Akimbo (firearms)

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For other uses, see Akimbo (disambiguation).

Chow Yun-Fat demonstrating handguns akimbo in Hard Boiled

In gaming, weapons are akimbo if a weapon is held in each hand. This most commonly refers to matched pairs of handguns (many first person shooters have such weapons as "Berettas akimbo" or "pistols akimbo") but can refer to any other weapon that can be held in one hand such as machine pistols (for example "akimbo MAC-10s") and even melee weapons (e.g. katanas or lightsabers), although this is more common in role-playing games, where it is usually termed dual wielding.

1 Historical development
2 Implementation
- 2.1 Reloading issues
3 Examples
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Historical development

[edit] In real life

Historically, the use of two guns at once, one in each hand, originated in the American Old West, where relatively inaccurate revolvers holding only six rounds of ammunition were the highest capacity handguns available and reloading was a slow, shell-by-shell process. Being single action weapons, they needed to be cocked for each shot, so the rate of fire was also low, and while a shooter could fan his gun, this expended all his shots even faster and made him even more inaccurate than normal. Use of two guns was therefore a reasonable compromise, as this allowed one gun to be cocked as the other is being fired, in practical terms doubling the rate of fire and the available number of bullets.

A possible tall tale circulated during the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War tells of an American sergeant who, to display to his soldiers an act of bravery, singlehandedly ambushed and eliminated an entire Japanese platoon wielding only two Colt M1911 pistols. ^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Integration into media

Use of this tactic was naturally reflected in Western films. Later this twin pistol tactic has been integrated into other films, although most filmmakers picked up on its stylish aspect rather than its practical purpose. Most famously, Hong Kong action cinema is known for use of twin pistols to contribute to a more balletic and stylized form of gun combat - referred as gun fu - than contemporary Western films, and it is from this source that modern US action films have integrated akimbo guns as a stylistic institution.

Naturally, action films have been a major influence on action gaming. Rise of the Triad and Marathon, both released on December 21, 1994, were the earliest first-person shooters to integrate akimbo pistols. In Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.², this tactic has been developed further, now allowing the player to wield two different weapons at once, firing each one independently.

[edit] Etymology

There is some confusion over the origin of this usage of the word akimbo. Technically, it is inaccurate, since the word literally refers to a stance where a person stands with their elbows bent and their hands on their hips - not a posture well suited to shooting. While this does bear some similarity with the classic posture of cowboys firing their twin revolvers from the hip, in games this posture is almost never reflected, with almost all game characters firing twin guns at shoulder level, straight-armed. Counter-Strike is a notable exception, in that the player models are seen externally to fire akimbo Berettas from the hip, but appear to be firing from shoulder level from the first-person perspective.

The book Hong Kong Action Cinema (ISBN 0-87951-663-1) by Bey Logan suggests the word originated in Hong Kong action movies and eventually migrated to the gaming lexicon.

Another possible origin is from the 1997 game Blood, which included a power-up called "guns akimbo", allowing the player to temporarily use two of a number of weapons usually restricted to single usage.

Also worthy of consideration is the possibility that the phrase predates both of these and refers instead to Cowboy action shooting techniques.

[edit] Implementation

In practical terms akimbo guns have a number of advantages:

an easy and practical upgrade using weapons salvaged from the surroundings;
an entirely analogue rate of fire allowing any speed from single shots to virtually submachinegun rates of fire;
a doubling of available ammunition before reloading is necessary (see below);
the ability to target two enemies at once;
the ability to shoot in two directions at once;
the ability to use two weapon types at once.

However, akimbo weapons in games also cause a number of unique problems in terms of interface and control, which usually limit their representation of these characteristics when implemented in-game. Unlike any other weapon in games, both hands are independently used at once, but the control setup of most games allows either a single fire key or a fire key plus an alternate fire key, usually operated by the same finger. The earliest implementations of akimbo weapons in games, such as Rise of the Triad and Blood simply fired both weapons at once when the fire key was pressed (with the notable exclusion of Marathon). However this is different from its presentation in films, which is usually by alternating shots from the right and left guns. Before long, it became more common to have the fire key fire each gun alternately, as in F.E.A.R. and Counter-Strike. An expansion for Aliens vs. Predator allowed two pistols to be used both alternately for a higher rate of fire and both at once for more damage.

Some games, such as Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² and The Specialists mod, have gone on to implement a system of independent triggers for each gun, in order to allow the player to use them as necessary, firing simultaneously or alternately as they wish. However this can be somewhat counterintuitive for PC gamers, usually playing with the mouse in one hand for aiming and firing and the keyboard in the other hand to control movement. Use of the left and right mouse buttons as left and right triggers is the usual solution, but this is done exclusively by the mouse hand and usually assigns the left mouse button, usually used for primary fire of weapons held in the right hand, to the left gun and the right button to the right gun. This therefore can feel a little odd, and often results in the left gun being prematurely empty. Hence PC games rarely implement a form of akimbo that actually contributes to game play.

Modern console games can escape this to a certain extent by using the shoulder buttons as analogous to left and right triggers. While PC games, especially first person shooter games, rely on the mouse for manual aiming of both guns together, console games usually compensate for the difficulty of quickly and precisely aiming with the analogue stick by employing a lock-on or auto-aim function, thus making possible a practical method of targeting and firing at more than one enemy at once, but this remains uncommon. BloodRayne, Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² and Devil May Cry 3 are among the few to implement it. First-person shooter games have yet to establish a practical method of implementing two-directional aiming.

Coding limitations can also harm the implementation of akimbo guns in games. In some games such as Action Half-Life and F.E.A.R. are logical in their implementation: a player picks up a pistol, which functions perfectly well independently, then he or she picks up another one and can use both at once; later, the player can discard them both, having run out of ammunition and must appropriate two more for further akimbo. This approach is usually used by more realistic games. However, some games, for example Counter-Strike or Return to Castle Wolfenstein treat akimbo guns as a single weapon; the player must always carry, use and discard them both at once, and cannot use other weapons akimbo. Other games such as Unreal Tournament have a faux-akimbo system, in that a player always has one of the starting weapons, can pick up another and use both at once, but is then unable to drop either; this is significant in multiplayer, as it becomes harder to acquire akimbo weapons if they are not easily looted from bodies of foes. Games of this sort are usually more arcade-style in play.

[edit] Reloading issues

Reloading while holding one gun in each hand is significantly more complex than reloading a single weapon. Earlier games made no attempt to represent reloading at all, rendering it a moot point, and more arcade-style games still do not. GoldenEye 007, for example, did not feature reloading animations for either single or akimbo guns; the weapons were simply lowered off the bottom of the screen, out of sight, a clicking sound effect was heard, and the weapons were raised into view again, refilled, with the implication being that reloading had occurred off screen. Every weapon, from the handguns to the grenade launcher, took exactly the same amount of time to reload. GoldenEye's successor Perfect Dark featured full reloading animations when a single weapon was held, but for akimbo reloading it retained the simplified technique used for all reloads in GoldenEye.

However, more and more games are released with onscreen akimbo reloading animations; nowadays it is de rigeur. For example, in Counter-Strike, one of the first games to show the full process of reloading akimbo guns onscreen, the first-person player model is shown inserting new magazines one at a time in the akimbo Berettas with a flamboyant spinning motion reminiscent of Western gunslingers. The akimbo Colt 1911s in The Specialists are reloaded by ejecting the magazines of both guns, then putting one in the same hand as the other and inserting two magazines into the guns at once using the free hand, a technique inspired, like the guns themselves, by the film Face/Off. Other options shown in games are to reload by gripping new magazines between thumb and middle finger while still holding the gun, then pushing them into the opposite gun with the side of the grip, or holding each gun in turn in the armpit, freeing the hand to insert a new magazine. The Needler, a biomechanical gun that can be akimbo-wielded in Halo 2, reloads using a somewhat uncertain proceedure, with onscreen animations showing the protagonist shaking the gun and crystalline spines on the weapon lengthening. Another form of reloading, shown in the game Killer7, consists of quickly inserting new magazines using knees and feet, as demonstrated by the character Con Smith.

Other, less down-to-earth techniques include ejecting the magazines, then pointing the gun down and letting new magazines, concealed in the sleeves of the wielder, to slide down into place. In sci-fi settings, this reloading technique can be updated via special gadgets hidden in one's sleeves, which automatically reload both guns when triggered, such as those used in the movie Equilibrium where the protagonist John Preston uses this technique, as well as a somewhat dubious method of reloading that involves throwing specially weighted clips across the floor. The weights force the clips into an upright position, allowing the character to dive toward them and reload by slamming empty guns down onto the clips.

Other films feature protagonists who secure new magazines to their holsters in such a way to allow the gunner to slap the empty gun down onto the fresh magazine. Lara Croft, the protagonist of the 2001 movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, uses this method, as well as a similar mechanism in her backpack.

The other alternative when weapons run out of ammunition is shown in the 1998 action movie The Replacement Killers and in the 1999 cult action movie The Matrix, where the protagonist simply drops empty guns and either produces a new pair from under his coat or, failing that, appropriates one from a fallen enemy. This is known as the "New York reload".

[edit] Examples

In role-playing games (especially computer RPGs), holding two weapons with one in each hand is usually called dual wielding. It should also be noted that since many RPGs are set in high fantasy worlds, "dual wielding" often refers not only to ranged weapons, but also to the mêlée ones. Notable CRPGs that allow dual wielding: