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the best pistols in videogames

Ebony & Ivory - Devil May Cry

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Came here to say this.
 
Fatebringer, Last Word, Thorn, & Hawkmoon. All from Destiny. They were all amazing guns for that first year before hand cannons got nerfed.

Yup, Hawkmoon is my favorite videogame firearm of all time now. Such elegant style, and packs a hell of a punch. Was so giddy the day I finally got one in Destiny.
 
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Tec-9, CS:GO

I would marry this gun if I could. I already think CS:GO has the most satisfying pistols in gaming, but this beast is something else.
 
Bad Company 2's MP443 Grach.

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Lowest damage pistol in the game, but that didn't matter when you could spray everything down.
 

Abraxas

Member
The Deus Ex: HR 10mm pistol. Best gun in the game, even without upgrades. If you don't believe me, watch the brass check jensen does if the magazine is full. Absolutely sexual.
 
444 BEAR KILLER


Kill helicopters and Not-Cyberdemons in 2 hits. Most powerful FPS pistol as far as I know.

EDIT

A tale deals with a man, one day, lost in the forest, who was attacked by a very angry and wounded bear. The man managed to kill the animal with his bare hands. A Techno-Monk of the Holy Forge passed-by and saw the scene. Some days later, the man woke up and found a very strange and heavy pistol beside him; a pistol that could disembowel a bear with a single bullet, and that could even kill several aligned bears in a single shot. The fame of this weapon comes mainly from its unequaled power as a pistol, but also from its unbelievable accuracy. Its recoil, however, is terrific.
 

SkyOdin

Member
Zero's Buster from the Mega Man Zero games is a really great handgun, since it is a Buster from a Mega Man game. In other words, it is a gun that would be insanely overpowered if you translated its capabilities into any other genre of game.

Mega Man Model A's duel handguns in Mega Man ZX Advent are even better, since Ashe or Grey can use one just like the Buster from MM Zero, while they can also use the other to lock on to multiple targets and fire homing lasers.
 

Kent

Member
Bungie is basically king of making amazing pistols - to the extent that everything else in the game suffers.

Halo 1 has the Magnum. It's basically so good that everything else becomes incredibly niche as a result.

Destiny had Fatebringer, which is Arc elemental (being elemental means it does more damage vs. shields, and a ton more damage vs. shields of the same element - elemental primary-slot weapons only come from the raid in Year 1, and only a single elemental primary exists in Year 2, and it's an exotic - meaning it can't be equipped alongside any other exotic weapon). However, it also has two other properties that take it from amazing to incredible: Headshot kills cause enemies to explode (for a significant amount of damage), and headshot kills also grant you a bonus to reload speed for a few seconds - which is one of the primary drawbacks of using a Hand Cannon, as revolvers are naturally slower to reload than many other weapon types. It also doesn't suffer from the normally-low magazine size that Hand Cannons typically have in the first place. It's a weapon with basically no drawbacks.

My personal favorite implementation of a pistol however, comes from specifically Halo Reach. This game's iteration of the Magnum is the closest to what we got in Halo 1, while not being so incredibly-overpowered so as to supplant everything else. It makes use of Reach's reticle system to accomplish an interesting design decision: That is, reticles for precision weapons in Reach have a circle in addition to the crosshair. So long as the crosshair's inner tips are inside that circle, it does not take into account the bloom of the crosshair (which expands to show loss of accuracy when rapidly firing). This means that you can land shots with perfect accuracy at long range, but you have to exercise a very specific pace to keep doing so optimally. However, the Magnum's rate of fire is basically as fast as you can pull the trigger - so you an spray out a magazine quickly if you need to, allowing it to be highly-useful in unexpected close-quarters situations. This makes the weapon itself far more versatile than pretty much anything else in the game, effectively allowing "the sidearm" to still be a relevant choice for your equipment loadout as you go through the game.

In my opinion, that's a fantastic way to set it apart: It's highly versatile and very applicable in most situations, and is more viable in more situations than any other weapon in the game, while still being outclassed for individual situations by weapons designed for them.

Similarly, as a non-Bungie example, the Falcon from Perfect Dark Zero sets itself apart from many weapons. Despite being a wimpy peashooter by pretty much all accounts, this basically only is meaningful when you're talking about shooting someone anywhere except the head, as in Perfect Dark Zero, taking a bullet to the head when you don't have armor is instant death. Additionally, the gun itself does an absurd amount of damage to armor, making it capable of shredding through armor on opponents very quickly. The result: A fully-armored player can be taken down in less than an entire magazine of bullets... From the most basic weapon in the game. And that's not even taking into account the alternate fire, which lets you eject and throw the magazine, which becomes a sort of temporary mini-turret, shooting its rounds out at random nearby targets (including yourself, if you're near it) and making a bunch of noise.
 
The Deus Ex: HR 10mm pistol. Best gun in the game, even without upgrades. If you don't believe me, watch the brass check jensen does if the magazine is full. Absolutely sexual.

Pure sex, I found myself constantly rolling the scroll wheel just so I could see that animation, and the really crisp snap of reloading a magazine is great too.
 
They've all pretty much been said, but lemme say my piece anyways:

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Hard to beat the Halo CE Pistol. 3-4 well placed shots can ruin a man from the other side of Bloodgulch.

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The SOCOM from MGS1 (and 2) is one of the few guns I've considered getting a replica of. I'm not sure why, but it's always stood out to me as the quintessential video game gun.

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The Last Word. It's a gun that has great game feel, and even has its own reloading animation.

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The Duke Nukem 3D Pistol always felt a little underpowered and maybe looked a little on the wonky side, but I loved it nonetheless. That firing sound was the best of its time.

And hey, let's take a look at the worst pistol in a video game.

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The Thorn is a bad gun and it should feel bad. And the players who use it should feel bad too. It's got a weak firing sound, it's over powered, it shoots stupid shuriken lookin' bullets, and when a player is hit by it, they get a screen effect, get poisoned, and are basically fucked. Even after it got nerfed. Fuck this gun.
 

Miker

Member
Halo 5 pistol deserves credit for being such a vital component of the game's excellently balanced weapon sandbox. It's a fantastic weapon in just about any situation, as with Halo CE, but still allows for other weapons to shine. It's the core weapon around with multiplayer is balanced and the game is better for it, unlike older Halo games.
 

Skux

Member
The undisputed multiplayer king.

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Who needs an assault rifle when you can pistol snipe from halfway down the map.
 

Breads

Banned
Fatebringer, Last Word, Thorn, & Hawkmoon. All from Destiny. They were all amazing guns for that first year before hand cannons got nerfed.

I'm not a fan of Last Word but the rest are legit contenders.

If I had to pick one it would definitely be Fatebringer though.
 
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