, in spite of being one of the strongest weapons in Serious Sam.
• The flamethrower is very fun to use in Aliens vs. Predator 2, especially against humans because of the screams that they make while dying.
• Blood features Aerosol Flamethrowers. You could spray flame on your enemies or throw a lit can, which bursts into fire like an incendiary grenade.
• Descent: the Omega cannon
• Killzone 2 Has a Flamethrower, which has a realistic looking/acting, albeit short ranged, stream of burning liquid that sets enemies on fire, pretty much killing them.
• Ratchet and Clank has featured a pressure hose that spews molten lava and upgraded to spray liquid nitrogen.
• Call of Duty World at War gives you a flamethrower in some missions.
• Battlefront2 has the Bothan's Incinerator (which doesn't actually spout flames, but does melt the target with a sustained stream of heat), and the heroes Boba and Jango Fett both have a more traditional version.
• BioShock (series)'s Chemical Thrower is a flamethrower when loaded with napalm, but can also be loaded with supercooled liquid nitrogen or electric gel. The sequel doesn't feature a similar weapon, but the effects can be duplicated by the third level of the Incinerate! plasmid.
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin has the Inferno Cannon, which shoots Fireballs. It's rather-short ranged and only found in early levels.
• Killing Floor has a flamethrower. It has a large fuel capacity, but is of questionable effectiveness unless used by the "Firebug" perk, where among other benefits, it has double it's normal range.

Charge Guns

• As mentioned, the sniper rifle in TFC and TF2.
• The Impact Hammer from the original Unreal Tournament also worked like this.
  • The Biorifle in Unreal series also has a charge-up secondary fire. Massive damage at the cost of ten shots worth of ammunition. It could also fall under gimmick gun since the goo blobs persist if they don't hit anybody, creating temporary minefields.
  • The Dispersion Pistol, your very first weapon in the original Unreal, also works like this, and gets even more powerful as you find upgrades for it (but gets a slower firing rate).
• Half-Life's secondary fire on the Tau Cannon worked liked this. A fully charged beam is VERY lethal, allows to kill tank or helicopter without missiles and can peneterate walls, but not firing the weapon within 12 seconds of achieving full-charge will cause the weapon to backfire, severely injuring the user.
• Halo's Spartan Laser. Several seconds to charge up, but whatever is under the reticle when it fires is in for a world of hurt. Not to mention the plasma pistol's charged shot.
  • Halo: Reach's Plasma Launcher can charge to fire up to four homing plasma grenades.
• Doom 3 has its BFG work like this. Though it could be fired off earlier for less damage, and blew up in your face if you held the charge too long.
• The Blaster in Quake IV can be charged to do more damage.
• The Fusion Cannon from Descent.
• The Charged Dart rifle and Nuke Weapon from Turok 2. Also, the particle accelerator from the first game.
• The De-atomizer in The Conduit is normally an energy version of the Marksman Gun. If it is charged before firing, however, it shoots three anchor points instead. If an anchor point hits a target or an obstacle, the other two will whip around (like a bolo) and do extra damage. Can be used to shoot victims hiding around a corner.
• The Disruptor Rifle and blaster pistol in Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast.
• The Shotgun and Rocket Launcher of the second Ratchet and Clank game (Going Commando) could be charged for more damage after they evolved.
• The Dark Trooper's arc cannon in Battlefront2 works like this. Fully charged, it can take down five normal infantry in a cluster, unless they are Wookies and even then it will put some serious hurt on them.
• Hexen II's Assassin's final weapon, the Scarab Staff.
• The Mauler from Perfect Dark has a magazine of 20 and can be charged up to deal five times as much damage per shot, at the cost of a much slower firing rate.
• Killing Floor has the Husk Fireball Gun, which can be charged up to launch flaming projectiles of varying damage.

Gimmick Guns

• The Turok series' iconic Cerebral Bore.
• The shrink-ray and freeze-ray in Duke Nukem 3D, and the microwave attachment in the Plutonium Pak/Atomic Edition.
• Hexen Clerics have the Wraithverge as their ultimate weapon. Wherever the projectile hits, there spawn about a half-dozen ghosts that fly about randomly and tear apart every Mook in the general vicinity in badass fashion.
  • Hexen Mages get the Frost Shards, which freeze enemies if they take enough damage and make them vulnerable to shattering with other weapons.
• The Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2.
• Translocators in the Unreal Tournament series.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod has the HVC-Mk9 Lightning Gun which deals little damage but can be used to pick up and fling players and even smaller vehicles. It even looks like a Gravity Gun.
• Portal's namesake weapon/tool.
• In Team Fortress 2, the Medic's Medigun and the Pyro's Flare Gun.
  • Similarly, Team Fortress Classic has the medkit. You use it to either heal people or give them AIDS. Same with Sven-Co-op, minus the infection feature, and absolutely needed for maps with no health stations.
• Fallout 3 has the Rock-It Launcher, which shoots junk. Forks and spoons, teddy bears, wrenches, pool balls...
  • As well as the afore-mentioned Nuka-Grenade, Dart Gun and Railway Rifle.
• (Almost) every single gun in Ratchet and Clank not mentioned elsewhere on this page. Suck up your enemies and use them as ammo, turn them into exploding sheep, turn them against each other with mind-altering slime, or force them to dance themselves to death? The choice is yours.
• Descent 2: the bounce-off-the-walls phoenix cannon, and the blinding flash missiles.

BFGs

• The Trope Namer from the Doom series, as well as Quake II and Quake III Arena.
• The Devastator in Duke Nukem 3D
• The Dark Matter Gun in Quake IV
• The Displacer in Half-Life: Opposing Force functions almost identically to the Trope Namer, except it teleports with a direct hit. the alt-fire teleports the player to/from Xen, where you'll usually find ammo/medpacks/healing pools.
• The Redeemer in the Unreal Tournament series, a portable nuclear missile-launcher.
  • The highly popular Ballistic Weapons mod for UT2004 adds the R75 Tactical Infantry Cannon, a bolt-action railgun with sniper and thermal scopes. Once the scope in on, the gun will start charging; a fully-charged shell instakills anything it hits, including tanks and even what was behind that tank! It can even see through walls via the thermal scope and hit what is behind that wall.
• Resistance's Pulse Cannon in the second game.
• The Firebomb and Dark Staff from Rise of the Triad.
• While not a canonical example, a hidden Easter Egg BFG on the third mission in Halo 2 fired a beam similar to the Scarab's and did the same amount of damage.
  • The Missile Pod in Halo 3, the Spartan Laser, the Scarab (With the part of the level it is in being called Scarab. BFG. End of the World.).
• Sasha and Natascha, miniguns that are the signature weapons much loved by the Heavy in Team Fortress 2.
• Fallout 3's "Fat Man". It fires a miniature a-bomb.
  • Even moreso the "Experimental MIRV" unique "Fat Man", which fires 8 mini-nukes. For those occasions when you absolutely, positively have to kill everything in one shot.
    • More generally, there is a skill reserved entirely for BFGs, such as the Gatling Laser and its special variant, Vengeance.
• Cannon in Serious Sam - shoots a large cannonball which is devastating to columns of small and medium-sized enemies.
  • I've always found the cannonball's ability to penetrate unlimited enemies particularly amusing considering it is absolutely the worst shape (a sphere) to be able to do so!
• One or more for every Turok game. The "Chronosceptre" and "Fusion Cannon" from the first game, the aptly named "Nuke" from Turok 2 (which, in an aversion to Yahtzee's above quote, does nothing to the end boss) and the PSG (Personal Singularity Generator) from Shadow of Oblivion.
• Descent: the aptly named Mega missile (which also homes), and in the sequel the often suicidal Earthshaker.
• Ratchet and Clank has its own line of RYNO weapons, which launch salvos of homing missiles. It also featured the Zodiac, which incinerated everything in sight but whose ammo cost more than most entire weapons.
  • With the introduction of upgrades, pretty much every weapon can eventually be turned into a BFG.
• Mass Effect 2 has the M-920 Cain which is practically a space age nuke launcher.
• The Magna Guard in Battlefront2 has a weapon that is essentially a rapid-fire anti-infantry rocket launcher, which happens to look remarkably like a pistol on the model.
• Tribes 2 has the Fusion Mortar which instakills everyone in the blast radius and has a very long range; it's literally a man-portable artillery gun. It is also very accurate but it's very unlikely that one can hit a target at extreme range without a teammate painting it. As a tradeoff, it has a very slow rate of fire, the shell emits a highly visible trail of green smoke and the gun can only be carrier by Juggernaut armors. There is also a vehicle-mounted version on the Beowulf tank which has infinite ammo.

Target Designators

• The Ion Painter (Kill Sat), and Target Painter (airstrike) in Unreal Tournament 2004.
• The binoculars (airstrike) in Warhawk (1995 video game).
• The Hammer Of Dawn in Gears of War.
• Command & Conquer: Renegade had an ion cannon beacon and a nuclear missile beacon.
• The third person shooter Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and its sequel have dozens of various air strikes that are designated either by smoke grenade, laser designator, or satellite link.
• In Team Fortress 2, the Engineer's Build-o-Matic, which allows him to construct buildings where he designates.
  • In addition, his unlockable weapon, the Wrangler, lets him manually aim his Sentry Gun at wherever he points.
• The Targeting Tool in Enemy Territory Quake Wars can call on one of 3 strikes, depending on what you deployable you built.
  • If you built the Rocket Artillery (GDF) or Plasma Mortar (Strogg), you can use the Tool to change where the shells/plasma lands.
• Combined Force sim ARMA 2 has a literal laser designator for player pilots to lock onto with laser-guided bombs or laser-lock-capable missiles.
  • Its predecessor, Operation Flashpoint, had one too. The one mission that used it involved sneaking into enemy territory, painting a road bridge with the designator until friendly planes come to bomb it, and getting back to safety.
• Ratchet: Deadlocked fused this with the series' signature RYNO, creating a shotgun-Kill Sat-designator called The Harbinger.
• Bad Company 2 has the marker gun that can temporarily mark targets, which enables AT weaponry to lock onto them. Possible targets include all kinds of ground vehicles, stationary weapons, and helicopters. And sometimes, even infantry.
• Halo: Reach introduces one which calls in missile strikes. It shows up in Firefight and Campaign.
• Euclid's C-Finder in Fallout: New Vegas finds C, as in the third side of a triangle ABC. C is the target, B is you, and A is ARCHIMEDES II, a solar powered Kill Sat. Once C has been found, ARCHIMEDES smashes it like the finger of an angry god.
• Perfect Dark has a target locater which is used to call in airstrikes in the last level.

Turrets

• The Engineer's Sentry Gun in Team Fortress 2: Usually the engineer's most potent means of defense, these start out firing at slow speed from a fixed position, but can be upgraded into dual chainguns and/or dual chainguns with rocket launchers.
• The Warthog's turret in Halo, which not only allows a second passenger to hitch a ride on the Warthog, but allows him to lay down covering fire in all directions as well.
  • Ground-mounted turrets also appear in later games, and can be ripped off their stands to cut down their ammunition capacity, but provide serious firepower for as long as they're lugged around.
• Ratchet and Clank has all kinds of variations, including actual manned turrets, grenade-sized deployable turrets, vehicles with mounted guns, and even portable shields that zap things with lightning.
• Star Trek Online feature a Phaser turret and Mortar cannon abilities during ground combat sequences.
• The Gatling gun in Outlaws (1997 video game) while you can move around while it's in your inventory once you get it out you can't move.
• The Marksman class in Battlefront2 can deploy a stationary laser turret.
• The ChaosUT mod for Unreal Tournament can replace Redeemers with small teleport modules that can be used to deploy an auto-turret. Said turret can fire rockets or shock balls, depending on it's setting by the owner as well as available ammo. It can be reloaded from the rear with rockets and Shock Rifle ammo; if it runs out of ammo, it self-destructs after a short time if not reloaded. As an added twist from the modders, the turret considers the person who last reloaded it as it's owner, meaning that reloading an enemy turret will turn it to your side.
  • The Ballistic Weapons mod for UT2004 has two machineguns and a minigun that can be deployed using collapsible bipods. Once deployed, they can be used like stationary vehicles and they also enjoy a MASSIVE increase in accuracy. Deploying a minigun and setting it to 3600 RPM has predictable results.
• BioShock (series) features automated turrets (mounted on swivel chairs) that you can hack to make work for you. The sequel adds temporary mini-turrets that you can throw down to support you.
• Perfect Dark had the Laptop Gun, which could fire like a normal submachinegun, or be thrown to act as a turret. The turret didn't have a lot of ammo, but you could grab it again to reload it.
• Blood's Life Leech, a skull-tipped staff, gained a secondary attack to this effect in the Plasma Pak expansion. When set down it rotates, shooting bluish projectiles at enemies until it runs out of ammo, and doubles as a stand to reach areas up above.
• Machineguns in Day of Defeat. The proper use is to set them on bipod while prone or before some sort of parapet (usually there are several places with sand bag cover on a map for this very purpose), and once set, the arc of fire is rather limited, but accuracy is very good. Technically, they can be fired from hip, but that's unlikely to end well.^[1]
• The Gatling gun in Smokin' Guns. Crouching loses the turret mode and returns the primary weapon (revolver), which leaves the turret in place, to be controlled by anyone via "use" key.

Secondary Options

• While most of the weapons in Heretic, under the effects of the Tome of Power, simply became bigger, badder versions of themselves, the powered fire for the Dragon Claw, Hellstaff, and Phoenix Rod were drastically different.
• Blood has secondary fire for nearly all weapons. Blood 2: The Chosen followed suit.
• Dark Forces and Marathon both feature alternate fire modes for most (though not all) of their weapons.
• Melee attacks with ranged weapons in any game pretty much count.
• Every weapon in every Unreal Tournament game has a secondary fire.
• Every weapon in American McGee's Alice has a secondary fire.
• Every weapon in Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force, and most weapons in Elite Force 2, have secondary fire modes.
• Call of Duty 4 had grenade launchers attached to some of its assault rifles in single-player and an option for one on assault rifles in multiplayer. Call of Duty: World at War also allowed bayonets attached to various guns.
• Army of Two allows you to put grenade launchers and shotguns on the barrels of assault rifles.
• Crysis allowed you to attach 'tactical attachments' within the single-player and grenade-launchers in both the multi- and single-player, of which the former essentially fired an unlimited amount of a projectiles which silently knocked out a target with a cooldown.
  • Also evident in the multiple attachments available for almost every weapon. Everything from silencers and flashlights to freeze-rays and shotgun-mounted sniper scopes.
• The 2008 Turok video game had 'alternative-fire' options for most of its weapons, but they often changed something about its primary function or had it used in a different way, and so, many don't go under this trope. The weapons that do go under this trope were the shotgun's flare launcher, the pulse rifle's 'Disruption' grenade launcher and the flamethrower's napalm grenade launcher.
  • Likewise, the original Turok games had alternate ammo for near every single weapon. For example, the Shredder's vanilla form in Turok 2 fired dozens of ricocheting energy rounds that done moderate damage, but were good for clearing corridors. However, it's alternate ammo fired a single, high explosive energy round which was less likely to kill everything in the room, but when it did hit? Well, the results were often spectacular.
• Gears of War has the Lancer assault rifle, which has a chainsaw attached that can be revved up after a second to instantly kill at close-range. Its grenades in the first game could also be tagged to opponents, and in the second game, anywhere, allowing them to be used as proximity mines.
• An ability that can be acquired for all shotguns within Mass Effect, is to fire a rocket out of it.
• Several weapons in the Half-Life series. In all incarnations, the SMG fires rifle grenades and the shotgun can fire two shells simultaneously (the second shell somehow being fired from the ammo tube), and Half-Life 2 had the Overwatch rifle, which fired energy/dark matter orbs that disintegrated anything they touched.
• The Resistance series loves these. Literally every single gun in the series has a secondary fire - even the pistol. This gets Lampshaded in the first chapter of the second game.
• The Brute Weapons in Halo 3 have sharp blades used for killing in the Books, and up the melee power in the game.
• One of the selling points of Perfect Dark was that every weapon had a secondary option of some kind. Pistols could either shoot or pistol-whip, knives could either be slashed or thrown, even the basic fists could either punch or disarm enemies of their weapons.
• For all its creative weaponry, the Ratchet and Clank series is notably devoid of secondary functions.
• Several of the weapons in Dark Forces.
• Every gun in BioShock (series) and its sequel have three different types of ammunition. Some are simply more powerful or have elemental effects, but others include Proximity Mines for the Grenade Launcher and electrified tripwire bolts for the Crossbow.
• Almost every gun in Videogame/Rage has alternate ammunition types.
• Several guns in Killing Floor have secondary features. The rifles and submachine guns can switch from full to semi-automatic, the Beretta and the pump/combat shotguns have flashlights, the M14 EBR has a laser sight, the double shotgun can fire both barrels instead of one, and one of the M4 Carbines has alt-fire grenades from its attached M203.

Inversion

• The team of eight characters in Clive Barker's Jericho all begin with the weapons they will use throughout the game, but every FPS type is represented. All characters can melee attack with their weapon stock, and one character uses a nodachi as standard. Two characters have sidearms matching light pistol and heavy pistol, another wields automatic pistols akimbo, pistols that can also be loaded with explosive and fragmenting rounds. Two characters have shotguns mounted to standard 5.56 assault rifles, and another uses an SMG as a primary weapon and throws grenades. The sniper rifle can fire 7.6, modified to also shoot telekinetic 'ghost bullets' that are tracked with a follow-cam and can be maneuvered in flight. The closest weapon to grenade/rocket launcher effectively performs like neither, instead shooting a high velocity explosive round.

1. ↑ unless at point-blank range and/or the other guy can't shoot back and you have excess of time and ammo