One-Bullet Clips: Difference between revisions

* Particularly aggravating in ''[[Call of Duty]]'' - the game actively encourages the player to abuse this trope, by increasing the reload time of every weapon in the game when empty (except for some reason ''United Offensive's'{{'}}s Gewehr 43 and ''World at War''{{'}}s M1 Garand and M1919 Browning, which all reload ''faster'' when empty, though the M1 Garand's case makes sense). There is an additional step involved in reloading if the chamber is empty (you have to pull the charging handle/slide back, then release it to chamber a new round), on the other hand, you aren't considered to have an extra bullet to fire since you now have a chambered round and a full magazine... many games ignore this fact and have only one animation for reloading any given weapon, typically showing the player character rack the charging handle after inserting the new magazine (even if there's still a round in the chamber, which would eject a perfectly good bullet from the gun in real life) or, worse, simply replacing the magazine and leaving the 'chamber a new round' step out entirely.

** Also, particularly ridiculous in ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops|Call of Duty Black Ops]]'', as when reloading the Python (a 6six-chamber revolver) your character is clearly shown taking all six bullets/shells and taking them all out of the chamber at the same time, regardless of how many shots out of six, and then only loading as many bullets as had been fired. Every other revolver in the series partially avoided this by using speed loadersspeedloaders, which the Python can also use in multiplayer with the correct attachment.

** ''Half-Life'' does accurately handle the chambered round in one case: when reloading a non-empty Glock 17, the chambered round is kept for a total of 18eighteen shots rather than the supposed maximum of 17seventeen. Also, the slide does not retract if the Glock is reloaded in this way, whereas it does if the gun is emptied prior to reloading it. This is not the case for the USP from ''[[Half-Life 2]]'', however - the slide will always magically lock back at the start of a reload.

** ''Left 4 Dead'' actually averted this before the first patch, as reloading magazine-loaded weapons early would result in the rest of the magazine being lost. This granted a huge advantage to the shotguns and was quickly patched out.

* InAt one point in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', picking up fallen enemy's weapons instantly givesgave you half your max ammo capacity back. This iswas [[Fridge Logic|considerably odd]] since someone cancould pick up a half-broken glass bottle and receive more bullets. in the pastHowever now enemies drop a medium an aomoammo pack .

** The Scout's Force-A-Nature has a 2two-round capacity, and if you reload after only firing one shot, you lose the other one. This is definitely intended by Valve, as an attribute in the game files sets "scattergun no reload single" to 1one.

*** But you can't get ammo or metal from dropped hats, even though they were crafted out of enough metal to build 36+thirty-six or more guns.

* ''[[Halo]]'' follows this trope to the letter. Maybe the MC [[Hyperspace Arsenal|stores his magazines/grenades/reserve weapon (in H1) inside his suit]], which also contains a universal speed loaderspeedloader, [[Fan Wank|it's the only logical explanation]].

* The Golden Gun and Rocket Launcher in ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Goldeneye 64]]'' are the only weapons that ''don't'' do this, both because they only have a single shot per reload. Other guns play it totally straight, especially in multiplayer: if you have an empty gun in multiplayer, and you get killed, the next person to grab that gun will find it with 10ten bullets in it.

* In ''[[Quake]] Live'', picking up weapons gives a set amount. For example, picking up a rocket launcher gives 10ten rockets, and a lightning gun gives 100a hundred. This also applies to weapons dropped by players, no matter how much ammo the player had before he/she dropped the weapon.

* ''[[Sin]]'' and its sequel, Episodes play this one straight, but even more maddening is the fact that the shotgun in [[Sin]]: Episodes, which uses a magazine, will always be pumped after reloading no matter what (ejecting a shell). Since it also is pumped automatically after firing a shot also, Blade is in essence ejecting an unused cartridge with every reload.

* ''[[Rainbow Six]]: Vegas 2'' is similar to ''Crysis'' in this regard. Reloading an empty weapon requires the protagonist to cock the gun to put the first round into the chamber. In addition, reloading before a gun is empty adds one extra bullet to the next magazine (excluding belt -fed LMGs, which are always re-cocked no matter how many bullets you had left). However, despite the HUD only showing how many magazines you could fill with your remaining bullets, magazines are not actually tracked.

* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' has it with all guns, but especially amusing is the sight of a full clip being loaded into a revolver no matter how many bullets are left. The Jackal sniper rifle in ''Zero'' avoids this by being single -shot.

** Also, if you have a submachine gun drawn and stand around without doing anything for a few moments, your character will change magazines and throw the old one over his/her shoulder, over and over. Apparently, you have infinite magazines available.

** This, however, does not explain why you can have 0no shots remaining for your Sniper Rifle but 60sixty shots remaining for your Assault Rifle. Standardized heat sinks would imply that you can use any of the ones that you have with you for any of your guns at any time.

*** Also actually averted by the Type 17 pistol, which required a speed loaderspeedloader to reload. You cannot reload it unless your entire mag is empty.

** This happens a lot with shotguns in third-person shooters. For example, in ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' Leon always loads two shells into his shotgun(s), regardless of how many shells you actually load with it ([[Egregious]] in the case of the Striker, which, when fully upgraded, can hold a staggering 100one hundred shells, but still only needs two to fully reload).

*** Speaking of ''RE4'', this is also averted with the [[Hand Cannon]]: Leon is shown loading three shells into the chamber when he reloads, which is the number of bullets the gun actually holds. Upgrading its capacity at all makes him start using speed loadersspeedloaders instead.

*** Furthermore, in [[RE 4]]''RE4'' Leon picks up loose bullets as opposed to actual magazines and clips. Since he carries these in boxes, and doesn't have any magazines in his inventory, it's unknown where he gets the magazines from. Although, having to watch Leon load 15fifteen individual bullets into a magazine would get extremely aggravating.

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'' plays this beyond straight: any weapon can be reloaded at any point by removing its magazine (or clip, or shells, etc.) and putting a new one in, even if the weapon is already full.

* Also, many [[Third-Person Shooter|Third Person Shooters]]s, such as ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' and ''[[Resident Evil]]''.

* ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]'' had a peculiar case... the Giant Hydra, final form of the [[Sniper Rifle|Hydra]] if you choose to upgrade it thoughthrough the power route, could take down just about any common enemy with a single shot...and then reload, since you cannot load more than a single bullet inside at a time; literal one bullet clip.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' takes this to baffling levels because of its "Active Reload" mechanic. Reloading a gun starts a slide that takes a few seconds but stopping the slide in a thin bar will reload faster. Missing the bar will cause the gun to jam, making the reload take longer than simply waiting. However, hitting a small area inside the bar will trigger a "Perfect Reload," which will bestow bonuses (typically to some combination of damage, rate of fire, recoil reduction, effective range, or shot prep time on some heavy weapons) -- but only to the bullets it actually replaced. This means that doing a mid-mag perfect reload will show the character ejecting a magazine and replacing it with another, but only bestows a bonus to a number of bullets within the new magazine as were absent in the previous one. The first two games overwrote previous Perfect Reloads whenever a new reload was attempted (i.e., 8eight perfectly reloaded rounds left in a 30thirty-round mag will leave a mag with 22twenty-two perfectly reloaded rounds after a fresh Perfect Reload), while the third allows all Perfectly Reloaded bullets to keep the bonus until they are fired, or it expires. YMMV on which of these models makes more sense.

* ''[[Frontlines: Fuel of War]]'' gives you 3three magazines. Reloading will just drop the mag, wasting any bullets still left in it, which makes [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!|it really annoying if you play a lot of games where this trope comes into play.]]

* In ''[[Urban Terror]]'', you toss a magazine - kiss it goodbye. Having only 2two to 4four mags means that even a good player can run out of ammo pretty quickly, sometimes meaning that you have to toss your weapon and pick up another, which may or may not have ammo, often leaving you with just a knife.

* If you unload a weapon in ''[[System Shock]]'', you lose the magazine if, and only if, the weapon has been fired. So, if you have a thirty round Flechette weapon, and fire only one shot (technically impossible, but whatever), then unload it to put in a different kind of ammo, say goodbye to that magazine. Generally, not a problem towards the end of the game, but it made you count your bullets at the start or use the lead pipe like a madman.

* Averted in the ''Delta Force'' series of first-person shooters by Novalogic. In these games, if you reload, even if you only used a few bullets, the entire rest of the magazine goes to waste. Needless to say, one should almost never manually reload a [[More Dakka|M249 Squad Automatic Weapon]] in the game, which due to its large magazine, the player usually can only carry 2two spare magazines. The games (or, at least, ''Land Warrior'') do keep track of the extra bullet in the chamber, however, so you ''can'' reload with one bullet left in the magazine and get to keep that bullet anyway.

* The ''[[Quake II]]'' mod "Action Quake" tracked magazines. Players have only 2two or 3three extra magazines unless they choose the bandolier as their optional equipment, so knife fights aren't uncommon.

*** However, you can carry two of the same weaponsweapon after a performance-based upgrade, in which case you CAN reload but the ammo is taken out of the other gun.

* Averted in ''[[The Darkness]]'': If you reload a weapon before you empty the entire magazine, the remaining part of that magazine is gone (for pistols this is because [[Throw-Away Guns|Jackie doesn't bother reloading them normally]]). Careless players might take a while to realize where all their ammo went when they had around 100a hundred bullets beforehand.

* ''[[Virtua Cop]] 3'' provides an example of actually accounting for the chambered round. Practically every gun from the default pistol with unlimited ammo to the ones you collect from pickups will keep the chambered round upon reloading when you haven't spent the full clip. You even get to see a cross-section of the magazine and chamber so you can view the entire process as well as have the ammo counter go up by 1one when a round is kept chambered. Though every other aspect of the ammo system plays this trope straight.

* The first ''[[Xenosaga]]'' game used ammunition for both Mechamecha and some characters, but there was no reload mechanic in battle; rather, characters started off each battle with the necessary ammunition. Then again, since the weapons ''themselves'' occasionally phased into existence, it's unclear as to why ammunition couldn't do the same (and, in fact, in the case of KOS-MOS it did, so go figure).

* The classic RPG ''[[Wasteland (video game)|Wasteland]]'' had variable-sized magazines, but once loaded you can't unload or otherwise salvage the ammo inside if you have to either reload or unjam the weapon. In other words, reloading a weapon resultresults in losing the ammo which was left in the weapon before reloading. Consequently, reloading a fully loaded weapon by mistake is equivalent to tossing away a full magazine.

* In the original 80's1980s version of ''[[Castle Wolfenstein]]'' (the non-3D one), the character only wielded one pistol, and did not store any extra bullet magazines. Thus, if he came across enemy bullets, he only reloaded if they had more bullets then he currently had.

* When reloading an empty un-scopedunscoped rifle in Cryostasis the protagonist is shown using a speed loaderspeedloader to reload. However, when you try to reload a non-empty rifle the protagonist takes the required amount of bullets from the next ammo pouch and loads them in manually.

** The characters seem to haul a [[Bag of Holding]] full of empty magazines of every size and description, though; it's possible to load an arbitrary number of, say, 10ten-bullet magazines of 7.62 WP bullets into an AK-47 (three magazines of 10ten at a time, obviously) and have a fully loaded 30thirty-round magazine, or vice versa with the Dragunov sniper rifle (although that leaves you with a loaded 10ten-round magazine and a 30thirty-round magazine with 20twenty rounds remaining). Note that in some fan mods of the game such as some iterations/builds of the famous and continually evolving ''v1.13'', using magazines not suited for a weapon (such as feeding a 7seven-shot pistol a 30thirty-round SMG mag of the same caliber) costs extra action points

* Averted to an almost ridiculous extent by ''[[7.62 High CaliberCalibre]]''. If you have a box of bullets, but no magazine, it takes significantly longer to reload your gun as you have to insert the bullets into the existing magazine one at a time. Revolvers take longer to reload the more bullets you've fired (no speed loadersspeedloaders). Swapping a half-empty magazine for a full magazine doesn't give you a chambered round, but you also don't lose the half-empty magazine (you can refill it later). Guns that are reloaded one round at a time (bolt-action rifles and shotguns) take longer to reload the more rounds you're reloading at one time. The ''only'' exception to the realism rule here is that, if you tape together two magazines, the game treats them as a double-capacity magazine instead of two separate magazines with a speedier reload time.

* Sidestepped in ''[[Pathologic]]''. The revolver is reloaded offscreen (the character pulls it down to their side first), avoiding the need for custom animations depending on how many bullets it currently has. The rifle is reloaded on-screen, but it has a literal one-bullet clip, so the trope doesn't apply. Played straight with the shotgun, however—your character always chucks the shells out of the gun, regardless of whether or not one is still unspent. The shotgun is also guilty of the "reload more visible shots than you actually have" sub tropesubtrope.

[[Category:One -Bullet Clips]]