Talk:Dual wield

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[edit] Akimbo (firearms)...huh?

I have no idea why this was moved to a firearms category. It was written entirely in terms of gaming, It's a gaming term, and while it does address some real life firearm handling issues, it addresses them in the context of how games can or cannot reproduce them. Any objections to moving it back to (gaming)? YourMessageHere 04:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It looks like Some guy (talk • contribs) has some explaining to do. %) As for objections, I have none though I'd like to remind you that moving a renamed article back to the original name is technically impossible without admins' assistance. :) --Koveras ☭ 16:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
...as long as one of us knows what we're doing (in this instance, clearly not Some guy), I'm happy. Do you know how to get an admin's attention? YourMessageHere 23:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Though some justification/intent should have been posted before moving, I think it's reasonable. The article doesn't just cover gaming, but also some historical and cinematic uses. Perhaps it was moved to (firearms) because it deals with using two guns, but IMHO it should probably be something else (no idea what that is, unfortunately). VirogIt's notmy fault! 15:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Saying this is about firearms is like saying an article about a gangster film ought to be considered an article about organised crime, not film. It's impossible to talk about the concept purely in terms of gaming, as by its very nature akimbo usage in gaming is simulating real use of firearms. The article is an attempt to contextualise where the idea of dual guns comes from, some of the practical considerations involved, and why dual guns are popular in games and media.

[edit] Serious Concerns

I have to say, most of this page is complete fiction.

-I have never understood "Akimbo" to mean use of two identical guns. This claim should be substantiated. To me it appears to be used by people in general to indicate using a weapon in each hand. "Dual wielding", by contrast, belongs more to the RPG genre, and refers more to melee weapons, since "wielding" is more appropriate to melee weapons than ranged ones, and RPGs by and large are more likely to feature melee weapons than ranged ones as modern or futuristic settings are less common in RPGs.

-No mention is made of the fact that it's slang based on an incorrect use/corruption of the word. If this were accurate, firing guns akimbo either means (depending on one's preferred official dictionary definition) firing them with arms bent and both hands at the hips, like cowboys in westerns, or with arms crossed, the only example of which I can think of being the peepshow assassination scene in The Boondock Saints. By contrast almost all twin-gun combat in gaming is straight-armed, at shoulder level and aimed straight forward.

-Akimbo does not come from anything Japanese. It is an english word derived from the middle english "in kenebowe" and recorded as such in 1400. Check a dictionary. While it's not impossible that the word Akimbo (or rather "akinbo" as it would have to be) is coincidentally also a Japanese word, my Japanese dictionary has never heard of it, and I find it straining the bounds of credibility overmuch to claim that it applies to anything as similar as this. No reference is given to back this claim up and thus I simply can't believe it.

-The nearest thing I can get to dual sword wielding in a Japanese historical context is Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu.

-The use of the word in games derives either from Rise of the Triad (Although I loved ROTT I can't remember if the game referred to twin pistols as akimbo. It is possible. I remember that the cheat for twin pistols was JOHNWOO though) or, failing that, from the "Guns Akimbo" powerup in the game Blood, dating from 1997. This represents the second use of two guns at once in an FPS game, after ROTT.

-The quote from John Woo is triply inaccurate, in that not only does it not mention the word "akimbo", but also to my knowledge it is derived exclusively from the english dub version of Hard Boiled, not appearing at all in the original language version, and in any case, it's a line spoken by a character in the film, not something John Woo says as a director.

-there's nothing here about the point of "Akimbo" guns from a gameplay perspective, i.e. that you can do twice the damage with the same weapon twice, also that depending on how realistically the game portrays it, you can fire at a variety of speeds ranging from single shots to almost as fast as a submachinegun, and that in a few cases games allow you the ability to fire at two targets at once.

-Something also ought to be said about the flexibility of play styles that it allows, and the differences of implementation on this front. This is largely between games that allow you to use akimbo guns when you pick up a second single gun, like Blood II, wherein picking up a beretta gave you one gun but then picking up another let you use two at once, versus games that only allow akimbo weapons as a single weapon item, like counterstrike, in which you must pick up both berettas in order to use twin berettas but cannot pick them up singly or use other guns akimbo. Then there are the various ways in which firing is handled: both guns at once (Blood 2), each gun once, out of synch (Action Quake II), one shot from alternate guns per trigger press (CS), or with seperate triggers for each gun (Action UT).

-I fail to see why The Specialists mod gets a mention in the list of games, as it is only one of many, many modifications for many games to feature twin pistols. To my knowledge the first was Action Quake II, with twin H&K Mk23 pistols. Since then there have been twin guns in mods including The Opera, Action Halflife, Counterstrike itself (the twin pistols were added when it was still a mod), Reaction Quake III, Frag Ops, Action Unreal Tournament 2004, etc...

-the talk on reloading is generally opinionated and unfounded. Five minutes experimentation with a pair of BB guns will reveal that reloading with a gun in each hand is perfectly possible when clips are simply kept reasonably easily accessible. I cannot think of a single instance of reloading via the sleeves outside of the film Equilibrium, and then it uses an arm-mounted gadget. If it's occuring offscreen, the clips could come from anywhere. Furthermore, I don't believe a magazine would be sufficiently heavy to fully fall into place in a gun, so it's not practical either. To say that a Beretta is bulkier than a Colt is hardly sensible, as the Beretta 92 series has a full width double stack magazine in its grip, making it actually wider than a Colt 1911 with its single stack magazine; therefore there is no practical reason for the difference in technique between CS Berettas and TS Colts. In this case, the technique used in the TS colt reload animation is, like the Golden Colts themselves, directly taken from the film Face/Off. Essentially, it's all a matter of what the animators and developers want to do and what they are capable of portraying.

I'm therefore going to edit this page considerably in the near future; any objections to what I've said above?

--YourMessageHere 02:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to address some of your points... First of all, if the article title includes " (gaming)" then the article itself should consist primarily of fiction, shouldn't it? ;) Furthermore:

  1. I, too, think that akimbo generally refers to wielding two guns simultaneously, no matter whether identical or not. However, I have only seen the word "akimbo" used in games when referring to identical weapons. That is, either "handguns akimbo" or "dual handguns" but never "handgun and sub-machinegun akimbo".
  2. I don't know about that but if you have reliable sources that may well be.
  3. To say the truth, I'm also quite suspicious of this reference to the Japanese language.
  4. See above.
  5. You should definitely add the info about Blood to the corresponding section.
  6. Please, correct the quotation but don't remove it outright, for it does fit into context IMO.
  7. You are welcome to add any new aspects (e.g. gameplay perspective) into a new section.
  8. See above.
  9. I think, the Specialists was added simply because it's one of the few smaller-than-CS mods that has it's own article on Wiki.
  10. The reloading issues section contains various examples of presenting the reloading of akimbo guns on screen. It does not, for the most part, address physics. Therefore I suggest simply changing the first sentence of the section to something like "Reloading while holding one gun in each hand is not as straightforward as with a single gun, therefore most film and game characters display flashy techniques aimed rather at catching the audience or the player's attention rather than at effectively reloading the weapons" and leave the rest be.

That's my opinion, by anyone is welcome to post their own. :) --Koveras 16:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

My view is that any unsourced material should be deleted. Though the term has entered somewhat-popular (more like niche) usage, as Yourmessagehere points out, much is speculation, and WRONG speculation. I'll keep it around for a bit out of good faith, but he would be perfectly justified in blanking most of the content of the article as the only sourced point is its use in HK cinema. --Mmx1 01:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First appearance in games

...of akimbo. Was that Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² or Rise of the Triad? I've played only the former one, so I don't know whether the latter allows akimbo at all. Since that edit came from an anonymous user, we really need some CVG expert, because this way the article contradicts itself. --Koveras 15:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Another early game that exhibits dual-wielding is Marathon. I went to check whether it was released earlier or later than Rise of the Triad, but it turns out that the two games were released on the very same day - December 21, 1994. --202.161.6.85 09:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] confirming Akimbo in Rise of the Triad

I played ROTT myself. Rise of the Triad has an akimbo weapon, dual pistols in fact. I can provide a screenshot if necessary. Omega Said 11:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC) omegasaid (can't sign in here)

A screenshot would be nice. Although I don't know whether simply shooting two pistols simultaneously really differs from shooting a double-barreled shotgun as in Doom II... F.A.K.K.2 provides more akimbo-like possibilities in this sense... --Koveras 11:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

screenshots can be seen in:

http://www.fpsteam.it/img2004/winrott/rott01.jpg http://tecfa.unige.ch/etu/E72b/97/Alvarez/rott.gif

You start with a single pistol, and the both of them do not shoot at the same time, so its not really like twin-barreled shotgun, as shotgun is not single-handled and you cannot handle 2 shotguns. Akimbo is kinda pistols and katana specific, so akimbo rocket-launchers do not really fit into that either. Omega Said 09:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


I notice that you have included only one of the Hitman games of the series. I would consider them all to apart of games that use the akimbo style. The silver/hardballers use them and in Contracts you can use the MicroUzi's the same way. In Silent Assasin, you can use dual sawn off shotguns. So I think the inclusion of the entire series would be better. Ionvs 03:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect info

It states in the current version, "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." I looked at the article on that game and found its publishing date to be in 2000; however, I know for a fact that in the game GoldenEye 007 there is the capability to have a different gun in each hand. Sometimes it comes a glitch (I've had it happen there more than once) but also in the level "Jungle" you face Xenia, who is wielding an RCP-90 in one hand and a Grenade Launcher in the other. When you pick it up you get them as a combo. Therefore the statement about Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² is false. I'll wait a bit to correct it though because maybe I missed some odd "criteria" for this title. But it's definitely a fact. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VogonFord (talk • contribs).

But can you shoot them independently? The right hand weapon with the right mouse button and the left hand weapon - with the left one? That's what meant by that sentence. And, btw, don't forget to sign your comments. --Koveras 17:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
My playing of FAKK2 was brief, but the point in this context is that you could have two completely independent weapons at once and fire each totally independently, and as far as can be established it was the first game to actually do this. In my book GoldenEye was a bit grudging in its implementation of akimbo weapons; it's been a while, but IIRC the only way you could actually get akimbo weapons was by finding an enemy with akimbos, kill them and take their weapon, rather than pick up a single weapon and then another single weapon. This, however, is merely my rant about its limitations =P More to the point, IIRC GoldenEye didn't have independent firing, having only the one trigger on the N64 controller, and went for alternate fire from each gun. However there may have been a way, as I say, it's been a while. Also, acquisition of mixed akimbo via bugs can't really be called "implementation", can it? I'm wondering about including a mention of Action Unreal Tournament in this section, as that also allowed entirely mixed akimbo, with total independence (i.e. you can use any desired combination of two weapons in your possession at once, independently - It was a great idea, and a good if necessarily fiddly implementation of it, but the mod folded due to lack of players) and to my knowledge no other FPS has fully done this before or since. YourMessageHere 19:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Correct about the Goldeneye thing. You had to find an enemy that was dual-wielding and pick up their weapons. At a guess(I've honestly got no way of knowing for sure), I'd say the weapons probably had a 'flag' on them that indicated when they could be used as an off hand weapon, and the developers only set that flag on weapons carried by dual-wielding NPCs. Also, they did indeed alternate fire between the weapons with a single trigger. In the example given of the grenade launcher with the RCP-90, that produced the very odd(and pretty much usless) effect of simulatenously spraying an automatic weapon with a high rate of fire, a massive clip, and penetration ability in one hand, and a grenade launcher with only a few rounds, a fairly low rate of fire, and of course a ballistic trajectory in the other hand! The ability to fire each independantly might've actually made it a useful combination, but as it stood, it was dangerous(to you!), and a dramatic waste of grenades. On a sidenote: if you manage to open up the all weapons cheat, it grants dual versions of nearly every weapon in the game, up to and including the assault rifles, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers! But even with the cheat, you couldn't mix and match, at least not without a glitch I don't know of. Perfect Dark used a basically identical system, except that you could occasionally find a second gun that would go in the offhand slot hidden somewhere in a few of the levels in addition to the old method of downing a dual-wielder. -Graptor 69.61.143.207 13:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
There is glitch that allows you to do it, I can't remember it at the moment but you can do it (I've done it by accident before) and I'm sure you could find it on Google. In Perfect Dark it was easy to get double weapons as long as you came across a second person with the gun or a different spawnpoint for it. VogonFord 02:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

YourMessageHere, what do you think about 70.33.79.233's claim about akimbo in AQ2? --Koveras 08:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Woo quotation

One possibility is that the word acquired its current slang usage via fans of action director John Woo, who used the word to describe his trademark style of wielding two handguns at once:

   "Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God." - John Woo, Hard Boiled

I don't see "akimbo" anywhere in that quotation (which, as noted above, was a line spoken by a character and not Mr. Woo). Unless someone can come up with a modification/source to verify the quotation, I'm going to remove it. Virogtheconq 03:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a source, but it looks to me it is referring to akimbo. --Drgumbofunk 04:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fact about the soldier in WWII

I put the fact up, I remember seeing that fact in a documentary about the Colt 1911, but I don't know witch one. Don't screw with it, unless your putting in a citation. Tree Hugger 07:03, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

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