Killing stuff. It’s a simple carnal pleasure that so many games revolve around, right back to the very first videogame, Space Wars.
Of course, in order to kill things, you need to have weapons - and gaming has had plenty of memorable murder tools over the years. Here’s our favorites.
10. The Buster Sword (Final Fantasy VII)
Plenty of JRPGs feature ridiculously over-sized weapons, but none have come to be so memorable that they practically define the game that they appear in.
Aside, that is, from Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword.
This almost comically huge weapon is wielded by Cloud right from the beginning of Square’s masterpiece through to the very end - where you finally gain the satisfaction of using it to defeat that utter bastard Sephiroth, and get revenge for his murder of your true love.
Aside from its gigantic size, there’s little else to note about the Buster Sword. But its appearance is instantly recognizable to millions of gamers across the globe, and seeing Cloud without it just feels… well, wrong. It’s as much a part of his character as his ridiculous haircut, and while it’s gone on to appear in subsequent Final Fantasy titles - such as Final Fantasy X and XII, it’s in Cloud’s hands where it truly belongs.
9. The Whip (Castlevania)
Who would have thought that a humble length of rope would become so definitive?
Playing a Castlevania game without the iconic whip wielded by the Belmont clan feels strange, as though something is missing.
Debuting in Konami’s original 1986 adventure, the whip has since gone on to appear in almost every subsequent title, to one degree or another. While some games in the series opt to provide you with other methods of dispatching Dracula’s hordes - Symphony of the Night’s Alucard, for example, preferred swordplay - you can all but guarantee that, sooner or later, the whip will make an appearance somewhere in the game.
It’s not just useful for attacking enemies, either. It can be wrapped around protrusions in the world, allowing you to swing across gaps, or rappell down sheer surfaces. In Lords of Shadow, you’ll frequently use it to pull down walls and other obstacles - though in that game it goes under the moniker of the Combat Cross.
While it may look like a simple length of rope, the Belmont’s whip is imbued with magical abilities that do additional harm to the undead forces they’re sworn to destroy - and it’s a weapon that’s defeated Dracula time and time again over the years.
8. Sledgehammer (Condemned: Criminal Origins)
Condemned: Criminal Origins was a launch title for the Xbox 360, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sega.
It was also fucking scary.
While firearms do exist in the game, they’re few and far between. More often than not, you’re forced to resort to melee weapons to defeat the crazed psychopaths you come up against - and a humble plank of wood with a few nails in it suddenly becomes a surprisingly effective tool in the right hands.
Combat in Condemned has real weight. Weapons hit with palpable force and cringe-inducing sound, and none of them feel as satisfying as the sledgehammer.
While it’s incredibly slow to use, the sledgehammer is absolutely devastating in combat. A canny player will start to swing just prior to approaching an enemy, caving in their skull and crashing them into the ground. Outside of combat, it proves its use in other ways - allowing you to break padlocks and other obstacles in your path.
Condemned: Criminal Origins may have been flawed - and its sequel even more so - but if Monolith got one thing right, it was absolutely nailing the feel of first-person melee combat in a game.
7. Your bare hands (Doom)
In Doom, you’re regularly pitted against the legions of hell, who have flooded through into our world via an extra-dimensional gate opened in a research facility on Mars. You’ll chew through them with chainguns, plasma rifles and rocket launchers, but every once in a while you’ll find yourself resorting to the most basic of weapons - your own bare hands.
Punching enemies in Doom isn’t particularly effective - it’s unlikely you’ll manage to take down a Cyber Demon, for example (though an achievement in the XBLA re-release requires it) - but there’s simply something satisfying about connecting fist with Hellspawn face.
Pick up a berzerk power-up, and your fists become a force to be reckoned with, amplifying your damage ten-fold and filling the screen with a red haze as your murderous instincts are let loose.
Take that, demon swine.
6. The Drill (Bioshock)
Ah, Bioshock. Ken Levine’s tale of an underwater dystopia, brought to ruin by the Objectivist philosophy of its founder Andrew Ryan, is one of the most cerebral and visceral experiences in gaming.
Early on in the game’s campaign, you’re introduced to the Big Daddies - hulking, augmented monstrosities designed to protect the Little Sisters as they roam about the world, gathering the sought-after substance Adam from the bodies of the dead. Defeating these giants is no small task, thanks to the sheer amount of health and strength that they possess. You come to fear these brutes, and entering into combat with one of them isn’t something to be taken lightly.
Towards the end of the game, you’re tasked with becoming a Big Daddy. You need to gather up various components before finally suiting up, and the moment you do it feels as though you’ve become a walking tank.
Suddenly, that drill is no longer something for the player to fear - it’s a weapon to be relished, allowing you to charge forward into your enemies and embed its massive, swirling cone deep into their chest. Their agonized screams ring in your ears as your screen is showered with their blood. It’s a cathartic, satisfying experience.
While the game’s pacing and design certainly falters towards the end - with an ill-judged boss fight and some ponderously slow back-tracking - becoming a Big Daddy still feels like a triumph, allowing you to finally turn the tables on the denizens of Rapture.
5. The crowbar (Half-Life)
Most FPS games start you out with a lowly melee weapon, to be used as a last resort once your ammo has expired and your back’s against the wall.
By far the most iconic of these is Half-Life‘s lowly crowbar, a tool that has gone on to define the series just as much as its eclectic cast of lovable (and sinister) characters and foes.
Sure, it’s not particularly powerful - but it’s useful. With it, you’ll smash crates, whack headcrabs as they leap towards your bearded visage, and bonk Combine soldiers on the head when you’re all out of ammo.
In fact, the crowbar has become so iconic that it’s been used in other games to reference the series, cropping up in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Left 4 Dead.
The crowbar has appeared in every single installment of the series, and it’s likely that if Valve ever actually gets around to making Half-Life 3 we’ll be wielding it all over again.
4. The Energy Sword (Halo)
The best gaming weapons pack a punch, feel satisfying to use, and make you feel like a bad-ass.
The Energy Sword from Halo is one such weapon. While it has a limited charge before being rendered useless, this giant, dual-bladed weapon can be devastating in the right hands. In single-player, you can mow down a large number of enemies in a short period of time with this baby, while in multiplayer matches it’s the source of plenty of swearing as players find themselves the victim of one-hit kills.
Although wielding the Energy Sword might place you at a disadvantage against ranged opponents, in close-quarters combat it’s utterly devastating. Combine it with the stealth perk in multiplayer, and you’re transformed from a gun-toting super-soldier to a bad-ass ninja, dealing death from the shadows.
It’s changed a little over the years, both in appearance and function, but it remains a fearsome tool in the right hands.
3. Hidden Blades (Assassin’s Creed)
You’re strolling along, minding your own business, and everything seems fine.
Then you end up with a six-inch knife embedded in your brain.
Assassin’s Creed’s hidden blades have come to define the series so much that fans have gone out of their way to create real-life reproductions of the weapon. A wrist-mounted and spring-loaded dagger, the weapon has featured in ever single Assassin’s Creed game to date. The signature weapon of the Assassin’s Order, it’s as much a sign of station as it is a weapon of combat.
Walking up behind two guards and stabbing them both in the head before sauntering off, undetected, never gets old. Nor does leaping on top of a foe from a nearby rooftop and embedding the blade in their back.
Sure, it’s not the most sophisticated or advanced weapon in existence, but damn, it’s satisfying.
2. Blades of Athena (God of War)
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as dealing out pain with Kratos’ trademark chained blades. Whether it’s swirling them around in a flurry of sharp-edged rage, or using them to pull enemies towards you, they remain as satisfying to use now as they did at the beginning of the very first game in the series.
A number of different versions of the blades have appeared over the years - Kratos seems to have a habit of either losing them or having them taken from him - but they’ve remained his preferred method of dealing out death to all and sundry as he walks a bloody rampage through the world of Ancient Greece.
1. The Lighstaber (Star Wars)
Few weapons have become so ingrained in the public consciousness as the lightsaber, so it’s no surprise that it has cropped up in a cavalcade of games over the years - everything from side-scrolling platformers, RPGs and first-person shooters.
While technology limitations - and balance constraints - have prevented developers from making it quite as powerful as its on-screen counterpart, the lightsaber never feels anything less than satisfying to use. That’s in no small part due to the iconic “whoom” sound effect made when swishing it around, which never gets old.
In most Star Wars games, the moment your character obtains a lightsaber feels like you’ve achieved something. Finally, you actually feel like a Jedi. That single beam of colored death-dealing light instantly makes you feel like a bad-ass, no matter what game you’re playing. Whether it’s wielding it in first-person in Jedi Knight, or using it to deflect blaster fire in Knights of the Old Republic, using George Lucas’ laser sword is something we never grow tired of.
Outside of Star Wars, the lightsaber has cropped up in a number of other games - notably Dead Rising, where it manages to chew through zombies with ease - making it one of the most potent weapons in the game.
More than any other weapon on this list, the lightsaber is the one we relish returning to again and again.
What do you think? Do you agree with our choices, or is there something you think we should have included? Let us know.
Dale Morgan
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