It’s time to list those everyday items that make for surprisingly good weapons in video games
Have you ever noticed how everything you buy nowadays no matter how mundane is covered in Health and Safety warning. Obviously there on the items to cover the place that’s selling them, just in case people do some dangerous things with them but in the world of Video Games even everyday items can be deadly in the right hands and that exactly the premise behind this list.
The rules of this list are very simple. Unlike other lists I’m not going to include the one item per franchise because most of these items aren’t franchise exclusive but I am including a new rule where they have to be items that anybody could legally buy with ease. That way this list is a little more unique and also I’m not including chainsaw because there too obvious.
Obviously this list is only for fun and I would say don’t try this at home but in video games these items are so overblown you won’t be able too, in most cases. Regardless don’t try this stuff at home unless your playing a video game, and now that I’ve covered myself let’s get started with number 10:
10. Playing Cards: Out of all the things mentioned on this list using playing cards as a weapon is probably one of the oddest weapons. After all in most games where there used as weapons swords and other weapons are readily available.
Don’t challenge Twisted Fate to a game of 52 pick-up, trust me.
However I believe that the reason that characters use them is because the cards are the weapons that best represents their personality. For example nobles and people who think high of themselves often use rapiers, savages and brutes often use clubs and axes and in the case of our number 10 item, gamblers and magicians sometimes use playing cards.
What may actually surprise you is that playing cards are actually one of the most commonly used weapons on this list and the characters who use them are just as interesting as the idea of using them in the first place. In one hand we have Setzer Gabbiani from Final Fantasy 6, a man with a love of both freedom and gambling as well as the owner of the only airship in the world.
We also have the crooked gambler Twisted Fate, a man who risked everything on the chance to gain magic powers, the Final Fantasy X-2 Gullwings can use cards with their Lady Luck dressphere, the robot master Magic Man from Mega Man and Bass uses them during his boss fight and you gain the ability to use them yourself by beating him and even the Organisation XIII member Luxord fights with them just to name a few characters who have decided to fight in tthe very different style.
Playing cards land here at number 10 due in part to how surprisingly often it’s used as a weapon and look at it like this, if so many characters are using playing cards as a weapon, then they must be effective right. After all why go to battle with something you know is bad.
9. Water Guns: Moving onto number 9 we have water guns. While most of us have fond memories of having water gun fights over of summer holidays growing up, in video games the water gun is a weird little weapon often included as a joke because all it does is shoot water right? Wrong because it some games the water gun is actually useful especially when its filled with things beside water.
Yes I’m sure our legendary Ghost Squad will still be taken seriously after we equip them with squirt guns.
For example its the most common weapon in the SNES game Zombies Ate My Neighbours where it’s filled with holy water, while creative Dead Rising 2 players can get a lot of use out of it through the games combination mechanic.
By combining the water gun with a fire extinguisher you’ll create the snowball cannon, a gun that shoots a stream of water so cold it can somehow freeze zombies to the point where you can easily shatter them. If fires more your thing though you can also combine it with a gasoline can to create your very own makeshift flamethrower.
Despite these potent weapons the best water gun in gaming belongs to the Wii version of the light gun title Ghost Squad. Once you clear Ghost Squad both in the normal arcade mode and in the optional Ninja mode, you’ll unlock Paradise mode. In paradise mode all the generic enemies become women dressed for the beach, the bosses get a beach style makeover, there military vehicles become things like pedal boats and the Ghost Squad go into battle with ridiculous looking dolphin water guns.
The Ghost Squad water guns are pretty interesting because since the water drops, you’ll have to arc your shots,but it does add a fun and goofy as hell little challenge. The Ghost Squad water gun representing the water gun at number 9 because it’s a water gun that with a little practice you can actually use somewhat effectively and its shoots water not fire, ice or holy water but ordinary water.
8. CrowBar: Ah the crowbar, while we mainly use it as a way to open crates, the crowbar more often than not shows up in survival games where characters are forced to defend themselves with whatever is on hand. This does makes sense though because while the crow bar isn’t big enough to say smash skulls like a sledgehammer, its light enough to easily carry around and those prongs on the end aren’t anything to sneeze at either.
Not that anything I mentioned above actually matters because the most famous crowbar in gaming is easily from the Half Life series. Just as persistent as Gordon Freeman himself, the crowbar has become nearly as integral to the series as Freeman himself. As a weapon while it may not do as much damage as say the shotgun, but you can always depend on it and there’s nothing better for dealing with headcrabs and zombies, especially during those times where you just want to save some ammo.
The crowbar lands here at number 8 because whenever you get a crowbar in a video game there usually pretty reliable and because it has somehow managed to become just as iconic to the Half-Life series as Freeman himself, and for a tool designed for opening crates that’s very impressive.
7. The Poltergust 5000: To most of us the vacuum cleaner is a simple everyday household item created to help us clean up our homes as quickly and as noisily as possible. In the hands of Professor E Gadd however the vacuum cleaner was modified into the poltergust 3000/5000, and Luigi has never looked back.
The poltergust 3000 was first introduced in Luigi’s Mansion for the GameCube and its capable of sucking up both ghosts and money alike. Due to the material it was built of any ghost captured by it can’t escape from it, and in the recent enough 3DS title Dark Moon Professor E Gadd upgraded it to the poltergust 5000 so Luigi can now suck up to three ghosts at the same time.
Not only that but the poltergust 5000 can also go into a power surge mode which will remove more HP off ghosts if Luigi is sucking them long enough, and as a bonus if a ghost is defeated by using power surge they’ll drop more money. The poltergust 5000 also comes in five stylish colours for the fashion conscience amongst us. and you can also spend extra cash to upgrade it further for more damage, stronger power surges and a longer lasting dark light.
Luigi seems to have become quite attached to his poltergust 5000 as well since he smuggled it into the recent Super Smash Bros. title. In the game he uses it as part of his Final Smash attack where he sucks up the competition before shooting them (hopefully) of screen.
The poltergust 5000 lands here at number 7 because its perfect for what it’s designed to do, and that’s hunting and trapping ghosts in a way that’s totally not similar to the Ghostbusters I swear
6. The Baseball Bat: At number 6 we have one of the most generic weapons in gaming history, the baseball bat. It has appeared in every single genre of gaming whether we’re talking about survival, horror, open world and I’m pretty sure its a weapon in some car combat game somewhere.
Do you think the job of a Super Smash Bros. cameraman is a well paid one?
The reason for this however is because the baseball bat is a bit of an old reliable, that trusty weapon you can always count on to make an appearance and while yes it may not be the best weapon in that game, it’s usually very easy to find, but for the purpose of this list I want to mention the bat that stands out amongst the rest, which means its time to talk/write about the Home-run bat from the Super Smash Bros. series.
With its distinctive sound effect, the home-run bat is one of the most feared weapons in the Super Smash Bros series because it can one-hit KO anybody in the game, when used by any character, yes even when Pichus using it. Of course the bat has to be balanced somehow so it has the longest Smash attack animation in the game but when you hit with it especially when you hit a human opponent, it feel great.
Also since Brawl every character now has a unique animation for when your doing a smash attack with the bat which is a nice touch and it also deals an impressive amount of damage when thrown at your opponents.
The baseball bat lands here at number 6 because like I mentioned its that old reliable weapon, which will generic is bound to keep appearing in video games for years to come.
5. The Hammer: Let me start off by mentioning that I’m referring to the sort of hammers you use in everyday DIY. In video games these hammer aren’t really used that often and the hammer that Mario uses in the RPG’s looks more like a mallet so I’m not counting that one so we’ll have to look elsewhere.
Now while games like Grand Theft Auto Vice City and Manhunt do have hammers in them, to explain the reason the hammer is on this list where going to have to stay with the Mario Bros series and talk about those damn hammer bros.
These skilled hammer users have been in the series since it started back in 1985 and have been the death of many player due to their arcing hammer throws and it doesn’t exactly help that they often come in pairs. If you though they were bad in the first game, they became even more common in Super Mario Bros 2 /Lost Levels and in later levels their hammers can even home in on you.
However it was the game afterwards that netted the hammer onto this list because along with the return of the hammer rros and there new variations, Mario can finally get his own hammer suit and it’s a blast to use and abuse.
Just like the hammer bros Mario can only throw hammers in an arc, but his hammers are more powerful theirs because they can somehow kill ghosts or to be more exact the usually unkillable Boo’s. The Hammer lands here at number 5 due both to the amount of lives the hammer bros have taken in the original Mario games and due to how brokenly awesome the Hammer Suit is in 3. Shame it only shows up in one game otherwise I would have put the hammer higher.
4. The Assassin’s Creed Broom: When I first decided to make this list I knew that the broom from Assassin’s Creed 2 had to be on this list, and it had to be place high to boot because let’s face it, how many lethal brooms can you think of in gaming? Well theirs the Pole Weapon from Dead Rising 2 but that requires you to tie a machete to it in order to make it useful.
The Assassin’s Creed broom on the other hand is just a broom that for some reason is as powerful and has all the animations and effects on the human body as a mace. Not only can you kill armoured guards by basing them over the head with it but it sounds like you bashing them with a heavy metal object for some reason. Also you can slit people’s throats with its wooden handle, yes it’s completely bare wooden handle that you were holding to a second ago.
The only reason I can think for this is that the animus that they were using was slightly glitches, that would certainly help explain some of the weird things you can run into in these games sometimes. The Assassin’s Creed broom lands here at number 4 simply due to how surprisingly effective it is, I mean you can easily killed fully armoured guards with it and doing so is pretty entertaining.
3. Pole Cue: Now breaking into the top 3 we have the Pole/ Snooker Cue. By themselves there not that hard to break since there pretty thin and while that trait is often carried into most games, that hasn’t stopped some developers from making it a surprisingly effective weapon.
Just imagine what would happen if Gou Jia played an innocent game of pool.
For example in the Hitman games you can somehow impale people on them and in the Darkness 2 you can spear people with them. However the real reason its on this list is because of Dynasty Warriors and the character Gou Jia in particular.
Introduced as a playable character back in Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends Gou Jia is one of the strategist who worked closly with Cao Cao till he died due to illness, yet despite being a strategist he charges into battle with the orb and scepter or let’s be honest here, a pole cue.
Somehow capable of killing hundreds of enemies with ease using this thing, Gou Jia can also summon orbs to shoot at people, in a style that looks like his hitting a pool ball. These orbs also sound like two pool balls hitting each other when they hit people, and whenever he uses his Musou attack, he often ricochets them around the battlefield causing untold chaos.
The pool cue lands here at number 3 due to both just how much fun it is to use in Dynasty Warriors and also because it just goes to show how creative some developers can get with something as simple as a thin piece of wood.
2. The Electric Guitar: What is it about video games turning what should be innocent enough items into ridiculously awesome weapons. Okay to be fair if they didn’t this list wouldn’t be a thing and the electric guitars only impact in gaming would have been music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In the hands of a skilled musician who cares about the instrument, it can produce amazing music but put it in a video game and you get awesome results for a completely different reason.
For starters tape an amp to a guitar in Dead Rising 2 or Off the Record and you blow the heads of zombies with the power of pure death metal. In Devil May Cry 3 Dante can get a guitar like weapon called Nevan,which when played can shoot bats and summon lightning. It also doubles as a scythe for those moments when enemies get too close which is convenient. Like every other weapon in DMC 3 Dante brings Nevan along with him into Marvel vs Capcom 3 where it’s easy too combo into and it can also hit unaware players in the air.
The most powerful electric guitar in gaming however belongs to Eddie Rigs from Brutal Legends. Like Nevan, this guitar called Clementine can summon electricity and while it can also summon fire, its the solo’s that make it stand out from the rest. These solo’s are basically the games spells and can range from raising forges, summoning your car, literally melting your opponents faces off and even dropping flaming blimps onto the battlefield.
The electric guitar lands here at number 2 because while it doesn’t show up that often in gaming, when it does it often awesome and you’ll remember using it.
1. The Dead Space Foam Finger: While real life foam fingers are completely pointless, in Dead Space 2 and 3 the pathetic foam finger is actually a instrument of death and hilarity. To be fair while yes it is completely broken you do have to jump through some hoops to get it, but it’s well worth the hassle and is at number 1 for a reason.
It really is hard to take any scene seriously when your character’s ultimate weapon is a foam finger.
In order to get the foam finger/hand cannon in Dead Space 2 and 3 you’re going to have to clear the game twice. In Dead Space 2 this means clearing the game once to unlock Hardcore mode and then again on Hardcore mode to get the weapon. In Dead Space 3 you’ll going to have clear the game once to unlock New Game plus and then clear that mode on Classic difficulty.
After doing so that the hand cannon is yours and its a large bright red foam finger that has unlimited ammo and no cross-hairs. While this makes its a bit of a challenge to aim it at a distance, the hand cannon destroys the limbs of whatever you shooting. What makes the hand cannon even more ridiculous is that Isaac says Pew Pew or “Bang Bang” every-time you shoot it, which completely destroying the game’s atmosphere but by the time you’ve earned this weapon your probably only playing Dead Space 2 for fun.
In Dead Space 3 the hand cannon gets even more ridiculous because its stronger, can be modified and when Isaac reloads it he does the Rock On hand gesture and a guitar rift plays.
The hand cannon is here at number 1 because of how shamelessly broken and insane it is and the fact that Isaac goes “Pew Pew!” just makes makes the whole weapon feel complete.
So that’s my list of the Top 10 everyday items that make surprisingly good weapons in video games and of course these are just my opinion so name your favourites in the comment section below.