The Escapist: A Tribute to Goons

Thanks to Call of Duty's fetishistic devotion to weapon mods, we've gotten choosy when it comes to guns. Shall we sellotape an uzi to our shotgun? Or would sir prefer an automatic silenced laser sighted rocket launcher? Getting your loadout exactly right can mean the difference between airstrike and Copycat, urging an entire generation of online players to duke it out for the most bling-bling boomstick. But even before CoD went global, games like Half-Life and Doom had us juggling weapons. Their gigantic arsenals offered just as much choice: pulp a squad of demons with your hefty chain-gun, or pop them from a distance with a crossbow to the headcrab?

By Ed Smith