Iconic Arms is a series by Stuart Brown on YouTube about legendary weapons in FPS history.
“In games, your gun is player agency made manifest.”
Iconic Arms looks at the history of famous weapons like the double-barreled shotgun, AK-47, M16, the Magnum, their place in popular culture and how their performance characteristics and functionality have been tweaked – sometimes radically – for more balanced gameplay.
Though I’m no fan of guns, I particularly love the graphics in this series with their flat colourful silhouette shapes, bold uber-tightly kerned Helvetica and fast diagonal wipes.
See also
- Open World Origins, also by Stuart Brown: What was the first truly open world game? What other titles set the standard along the way? And what makes them so popular today?
- How to script and record narration for video, also by Stuart Brown.
- The Best Amendment, a game about gun control.
- Other Places, a series celebrating beautiful video game worlds.
- Tropes vs Women in Video Games: The second episode of Anita Sarkeesian’s series exploring the Women as Background Decoration trope in video games.
- This is Phil Fish, a case study in internet celebrity.
- The History of Helvetica, A fascinating history of the creation and adoption of this ubiquitous Swiss font.
