One-Bullet Clips: Difference between revisions

 

== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==

* 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'' 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.

** The first two games are actually somewhat schizophrenic about this trope. The bolt-action weapons all follow these rules ''except'' for the Lee-Enfield, which can only be manually reloaded if there are five or less bullets left in it. Additionally, the BAR in ''1'', along with the Bren, Gewehr 43, and SVT-40 in ''2'', do not have alternate reload animations for emptying the magazine.

** ''Call of Duty: World At War'' mostly follows this, with one exception. When using the Double-Barreled Shotgun, you may reload after firing only one shell. If you do, the reloading animation will show you blocking the other shell with your thumb while shaking the spent shell out.

** Shotguns that are loaded one shell at a time in this series go to both extremes - the pump-action ones are always pumped at the end of a reload no matter how many shells are loaded, while the automatic ones (excluding the SPAS-12 in ''Black Ops'') leave the chambering step out entirely.

** Every other gun however follows this trope, excluding the pump shotgun in the first game and the pistols in the second.

** 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.

** Indeed, the original ''Team Fortress'' had several types of dropped ammo, and you could even pick up ammo you could not use. This resulted in an annoying shuffle where teammates had to swap ammo to make the most of it. And if you just killed an enemy that doesn't use the same types of ammo as you do, tough luck.

** Spies can recharge their cloaking devices by picking up the aforementioned baseball bats and bottles. Engineers can also build sentry guns from them.

** The Scout's Force-A-Nature has a 2-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 1.

*** And now with the Scout's new weapon, The Holy Mackerel, that factory can now process ''dead fish'' as well.

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

* The Firearms mod for Half-Life averts this. Partially-empty magazines are still partially empty if the player reloads them. Shotgun reloads can be interrupted after each shell. Most guns retain a round in the chamber if reloaded while there is still one round in the magazine; exceptions are programmed in specifically in the cases where the weapon's real-world counterpart would not behave that way (revolvers; Sterling submachine gun). In the case of the revolvers, there is a distinct reload animation for each of the possible number of shots fired: if reloading only two bullets, the character would place a thumb over the remaining four to keep them in their chambers. The empty chambers were then reloaded one at a time, and the reload could be canceled partway through, similar to the shotgun. The mod's motto, after all, was that ''it's all about the guns''. Its successor, ''Firearms: Source'', has done away with certain features such as magazine merging which was not seen as adding anything to gameplay.

** On the other hand, enemies DO have limited ammo, often falling back on their sidearms if they use up their assault rifle rounds. You also get more ammunition if you kill the enemy before he can get off too many shots.

* ''[[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 speedloader, [[Fan Wank|it's the only logical explanation]].

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by some [[NPC|marines]] in the game, who will occasionally shoot a few rounds into downed enemies (when there are no other obvious targets remaining) and sometimes say things like "Don't mind me, just emptying the magazine," as they do so.

* The PC game ''[[Combat Arms]]'' allows this trope with reload in that you retain all ammunition, but each weapon's ammunition is tied to the (instance of the) weapon itself; if you drop your weapon in favor of another weapon or another instance of the same weapon, you get as much ammunition as that other instance had. If it's empty...

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

* Every gun in ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' follows this trope except for the Golden Gun, which you don't get reloads for, and any weapon fed with loose ammo, such as the pump-action shotgun, the LTK revolver, and the Revolver Grenade Launcher. Interestingly, the last two examples will have you eject ALL the rounds in the weapon (spent ones get dumped, unfired ones go back to ammo pool) and then reload the chambers individually. Interestingly enough, guns picked up from NPCs will always have a random number of rounds missing from the magazine, completely regardless of whether or not they have actually fired any shots, implying that enemies just walk around with half-loaded guns all the time.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Home Front]]'' plays it straight.

 

 

* In the ''[[Fallout]]'' series, you can always reload the exact number of bullets needed directly from your inventory, never spending a magazine. This is made even more confusing by the icons for ammunition items in one's inventory, many of which ambiguously feature a container of loose bullets, chains of linked cartridges, and partly loaded magazines that look like they could fit in one or two of the many weapons that will take a given type of ammunition.

** 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.

*** However, New Vegas also averts the trope with revolvers; you'll reload exactly as many bullets as you've fired, be it one, three or four, or the whole clip.

* Not only is this trope possible in ''[[Parasite Eve]] II'', complete with ejecting spend bullet cartridges etc. But Aya reloads at the end of every encounter automatically. Making it possible, if you time it right, to reload your weapon ejecting all the cartridges, and then before she's even started putting more bullets in the automatic-reload kicks in and she ejects all another full set of bullet cartridges from the weapon.

 

== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==

* ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]'' had a peculiar case... the Giant Hydra, final form of the [[Sniper Rifle|Hydra]] if you choose to upgrade it trough 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., 8 perfectly reloaded rounds left in a 30 round mag will leave a mag with 22 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.

 

== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ==

* ''[[STALKER]]: Shadow Of Chernobyl'' follows this trope with the player's weapons, with a few exceptions; most notably, switching ammo types with the shotgun requires the player to manually unload the tube magazine in the inventory menu. Enemy weapons are a mixed bag; the player has to unload actual guns manually rather than removing and hoovering up magazines with their shoes, but the rest of an enemy's ammo is simply depicted as boxes of bullets or shells.

** You can also use it to use a mixed load. For example, the shotguns can often use the regular pellet shells, a dart shell and a slug. If you take the time to juggle it, you can have it so your gun is loaded with one type, then the next, then the last type, and so on.

== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==

* Bungie Software has gone from one end to the other of this trope:

* Keeping with its other attempts at a realistic portrayal, ''[[SWAT 4]]'' prevents you from taking rounds out of your enemies' weapons, as they're evidence and in most cases not actually compatible with your current loadout (especially when using non-lethal or less-lethal arms). Also, when reloading, one simply switches to the next magazine with rounds still within it. Shotguns are still required to load in one round at a time, as well.

** However, the game ends up averting it so hard that later missions of the game have you and your SWAT team of five (including you) raiding dangerous cults, going toe-to-toe with domestic terrorist organization with only about four magazines. The worst offender seems to be when you're expected to secure an entire hospital AND prevent the assassination of a foreign diplomat being treated there for wounds taken in a failed suicide attempt. And no, there's not a single security guard to be found. The only law enforcement in the nation seems to be you five, your sniper backup, and the guy who drives the van.

** ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' does this as well, minus the "+1" reloading.

* In ''[[Day Of Defeat]]'', reloading means disposing of the entirety of the current magazine, regardless of its content.

* In ''Chronicles of [[Riddick]]: Escape from Butcher Bay'', any ammo you currently have in your magazine is discarded with it. It has to be noted, however, that you get so darn many magazines in the course of the game that preserving ammo isn't really necessary.

* In ''[[Urban Terror]]'', you toss a magazine - kiss it goodbye. Having only 2 to 4 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.

** Curiously, the sequel, ''[[System Shock]] 2'', followed this trope to the letter.

* 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 2 spare magazine. 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.

* Averted in ''[[Condemned]]'', in which you simply can't reload guns. [[Throw-Away Guns|At all]]. Also, guns you scavenge off corpses will only be fully loaded if you managed to take their previous holder down before he could squeeze a shot, otherwise they'll be down by the correct amount of bullets, or even empty (in which case you're probably ''dead'').

** ''[[Condemned]] 2'', however, allows the player to scavenge ammo from dropped weapons and find ammo in supply lockers, but not carry reloads. This ultimately meant that the player had one magazine, and that was it.

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

*** The ''Darkest Hour'' mod for Red Orchestra naturally also averts this trope; however, if you choose a class equipped with the M1 Garand, you can reload it mid-clip. Doing so does take longer than an empty reload, because the clip has to be ejected manually if it still has bullets.

** The ''Infiltration'' mod did much the same thing.

* ''OPERATION 7'', a tactical MMO FPS, deals with this realistically like the ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' series. Since there's no way to consolidate partial magazines at any time, you could wind up with mags that are a third-full or worse.

* ''Firearms'', a mod of ''Half-Life'' also had this, although it did allow you to consolidate partially loaded magazines at any time during gameplay.

* "Metro 2033": Mostly played straight due to the scarcity of ammo in the game, but one of the shotguns in the game doesn't necessarily fully reload every time. The ammo is put on a belt on the sides of the gun, and it can hold up to six shells at a time. However, the slot on top of the gun can't be accessed which means if you completely ran out of ammo before reloading, one slot will be empty. If you were to fire the gun then reload again, you would be at full ammo though.

 

 

== [[Role Playing Game]] ==

* Averted in the Sega Genesis version of ''[[Shadowrun]]''. Ammuntion was listed in number of magazines instead of bullets, and characters would only reload when their magazines were empty. However, it is possible to reload in the pause screen. Doing so when the magazine isn't empty brings up a warning: "You still have ammo left. Reload?" Accepting would discard the ammo left in the half-empty magazine.

 

== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ==

* Averted in the first ''[[Hitman]]'' game. If you reload, the entire magazine is tossed away.

* In the original 80's 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.

** The sequel/remake, ''Siren: Blood Curse'', acts in much the same way, the only differences being that the rifles are now single-shot instead of repeating, double-barrel shotguns (which can be [[Sawed-Off Shotgun|sawed down]]) are thrown into the mix, and you can take weapons from enemies (although you can only carry one weapon at a time, and there's usually only one person with a gun in the level -- either you or an enemy).

 

== [[Survival Horror]] ==

== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==

* In ''[[Oni]]'', individual rounds aren't tracked, only whole magazines (not that they could be given ''Oni'''s universal ammo system), so reloading with a shot left in the weapon wastes it (and magazines are very hard to come by). Enemies carry finite numbers of ammo magazines, and reload, so their weapon will have exactly as many bullets in it as they had left to shoot at you (so, it's best to kill him just as he reloads.)

* In ''Operation Winback,'' reloading your sub-machine gun or shotgun while there were still bullets in the magazine led to those spare bullets being discarded as well. Unfortunately this was kind of redundant as your starting pistol was very accurate, did decent damage, granted you a bonus if you completed a mission using no other weapons... and had infinite ammo.

* ''[[Arm A]]: Armed Assault'' keeps track of the amount of ammunition in each magazine in your inventory, only throwing away magazines if they are completely depleted. If you have multiple semi-depleted magazines, they are sorted in order of decreasing bullets.