Shout Out / Mercenary Kings

Mercenary Kings contains a metric ton of pop culture references, especially in its weapon flavor text

General

• The radio conversations are straight from the Metal Gear series, more specifically Metal Gear Solid's "talking heads" Codec chatter.
• King looks a lot like a gruffer, scruffier version of Metal Slug's Marco, down to the bandanna and backpack. Speaking of Metal Slug, there's also the "Mission Complete!" voiceover and the "Brass Snail" enemies, which even lampshade in their description the reference.
• The Pheasant is quite similar to a full-grown bird from Tiny Wings.
• The Violence Kings come from Robertson's animation Kings of Power: 4 Billion%.
• One of the ornaments that can be made by the Runway brothers is a pizza, described as "The teenaged turtle's favorite meal. Reunites all food groups!"
• The Runway Bros. themselves are clearly "creepy psychic twin" Expies of Tim Gunn.
• T-Bone the cook was a former soldier and has to be rescued in a mission named "Under Siege", after the Steven Seagal film wherein he plays a former Navy SEAL turned cook.
• One of Empress' color schemes is very similar to Jill Valentine's.
• One mission is titled "The Hurt Lockers."
• When the cosmic Violence Kings are defeated they regress into fetuses floating in bubbles, much like the infamous ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Alpha's third tank is a full blown reference to Metal Wolf Chaos, down to the color scheme, the weapons, and how its gun racks open upwards in a circular shape.
• The final mission of the game is titled "Live and Let Die".

Gun Parts

• The "Peashooter" reciever is Mega Man's arm cannon. It works on multiple levels: In the first three games (and Game Boy games) it's denoted in the Weapon Menu as the "P" weapon (or P-shooter, if you will), and the description itself is a dead giveaway (designed by Light Industries, made to fight for everlasting peace).
• The "Bolt" (read: Colt) 45's description references Billy Dee Williams' commercials for Colt 45 beer: "Works every time".
• The Horse pistol, which is essentially Emperor, complete with the description "perfect for a mercenary on a bizarre adventure."
• A double-whammy on the Black Thorne: "This is YOUR boomstick. Available in all great S-Mart locations."
• The Sabotage sniper rifle informs the player "This sniper rifle is no mirage, we are telling you it's a sabotage."
• One of the last recievers in the game is the Final Justice. "It's justice, not countdown nor destination!
• The Detroit Enforcer. Perfect to blow away creeps.
• The OCP-90. Stolen from arms dealer Yaz's private vaults.
• The Dread. Made in England, in the year 2000 AD.
• The Caustic Avenger. More dangerous than a ravenous mutant with a mop.
• The Avalanche's flavor text declares "This powerful Thermo-weapon will leave the enemy Cold As Ice, as sang by Foreigner."
• The Golden Gun.
• The flavor text for the Splinter informs you that the parts do not come with ninjutsu lessons.
• The Violent Impact: Every time can become Hammertime when firing this shotgun.
• The Clint 500. Adversaries on the other end of this handgun tend to feel unlucky.
• The devs must've been huge fans of the Italian action film Blastfighter, because not only is the SWAT-12 (modeled after the SPAS-12 used in the film) referred to as a Blastfighter, but there's even an achievement of the same name for clearing a mission using the full gun.
• The Spartan. The perfect machine gun for a Demolition Man.
  • In a similar vein, the Cobretti, "cure to the city's crime disease".
• The Pod Gun. When all the parts are together, it turns into the ZF-1 from The Fifth Element.

Knives

• The Wooden Sword. "It's dangerous to go alone. You should take this."
• One knife in the game is named Corvo. It’s decent, but nothing special.
• Another knife is just called "Snake". It's described as being solid.
• There’s also a pickaxe that is visually identical to one in Minecraft. It’s nearly the worst melee weapon available.
• The description of the Broken Bottle: "Pain don't hurt, but this one will."
• Another knife is named Trejo, with the flavor text stating that it was "used by desperados, once upon a time in Mexico."
• Yet another knife: Warrior: The ultimate blade, forged in Destrucity itself!
• The Infinity +1 Sword of the game is called "Ton B" and looks pretty much like a Tonberry knife.
• The flavor text for the Chainsaw proclaims "Groovy".
• The Blight Saber.
• The Magical Girl staff-looking Crescent Rod was apparently "once used by Lunar Sailors."
• The Scimitar is "The best selling item from the saber store Scim City."
• The Dundee. Perfect for crocodile hunting and mocking smaller knives' size.
• The First Blood and The Road Warrior are pretty self-explanatory.
• The Magic Wand is Cyrus' wand from Wizorb, a previous Tribute game.
• The Assassin Blade. For those who have the creed.
• The game handily informs you that the Screwdriver weapon is unfortunately not sonic at all.
• One of the swords is a Scissor Blade from Kill la Kill.
• One knife is named after Crying Freeman.
• The player can wield a 3D Maneuver Gear Sword from Attack on Titan.