| HI - CALIBRE |
| By D.S. O'Reilly and Eric 'The Sarge' Matherson |
| The Ares Alpha Combat Gun Since we were rating the Oikawa, we thought we'd take along one of the entrenched and serious competitors in the market place as well, the venerable Ares Alpha. Now, Ares makes some damn fine weapons. I've yet to find a more reliable and combat ready weapon for the price than the Ares Predator range. But when it comes to the Ares Alpha, there's two words that come to mind above all else : |
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| Ugly Weapon. |
| The Ares Alpha is, by far, one of the most ugly assault rifles I personally have seen on the market today, with perhaps the exception of that god-awful bullpup design for Colt's M-22A2 they brought out in Fall 2060. |
| I mean, seriously, the Alpha looks like Damien Knight took a piece of steel box-beam, stuck a trigger grip on the bottom and stamped the Ares logo on it. If you can get past the obvious aesthetic value (or lack thereof) of the Alpha, though, you quikly come to realise its a damn fine weapon. In the tradition of Ares, its come with the latest grade SmartLink, which is handy since Ares makes a large portion of the Smartlinks currently installed and on the market, making their software and motor-response triggers very reliable. The weapon is well balanced, and has an inertial dampening system built in so that the recoil is softened substantially. When combined with even a basic shoulder pad on the stock, burst fire with the weapon becomes as accurate as single, aimed fire. The weapon also comes with Ares' MGL-6 in its underbarrel configuration. This is by no means on par with the Oikawa, but unlike the Oikawa's assault cannon, the MGL-6 can take a variety of grenade types, making it a more adaptable weapon. The Alpha's MGL also takes 8 shells, 2 better than its Colt and Kalashnikov counterparts. On the other hand, its also marginally more expensive off the shelf, and a little harder to get a hold of on the street. The Sarge, however, didnt like the weapon as much as the Colt M-23. It just didnt feel right to him, and he said that he much preferred the Colt. He also noted that the boxiness of the weapon meant it was harder to conceal, and you couldnt point it through small holes in cover, like with the Colt and AK weapons. Personally, I think Sarge is biased due to his UCAS Army upbringing, and is grasping at straws. |
| Walther PB-120 For a change of pace, now we bring out the pocket rocket from Walther. Walther have always been a fine manufacturer of high quality pistols, and have a certain style with them due to their long running appearance in the James Bond series of trids, despite Ares's sustained efforts during the making of the trids 'For Her Eyes Only' and 'Valhalla Falling' to get the predator to be 007's weapon of choice. However, how they ever thought they'd get Bond to carry a heavy slug thrower like the Predator over the class of the Walther is beyond me. |
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| The Sarge tested this weapon, and enjoyed firing it, despite his rumblings about there being no point in firing 'varmit rounds'. The 9mm parabellum round is what the PB-120 is built around, and this weapon combines a respectable ammunition capacity, sexy looks, reliability in accuracy in a highly concealable frame. The weapon is light and sleek, and even the addition of a silencer doesnt go too far towards ruining the conceability of the pistol. |