2. Model 1887s – COD: MW2
There was a time in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer life that the Model 1887s dominated the game. You’d struggle to play a single match without two or three people charging through the map with these in their hands. The old-school, lever-action, spin-to-reload shotties had an undeniable cool factor. It also helped that they could kill a man from half a mile away with only the vaguest sense of aim.
If you saw a player rounding a corner toting two of these beasts, you’d best have had them equipped too, or your time definitely was up. Alone, the Model 1887 wasn’t all that special, but adding in the dual-wield Akimbo attachment made them feel even more broken than the game’s Commando perk. Okay, maybe they weren’t quite that bad. At the time, Infinity Ward rarely released patches for Call of Duty games, but the models proved so broken that the developer eventually brought out the nerf-hammer.
3. Farsight XR-20 – Perfect Dark
These days, getting shot through walls in an FPS game is a good indication that you might be facing a hacker. Back on the N64 however, being killed through metres of solid stone was simply an intended part of the game. Perfect Dark was rightly lauded for its expansive and involved multiplayer component, but the Farsight sniper rifle almost led us to reconsider. Able to see through walls, this gun let you target players anywhere on the map, and killed in just a single shot, giving your victim absolutely no chance to retaliate.
Even worse, the secondary fire would actively seek out players, homing in on and tracking your hapless targets. It fired at an incredibly sluggish rate, but that didn’t really matter when the enemy was on the opposite side of the level. We can only assume that the developers figured the almost painful to look at x-ray scope would limit our will to abuse it, but they sorely underestimated our childhood appetite for victory.