List With A Twist: Top 5 Lasers in Gaming

Posted November 20, 2010 by Kevin Pabst.

What’s the most satisfying way to kill someone? With your bare hands, you say? Sorry, but you’re dead wrong. Putting a searing hole through your target with light/energy/force tops it all. Presented for you below are the best methods for killing in the best way.

5. The Spartan Laser – Halo 3/ODST/Reach.

Coming from every Halo after 3, the slow build of the spartan laser charge and then the climax of pushing a beam of searing red doom through your enemies is highly satisfying. Plus, it’s a laser, so why not? Oddly absent until Halo 3 but suspiciously present during the Halo 2 side-story ODST, the spartan laser is the type of laser that hits like a truck, but is still usable by regular soldiers. It hits so hard it punches right through your target and can kill the guy behind him, they even gave it an achievement so you know it’s serious business.

4. The Gatling Laser – Fallout Series

It doesn’t make much sense for an energy weapon to have this many barrels, but you can’t argue with a rapid-fire, over-sized laser. Carried by my favorite companion in Fallout 3, Fawkes the intelligent super mutant, it’s a bigger than the average laser. The only downside is that it sounds really annoying, especially with how buggy it was in Fallout 3. I remember many times where Fawkes would scream a battle cry, run forward, and fire nothing at the target. Even so, you can still hear it’s high-pitched whine. Slightly annoying, but undeniably bad-ass.

3. Moonraker Laser – Goldeneye

Most people have fond memories of the N64′s greatest multiplayer experience, Goldeneye. The gadgets were cool, the weapons were unique, but nothing compared to taking down your cousin/roommate/friend with a god damn laser. Even though it has little to do with the source movie Goldeneye and is from the Bond movie Moonraker (who’d have thought!?), neither is Jaws, and he’s pretty cool too. It was a laser in the game of guns, and stood out because of that.

2. Leech Gun with Sun Ammo – Prey

You’ve got this gun that, instead of using ammo, absorbs different kinds of energy from nodes, and one of those is energy from the sun. For something so badass in a game so mediocre, even the name of the leech-sun gun was unusually hard to get a hold of. In my head it was only known as “that weapon that murdered everything and holy shit it’s pushing me backwards”. That’s right, it pushes forward so hard that Tommy, the Native-American protagonist of Prey, can’t hold his footing. The way that the leech-sun gun burns the life from enemies who were essentially bosses half an hour earlier sure helps, too.

1. Ion Cannon – Command and Conquer Series

You wont see this one coming, probably because it came from orbit. Although there is a portable version in the not-so-hot FPS spin-off, the orbital version tops all other lasers. The ion cannon is the super-weapon-thing for the GDI faction in the Command and Conquer series. Like many super-weapons, it destroys all but the most upgraded buildings it hits. Kain, the usual antagonist of the C&C series, takes a blast from an ion cannon to the face and lives. How many lasers have been shot at a messiah? Not enough, but the ion cannon tried, and dammit that counts for something.

Honorable Mentions: These aren’t the best, but they are lasers.

“Finalis Funkln”, the ultimate ability of the hero Lux from League of Legends, where she cries “I’m firin’ mah laser!”

The Hammer of Dawn from the Gears of War series.

Every Other Laser in Halo: Fuel Rod Gun, Sentinel Beam, Focus Rifle, Hunter’s Cannon.

Welding Lasers from The Force Unleashed.

Did I miss any? Do you have a personal favorite laser? Leave a comment, dammit!