The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

* The enemy rightly does have a better weapon than yours, whether it was because they had a better assault rifle, or they just had an assault rifle and for some reason your side doesn't.

 

For this trope to work however, the character must be able to be sent in fully loaded and then have the option of keeping their own weapons or exchanging them. Usually it's the latter because they find the enemy's weapons are, indeed, better. Related to [[Offscreen Villain Dark Matter]], in which the bad guys get more and better stuff to preserve the [[Rule of Drama]].

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty'', you will never find ammo for American guns. In fact, you'll never find ammo for anything but the German MP-45. Enjoy playing the whole game having to use the one crappy SMG for everything.

** No, you can actually find American made weapons. They aren't used by the Germans (The MP-50 is by far the most used weapon), but they are lying around all over the place. This troper played the mission in the White Tower of London solely with American weapons by picking up American weapons lying around. [[Blatant Item Placement|Why they're there is anyone's guess.]]

* You can occasionally find a weapon in a box in ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', but the most prevalent source (especially for some of the better guns) was enemy units. Therefore, it's usually better to use a GUN weapon if you're following the dark path and a Black Arms weapon if you're following the hero path. Neutral path? Just use the best weapon possible.

* In all ''[[Metal Gear]]'' games, it isn't so much that the enemy's weapons are better as it is that your side sends you in with only a token amount of equipment, which includes one small pistol at best. If you want to use anything bigger (which you invariably need to do in order to have something capable of damaging certain bosses), you'll need to steal equipment from the enemy.

** This is actually explained in the first game in the Solid series. Snake follows On-Site Procurement procedures. There's a variety of reasons for this, first and foremost that because his operations are never really sanctioned, there can be nothing that traces him back to his parent organization. Using the enemy's own equipment denies them at least one avenue for discovering who sent him. In later games, when he's working of his own accord, he still prefers to follow this particular procedure, most likely because as a wanted terrorist, it's difficult for him to acquire weaponry.

* Subverted then played straight in ''[[X-COM]]''. While you ''can'' take weapons from dead aliens, your soldiers can't use them until you've researched them. Once you've done that, you'll be able to steal spare ammunition and other gear from the aliens.

* Similar to the ''X-Com'' example above, ''[[UFO After Blank|UFO: Aftershock]]'' your soldiers can steal weapons and other gear from dead enemies, but there are some kinds of equipment that require special training in order to use them.

* [[Mega Man (Video Game)|Mega Man]] starts off with a wimpy plasma pellet gun (though in some games he can use a [[Charged Attack]]), and by defeating the bosses in the game will acquire many new weapons, most of which are more powerful than his starting gun (which he may nonetheless need to fall back on, as it's the only weapon with infinite ammo).

* Almost every single level in ''[[Golden Eye 1997 (Video Game)|Goldeneye 007]]'' starts with James Bond equipped with the PP7, a decent but relatively weak pistol which you'll quickly trade for an assault rifle or SMG as soon as the first opportunity comes along.