A weapon in the
Ion Storm game,
Deus Ex. It is classified as
low-tech and upgrading that skill will increase your abilities with the weapon. They have a rapid
rate of fire and deal more damage than you would imagine, are relatively silent, but have a low
range.
In single-player mode, the throwing knives are rather scarce. Still, it's pretty cool to sneak up behind someone and toss a knife into their head and bring them to their knees.
In multi-player mode, it seems to be one of the more favorite weapons. Since it is relatively silent, it is a favorite for cloakers who employ the stealth strategy. There has been talk about decreasing the rate of fire and/or the amount of damage it causes. My personal feeling is that the ballistic augmentation directly counters the damage, and a player that moves side-to-side requires a good amount of skill to hit, especially if they have the speed augmentation. additionally, there are many weapons with a longer range than the throwing knives; you can just try to get away.
A common complaint is that the throwing knife is unrealistic, that no one can possibly throw knives that fast and have it cause that much damage. It is interesting to note that the actor name (the game's internal names for objects) for throwing knives is WeaponShuriken. I have my suspicions that the game designers intended the weapon to actually be throwing stars, but modeling them in rotation was difficult. I'm not an expert on the Unreal Engine, so this is purely conjecture, but I base this guess on the fact that other projectiles in the game are all "simple" (non-rotating, low poly-count).
The knife throwing strategy that I employ in multi-player:
upgrade low-tech skill
targeting system augmentation - can effectively upgrade you past "master" skill level
speed enhancement augmentation to chase down retreating enemies. it's also useful for jumping high over enemies while hitting them - death from above!
if enemy moves side-to-side, learn how much to lead them for the knives to land
aim for the head - one knife can bring down an enemy, even with ballistic
going to run out of knives? toss one into a close wall or ground and pick it up, it will completely reload your stock. learn to do this while in combat and you effectively have infinite ammo.
optional:
aggressive defense augmentation for enemies that panic and whip out a GEP or Plasma - let them kill themselves
energy shield augmentation in case they decide to toss a LAM in close quarters. you're better off running away as fast as possible, but this may save you from death.