: There is that, though I suspect you also mean acts different rather than
: feels different, as I was talking about function rather than feeling (I
: already alluded to weapons feeling different). But when I say functionally
: comparable I'm partly thinking of qualitative aspects such as short-range
: vs long-range, and precision vs scatter-shot, rather than exact degrees of
: effectiveness.

Alright. When I heard you saying 'functionally comparable', I thought you meant specific classes like shotgun/inaccurate bullet hose/semiautomatic precision rifle/sniper rifle/rocket launcher.

: From a gameplay point of view
: though, the designers might not want things to be too far in favour of
: the advanced race, or the other weapons might seem unattractive and get
: underused.

Depends on how they're balanced. If they're like the support weapons in Halo 3/ODST, then they're beastly but limited in how often you come across one. You could even build entire encounters around the players having these Forerunner power weapons.

I mean, look at ODST. Could you imagine fighting on the roof of the NMPD, defending against waves of Phantoms and Banshees without an abundance of missile pods and spartan lasers?

: As a side point, where did this 'sandbox' term come from anyway? I've heard
: it a number of times in connection with gaming and it's always seemed odd
: to me. I'm guessing it's supposed to mean something like 'collection' or
: 'array', but I actually just checked Wikipedia and I don't see any
: relevant definition there.

A quick search through the archives shows that, prior to '07, sandbox meant a style of gameplay, like how GTA is a sandbox game. I suspect the current usage rose with Bungie, where they were talking about the "Brute sandbox". Afterward, the community generalized the term to refer to any faction's set of weapons.