Real-Life Equivalents of Video Game Weapons 137
antdude writes "This GamesRadar article compares a bunch of fantastic video game weapons and their real-life equivalents: 'There are certain things we just accept in video games. An overweight pipe technician can jump five times his own height. A first aid kit will instantly heal bullet wounds and replace lost blood. And any theoretical physics model can be cleanly packaged into a lightweight, handheld weapon with a minimum of fuss. But in certain cases, that last one isn't too far off the truth. As guano loopy as most game weaponry is, some of it definitely isn't implausible. In fact, some of it exists already. Kind of.'"
holy shit (Score:2, Funny)
i want a portal gun
I'll just wait for Real-Life BFG9000 ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Wasn't it, "and all the enemies that have that wall in their field of view immediately dies"?
I seem to recall surviving that weapon by quickly turning away and back again at strategic moments. But of course, that was a long time ago and my mind has begun to fade...
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Actually it's more like "all the enemies in the direction you were facing when you fired it from the position you're standing when it hits".
The trick there is you can fire it down a long corridor in one direction, run off the opposite way so someone gives chase, and when it hits the wall the guy behind you gets blown to bits. Similarly you can survive it completely unhurt by getting on the opposite side of whoever fired it - as long as you know which way they fired.
Not really something you can build in real
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Actually it's more like "all the enemies in the direction you were facing when you fired it from the position you're standing when it hits".
Yep. A picture [gamers.org] for illustrative purposes. (From the BFG FAQ [gamers.org].)
Not really something you can build in real life.
Alas, life does not let us shortcut the laws of physics with a code patch.:)
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Crowbar (Score:5, Funny)
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Quake Gauntlet is a circular saw with a lot of extension cords, and the guard removed. (or one of those battery powered ones, but they don't last long enough to win a deathmatch with)
... you've tried it?
Raccoon Suit (Score:5, Funny)
I'm waiting for the US military to develop a Raccoon Suit (from Mario) for our solders.
But I bet those Canadians will beat us to it.
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A Wiimote [wiihaveaproblem.com] maybe?
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What's the real-life equivalent of the Crowbar from halflife? I always wanted one
thank you
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Maybe a claw hammer would be better? You'd have a two-part choice on damage too.
Me? I just prefer running people over in my car. And why is it called 'running over'? Most of the time they bounce off the bonnet.
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Wrecking Bar (Score:2)
The real-life equivalent of the HL crowbar is a wrecking-bar
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A crowbar.
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Who uses a crowbar? Real men use chainsaws.....
And real ninjas use chainsaw nunchucks.
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If you are a geek you should have really appreciated that fulcrum puzzle. You know why? Even if that puzzle was simple, it wasn't scripted. It was all handled by the same physics engine that controls everything in the game, you just manipulated the objects. You made a virtual see-saw with virtual objects by exploiting virtual gravity, which would be a first for you if you never played Trespasser (and even though I have, I still thought it was cool).
The almighty stick (Score:2)
Don't forget the stick that's stronger than the sword [wittyrpg.com]!
Wishlist: (Score:1)
* Frostmourn, hoooo! :D
* BFG!
* FatBoy from Fallout 3
* The slime shooter from unreal. It's just cool.
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Well, if we're wandering into fantasy... the sword to have is Greyswandir — if you can get your hands on the jewel of judgement, you can scribe a whole new reality. And it sheds all types of sorcery like water.
I think it's pretty clear that one of the most badass sci-fi weapons is Reason... but it needs some fancier heat-dissipation technology.
Finally, the Puppeteer laser weapons (ala Ringworld) are way up there. All they need is a tunable laser to be the shiznit.
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Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
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http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160195,00.html [military.com]
Rail gun are here. They are just big.
Portal gun (Score:1)
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Where's my portal gun? I thought we were supposed to be living in the future.
Sorry, you'll have to get in line behind Avery Brooks, who's STILL waiting for his flying car.
You can reload an M1 Garand mid-clip (Score:5, Interesting)
Without having RTFA, I want to take this opportunity to point out that an M1 Garand (the semi-automatic infantry rifle of the U.S. military during World War II) can, in real life, be reloaded before the clip is empty. Many idiots who replicate the rifle in video games infer that, just because the clip automatically ejects when it is empty, it can only be ejected this way—that is, if you have one or two rounds left, you have to shoot them before you can take a chance to load a fresh clip. I don't know who got this wrong first, but it has turned into a pernicious meme that has reared its ugly head in every World War II shooter I have ever played.
Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrXLtkY4wOw [youtube.com]
Game designers, please do more research than playing some other WW2 game for a few hours. Diligent fans, this is an issue worth making patches for. Besides being just plain wrong, this is a substantial and unwarranted disadvantage for what is supposed to be "the greatest implement of battle ever devised." And that's according to General Patton, who (speaking of memes) knows a little more about fighting than you do, pal, because he invented it!
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The M1 Garand could be reloaded before its clip was empty - but I think shooting the rest of the bullets and putting a new clip was faster.
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Re:You can reload an M1 Garand mid-clip (Score:5, Insightful)
This list was about sci-fi/non-real weapons that in fact DO have at least a somewhat functioning real counterpart. It wasn't about real weapons that are in games. However in general, whining about real weapons not being real enough in games is silly. Games are, well, games. They aren't meant to be real. Things are done in the interest of fun. One thing you see extremely commonly is that magazines are magical. That is to say if you do a tactical reload, you keep all the ammunition that was in that mag, yet every one you insert in to the weapon is full. Of course the real world doesn't work that way, but pissing around with loading magazines is boring in a game. It is done for fun and gameplay, not for realism.
However, I will give you your point on the M1 clip issue precisely because being able to do tactical reloads makes a game more fun. In general, I like games where you can reload your weapon as often as you like. Fire one bullet and take a guy down? Reload. The point of limited magazines/clips in a game is so that you can't just hose down enemies continuously, not to be perfectly real. So yes, it makes sense to allow you to swap out the clip in an M1 when you like.
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Clips are different from box magazines. I don't think that extracting the left-over rounds from a Garand clip would be that unrealistic a fuss.
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Well, except for simulations! Like Operation Flashpoint and ArmA.
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In Call of Duty: World at War you can reload the M1 mid-clip.
A railgun will certainly get the job done... (Score:5, Interesting)
Railguns are amazing things... You just have to be careful not to vaporize your projectile. It was calculated that if they could get a one ounce steel ball bearing up to a speed of 20 miles per second, it would cause a fusion reaction on impact with relatively stationery object. I was working in a large industrial machine in late the 70s, I was down in the power section of a massive ring roller. The thing occupied four stories, one above ground and three stories underground, at the very bottom floor was the power system. There were three huge copper bus bars that fed into a massive 2000 amp, 1760 volt three phase breaker switch. We were working electronic and hydraulic systems, and had the false floor pulled up, and some hydraulic mechanic dropped an 8 inch adjustable wrench across the bus bars. There was a mind numbing BOOM, accompanied by a blue green flash you could almost see through the back of your head, and when the dust and debris settled, there was a quarter inch of roasted wrench sticking out of the concrete ceiling. This place was noted for really exciting industrial accidents.
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It's fascinating to hear these kinds of war story. Thanks very much.
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Your search - "really exciting industrial accidents" - did not match any documents. [google.com]
Damn! I thought I was really on to something there. Boo...
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Re:A railgun will certainly get the job done... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup - at significant speeds impacts are quite impressive.
That's why I was scratching my head at the Day the Earth Stood Still remake. In the beginning there is a ship detected flying towards earth. Somewhere in the dialog or on a display or something it was indicated that it was moving at some significant fraction of c - maybe 10-20% or something. Then they start talking about where it will land with the goal of sending in a science team to be there when it arrives. The science team is surprised that it apparently decelerated before landing so there was no big crater or anything.
Now, if I were in a science team and I found out that an object of significant size (in this case significant means bigger than a grain of sand) was flying towards the Earth at 20% of c, the last place I'd want to be is within 1000 miles of the impact point, and for that matter within 1000 miles of the point on the Earth opposite the impact point. To be honest, I'd probably prefer just to not be on the Earth at all. However, if I did decide to be at the spot where it would "land" then I wouldn't be shocked to find out it had decelerated - the fact that I was still alive would already confirm this.
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I was looking around online and I happened to stumble upon a picture of that very facility! [giantbomb.com]
Re:A railgun will certainly get the job done... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know I've heard this from people before, and it always amazes me that they don't get it. All you had to do, is do a Google search on "railguns and fussion", there are plenty of articles about the experimentation using railguns as a viable means of ignition. Of course if you need a citation, see below. As for bits of space debris, hitting the atmosphere at speeds of up to 60 miles per second (see persied or leonid meteor showers), they ablate, slow down, vaporize. They absolutely do become plasma and some of the larger pieces (bolides) explode with kiloton force. Read about the early nuclear test ban problems involving accidental false positives, caused by small nuclear sized explosions coming from meteorites with sufficient mass and momentum to cause fusion explosions. That and a quick look at the fireballs created by Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter should put to rest and idea that meteors or comet can't cause a fusion reaction. The issue is simply one of velocity and momentum. A steel ball going 20 miles per second has both. Please be so good as the do the physics before making a knee-jerk assumption. Using E=1/2MV^2, I come up with a net kinetic energy of 14 million joules focused on a circular region less than an inch across. The entire collision takes place in less than a microsecond, and in that time the entire mass of the ball bearing is rendered into ionized plasma, as is a significant amount of the surface material of the target. The reason for raising incredible rare gases to hundreds of millions of degrees is to create an atomic velocity high enough to ensure that a signification number of collisions will occur in that rarefied gas to sustain a fusion reaction, fusion can occur at a much lower temperature. The incredibly hot dense soup of metal ions at the point of this impact are moving with incredible momentum, the material at the point of impact is hotter than the surface of the sun, hotter than lightening, fusion will certainly occur. Maybe not a huge amount, but some, and it will certainly make a very big mess of the target.
H. Kolm, Electromagnetic Accelerator Concepts, DOE Impact Fusion Workshop, Los Alamos , N.M. (Jul. 10-12, 1979), Available from NTIS, Springfield, Va. pp. 206-217 (1979)
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Read about the early nuclear test ban problems involving accidental false positives, caused by small nuclear sized explosions coming from meteorites with sufficient mass and momentum to cause fusion explosions.
Uh uh, would you kindly direct us to any reliable source? Meteorite-induced nuclear reaction having been observed in recent past? I would very much like to know about it.
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Wasn't there one over Siberia?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event [wikipedia.org]
Well, that is the event you referenced. We may never know what officially caused it, but that's a theory.
Re:A railgun will certainly get the job done... (Score:5, Funny)
HEY!! Citing your source, complete with publication date and page numbers is not allowed! This is Slashdot, you're supposed to just spew rhetoric and car analogies.
Please rephrase in the form of a car analogy, or state number of Libraries of Congress per second.... or it didn't happen.
Re:A railgun will certainly get the job done... (Score:4, Funny)
Screw guns from video games (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screw guns from video games (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screw guns from video games (Score:5, Informative)
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Allow me to paraphrase DNS-and-BIND’s comment.
“Never heard of that movie (because you spelled it wrong)... Please don’t assume everyone on the planet watches the same media that you do (because if they don’t already know what you were referring to, they may want to look it up, and they’ll find the wrong movie since it’s spelled wrong).”
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Yeah... typically it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but in this case they’d actually find a completely different movie with the exact title they were looking for. Although, the Wiki for Orgasmo does helpfully offer “Not to be confused with Orgazmo.”
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That will cause a sharp rise of suicides.
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That will cause a sharp rise of suicides.
Sure people will shoot themselves, but they won't die, just experience la petite mort.
(Well, except for the people that rig it up to auto-fire.)
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This [technovelgy.com]
Niven is usually classified as a Hard SF author, but he does love investigating the social aspects of his future tech. In this case, an interesting piece of triva is that in the Known Space continuity, pranking someone by hitting them with a tasp is colloquially known as "making someone's day".
Also in the milieu is the very real prospect of stimulation addiction, even with the "hardwired version" [technovelgy.com] of the tasp.
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Bullshit. There is no such thing in Genesis.
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As far as you can trust Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the idea of Lilith being Adam's first wife is essentially an early Medieval Jewish folk tale. Apparently, earlier consideration of Lilith was as the ancient Sumerian idea of a female demon lilitu. This is described as comparable to "modern" succubi.
"Sci-Fi" movies of today were taken right out of Science-Factions of Aliens and Predators that actually exist here and now. It realy pisses me off when all the mythology and fables of today are nothing more than disguises of re
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Ah, well, that explains it somewhat. It’s nowhere to be found in Genesis, I’m quite certain.
The narrative in that Wikipedia article is nothing resembling the one in Genesis, either... as Adam is supposedly perfect until he recognizes “either his sin or Cain’s homicide” (presumably the tale varies at this point) and leaves his wife Eve, who is still said to be “holy”. This is in direct contradiction to the narrative in Genesis, where Eve was the first to violate God
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So... more like literal “screw” guns, then.
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The procedure involved planting electrodes in the spine and using electrical pulses to modify pain signals passing along the nerves; the patient was conscious to help the surgeon find the best position for the electrodes. Dr Meloy said: "I was placing the electrodes and suddenly the woman started exclaiming emphatically. I asked her what was up and she said, 'You're going to have to teach my husband to do that
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It has a remote control... just think of the hacking possibilities!!
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Hey, what you do on your own time...
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I want a Portal device
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I want a bowel disrupter!
Taco Bell has them for $1.29.
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I want a bowel disrupter!
Screw guns can do that too.
...er, what did you mean by “disruptor”?
I know it's old news, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
...those Japanese robotic/cyborg exoskeletons are AWESOME! And, they are only going to get more awesome from here on out! Mjolnir armor, here we come!
Even without the super-soldier aspect, the super-rescue-worker aspect is mind-boggling, not to mention the super-dock-worker. Alien queens better look out!
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I hadn't bothered to watch the video for the powered armor before, but WOW. We have man-wearable armor today which can stop a .50 caliber round... not a .50 AP round to be fair, but hey, that's a matter of time. The problem is that it makes you about as agile as a one-legged bear. Make it support itself and maybe just double the strength of the wearer, and it will have some actual utility. Helicopters have been relegated to support roles (remember the canning of the Comanche project?) because a man with a r
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Helicopters have been relegated to support roles (remember the canning of the Comanche project?) because a man with a rocket launcher can blow one up.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Its true many helicopters function in a support role, but this has always been true. However, if you look at recent major engagements, helicopters have served on the front lines, often during initial insertions, engagements, or major offensives, whereby they absolutely were not serving support roles. For example, Apaches took out many SAM and radar sites before stealth bombers and fighters began their assaults. So to say, "helicopters have been relegated to support r
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Great post... right up to the part about "bodies exploding" from being hit by .50 BMG. This fantasy used to focus on .223 (hit in the hand and the whole arm blew off; hit in the hand and the bullet ricocheted up the arm and pierced the heart, etc. ad nauseum).
Don't get me wrong, the .50 BMG has *far* more kinetic energy than .223, .308, etc. But apply a bit of logic to what you wrote. "By the time you reach the .50 BMG, the round won't even know the body armor was there." True, it has extreme penetration. T
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Great post... right up to the part about "bodies exploding"
That's a statement made by many a sniper and I've seen video supporting such statements. This is not to say, "exploding" like a grenade or explosive round. Just the same, if you've ever shot a melon or a jug of water, its accurate to say they, "explode."
Its common for people shot by .50 BMG to be dismembered, decapitated, bisected, etc. And the tissue immediately surround such wounds do more or less "explode".
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One of the best uses aside from utter destruction (ever seen what a November does to anybody unlucky enough to be in the house it hits?) is deterrent. Bad guys don't want to go out when Apaches are in the air. There is a reason that Apaches have been in the air around Baghdad 24/7 for several years.
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Non human cross-dressers have problems with power armoured construction workers. Sigh, I used to look foward to the future now it seems the more things change...
And The Weapons Are: (Score:2, Informative)
1: Railgun
2: Laser guns
3: Plasma rifles
4: Lightning guns
5: Mechs
6: Power-armour
I own a Saiga-12... (Score:2)
Saiga-12 [giantbomb.com]
um... (Score:2)
what's with (Score:2)
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Freeze gun: tank, host, liquid nitrogen. Damn near freezes on contact.
Jetpacks have been done. they're just loud and inefficient.
And if the Devastator you're talking about is the mini nuke, then let me introduce you to the Davy Crockett [wikipedia.org].
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what's with real-life shrink-ray, freeze-gun and devastator?
I know you didn't mean the thing that the Constructicons combine into, but I want one of those. Only with less evil-robot and more I-ride-around-with-my-purple-and-yellow-awesomeness.
FGMP15 FTW (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't need BFG, just want Quake Grenade Launcher (Score:1)
Plasma guns, railguns, lighning guns, supersuits. Meh...
I want a grenade launcher that'll let me bounce grenades around corners and off floors. My all-time favorite FPS weapon.
Medipack (Score:5, Insightful)
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One of the things I liked from Stalker was the powered exosuits. They seemed like plausible near-future sci-fi items. Of course in the game, you stop lusting over them once you get 2 Moonlight artifacts.
I saw someone mention a Gauss gun, they can't be talking about the one from Stalker. It's just an overpowered sniper rifle with ultra-rare ammo and an even more pathetic firing rate.
My favorite weapon in that game was a fast-shooting AK (you need the repair mod to keep it) with a scope and grenade launcher a
What about Borderlands? (Score:3, Interesting)
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So I'm glad I got burned (Score:1)
Ratchet and Clank (Score:2)
Surprised noone posted these :-)
The "Weapons not fit for this world!" ads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHt9pQhn3ho [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8h1s47cHk&feature=related [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehsn_sElcjU&feature=related [youtube.com]
etc
Best stuff ever :-)
What the military actually has is more impressive (Score:5, Informative)
The U.S. military has some weapons which are much better than many video game weapons. Video games need "balance", so players aren't given weapons that are too "powerful". DoD doesn't have that limitation.
"If you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it." As insurgent groups have figured out, the only way to succeed against a modern military force is to have a population in which to hide, one which the US isn't willing to exterminate.
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I disagree, this stuff is actually interesting. The power suit alone would make a good article, we also get plasma cutters, lasers and all sorts of interesting tech being developed. I thought this stuff is what Slashdot was supposed to be all about?