Halo Combat Evolved: M6D pistol
After years of handguns less damaging than handshakes, someone finally remembered that pistols are built to fire bullets that kill things. In fact, Halo's M6D Personal Defense Weapons System remembered most of the history of firearms and used it all simultaneously with every shot. It was a scoped automatic weapon shredding flesh and shields with equal ease, and was so manly it decided to fit into one hand so you could punch things with the other.
Above: The magazine is longer than the gun - that's how badass this weapon is; it's more concerned with killing the next 11 guys than the one it's shooting now
Captain Keyes gives you the pistol at the start of the game because he's about to ram the entire Pillar of Autumn into the Halo ring, and therefore has the only better weapon in the game. In this universe, a goddamn 26th century Magnum revolver is only the M6C - Master Chief's M6D pistol is the upgrade to Dirty Harry’s gun plus half a millennium of polishing.
Above: 2553, the first year in human history a Magnum could be referred to as "weak"
When combined with a plasma pistol (for shield stripping) it was the most lethal thing you could do with two hands short of being Tony Jaa and beating up a nuclear warhead. The pistol was so overwhelmingly effective they nerfed it in Halo 2, and so popular they ferned those features back in over the rest of the series. Though Halo 2 did give you some kind of glowing sword as compensation, if you're into that kind of thing.
Perfect Dark: CMP150
Technically you start Perfect Dark with the Falcon 2, but you get the CMP150 by killing the first security guard you see – that’s the gaming equivalent of finding it in your other pocket. The DataDyne weapon has an auto-aim mode, making it the smartest evil corporation in history. They know their security guards couldn’t hit an idiot at an American Idol audition, so they built a gun that could aim for them. Luckily for the player, the auto-aiming mode is the secondary fire, meaning none of the security guards could figure out how to use it.
Above: Look at this beautiful weapon, it tracks, it aims, it practically fires itself!
The gun comes from an honorable period of console shooting history when auto-aim was still clearly advertised as an artificial and skill-free handicap for the poor thumbstick-crippled console players, instead of a check box hidden in an options screen. The CMP targets every enemy you drag the crosshairs across, letting you pretend to be the Terminator even more than normal.
Dead Space: Plasma Cutter
Dead Space created an entire mythology just so you could psychopathically dismember things, stomp on the corpses and still be the good guy. And to make sure you get to the mutilating as quickly as possible, Isaac Clarke’s first two pieces of hardware were a slow-motion ray and a laser-targeting limb-slicer known as the Plasma Cutter.
Above: The plasma cutter, making Jason Voorhees' machete look like a preschool toy since 2008
You can earn an Achievement/Trophy for using no other weapon throughout the entire campaign, suggesting that doing so would be somewhat difficult; in fact, the Plasma Cutter is so destructively effective that we almost prefer sticking to it. The game has other weapons, but if you use them, well, this is the only time when NOT butchering everything you see with laser-precision straightedges makes you the madman.
May 10, 2011
Because you merely enjoy blowing things to pieces. It's the Army's job
For when originality is as important as lethality
A suck gun which doesn't suck, probably the most violent (and in fact only) zen riddle
