Although in Postal 2, once out of your cell, you could get all your gear back if you knew where to look around (police stations have evidence rooms).
Manhunt also did this, but it fit the plot: You’ve been kidnapped by a sadistic snuff film producer with his own army of elite guards. Once you’re through the low-level hoodlums he’s lined up for you to slaughter for his film, the guards (who’ve been watching you the whole time), swoop in, taser and beat the crap out of you, then dump you in the next zone with your gear gone.
Halfway through the game, you get out of the producer’s control and start coming after him, and from that point on (with no guards grabbing you) you get to keep your gear from one scene to the next.
At the very end, there’s a cut scene where you escape from Piggsy by frantically climbing through the top of an elevator, and you see all your weapons conveniently dropping behind you. This leaves you with nothing to fight Piggsy with but debris in the attic, and after killing him you take his chainsaw to do some editing work on the producer.
that or the looooooooooooooooooooooong slooooooooooooooooooooooooooow build up in power only to get one last cool as hell ability that you only get to use like 3 times before the game is over…(yeah I am looking at you “Blaster Master” or was it master blaster?)
Red Dead Revolver also has this happen. You get knocked out in a mine. You wake up without weapons and have to sneak around the mine to get to the room where they are locked up.
Before the last level in Outlaws there’s a cutscene where a couple of enemies manage to sneak up on your character and knock him out. You start the level in a shed, and jump on some crates and through a hole in the roof.
San Andreas does this again in a later mission. When you’re working with Woozie in San Fierro, you take on a freighter in a helicopter that never fails to get shot down. When CJ resurfaces, he says “Damn, lost everything but my knife!” and I say “I thought that was going to happen.”
In all the 3d GTA games, if you get busted you get your weapons taken away. But it’s very easy to get them all back- you can buy them, find them, steal them or earn them through picking up packages scattered around the map.
In the AD&D “Slave Lords” modules, the party is supposed to get captured and flung in prison without weapons or gear. (Between “Assault on the Aerie” and “In the Dungeons”, I guess. I had the omnibus edition.)
If we’re going to go there…“Tomb of Horrors” had a teleport trap that stripped a character naked, dumping him back at the entrance and all of his stuff in the treasure vault at the bottom of the dungeon. Of course, that was one of the milder traps in that module.
I’m not sure how well this qualifies, but in Zelda: Twilight Princess you spend chunks of the game in wolf form, which naturally means you can’t use your sword, arrows, bombs, et cetera. Only late in the game do you acquire the ability to switch back and forth at will, so it is depriving you of your weapons. On the other hand, it gives you a whole new set of abilities. So maybe this is the weapon loss, but actually done well.
The manual says they did that so you would use your inventory in each mission, and not do the whole “save everything for the last level to make it a lot easier” routine.
There is a mission where you start with nothing though - in Constantine’s mansion after you find out he’s the Trickster and Viktoria has plucked out your eye (we don’t have to spoiler 9 year old games, do we?)
Yeah, that’s the level I got hung up on-- never could figure out a way to stretch those few scrounged arrows far enough to get past the goblins, and the spiders, and the locust-spitting-whatever-they-weres.
You use the 1 or 2 rope arrows you can scrounge to get across from the top of the stairwell (right after you exit the conservatory) to the cave high in the wall across from you with 2 ratmen in it. It’s full of arrows, flashbombs, and some other stuff. And don’t forget to search every pool of water for water arrows, and every fire for fire arrows.
And yes, my ancient username is based on that game.
Hijack: I met one of the Thief developers a few weeks ago. He works in the same building I do, and was wearing a “Looking Glass Studios” jacket. My second or third brush with greatness.
No the REALLY idiotic part is when you run out into the hallway so they can see you, then dart back into the room. Man its just beyond stupid. I just stood in next to the doorway swinging the bag and every last one of the dude just ran into it. I mean If you saw a baseball bat swinging in a doorway and about 10 blugened bloody bodies laying on the floor underneath it, would you step right up and take a few whacks to the noggin?
In Silent Hill 2, you have to dump everything in your inventory (including your flashlight and even your letter from Mary) because of the weight limit in the hotel elevator. That’s one sensitive weight limit if it can’t handle a couple of sheets of paper.
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