Alliance of Valiant Arms

Alliance of Valiant Arms, often abbreviated AVA, is an online First-Person Shooter developed by South Korean-based Red Duck and distributed by several companies in various regions. the game uses the Unreal 3 engine and has several game modes; Annihilation (team deathmatch), Escort, Convoy, Escape, Demolition, Domination (king of the hill), Cross Steal (capture the flag), AI Mission (co-op vs. opposing NPC's), Free for All (deathmatch), and Infection (zombies). Players can play as either the European Union or the Neo-Russian Federation and choose from the Pointman, Rifleman, or Sniper classes.


 * AKA-47: Subverted; while most of the weapons use names pretty much the same as their real-world counterparts, there are upgraded versions available that will often have a "MK.3" designation tacked on the end to denote their superiority to the vanilla versions. There's also a few weapons that play this trope straight; the "Remington R4" for example is in fact a Remington R5 RGP; an M4-like assault rifle that uses a gas-piston system instead of the M4's direct impingement system.
 * Allegedly Free Game: The game is free to download and play, but there are two types of in-game currency; 'Euros' which you earn by winning matches and completing assorted challenges and such, and 'G-Coins', which you have to purchase using real-world money. Some weapons and equipment are only purchasable with G-Coin funds.
 * Banned In Some Places: The game is only available in some regions, and regions where the game -is- available have some of the weapons unavailable, such as the US and Europe.
 * Bling Bling Bang: There are versions of various weapons in the game with rather flashy custom paint jobs which are meant to be highly upgraded, modified versions of their normal counterparts.
 * Boom! Headshot!: Shots to the head deal extra damage and are a one-shot kill with sniper rifles. Even has a special icon on the kill feed when a player scores one, regardless of what weapon they were using to do it.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can buy parts and accessories for your weapons to increase their combat effectiveness as well as body armor & other gear to improve your survivability.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Throwing a grenade will automatically make the player-character shout that they're doing just that.
 * Car Fu: The tank in Escort missions, despite being incredibly slow, can still mow down unwary players on both teams who get caught in front of it.
 * Cherry Blossoms: The "TAR-21 Cherry" is a Tavor TAR-21 bullpup assault rifle painted with pink cherry blossoms. It was only available from mid-March to late April, which is roughly the same time when cherry trees typically bloom.
 * Cold Sniper: The Sniper class, naturally. Any other class can get in on this too by grabbing weapons from slain Snipers.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: A subtle example; the NRF faction wear uniforms with shades of blue, grey, and other 'cold' colors while the EU faction have green, tan, and other more 'earthy' colors to their uniforms.
 * Do Not Run with a Gun: Subverted; trying to shoot your weapon while sprinting will fire your weapon, but will immediately put you back into the normal walking pace.
 * Friendly Fireproof: Friendly fire is disabled by default. Comes in handy when you're hammering away at an enemy and one of your buddies carelessly strays into your field of fire.
 * Guns Akimbo: The Korean version of the game has several secondary weapons that can be wielded in this fashion, namely the Steyr TMP and the Barbatos version of the Beretta 92FS pistol.
 * Improvised Weapon: One of the melee weapons the player can buy is a metal cafeteria tray!
 * Jack of All Stats: The Rifleman class is pretty much intended to be a middle ground between the Sniper and Pointman classes; more generalized stats and abilities than the other two, and has an assault rifle that is effective in both close and long-range combat, but is generally outperformed by the Pointman's submachine gun in close-quarters combat and the Sniper's rifle in long-range combat.
 * Kukris Are Kool: One of the available melee weapons the player can purchase; the 'Boa Kukri'.
 * Lightning Bruiser: The Pointman class is the quickest of the three classes and carries a submachine gun or shotgun that makes him incredibly deadly in close-quarters.
 * Night Vision Goggles: The player can use these to see in low light conditions, though their battery life is limited and will run out with prolonged usage without a chance to recharge.
 * Pretty Little Headshots: The corpses left behind by fallen enemies won't have a drop of blood on them regardless of how gruesome a death they met, but will occasionally leave sizeable amounts of blood splatter on nearby walls.
 * Qurac: Some maps (such as "Scorpion") are set in generic middle-eastern locales.
 * Ragdoll Physics: The game employs this as part of the Unreal 3 engine it runs on. This can occasionally lead to the bodies of slain players ending up in rather amusing positions after they expire.
 * Rare Guns: The game has some weapons that either never made it past the prototype stage or were still in limited production at the time the game was released.
 * Revolvers Are Just Better: The Python 357 revolver is the most powerful pistol in the game; even moreso than the Desert Eagle.
 * Russians With Rusting Rockets: The Neo Russian Federation faction; a near-future Russia under a new Communist regime engaging in an expansionist campaign against their European neighbors.
 * Short-Range Shotgun: The shotguns available to the Pointman class are incredibly devastating up close, but their damage drops off significantly as the range to the target increases.
 * Shout-Out: One of the weapons, the "Winchester M1887S" shotgun, is an obvious reference to the weapon carried by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Not only does it have the sawed-off barrel & stock, but the player-character even flip-cocks it just like the titular robot from the film.
 * Standard FPS Guns: Pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, machine guns, submachine guns, hand grenades, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles.
 * Tank Goodness: The "Escort" game mode has the European Union faction escorting a Leopard 2A6 tank from one end of the map to the other. Players can even man the machine gun mounted atop the tank to lay down suppressing fire on the NRF faction. The NRF's objective is to delay the tank's advance for as long as possible, using RPG-7 rocket launchers to disable it.
 * Throw-Away Guns: The player can grab a dropped weapon at any time during gameplay, though this of course involves the player throwing aside the weapon they're presently using.
 * Translation Convention: The European Union faction, despite what the name implies, all speak English with either British or American accents. Averted with the NRF, who all speak Russian.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The backstory for the game (which was released in 2007) states that the in-game conflict was the result of the Soviet Union reforming and engaging in an expansionist military campaign in 2009.
 * Urban Warfare: Most of the maps are set in urban settings. The map "Rising Dust" is even described as being set in downtown Frankfurt, Germany.
 * Zerg Rush: The main strategy of the weaker robots in "battlegear begins" and the inmates in "suppression".
 * Zombie Apocalypse: The main premise of the "Infection" game mode.