Summary
Who doesn’t enjoy playing competitively (or just for fun) against other players? Well, it’s a lot less enjoyable when some people decide to whip out the most overpowered weapon available and unleash all hell upon everyone else. That is to say, it’s not always strictly weapons, or multiplayer-only games, that happen to have far too powerful means of attack.
Some great multiplayer games may provide everyone with equal opportunity to conquer their foes, but when using some weapons, there’s an unfair advantage that can easily change the playing field and the sportsmanship.
This one is a no-brainer, but it has to be mentioned for obvious reasons. The BFG9000 is the most iconic weapon out of theentire retro and modernDOOMseries, next to the double-barreled shotgun. Its capability to clear out a room of enemies with a single blast is very helpful in single-player, and it has more than enough punch to cut down a meaty enemy like a Cyberdemon.
In multiplayer, it’s just not fun to fight against. Its high rate of fire, the ridiculous amount of spread, and the fact that it can discharge 7 shots with full ammo (or 15 shots with expanded ammo storage, thanks to a backpack pick-up) make it great for cheap kills… and thinning out one’s friend circle.
Duke Nukem Foreverhas a surprisingly entertaining multiplayer mode that retains a small butdedicated cult following of recurring playersto this very day. Although, that’s not to say it’s completely balanced. Case in point, the Pipe Bombs. First introduced inDuke Nukem 3D, they act like grenades, only they can be remotely detonated.
Up to four bombs can be thrown at any time. Duke tosses them very quickly, and only an explosion from another source can get rid of them. Otherwise, it’s a cheap tactic to toss these out like crazy and watch the fireworks in a firefight. With the Infinite Ammo mutator, another batch can be quickly tossed out in rapid succession before a hasty detonation.
Why Nintendo decided to give the dreaded Blue Shell a glow-up is anyone’s guess. While it had been altered and tweaked over the years with each iteration in the series, it was easily at its strongest inMario Kart: Double Dash!!Once thrown, it will fly over to whoever’s in first place and emit an explosion that will momentarily stun them and remove their item.
The thing is, while later iterations make it a rarer item (unless the player who collected it is far behind) or give players an additional means of countering it, most of the time, there isn’t anything one can do. Those in first place aren’t going to get Mushrooms for speed boosts to dodge it, after all. What’s even worse is that a racer who was in fourth place or lower could potentially get one. This was changed for the next release - and thank goodness for that, as it saved many dramas for such afamily-friendly game.
TheTimeSplittersseries put a monkey as a playable character in the second game, and fans loved it. So, forTimeSplitters: Future Perfect, the developers decided to go even further by adding multiple primate characters, and even a simian-themed SMG, begging the question ofwhy these games were never remastered.
The Monkey Gun is a joke weapon that can be unlocked after beating a monkey-centric challenge, but it’s an unfair weapon to use when playing multiplayer matches. It has 64 rounds per clip, and pulling the trigger will discharge them all within one second! That tends to be enough to kill an enemy when all of its bullets hit their mark. It’s ridiculously unfair to use, and will likely make other players in a split-screen match go ape.
Back when the first-ever entry inthe much-neededGears of Warserieswas released, it had a fearsome weapon that made anyone who wound up staring down the end of its barrel shivering in fear. That would be the Gnasher Shotgun, an exceptionally powerful buckshot that utterly splattered other players in online multiplayer, alongside the Locust in the campaign.
Not only can it deliver headshots, but it can be combined with a melee attack for maximum damage. Even cheaters who abused the game’s glitches favored this for some cheap and easy frags back in the day. It’s always been a powerful pick in each iteration, but it was at its peak in its debut.
Players inCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2(2009) onward had a bone to pick with anyone who dual-wielded the Model 1887 shotguns prior to the 1.07 patch being released. Paired up with a damage-boosting perk, one of these in each hand turned players into a juggernaut of a fighter.
The range and accuracy were surprisingly high (for a shotgun, at least), and two blasts from each barrel at once delivered a very hefty punch that usually felled an enemy effortlessly at medium-to-close ranges. Lobbyists often paired it up with an increased stamina perk, to run about like crazy and one-shot unsuspecting players.Infinity Ward finally patched the game down the line, putting a stop to what was one of the most overpowered shotguns in its history.
Team 17’sWormsseries is chock-filled with ridiculous weapons that only got wackier over time with each fresh installation in theonce-simple series. Although, the Concrete Donkey is both equal parts silly and blatantly unfair to use in any match at all. When in a match, just pray that a worm battalion is not bunched up altogether.
Not only is it wide, but it also has quite a bit of bounce to it, enough to dish out roughly 70 to 80 points of damage per hit. And it bounces a heck of a lot. Sometimes it’ll stamp a hole all the way through the terrain, leaving anyone on the receiving end dropping into the deadly liquid below. Anyone who uses it deserves the inevitable donkey puns that will likely be shouted out by enraged players.
Evenreal-time strategy gameshave their fair share of overpowered units, and that goes double for those that let you use them in multiplayer matches. It’s tough to pick a single example from the evil psychic inCommand & Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge, as his own private army was deliberately created to be unbalanced and overpowered in its single-player mode.
Naturally, it didn’t translate well to multiplayer. Mind-controlling infantry, chaingun turrets that were effective at long ranges and increased in speed and damage, submarines that could hide in the water and launch missiles from afar, toxic cloud-producing snipers, power-draining flying saucers - all of these things and more were enough to make the community frown upon anyone who played as Yuri’s faction online.
The Ink Strike in the firstSplatoongame was an unfair special move. It didn’t require a lot of turfs to be inked in order to charge up its meter, and it gave users a chance to drop an ink missile anywhere on the map. Thefun Wii UGamePad could be tapped quickly to send it flying.
The worst possible thing is that it was used constantly during ranked matches, especially on Splat Zones and Tower Control, as anyone standing on either of the objectives has little time to escape before it lands. They could be launched moments before a standard Turf War ended and thus had the chance to ink more turf while everyone froze while the game checked who covered the most ground with their team’s colored ink.
The Maian alien race made a doozy of a railgun with the FarSight XR-20. However, anyone who has plans for a split-screen match is asking for trouble if this weapon is going to be chosen for a match. Not only does it have a hefty amount of reserve ammo, but it’s a one-hit kill weapon.
It’s powerful enough to pierce doors, walls, and multiple players. Plus, its secondary fire offers X-ray vision and an auto-aim feature. To make matters worse, it’ll do the shooting for its user. While it may be difficult to see people nearby while aiming with this activated, all of these abilities make it so unbelievably powerful to the point of ridiculousness.
