Sci-Fi Do Want: The Pulse Rifle from Aliens

There's a wonderful aesthetic to the "Alien" movies that's difficult to describe. It's a grimy universe with extremely advanced technology that somehow looks both sophisticated and simple at the same time.

This is a design paradigm that the Pulse Rifle encapsulates perfectly, with it's bulky shape and digital ammo readout it looks futuristic and potent, but also like something that you would be able to mend in the field without being a tech expert.

I'm not sure that the side of the gun is the best place to put the ammo readout, guys

When the Pulse Rifle is fired it spews out a huge muzzle flare, but rather than sounding like the pounding hooves of the horsemen of the apocalypse, it has a much more subtle noise that sounds more like some sort of electric power tool than a deadly assault rifle.
This is another example of how the Pulse Rifle combines the bulky and brutal and the sci-fi into something that is the best of both worlds.

Throughout the Aliens movies we get to see that the Pulse Rifle is quite up to the job of killing one of those slimy double-mouthed wall crawlers, but it requires several bursts of concentrated fire to take one of them down, and this makes the weapon feel potent but somewhat insufficient at the same time.
Sure, you can go hunting Aliens with a Pulse Rifle, but you better be quick and accurate or you will very quickly find yourself with an empty gun and a pissed off acid dripping Alien that's about to suck your juicy face meat off your skull.

That's another very cool thing about the Pulse Rifle. It feels like a weapon that's "just good enough" to get the job done. You get a group of disposable soldiers and you gear them up with a sack of disposable weaponry.
They're not quite cannon fodder, but they're also not quite *not* cannon fodder.
It underlines the bleakness and cynicism that seeps from every crevice of the Aliens universe.

The upcoming video game "Aliens: Colonial Marines" will show us just how frightening it is to face off against Aliens with just a pulse rifle between you and a painful death

Compared to something like the Predator Shoulder Cannon the Pulse Rifle feels like a much more crude piece of weaponry.
You don't get to easily target your enemies just by looking at them and you don't get to annihilate your targets with a single bolt of flaming plasma. Nope, you have to do all the work yourself when you're using the Pulse Rifle, but that just makes those kills all the more satisfying.

Fighting Aliens with a Pulse Rifle is like strapping a rocket engine on your old Ford pick up truck and racing it against a Ferrari Enzo. You may just end up taking the win or you could go out in a flaming ball of fire when you get to the first slight bend in the road, but either way you're going to look like a boss while doing it and you'll be entertaining the crowds!



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