Ask the Kliq #10
Every once in a while, you will think about video games and then ask yourself a question that has no rhyme or reason, but that just happened to pop in your head at that exact moment. In some rare instances, not even Google or Wikipedia can provide the answer you need. Sometimes you wouldn’t even need an answer to that question.
This is where we come in.
Our panel of experts is here to take on all of your video games-related questions, no matter how serious or silly they may be. With each new edition, we will submit a question to this elite committee, which will in turn try to provide you, our beloved readers, with the most accurate answer they can come up with.
Do you have a question for us? Shoot us an e-mail at kapoutman AT hotmail.com with the subject line “Ask the Kliq”, or leave a comment below. The best questions will be featured in an upcoming column.
This Week’s Question
Have you ever played a game, completely destroyed the opposition in an effective way with a sweet weapon and then wondered “Wow, where can I get a real life version of THAT”? If so, then this week’s question is for you. Even if it never happened to you, you might want to take a look at this week’s answers. Why? Because the following list contains many geeks’ dream weapons. A lot of geeks also happen to have technical skills in weird subjects like physics, chemistry and other things that you might deem unnecessary, but which could very well help the said geeks turn one of these into a reality. Therefore, it is in your best interest to keep reading carefully, as we are just telling you in advance what you need to prepare for.
With this in mind, here is this week’s question:
If you could have any non-magical video game weapon for your everyday life, what would it be?
ML Kennedy: The correct answer, by the by, is Laptop gun from Perfect Dark.
Aaron Sirois: R.Y.N.O. (Rip ya a new one) from Ratchet and Clank.
Are you kidding me? Six high-powered, HOMING missiles of doom heading toward my opponent at once? Count me in. With this little sucker, anyone who ever gave me grief would be in for a very quick and painful death.
Christopher Bowen: I once tried to beat someone up with a yo-yo as a child. Does that count?
Aileen Coe: I would have to go with the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (ASHPD or portal gun for short) from, well, Portal.
Who would’ve thought there’d be so many ways to use portals? I’d have way too much fun making things (or people) levitate by shooting a portal right underneath them, then shooting another one on the floor. I’d also have way too much fun zipping around by exploiting the conservation of speed but not directionality through portals property (well, as long as I had those heel springs so I don’t go splat – that would be the antithesis of fun). Good thing I don’t get motion sickness easily! Of course, I could make other people go splat into very unpleasant things if circumstances necessitated such a course of action.
Charlie Marsh: The Cerebral Bore from Turok 2.
Is there anything better than that? It fucks your shit up…TWICE. Not only does it bore into your skull, spilling blood and brain tissue all over the place, but, as you stand there and think (well, maybe not think) that you might be able to survive the attack and live as a vegetable the rest of your life, BOOM! There goes the rest of your head. And yet, people and dinosaurs continue attacking Turok after he kills someone with it. I mean, what would you do if you saw someone wielding such a weapon? I’d be like, “Ok, you can thwart my evil plans, sorry, please don’t splatter my brains all over my house.”
Matt Yaeger: Lancer from Gears of War.
Because it’s a gun with a chainsaw attached to it.
Ashe Collins: BFG from Quake II.
When you absolutely positively have to kill every last Strogg in the room, accept no substitute.
Misha: Since the Portal Gun is already taken… The RCP-120 from Perfect Dark.
Ultra-high rate of fire *and* a cloaking device? DO WANT.
Adam Powell: I guess I have simple tastes. The M1 Garand. Stable, quick, and not terribly prone to jamming. Makes killing Nazis a breeze. Definitely not “magical,” but I think some of these other entries might be.
Nathan Birch: That spear Scorpion shoots out of his arm.
I can’t count the number of times in real life I’ve fantasized about shouting “GET OVER HERE!” at somebody, dragging them across the room then uppercutting them through the ceiling tiles.
Guy Desmarais: Is Science-Fiction considered magical? If not, I’ll take a blaster, from any Star Wars game. I’ve fantasized about having a blaster since I was a little kid. This is just the kind of weapon that screams “don’t mess with me”. It shoots through pretty much anything but a deflector shield and who caries that on him anyway? I’m a man of simple taste, so I’ll take any beam colour available, be it red or green.
Or what about a lightsaber? A real, working, honest-to-goodness, cut through anything lightsaber. It’s even more practical, and classy. Not only do you look bad-ass with one, you look gentlemanly bad-ass. The only other weapon that approaches this status is the shillelagh, and I’m not Irish.
I just want to be a Jedi, really.
Alex Lucard: I’m not sure if summoning a Persona or having the ability to make Hadoukens count as magical, so I’ll play it safe and say I wouldn’t mind either a mech (from say Sakura Taisen, Vanguard Bandits or Steel Battalion) or The Vic Viper.
What? Those are weapons!
Ian Gorrie: I would need a Clank from Ratchet and Clank.
Putting him into jetpack mode would really help with my commuting about town.
Mark B.: The Land Shark Gun from Armed and Dangerous.
Since the world the game took place in was largely not magical, it’s safe to assume the gun wasn’t either, and a gun that fires sharks that burrow under the earth, then burst up and eat people? That would be the best thing ever. I’d never run out of uses for that.
Mohamed Al-Saadoon: Score another one for Perfect Dark, my pick is The Farsight XR-20.
The Farsight, for those who haven’t had the pleasure to play the original Perfect Dark on the N64, is an alien sniper rifle that can shoot through anything. That in itself is cool but the XR in the name stands for “X-Ray” which means you can see everyone you wanted to shoot from the safety of nuclear bunker if you wanted to from a scope that makes the world look like an acid trip.
And the final touch? Auto-aim. You just sit back and let the gun search targets for you, leaving you with the best part, pulling the trigger.
Don’t know about you, but I’d want a gun that turns average videogame nerds into super weapons that make Simo Hayha shit his pants.
A.J. Hess: I’m going to make rules for myself. Nothing from another medium. That kills my top four choices – Green Lantern’s Power Ring, Wolverine’s claws, The Darkness, and a Jade Falcon loadout Dire Wolf. That would be called a Daishi, to you Inner Sphere scum.
Perfect Dark has some nice choices. So does Left 4 Dead – I mean, who wouldn’t want a pistol that never runs out of ammo? And I wanted it to be man-portable, so claiming the MAC Cannons from the Orbital stations in Halo 2 wouldn’t be fair, although having the ability to say “Keep me happy or I remove a county” would be kinda the best thing ever.
Upon final consideration, I’m going to go a little unorthodox and go with the Dragon Sword from Ninja Gaiden. I’m assuming that it will give me awesome ninja skills to go along with it, but even if it doesn’t, it’ll look damn cool.
Matt Yaeger: I changed my mind, I want the glaive from Dark Sector if only because then I can rock out Krull-style.
Michael O’Reilly: I had a hard time with this one. There’s such a large variety of choices. Would I take the sword from Halo 2? Or perhaps the Magnum from Resistance 2 that fired shells you could detonate whenever you chose? Or going back in time how about some laser designating goodness (…Nuclear Launch detected)?
And then it came to me. The ultimate in terror weapons AND breakfast. Yes, yes. The Flaming Pig from Rome: Total War. I rest my case.
Had anybody noticed that Perfect Dark was so full of great weapons? This session brought me memories of camping in a dark spot with a Farsight gun in my hands while waiting for people to pass by. Sure, the manual aim mode worked well too, but why make any effort when somebody has already programmed your gun to do it all for you?
By the way, if anybody stumbles onto a real, functioning lightsaber, they can always send me an e-mail. The address is in the next paragraph.
Do you have a question of your own which you want our experts to answer? Send an e-mail to kapoutman AT hotmail.com with the subject line “Ask the Kliq”, or leave a comment below. We’ll put our team right on it.
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