Gravity Gun from Half-Life, a strange weapon. Genre-defining weapons – what every shooter needs
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Finally, a certain exception to the rule – weapons that do not kill directly, weapons that are strange, inventive, and creative. It does not appear en masse in every game, but time and time again we have the opportunity to use something that will surprise us, make us smile and force us to figure a puzzle out. The most obvious example is the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, a unique weapon based entirely on physics. Catching and firing elements of the environment towards the enemy means that we choose the ammunition at a given moment, attacking either with a small blade or a barrel full of flammable liquid. Gravity Gun can also be successfully used for other purposes: building mini fortifications or overcoming obstacles and barriers in the field. The weapon invented by Valve studio had a significant impact on the gaming world, and the fastest version of the gravity gun appeared in the third installment of TimeSplitters and the Doom 3 expansion pack called Resurrection of Evil . However, Grabber from the famous shooter was much more focused on the fight. It was able to intercept enemy missiles and direct them back to the enemy. Over the years, the genius of Gravity Gun continued to elicit admiration among others, and we could play with gravity in Crysis, Bioshock and Dead Space. Weird and inventive weapons, however, appeared earlier than in Half-Lifie 2 , e.g. Duke Nukem had a Shrinker that shrinks enemies to the size of a Smurf to be crushed after a while, and the Electric Lightning Gun from Quake used on the water, lava and slime injured anyone in the tank, including the operator. The solution proposed by People Can Fly studio also turned out to be original and creative. In their Bulletstorm shooter, players can try out inventions such as gravity boots to kick out opponents and an energetic leash that in turn pulls enemies towards us in slow motion.
This is how we reached the end of our ten. With the Wolf pistol, the Doom shotgun, the M4 and the Counter-Strike sniper rifle, the Half-Life rocket launcher and crowbar, Garrett's bow, the Deus Ex grenades, the BFG and the Gravity Gun we would have a good chance of completing nearly every modern shooter. Right? The gaming world took about ten years to refine the above-mentioned elements of weapons to a satisfactory level, and then constantly improved them a little, both in appearance and mechanics. In the meantime, we could play a lot of great titles of our time: Project I.G.I. 2, Delta Force: Blackhawk Down, Unreal Tournament, Halo, FEAR, Metro 2033, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Bioshock . Today, instead of new weapons and mechanics in FPS games, there is more talk about their sales model and dividing the game into paid DLC packages, although Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege is one exception, which brought a small breath of fresh air to the genre. Will first person shooter games surprise us with something in terms of gameplay and equipment in the future? Time will tell…
