1. Toilets – Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 helped revolutionize the way physics work in video games with its versatile use of the Havok engine. Filling up trash bins with cans is cool and all, but the gravity gun really took physics to the next level. Just about any physical object in the environment could be used as a projectile with the gravity gun’s pick up and punt functionality. While saws and explosive barrels prove the most deadly objects to use, we couldn’t help shooting toilets at foes. Our excuse for using a toilet was the “flushed” achievement, but the hilarity of it was often the real reason. To Judith Mossman’s disappointment, we couldn’t help but treat the gravity gun as a toy throughout Half-Life 2.

Land Shark – Armed and Dangerous

This 2003 Lucasarts third-person shooter may have been a repetitive slog at times, but it had humor by the bucketloads. The Monty Python and Star Wars parodies were great fun, but the Land Shark gun takes the cake as the game’s craziest thing. Just shoot at an enemy and a live shark tunnels through the ground, popping up below your opponent to eat them alive. Armed and Dangerous may not be remembered for its level design or anything, but the Land Shark lives on as one of the wildest things shot at an enemy in games.

Pixels – Ratchet & Clank 2016

How could a Ratchet & Clank game not make it on a list like this? While it was a given, what was difficult was deciding which weapons made earned a spot. I couldn’t resist the Pixelizer from the 2016 reboot. As the name suggests, this handy shotgun variant morphs enemies into a pile of 2D pixels. The icing on top is that they crumble apart like lego bricks when defeated by the shot.

Drill Bore – Turok 2

It’s hard to beat the Cerebral Bore when it comes to game weapon brutality. A combination of a homing device, saw, and clamp, the Cerebral Bore tracks enemy brains and latches onto them, and well, you know the rest. Turok 2 shows a surprising amount of blood and gore as the bore tunnels through enemies’ skulls. While it’s certainly a satisfying weapon to use, the Cerebral Bore is one of the game’s slower weapons due to the lock-on and scanning time.

Dubstep ‘wubs’ – Saints Row 4

“It’s a party in a gun! Make the world dance to your beat and fear the power of your wubs!” That’s the in-game description of the Dubstep Gun and it fits the bill. Not only does it look like a turntable, but it literally shoots streams of dubstep energy at opponents. What’s even more hilarious and neat is the specific music track changes depending on the outfit worn.

Argent Energy Plasma – Doom (2016)

Every Doom player knows the destructive power of the BFG. It’s the most notorious weapon in the series for good reason. And it’s handy to boot, given that it’s one of two weapons in Doom 2016 with its own dedicated button (instead of the weapon wheel). Doom 2016’s iteration of the BFG uses green plasma made from Argent Energy, dealing up to 6000 damage to an enemy. This thing can vaporize and kill any enemy in a single shot as long as it’s not one of the bosses. The splash damage is also pretty large, catching groups and stragglers in the explosion radius very easily. You know you’ve just acquired the best weapon when that BFG Division music starts playing.

Swords – Borderlands 2

Among the thousands upon thousands of gun variants available throughout the Borderlands games, the Swordsplosion!!! gun takes the cake as most ridiculous. This E-tech shotgun is only available in the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC from Borderlands 2. Not only does it shoot an exploding sword, but it spawns other smaller swords that explode, spawning even tinier swords. It’s perhaps the most bizarre take on the weapons I’ve seen and I love it.

Rainbows Farts – Red Faction: Armageddon

Instead of your conventional super weapon being rewarded upon completing the game, Red Faction: Armageddon gives players a unicorn gun that farts rainbows. It’s not just a silly novelty though, as the Mr Toots gun provides some of the most damage in the game with its long-range high-powered laser shot. Enemies having the priviledge to be destroyed by Mr Toots explode in a confetti rainbow shower to top it all off.

Skunks – Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath

I’ve always appreciated Stranger’s Wrath for its unique take on the wild west bounty hunter schtick. It really feels like playing a sort of warped Jim Henson version of a classic Western. The third-person gunplay is pretty fun, but the live ammo is particularly charming. Each area has its own ecosystem of rodents and mammals that Stranger can pick up and use as Crossbow ammo, and those adorable but smelly Stunkz are my pick due to their cuteness and application. Shooting these skunks at enemies briefly immobilizes them, causing them to vomit uncontrollably.

Needles – Halo

While the famous M16 pistol from Halo 1 is undoubtedly the most effective weapon in the game, the Needler was the most innovative and intriguing. A Covenant creation, the Needler pins enemies with a barrage of energy needles that explode after a few seconds of insertion. They’re like an arrow with a timed explosive. Just shooting a few needles at enemies does peanut damage, but spam that sucker onto your opponent and you have a chained explosion that kills them within seconds.

Water – Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Water Pistol is one of many guns that can be developed on the Mother Base. And it’s far from the novelty item that it initially seems. Besides its utility distracting and potentially blinding enemies with splashes of water, it can short-circuit electronic equipment. But did you know the Water Pistol can even defeat a certain boss? That’s right, the Man on Fire can be defeated by spraying a ton of water from the Water Pistol directly on him. It takes about 80 or so hits, but once you take him down, it’ll be the ultimate humiliation.

Plungers – Luigi’s Mansion 3

The original Poltergust 3000 from the first Luigi’s Mansion defined the game’s premise and concept with its Ghostbusters-like vacuum gameplay. Well, the Poltergust has gone through some impressive upgrades since Luigi’s first haunted house visit. Luigi’s Mansion 3 introduces a bunch of new abilities and features for the Poltergust G-00. The funniest happens to be the Suction Shot, which involves plunging a ghost in the face and pulling it with a rope. The traditional use of Suction Shot is to break objects apart for easier suction, but we can’t stop shooting plungers directly at the enemies.

Thunderjaw – Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Rift Apart is the second and final Ratchet & Clank game to make it on the list, and of course it’s the RYNO. The RYNO is a returning legacy weapon, but the 8th iteration goes a step further, summoning objects from various PlayStation games. To get this ultimate weapon, players must find every Spybot in the game. Your reward pays off though. I mean, who doesn’t want to smash enemies with Sully’s plane from Uncharted, Jak & Daxter, or a freaking Thunderjaw from Horizon: Zero Dawn? Okay, technically, you’re dropping these objects from a portal and not shooting them, but you’re still shooting to open the portal, so it counts.

Junk – Fallout 3

Like Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun, the Rock-It Launcher shoots a variety of environmental objects at enemies. What makes this weapon unique is Fallout 3’s emphasis on junk items. There’s a ton of junk within the Capital Wasteland and most of it can be loaded into the Rock-It Launcher. It’s a tad disappointing that every junk item has the same damage output, but the variety of stuff you can shoot at opponents is impressive nonetheless.

Bullet Bill – Mario Kart

Bullet Bill is the oldest object on this list, with its first appearance in world 5-1 of the first Super Mario Bros. Game from 1987. It wasn’t until Mario Kart Wii (and technically Mario Kart DS) when players could finally harness the dread power of Bullet Bill on unsuspecting friends. The kart turns into a giant Bullet Bill, auto-piloting through the course at top-speed catapulting others to the back of the line – that is, until they smash you with one later in the race.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Kojima Productions delivered one of the best stealth experiences of recent memory with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. The game meshes together a great story filled with underlying themes along with an open world that’s quite literally a playground of possibilities. It’s one of the best games that use the concept of systemic world design to the fullest extent, and it’s really fun to bend these systems to your will and come up with interesting solutions to a variety of problems.

The game starts out really strong, and Kojima ensures gradual progression as new tools start to open up and missions get more complex with new enemy types and labyrinthian designs – forcing you to use everything in your arsenal to get through it all. But once you get past Mission 31, you notice that the “new missions” are actually just rehashed older missions with new mission clear constraints tacked on top for good measure. It’s still fun to clear out these missions, but stripping away the freedom to cause chaos can also turn some people off – and that coupled with the fact that it’s all essentially rehashed content built to pad out the game can tamper with the enjoyment.

Killing Kuro – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Wolf deals with quite a bit of hardship to help erase Kuro’s Dragon Heritage, like obtaining the Mortal Blade, defeating his adoptive father Owl and much more. Once you finally take down Genichiro and then a revived Ishin, it’s revealed that the Immortal Severance requires killing Kuro. Though there are other endings to help him survive in some way or another, it’s kind of a punch in the gut to end Kuro’s life after all the struggle, conflicts and death that he’s had to witness.