Sunday, December 2, 2012

Valve Guns

Two of the fictional guns I want most are both found in games from Valve. If you're a fan of that studio, you probably already know what games and what guns I'm talking about. If not, I'll give you a hint: GLaDOS and Gordon. Still not enough? Ok, I'll just tell you. The gravity gun from Half-Life and the portal gun from Portal. They both take a lot of skill to use, but once you master them, they're awesome. If you're unfamiliar with these two guns, I'll describe them for you. The portal gun fires an orange portal and a blue portal, and whatever goes in one of them comes out the other with the exact same velocity. The gravity gun gives the wielder a sort of telekinesis. It can attract certain objects from a distance and suspend them in midair, then fire a bolt of kinetic energy that launches almost anything it hits. It only works on a relatively small scale, but it can throw things with enough force to kill an armored soldier. So now that everyone is all caught up, just imagine what it would be like to dual wield these two guns! Especially in an area with a lot of sharp objects around like Ravenholm in Half-Life. You could set up two portals, then launch a saw blade and decapitate any enemies, but when the projectile would otherwise hit a wall, it goes through a portal and flies in another direction. Or the portals could be used to enhance the gravity gun's limited range to do things like disarm people or grab supplies from a distance. And in the game each gun comes from, the other one would solve a ton of the protagonist's problems. Gordon Freeman needs to get from point A to point B without touching the ground? Done. An Aperture test subject wants to grab a companion cube or disable a turret from far away? No problem! See what I mean? There really are a lot of uses for these two things.

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