The 50 Most Awesome Guns in Video Game History

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Unreal II: The Awakening features the best grenade launcher of any video game, and it is called the M406 “Hydra” Grenade Launcher. We had to include the best grenade launcher on this list, and our criteria for this title mandated a reloadable grenade launcher with multiple types of grenades.

We considered the M32 from Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead, the grenade launcher from Resident Evil, and a few others, but the M406 Hydra takes the cake because of its variety. It fires the following types of grenades, and can hold 5 of each for a maximum of 30 rounds stored in the launcher at any given time within a revolver type cylinder. It also has both detonate on impact and timed modes for every grenade, but all have short range.

• Fragmentation – Standard issue anti-personnel frag grenades, creating an explosion and emitting shrapnel.
• Toxic – Upon impact, these release deadly toxic gas.
• Incendiary – Emits white phosphorus particles which ignite the air and everything within the vicinity. Devastating and torturous, this has better white phosphorus incendiary particle effects than any other game I’ve played.
• Concussion – Nonlethal stun grenades which also hurls people into the air. Can use this to boost yourself into the air as well.
• Smoke – Smoke grenades for creating smokescreens.
• EMP – Electromagnetic Pulse grenades to use against mechanical enemies.

PSG stands for Personal Singularity Generator. It is a terrifying superweapon, the flagship of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion. Not only does it have the potential to easily kill not only any enemy in the vicinity, but it can easily kill the player as well. It essentially fires a black hole projectile, that visibly sucks in not only living beings but the terrain around it, making for interesting visual effects. Then it does what black holes do, and that’s crush everything it absorbs.

The force of the black hole is so powerful that the player has to fight its pull by running away from it.

The Shuriken Gun (aka Electrodriver) is Yahtzee Croshaw’s favorite Painkiller gun and one of the most insane combination weapons we have ever seen. The primary fire uses the driver to launch deadly shurikens at opponents at a blinding rate. Behold the real power of this weapon at medium range, where the shurikens explode and deal decent splash damage. While the rate of fire on the driver is very good, the speed at which the shurikens travel does require good target leading skills. For the most skilled users, learning to master the distance at which the shurikens explode will give them license to unleash utter devastation.

The alternative fire mode, sometimes referred to as the Lightning Gun, shoots out a continuous bolt of electricity that deals sustained damage, but this in itself isn’t unsuual. The unusual part is its third functionality; using both primary and secondary fire at the same time which leads to electrified shurikens. Wherever the shurikens land, a powerful electric shock is jolted out between them. Given the creativity that went into this weapon, it is easy to understand why it’s a fan favorite.

The Cerebral Possessor is Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion’s best spinoff of the legendary Cerebral Bore from its predecessor, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. The weapon locks on to a medium range target of moderate or greater intelligence, and fires a homing projectile which targets the enemy’s skull. If it successfully reaches the target, it bores into their skull and then lets the player remotely control this enemy while a timer counts down. Once the timer (several seconds) reaches 0, the projectile explodes and splatters the enemy all over the immediate vicinity.

It is particularly useful to use the Cerebral Possessor to possess a single enemy in a group of them. This enemy can then distract the others, causing the others to target the possessed enemy instead while the timer counts down until the explosion kills all of them.

Turok 3 being a console exclusive game, there are of course some caveats born of laziness and hardware limitations. Possessed targets use the same health bar as the player, so the game designers just make both of them invulnerable while you are possessing a target. What’s worse is, if you die while possessing the target, the player character dies as well, which doesn’t make sense and it is an annoying limitation. This is shown in the video above; it would be fun and amusing to possess a target and then, for example, run him into a pool of lava, but this somehow kills the player character as well.

A legendary weapon, the Cerebral Bore is a one of a kind weapon introduced by Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. It fires a homing projectile that seeks out a single target, making most enemies in the game flee immediately. If the projectile successfully reaches the target, it immediately begins boring a hole through their skull, extracting brain matter and viscera for approximately 5 seconds before detonating. The detonation completely severs the target’s head, making it explode into pieces. A horrible way to die.

A brutal close range weapon, the primary fire of the Painkiller from the game of the same name is a rotating blade (not a projectile) that deals massive damage per second. The alternative fire launches the blade as a slow moving projectile, letting it deal massive damage per shot. The blade returns after it hits an enemy as well. Alternatively, if the projectile hits a surface and the player hovers their crosshair over it, an area denial laser beam will be created between the 2 points, letting the gun cut down enemies with ease.

Finally, if the player uses both triggers at the same time, the blade is sent spinning. Less damage than the bolt fire version, but it has a greater area of effect and will cut down lesser enemies en masse. Truly a unique weapon with four modes of attack.

The Particle Cannon from Wolfenstein fires black sun energy in a twisting, enemy seeking beam which often outright disintegrates living targets, leaving only bloody spots where they once stood. It is useful for quickly clearing multiple enemies down a narrow hall, as it quickly jumps from target to target.

Once upgraded with the Flux Arc, the weapon aims automatically which lets it easily twist slightly around corners and kill people at medium distance. It deals massive damage per second and can take down almost all enemies in its game. The screaming of its disintegrated enemies, particle effects, short wind up time (which is a con but looks so cool) and effects on the environment ensure it being banned by Geneva if such a gun is to be created.

Literally translated as Corpse Fist 44, the Leichenfaust 44 fires a large spherical pulse of black sun energy that detonates on contact. The detonation is powerful enough to completely disintegrate lesser enemies, kill more powerful enemies in a single shot, and also disrupt gravity around the point of explosion, causing debris as well as the disintegrating remains of enemies to float into the air for a few seconds, before crashing back down to the ground. It’s a visual spectacle and seems like a most cruel way to die. Fully upgraded, it is a devastatingly powerful gun that fires surprisingly fast and one whose effects on the environment and enemies are both satisfying and sadistic.

The Tesla Gun from Wolfenstein is a continuous beam weapon that discharges multiple arcs of electricity to automatically target nearby enemies, creating a spread akin to that of a shotgun. As the player upgrades the gun, its lethality shoots up dramatically, making it an incredibly powerful close-range weapon, especially against weaker enemies.

Even if the player is surrounded, the weapon will tear through enemy troops or monsters like a hot knife through butter, stunning them, making them flail their arms and scream to their death. It is one of the most brutal weapons in an already brutal game. The physics engine and impressive particle effects make the carnage even more apparent, and the gun also affects metallic objects in the game world. The melee-boosting upgrade for shocking enemies on contact makes it all the more awesome.

The number one entry on our list is one of the most versatile guns ever designed for a video game, and a gun that takes advantage of advanced engine technology (physics) more than just about any other: the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator from Half-Life 2. Better known as the Gravity Gun which gives you a better idea of its functionality.

The Gravity Gun can lets you remotely manipulate, pick up, drop, or throw most reasonably sized objects in the game world. Combined with the amount and types of physics objects present in Half-Life 2, it makes for one of the most memorable guns of all time.

But then there is the upgraded variant, which is given to the player after a pivotal story moment: the Dark Energy Field Manipulator, aka the Blue Gravity Gun. It is a significantly more powerful variant of the original gun, able to effortlessly manipulate living beings and vaporize them as well. The only downside is, you cannot toggle between variations at will as it wouldn’t make sense within the game.