Simple numerical format... 1 through 9. Prefer choosing games that are either first or third person shooters.
Pretty simple format
1. Melee
Lightsaber: (Jedi Knight series) - From Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy, I can't really think of something more iconic then the lightsaber. Plus in Jedi Knight, besides cutting through swathes of stormtroopers and Trandoshans, you actually duel other Dark Jedi! The lightsaber combat was also far more advanced and developed in Jedi Outcast and especially Jedi Academy even over subsequent Star Wars games. It brought to life lightsaber combat with an iconic weapon. Very epic.
> Honorable Mention: Chainsaw (Doom series) - It's cool and all, it's just... I dunno… beyond the cool aspect of ripping and tearing through people with a chainsaw, it didn't give me much oomph beyond that awesomeness.
2. Pistol
M6D Personal Defense Weapon (Halo) - It's a really long name for a pistol but whatever, this pistol belongs in the much lauded category of sniper pistols alongside the Half Life Glocks and Colt Pythons as well as other sidearms. According to lore it fires 12.7mm APHE bullets which... makes a lot of sense to me considering how often in Death Match we were plinking away at each other across the map with deadly long range pistol fire.
> Honorable Mention: Plasma Cutter (Dead Space) - Not sure if it goes here, but it seems appropriate. When you got that slowing energy stuff and three dots to light up your enemy (vertically or horizontally) those dark corners of the Ishimura don't feel quite as dark and deadly anymore. Slicing off Necromorph limbs became a much beloved artisan skill using the plasma cutter.
3. Shotgun
Super Shotgun (Doom Series) - Yeah... like there's anything better. Except maybe the regular Shotgun which was a real versatile weapon in both games.
Honorable Mention: Flak Cannon (Unreal Tournament) - Not sure if it's a shotgun or just sprays death everything with canister sized bullets. Either way it's glorious up and close combat devastation that produces very effective shotgun like effects and is great fun to use as a noob or as a veteran splattering and gibbing your enemies.
4. SMG
RC P90 (Goldeneye) - One RC P90 is bad enough... but if your equipped with two of them... ggwp. It's powerful, accurate and each of them carries eighty bullets. You can fire them one at a time or simultaneously and it'll shred anyone in those corridors that you stumble upon. And dual wielding them just makes it meaner. You feel like your an action hero when your dumping dozens of rounds into an enemy and see the low, outdated blood pools splattering your unfortunate target.
Honorable Mention: MP5 (Half Life) - Tried and true submachine gun... and it comes with a handy rifle grenade launcher as well. There are other comparable weapons of course, including probably a billion I'm overlooking in various CoD and Battlefield games, but I like this one a lot.
5. Assault Rifle
SC-20K M.A.W.S. (Splinter Cell) - Based off of the incredibly sexy F2000, the best thing to come out of Belgium since waffles, I remember how happy I was when I liberated this weapon from its languishing confinement in Langley and realized just what modular meant. Not only could you headshot bad guys with impunity with its 1.5x scope and integrated suppressor, you could also eliminate troublesome CIA Agents and civilians with sticky shocker rounds or a variety of other nonlethals as well as use the gun to fire tiny cameras around to snoop upon the enemies of freedom. Plus it came with a grenade launcher for when you wanted to eschew stealth and engage in more splintering.
Honorable Mention: M4A1 (Half Life: Counterstrike) The M4A1 was my favorite assault rifle in the game. The AK-47 of the terrorist team was louder and more powerful due to its rapid rate of fire, but the M4A1 was far more versatile. It could engage enemies at any range but when equipped with the silencer, not only was the sound greatly suppressed... and made it sound much cooler, the firepower increased at close range, making it a beautiful close quarters weapon. With or without the suppressor, a single headshot would leave the unarmored terrorist very dead and the weapon itself looked cool, sounded great and was super effective.
6. Machine Gun
MG3 (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) - The 7th and last light machine gun attained by the medic class, the MG3 was a beautiful weapon for storming enemy positions and mowing down clusters of enemies, for laying down massive amounts of suppressing fire to stop enemy advances and as a support weapon, complimenting the attack or defense in conjunction with lots of medkits being tossed about liberally (and occasionally shocking the fallen back to life). The iron sights were simple, effective and unobtrusive to the point you didn't even need a scope or red dot sight. It was highly accurate in burst fire at long ranges and in close quarters was just super devastating.
Honorable Mention: M90 Minigun (Aliens v. Predator) - The Smartgun is more versatile but the Minigun has a beautiful simplicity of its own. With a modest nine hundred round magazine, the Colonial Marines Minigun can quickly become your best friend in a narrow corridor or hallway or when your back is to the corner or wall. It can shred pretty much any fiendish, sneaky xenomorph immediately, especially if you light up your approaches with flares but can even mow down a Yautja in a span of seconds as well. With all of the advantages those two aliens have over the poor Colonial Marines, the minigun combined with situational awareness helped even the field... a lot.
7. Energy Rifle
Plasma Rifle (Halo) - It was a great weapon that I loved using in the early Halo games. I loved it's unique design almost like a fist weapon and its style, the projectiles it fired and it's overall aesthetic. It was great for use against its designers and chief operators, the Covenant and had a fair bit of power to it as well, complimented by extremely low recoil. It was a great weapon to use at close or mid range and even more fun to use dual wielding. I still remember blasting apart even Brutes with dual plasma rifles and when you timed it right, the Plasma Rifle even had a great melee attack animation as you smacked your enemies with the unconventional looking weapon.
Honorable Mention: LAER (Fallout: New Vegas) - It looks ridiculous and its design is just as ridiculous but the LAER (Laser Assisted Electrical Rifle) is absolutely awesome. A Frankenstein collection of the barrel of a pulse rifle, the vacuum tubing of a recharger rifle, the stock of a laser rifle, and a plasma gun microfusion cell on its bottom. It had the spread of a Laser RCW at longer rangers but at close or mid range, it was extremely cost effective in its ammunition consumption to damage output and with in-game mods could become even more efficient and deadly.
8. Rocket/Grenade Launcher
SBC Cannon (Serious Sam) - It's literally a large handheld iron cast cannon that looks like it's been simply taken off of its 19th century gun carriage and put in your hands. You can go bowling with it in the game... seriously. It fires large round cannonballs that pulp enemies it comes in contact with like the depleted uranium bowling ball... of death.
Honorable Mention: Torque Bow (Gears of War) - The main reason this weapon is here is because I've never actually played Gears of War and utilized this weapon. But seeing others enjoy lining up the shot and then loosing an arrow, causing their enemies to explode, is most satisfying. It's a wonderful effect and its inclusion in Gears of War is just great and seems to result in truly satisfying kills.
9. Sniper Rifle
Anti-material Rifle (Fallout: New Vegas) - There's nothing quite as satisfying as plinking off the head of a Legionary or some other backwards Wasteland degenerate after peering at them from dozens of meters away, having achieved total surprise and as soon as you fire, the games field of vision goes into slow motion as you see your shot beautifully tear off the head of your target. And with a powerful Anti-material rifle, that sight and feeling just begins all the more warm and fuzzier. The gun looks as beautiful as heck, whether in my hands or Boone's to boot and it feels like a powerful weapon when you fire it and it goes boom.
Honorable Mention: Lascannon (WH40K Space Marine) - Like the above only not so much a rifle... as it is a cannon... and thus can only be hefted by someone as cool/lame as an Ultramarine. The Lascannon is a beautiful weapon in that you can just zoom in and fire and a flash of red beaming light later, there's simply nothing left as your opponent has been reduced to a blood spray of some sort.
0. Special Weapon
Gravity Gun (Half Life) - Like I would choose anything else. Not only was the Gravity Gun beautifully implemented in Half Life 2 and its sequels allowing one to fully explore its amazing physics engine in everything from blasting cars on a devastated bridge to make it tilt the right way to grabbing and hurling giant sawblades to bisect zombies, but late in Half Life 2 your Gravity Gun becomes a supercharged killing machine, flinging countless Combine soldiers to death and even helping topple a gargantuan mecha like Strider.
Honorable Mention: Thunder Hammer (WH40K Space Marine): The only reason this is here and not replacing the lightsaber as the greatest melee weapon ever in a game is solely because the Thunder Hammer is at its best when you had a jump pack strapped to your back... and your flying through the air during a Liberation Campaign and then marking your target many dozens of feet below you and as your rocket towards your enemy, hurtling towards the ground, you smash your Thunder Hammer into the very surface of the planet itself, sundering the ground beneath your foes feet, causing the bodies of lesser adversaries to explode upon contact as the aura of devastation hurtles enemies farther apart and of mightier stature tumbling and hurtling away from your point of impact. Again sadly... few are as mighty as a Space Marine, so this melee weapon is considered too special to be assigned the Number 1 key.
Pretty simple format
1. Melee
2. Pistol
3. Shotgun
4. SMG
5. Assault Rifle
6. Machine Gun
7. Energy Rifle
8. Rocket/Grenade Launcher
9. Sniper Rifle
0: Special Weapon
2. Pistol
3. Shotgun
4. SMG
5. Assault Rifle
6. Machine Gun
7. Energy Rifle
8. Rocket/Grenade Launcher
9. Sniper Rifle
0: Special Weapon
1. Melee
Lightsaber: (Jedi Knight series) - From Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy, I can't really think of something more iconic then the lightsaber. Plus in Jedi Knight, besides cutting through swathes of stormtroopers and Trandoshans, you actually duel other Dark Jedi! The lightsaber combat was also far more advanced and developed in Jedi Outcast and especially Jedi Academy even over subsequent Star Wars games. It brought to life lightsaber combat with an iconic weapon. Very epic.
> Honorable Mention: Chainsaw (Doom series) - It's cool and all, it's just... I dunno… beyond the cool aspect of ripping and tearing through people with a chainsaw, it didn't give me much oomph beyond that awesomeness.
2. Pistol
M6D Personal Defense Weapon (Halo) - It's a really long name for a pistol but whatever, this pistol belongs in the much lauded category of sniper pistols alongside the Half Life Glocks and Colt Pythons as well as other sidearms. According to lore it fires 12.7mm APHE bullets which... makes a lot of sense to me considering how often in Death Match we were plinking away at each other across the map with deadly long range pistol fire.
> Honorable Mention: Plasma Cutter (Dead Space) - Not sure if it goes here, but it seems appropriate. When you got that slowing energy stuff and three dots to light up your enemy (vertically or horizontally) those dark corners of the Ishimura don't feel quite as dark and deadly anymore. Slicing off Necromorph limbs became a much beloved artisan skill using the plasma cutter.
3. Shotgun
Super Shotgun (Doom Series) - Yeah... like there's anything better. Except maybe the regular Shotgun which was a real versatile weapon in both games.
Honorable Mention: Flak Cannon (Unreal Tournament) - Not sure if it's a shotgun or just sprays death everything with canister sized bullets. Either way it's glorious up and close combat devastation that produces very effective shotgun like effects and is great fun to use as a noob or as a veteran splattering and gibbing your enemies.
4. SMG
RC P90 (Goldeneye) - One RC P90 is bad enough... but if your equipped with two of them... ggwp. It's powerful, accurate and each of them carries eighty bullets. You can fire them one at a time or simultaneously and it'll shred anyone in those corridors that you stumble upon. And dual wielding them just makes it meaner. You feel like your an action hero when your dumping dozens of rounds into an enemy and see the low, outdated blood pools splattering your unfortunate target.
Honorable Mention: MP5 (Half Life) - Tried and true submachine gun... and it comes with a handy rifle grenade launcher as well. There are other comparable weapons of course, including probably a billion I'm overlooking in various CoD and Battlefield games, but I like this one a lot.
5. Assault Rifle
SC-20K M.A.W.S. (Splinter Cell) - Based off of the incredibly sexy F2000, the best thing to come out of Belgium since waffles, I remember how happy I was when I liberated this weapon from its languishing confinement in Langley and realized just what modular meant. Not only could you headshot bad guys with impunity with its 1.5x scope and integrated suppressor, you could also eliminate troublesome CIA Agents and civilians with sticky shocker rounds or a variety of other nonlethals as well as use the gun to fire tiny cameras around to snoop upon the enemies of freedom. Plus it came with a grenade launcher for when you wanted to eschew stealth and engage in more splintering.
Honorable Mention: M4A1 (Half Life: Counterstrike) The M4A1 was my favorite assault rifle in the game. The AK-47 of the terrorist team was louder and more powerful due to its rapid rate of fire, but the M4A1 was far more versatile. It could engage enemies at any range but when equipped with the silencer, not only was the sound greatly suppressed... and made it sound much cooler, the firepower increased at close range, making it a beautiful close quarters weapon. With or without the suppressor, a single headshot would leave the unarmored terrorist very dead and the weapon itself looked cool, sounded great and was super effective.
6. Machine Gun
MG3 (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) - The 7th and last light machine gun attained by the medic class, the MG3 was a beautiful weapon for storming enemy positions and mowing down clusters of enemies, for laying down massive amounts of suppressing fire to stop enemy advances and as a support weapon, complimenting the attack or defense in conjunction with lots of medkits being tossed about liberally (and occasionally shocking the fallen back to life). The iron sights were simple, effective and unobtrusive to the point you didn't even need a scope or red dot sight. It was highly accurate in burst fire at long ranges and in close quarters was just super devastating.
Honorable Mention: M90 Minigun (Aliens v. Predator) - The Smartgun is more versatile but the Minigun has a beautiful simplicity of its own. With a modest nine hundred round magazine, the Colonial Marines Minigun can quickly become your best friend in a narrow corridor or hallway or when your back is to the corner or wall. It can shred pretty much any fiendish, sneaky xenomorph immediately, especially if you light up your approaches with flares but can even mow down a Yautja in a span of seconds as well. With all of the advantages those two aliens have over the poor Colonial Marines, the minigun combined with situational awareness helped even the field... a lot.
7. Energy Rifle
Plasma Rifle (Halo) - It was a great weapon that I loved using in the early Halo games. I loved it's unique design almost like a fist weapon and its style, the projectiles it fired and it's overall aesthetic. It was great for use against its designers and chief operators, the Covenant and had a fair bit of power to it as well, complimented by extremely low recoil. It was a great weapon to use at close or mid range and even more fun to use dual wielding. I still remember blasting apart even Brutes with dual plasma rifles and when you timed it right, the Plasma Rifle even had a great melee attack animation as you smacked your enemies with the unconventional looking weapon.
Honorable Mention: LAER (Fallout: New Vegas) - It looks ridiculous and its design is just as ridiculous but the LAER (Laser Assisted Electrical Rifle) is absolutely awesome. A Frankenstein collection of the barrel of a pulse rifle, the vacuum tubing of a recharger rifle, the stock of a laser rifle, and a plasma gun microfusion cell on its bottom. It had the spread of a Laser RCW at longer rangers but at close or mid range, it was extremely cost effective in its ammunition consumption to damage output and with in-game mods could become even more efficient and deadly.
8. Rocket/Grenade Launcher
SBC Cannon (Serious Sam) - It's literally a large handheld iron cast cannon that looks like it's been simply taken off of its 19th century gun carriage and put in your hands. You can go bowling with it in the game... seriously. It fires large round cannonballs that pulp enemies it comes in contact with like the depleted uranium bowling ball... of death.
Honorable Mention: Torque Bow (Gears of War) - The main reason this weapon is here is because I've never actually played Gears of War and utilized this weapon. But seeing others enjoy lining up the shot and then loosing an arrow, causing their enemies to explode, is most satisfying. It's a wonderful effect and its inclusion in Gears of War is just great and seems to result in truly satisfying kills.
9. Sniper Rifle
Anti-material Rifle (Fallout: New Vegas) - There's nothing quite as satisfying as plinking off the head of a Legionary or some other backwards Wasteland degenerate after peering at them from dozens of meters away, having achieved total surprise and as soon as you fire, the games field of vision goes into slow motion as you see your shot beautifully tear off the head of your target. And with a powerful Anti-material rifle, that sight and feeling just begins all the more warm and fuzzier. The gun looks as beautiful as heck, whether in my hands or Boone's to boot and it feels like a powerful weapon when you fire it and it goes boom.
Honorable Mention: Lascannon (WH40K Space Marine) - Like the above only not so much a rifle... as it is a cannon... and thus can only be hefted by someone as cool/lame as an Ultramarine. The Lascannon is a beautiful weapon in that you can just zoom in and fire and a flash of red beaming light later, there's simply nothing left as your opponent has been reduced to a blood spray of some sort.
0. Special Weapon
Gravity Gun (Half Life) - Like I would choose anything else. Not only was the Gravity Gun beautifully implemented in Half Life 2 and its sequels allowing one to fully explore its amazing physics engine in everything from blasting cars on a devastated bridge to make it tilt the right way to grabbing and hurling giant sawblades to bisect zombies, but late in Half Life 2 your Gravity Gun becomes a supercharged killing machine, flinging countless Combine soldiers to death and even helping topple a gargantuan mecha like Strider.
Honorable Mention: Thunder Hammer (WH40K Space Marine): The only reason this is here and not replacing the lightsaber as the greatest melee weapon ever in a game is solely because the Thunder Hammer is at its best when you had a jump pack strapped to your back... and your flying through the air during a Liberation Campaign and then marking your target many dozens of feet below you and as your rocket towards your enemy, hurtling towards the ground, you smash your Thunder Hammer into the very surface of the planet itself, sundering the ground beneath your foes feet, causing the bodies of lesser adversaries to explode upon contact as the aura of devastation hurtles enemies farther apart and of mightier stature tumbling and hurtling away from your point of impact. Again sadly... few are as mighty as a Space Marine, so this melee weapon is considered too special to be assigned the Number 1 key.
