When it comes to video game heroes, sometimes your strength may depend on the weapon you use. Whether it’s a bus-sized sword, a gun that can melt demons from the inside, or just your wit and cleverness in a word battle, if you don’t have the right tools at your disposal, you might feel like a tool while the big bad villain laughs in your face.
So, it’s not uncommon for video games to provide increasingly powerful and larger weapons for players to use. However, some developers still use weak tools like nails, sensors, or weak swords to humiliate the player base.
Whether these weapons are so powerful that other players accuse you of relying on “easy strategies,” or they force players to rely on them to get out of a tough spot, or they are embarrassingly terrible that you don’t want to be caught holding them, some weapons you choose may become a mark of shame haunting your soul forever.
7. Model 1887 Akimbo – Modern Warfare 2
When it comes to Call Of Duty, the list of weapons that make you use them seem like a bad guy, or make you feel ashamed for relying on them excessively, can fill a list on their own. Developers had almost surgical precision in introducing powerful and unbalanced weapons into the game, then stepping back for a few months ignoring the player base’s rage from within.
You have nukes, bouncing betties, ballistic knives, and of course, noob tubes, which I was going to include in this list because: A) they are the actual embodiment of skill-less killing, and B) the name “noob tube” in itself should make anyone feel ashamed to use it.
Then I remembered the Model 1887. Or more specifically, I remembered the moment I got killed from almost halfway across the map by a player using these dual shotguns, where almost every player started depending on this gear, killing the competitive scene for several months. And the worst part of all this?
The shame didn’t come from how fast these weapons killed opponents, or how powerful this gear was, no no, the shame came from being forced to use this gear to stay in the game. It was a “adapt or die” situation, and that was the worst part.
6. Phantom – Soul Blade
The Soul Calibre series is truly a wild ride. You have a mix of usual fantasy styles, and you have motion and vibrations’ physics that constantly seem to mock Newton’s third law of motion. And of course, each fighter armed with weapons that make the fights bloodier.
Among these weapons that stab, pierce, and slash, there are definitely some unbelievably strange weapons. While it’s easy to talk about the joke weapons that show up in almost every release, most of them don’t make you feel ashamed when using them. In fact, the only feeling of shame might be if you managed to defeat your opponent using them.
But the Phantom sword from the original Soul Blade game is entirely different. I mean it’s an invisible weapon that feels incredibly cheap to use.
Yes, Hwang here gets an entirely invisible weapon, making it hard for your opponent to react to your attacks. What’s worse is that this weapon is three feet longer than his original sword, meaning you can attack your opponent without them knowing the reach of your weapon!
As you can imagine, this is the lowest of tactics, and the most cheap. If you use this weapon against an opponent, you should feel ashamed. Like being proud of owning all Xtreme Beach Volleyball games.
5. Magic – Elden Ring
Oh Elden Ring, what a game full of terrifying madness, isn’t it? This is the moment when FromSoft decided to raise their hands and say “Okay, take it all,” with a vast number of unforgettable boss battles, an astonishing amount of environments, and overwhelming building possibilities, Elden Ring is a fantastic and beautiful game all the same.
One of the most entertaining things is following the update notes, which often come in an attempt to tone down a new overpowered build that became popular and somehow managed to turn the game into a terrifying monster capable of killing end-game bosses in moments.
However, among all these amazing builds, there is one build that many avoid using due to the extreme “manipulation” factor in it. Of course, I’m talking about any build that relies on magic, using spells like Rock Sling or Comet Azur that melt bosses with just a click or two.
There’s great joy in crushing powerful enemies easily, but it seems to come with a condition from the community, carrying the burden of shame on anyone looking for the easy way. Technically, you may be a high-class sorcerer, but you’re still a “beginner” in the eyes of Elden Ring enthusiasts.
4. Farsight XR-20 – Perfect Dark
Sometimes video games introduce a weapon so powerful that it completely changes the gameplay, and that was certainly the case with the Farsight XR-20. I say this because the moment players learned about the location of this destructive weapon, every match turned into a race to that hot spot. Besides being one of the most powerful sniper rifles in the game, it was also able to see through walls!
Yes, that’s right. The cheapest tactic of the cheapest became now an endorsed feature by the developers in the game. And as you might expect, any couch multiplayer session was ruined if one of your friends knew its location and had even a slight skill in using it. How can you not feel guilty using a gun that takes the concept of fair combat and throws it out the window?
What makes this even more amusing is the defenders of this gun who say, “Oh, but I only used it to prevent X from getting it first” or “Well, you still have to be a good sniper to make it work.”
3. Oddjob’s Hat – 007 Nightfire
In recent years, some developers who worked on the great Goldeneye game on the N64 have confirmed that using the character Oddjob in multiplayer mode is indeed a cheat, settling a debate that lasted for decades and giving you the right to throw your shoe at any of your friends who even dare to move the cursor towards Oddjob in the character selection screen.
And while the debate from our childhood has been settled, this is not the only game where Oddjob played a role in destroying the gaming experience. In the game 007 Nightfire, players could not only play as Oddjob but also had the ability to use his hat as a unique weapon.
This deadly one-shot weapon quickly became a nightmare for other players, as its immense range and near-perfect accuracy meant you had a free kill waiting with each respawn.
So I ask you, what’s worse than a cheater? A dual cheater, that’s what’s happening here. Not only do you not have the developer’s pre-support that Oddjob comes with that “okay, be that guy” vibe, but you also get a special weapon that makes you say “well, we’re not friends anymore.”
2. The Wooden Shield – Bloodborne
Let’s be honest, when it comes to spirit-crushing games from FromSoft’s development, Bloodborne will always be one of the harshest.
The game offered a major deviation from what players were used to in Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls. Bloodborne came and simply told you that the defensive combat style you relied on would not help you in this gothic nightmare. This game was like a bully in the schoolyard, mocking you and nullifying everything you were accustomed to.
Here you had to dodge, parry, evade, and drink a lot of blood until you looked like a balloon filled with blood. Any slip-up was a certain death, and the developers made this point crystal clear by introducing the wooden shield.
Although not a traditional weapon in the literal sense, I include it in this list because it symbolizes shame. It’s a shield that offers no significant protection, slows down your movements when using it, and barely prevents any damage at all.
However, the deepest sense of shame comes from the description written on this item: “The shield is lovely, but only if it breeds negativity”.
1. The Sexy Beam – Silent Hill 3
Simply saying The Sexy Beam must give you a strong idea that things are about to spiral out of control, and indeed, unlocking and using this secret weapon in Silent Hill 3 in battle is like riding a roller coaster full of twists and turns.
As you might expect, since Silent Hill 3 is a survival horror game, it doesn’t give you powerful weapons from the start, but prefers to keep you in a constant state of tension as monsters of all sizes try to kill you. However, if a player managed to challenge killing 333 monsters, a very tough challenge, they would unlock the Heather Beam, and with the Transform Costume item, they would get the most powerful weapon in the game: The Sexy Beam.
So far, it sounds appealing, right? But the problem lies in the fact that this super weapon also comes with a large dose of embarrassment. Now, in your horror game, you will see a teenage girl performing showy moves and whispering “Sexy Beam” every time it’s used. There’s nothing in this scene that seems appropriate, right? It’s extremely creepy.