Shooters have become some of the largest games in the video games industry, even on the Switch. They thrill players with their generally fast-paced gameplay and technical action. The guns used in these games come in many shapes and sizes, serving many different functions.
There are always the standard variety of assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, and countless more. Luckily, these games often include their own unique pieces of the arsenal that the player can bring into battle. Some of these weapons specialize in doing nothing more than obliterating everything in front of the player down to the molecule, each in its own interesting and absurd way.
10 Doom - BFG
Doom, as a franchise, has made a name for itself by gifting the player with absurdly powerful weapons meant for absurdly powerful foes, sometimes on absurd devices. Out of all of the weapons of mass destruction that the player can wield, there is none more iconic than the BFG.
The BFG fires a ball of condensed energy so strong that upon impact it effectively annihilates everything in the general vicinity of the blast. It is capable of taking down even the strongest demons in just a few hits while also reducing all surrounding lesser demons to atoms.
9 Fallout - Fat Man
In terms of conventional weaponry, there is none more synonymous with complete destruction than a nuke. In Fallout, the world has been blasted back to the dark ages after a sudden and disastrous nuclear war. However, that won't stop the player from adding a splash of extra background radiation by launching a mini-nuke.
The Fat Man is a simple device. It essentially acts as a giant catapult/crossbow whose ordinance of choice is a nuclear device that will destroy almost everything caught in the blast, while also slightly irradiating the area for a short time. If that isn't enough there are plenty of mods for all the games, including New Vegas.
8 Team Fortress 2 - Heavy's Minigun
Heavy, inaccurate, and expensive are the words that describe a minigun. Another would be rate of fire. Instead of the pinpoint accuracy that an automatic weapon is expected to have, the minigun opts to fire so many rounds so quickly that anyone who just so much as brushes the cone of fire emanating from the barrel of the gun will be littered with numerous bullets
Out of all the miniguns in video games, none showcase these attributes better than Heavy's minigun from Team Fortress 2.
7 Gears Of War - Hammer Of Dawn
If the general state of sci-fi says anything, it's that the real world military will almost certainly develop a space laser, eventually. But if the average gamer is tired of waiting, then they can simply look towards the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War.
When enemies can be the size of buildings, it is useful to have on hand a device that, during the right time of day, will call down a massive energy beam from a satellite in orbit. Of course said enemies don't have to be that large, it works just as well on hordes of much smaller enemies.
6 Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare - Blunderbuss
The Red Dead Redemption games are both already masterpieces, but there are those who remember when the first game got a remarkable standalone expansion called Undead Nightmare. As John Marston, the player would have to face off against the zombie apocalypse.
All the standard rules apply, fire is effective and always aim for the head. However, ammo is scarce and some guns can be considered too accurate for their own good. The blunderbuss solves both issues. Low ammo? Stuff the barrel with random junk, namely body parts. Accuracy an issue? The gun will vaporize anything in its path. Many still eagerly await a similar expansion for the sequel.
5 Ratchet And Clank - R.Y.N.O.
Ratchet and Clank have made a name for themselves for having a litany of unconventional and highly addictive weaponry. Every gun is unique in its own sort of way. But, there is only one gun that upon activation, will spew out a cacophony of rockets while also blaring the 1812 Overture in order to strike fear in the hearts of the player's opponents. R.Y.N.O. obliges.
Anything caught in its cone of fire is practically guaranteed to take on a massive amount of damage, and before they can recover, the next volley comes.
4 Call Of Duty: Black Ops - Thunder Gun
When most people think of energy weapons, they think of plasma or electrical energy, but there is one other energy that this gun harnesses to deadly effect, concussive energy. Its use in the zombie mode of Call of Duty is primarily as a means to clear out massive crowds.
With this glorified air cannon, the player will be blasting entire hordes of zombies into the stratosphere. As by the rules of zombie mode, this gun can also be upgraded to be an even more effective way of clearing out a room than most other firearms. The sort of firepower that can carry a player through season 4 of Cold War zombies.
3 Dead Space 2 - Hand Cannon
Many learned, from the wise words of Spongebob, about the power of imagination. Dead Space just takes that sentiment a bit more literally with this gun. While it must be unlocked firsthand, upon wielding it, the player will quickly realize the true destructive power that lies within their hands.
A foam finger gun that fires invisible bullets capable of great concussive force once the player character, Isaac, utters the key phrase "pew" or "bang". It helps a lot when said gun can be spammed into oblivion, followed by Isaac spewing out a whole lot of nonsense as his words mix together.
2 Titanfall 2 - Smart Pistol
While its destructive potential is not immediately known to most players who wield it for the first time, the players who have played the campaign will remember one of the most adrenaline-pumping sequences in any first-person shooter, all being fueled by the Smart Pistol.
The Smart Pistol is like any ordinary pistol, except that it auto-locks onto the enemy's head if they are within the gun's sight and range. In multiplayer, results vary as it takes much longer to lock onto a player, also due to ongoing hacking issues. But in the campaign, the player will run a gauntlet at lightspeed as they mow down waves of grunts with the simple press of a button as the pistol does all the hard work for them.
1 Halo 2 - Scarab Gun
Joke guns can be found in many shooters as a sort of fun present to those who know what they are doing, the ray gun from Call of Duty: World at War for instance. To receive this weapon, the player must lure a banshee to the end of the tunnel on the mission "Metropolis" without hijacking it.
Near the end of this tunnel is an invisible gate that despawns any vehicle that crosses it. Simply hijack the banshee immediately after it crosses this gate so that it doesn't despawn. Fly to a distant bridge and there is the desired weapon. now the player can fire an endless stream of destructive scarab rounds for the rest of the mission.