Unusable Enemy Equipment: Difference between revisions

For whatever reason, the player is not allowed to pick up and use the weapons, ammo, and equipment of fallen enemies. Instead, he must either find the same weapons and equipment lying around by themselves, or simply can't pick up weapons at all outside plot events that give them to him. Often this doesn't extend to ammunition; once the player has a gun, enemies with the same gun may well start dropping ammunition for it. This isn't really as unrealistic as it may seem; knowing where your weapon came from means you can tell it's well-maintained and not booby-trapped or locked out in some way, but it's fairly safe to assume someone who was just shooting at you is carrying ammunition that works in the gun they were carrying.

 

 

In real life, a soldier will be trained to pick up an opponent's weapon only as an absolute last resort. This is because of a laundry list of issues that most fictional depictions skirt around. (A biggy is that when opposing forces are using guns with very different reports, say a US M16 and a Viet Cong AK-47, friendly soldiers will tend to shoot at anything that sounds like the enemy...) In the case of police, weapons owned by criminals are evidence and tampering with them could destroy a later court case. On the other hand, in that absolute last resort when you're out of ammo for your own weapons and surrounded by enemies, it ''will'' feel unreasonable if the game prevents you from picking up the gun from the dead Mook next to you.

 

 

In other media, contrast [[In Working Order]].

* In the ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series, the player is unable to use the weapons of fallen enemies. ''MGS2'' [[Hand Wave|hand waves]] this by explaining that all the guards' weapons use a DNA-based security locking system and therefore won't work for anyone but the original owner. The explanation given in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'', which is set in 1964, is that Naked Snake doesn't trust the reliability of weapons they may have been poorly maintained, instead preferring fresh weapons from armories. Also, at one point during the game (''MGS2''), the protagonist must infiltrate the enemy's base by disguising himself as a guard. But for some reason he can't just kill one and take his uniform, he must be given one during a plot event. The same thing needs to be done in ''MGS3'', but you must steal the uniform from a specific officer because you need his security clearance and it just so happens that you have a mask that matches his face.

*** If you wear the mask and talk to Sigint at the beginning of Operation: Snake Eater, It's heavily hinted at that [[Fridge Brilliance|the mask was made to impersonate the exact same officer.]]

* ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]: Escape From Butcher Bay'' also does the DNA-gun thing. Enemy guards actually do drop their assault rifles when killed, but the rifle electrocutes you if you try to pick it up. Guards with pistols and shotguns can be freely liberated of their arms once downed, though.

** In ''Assault on Dark Athena'', the rifles are no longer DNA-encoded, which means when you find a merc you can take his weapon no matter what. However, the most commonly encountered enemy, the Ghost Drones, have their rifles surgically attached to their arms. Semi-averted in that you can use their guns while using their body as a meatshield, but this inhibits your ability to move.

** It is interesting to note that you can't ''get'' the armor, but you could definitely ''wear'' it, if you got it through other means (by using cheats, for example). Every armor on every human enemy is an actual, wearable item with its own stats -- you just can't take it from them. This applies even to things that look like they should be part of the NPC model instead, like Xardas' black robe.

*** This was changed in the sequel, where this and some other kinds of "armor" don't actually exist as separate objects anymore.

** The beginning of the game was also made artificially harder by the fact that, while your mercs started out with peashooters, the enemy [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]] had rifles and body armor that would much more often than not disappear with them. It's only after you finally did get access to your own supply of rifles that the [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]] would start dropping them regularly...

*** ...But even weapons that enemies actually drop aren't immediately useful due to their poor condition. Most weapons you find will be down to 70% or 80% condition and thus very likely to jam, so either [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|poor item condition doesn't effect enemies]] or [[Fake Difficulty|just tumbling to the ground causes major damage to items]].

** In ''[[Fallout]]''. all armor save for the [[Powered Armor]] worn by the Brotherhood of Steel could be looted. In ''[[Fallout]] 2'', armor wasn't lootable; apart from the game-balance issues, presumably the idea of shooting the enemies through their armor and then using it yourself feels a tad unrealistic. The [[Powered Armor]] exception was pointed out in-game too: One of the paladins of the Brotherhood of Steel mentions that you'll never encounter a non-brotherhood soldier in their trademark power armor since with it fully encasing the wearer, the latter dying means the armor has been shot to unwearable bits.

** In ''[[Fallout]] 3'', anything that the enemy carries, wears, or uses, can be stolen. Early in the game, it's a good idea to leave your dead enemies rotting in their underpants. This extends all the way up to the Enclave and Brotherhood armors, which you can easily pilfer off the dead. However, no armor you find this way will ever be in 100% top condition. You can even loot the power armor, but you can't ''use'' it until 2/3 of the way through the main story quest. Unless you have the Operation Anchorage DLC, which will not only give you Power Armor training much earlier, but also a [[Good Bad Bugs|nigh-indestructible]] T-51b.

* ''[[Half Life]]''

** The first ''Half-Life'' has an interesting example with the Hive Hand weapon. Unlike every other weapon the player can't retrieve it from the corpse of an enemy that wields it, because it's literally attached to them. There are two Hive Hands that have been previously removed and the player can acquire, but other than that they can't be used.

** The ''Opposing Force'' [[Expansion Pack]] takes this a step further, as you eventually get to use ''[[Living Weapon|live aliens]]'' as weapons.

** But effectively played straight with Phantom Ganon's sword, which is only dropped in rooms where there are no other enemies anyway.

*** Which is secondary to the fact that you don't ''want'' to pick it up anyway, since watching how it falls is a puzzle hint.

*** And you get the Gale Boomerang and Ball and Chain from beating the two minibosses that use them.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Video Game)|Skyward Sword]]'' plays with this trope a bit. In the fourth dungeon, Ancient Cistern, you obtain a whip which allows you to retrieve items from afar. Unfortunately, it can't temporarily snag weapons from enemies, instead only stealing Monster Horns (for upgrading your equipment) from certain Bokoblins. Later on, the boss of Ancient Cistern ({{spoiler|Koloktos}}) must be defeated by {{spoiler|disabling its limbs, which allows you to pick up one of its [[BFS|swords]] (which are able to ''smash through pillars'') and go buck wild on it. Unfortunately, you can't take the sword with you outside of the boss room.}}

*** Although in ''[[Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones (Video Game)|Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones]]'', you ''could'' take monster weapons with some glitch abuse. It was pretty much the only way to teach anyone but Knoll or Ewan dark magic, and the only way to let Myrrh attack ''at all'' once her stone broke.

* In ''Resistance: Fall of Man'' you can't get the fireball shooters used by Chimeran Titans when they die. Justified twice over, as said guns are as big as you are... and Titans die when their cooling units overload and explode, blowing them apart. It similarly justifies not being able to get the weapon Slipskulls use from their corpses by having it [[Arm Cannon|mounted onto their arm]] with metal bands. There's no obvious reason the Arc Cannon can't be recovered from Hardfang corpses, though -- it's just not there when you try. If you look closely, they ''literally'' [[Everything Fades|vanish in a puff of smoke]]; no, there's no apparent reason why.

* There was oh so much stuff lying in the background of the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series. Most notably, you find a squad of dead soldiers in the sewers of ''RE2'' with MP5s you cannot claim. Also, doesn't it seem odd that none of the hundreds of zombified police officers are carrying their sidearms or ammunition?

** How about one of the farm tools that the Ganados were using as weapons. They just seem so much more ''effective'' than the knife...

[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]

[[Category:Unusable Enemy Equipment]]