- 11 hours ago
Whether it be in-depth renderings of alien worlds, the remastering of a classic franchise in an entire new dimension or the final breath of a beloved character, Scott's back to take you through the most pivotal, the most emotional and the most powerful images in gaming.
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00:00Today we're going to be taking a look at 20 of the most powerful images in video games.
00:07The opening to Bioshock is hands down one of the most gripping video game sequences out there.
00:12From surviving the plane crash to discovering Rapture in all its art deco glory, it throws you
00:16into the deep end. An entire secret city underwater? Why is it here? Who built it? And what's gonna
00:21happen next? We don't think anyone who's old enough to remember the original top-down GTA
00:26will ever forget the first time they booted up GTA 3. All of a sudden there was an element of
00:30reality that had been missing from the series since it began. The game we'd all been dreaming of since
00:341997 was finally here and by going 3D Rockstar not only fulfilled our dreams but laid down the formula
00:40for hundreds if not thousands of games to follow. Anyone who's played Portal knows the cake is the
00:45promised reward for completion of all the tasks set by GLaDOS but certain scrawlings on test chamber
00:50walls suggest the cake is nothing but a lie. After completing all the tasks and killing GLaDOS the
00:54cake is actually revealed to be true. While it's not a life-ending, jaw-dropping image,
00:58you can't deny the cake its power. It became an overnight sensation. Cortana was always more than
01:03just the voice that told Master Chief what to do. But it wasn't until the end of Halo 4 that we
01:07realized how much she meant to us as gamers. When she sacrifices herself to save the chief and uses the
01:11last of her power to finally manifest herself as a solid hologram to say goodbye, you can't help but
01:16get caught up in it. And when she finally disappears and he stands there bewildered, it's heartbreaking.
01:21Number 16 is a menu screen. We're not joking. At the end of a third playthrough in the criminally
01:28underrated Nier, you're presented with the option to kill your companion or to sacrifice yourself to
01:32save her. You're warned that if you sacrifice yourself, you will lose everything and the memory
01:36of your existence will be wiped from the minds of everyone that knew you. If you still choose to
01:41sacrifice yourself, your save is then wiped. All your items, your weapons, your progress, everything goes.
01:47Nier disappears. The characters show no memory of him and the game ends. It's an amazingly tough
01:53original approach that probably won't ever be replicated again.
01:57Do we really need to explain why Modern Warfare 2's No Russian Mission is so powerful?
02:02Being forced to mow down innocent civilians in a hail of bullets in the opening scene of a game
02:06is a tough ask. It's probably the most controversial mission in first-person shooter history,
02:10but it was one that was designed to make us reflect on our own choices. There were no consequences for
02:15skipping the mission or not firing a single shot, so it was on the player's head if they wished to
02:19partake in the massacre. At the end of The Walking Dead Season 1, Clementine is forced to kill her
02:25father figure Lee or leave him behind to turn into a walker. She then goes into the dangerous world on
02:30her own, a little girl that you as a gamer have become incredibly protective over. She sits alone on a
02:36log in a field where she watches two figures in the far distance. The figures stop and begin to walk
02:41towards her. The image was the last thing we saw, and it made the wait for season 2 almost unbearable.
02:46It really put us in the shoes of someone in that world, worrying about what will happen next.
02:51The first time you hear the disjointed voice, the first time you see that flat, emotionless face,
02:56or you catch him watching you from afar as you traverse Black Mesa, you'll never forget it.
03:00In Half-Life, after defeating the Nylinth, Gordon Freeman is offered an ultimatum by the mysterious G-Man.
03:05Work for him and his employers, or face an unwinnable fight. The scene solidified G-Man's place as one of the
03:11greatest characters in gaming history, and fueled debates that still rage to this day about his
03:15origins, his true motives, his employers, and his intentions for Gordon.
03:22During a mission in Spec Ops The Line, the player character and his team launch a white
03:26phosphorus attack on what they believe is just an enemy unit. Before discovering in the aftermath
03:31of the attack the disfigured, defenseless, and horribly burned corpses of the civilians,
03:35the enemies were actually protecting. A particularly graphic shot shows the corpses of a mother and
03:40child cradling one another. The message is clear and powerful enough to touch even the most
03:45hardened shooter fan. The finale of Mass Effect 3 promised to be an ending that would take into
03:51account your actions from earlier titles in the series to generate a specific ending to your
03:55personal story. But what was promised and what was delivered were galaxies apart. The finale is only
04:00powerful because it actually boiled down to just pick a colour. Fans were so disgusted they took to the
04:05internet en masse. Boycotts were initiated, lawsuits were filed, and for the first time,
04:10a developer was made to answer directly to their fanbase. Bioware were forced to release a free
04:14extended cut DLC to make up for it, proving that in this day and age you best make good on what you
04:19promise. In Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, the mission aftermath picks up moments after the shockwave
04:24from a nuclear blast knocks your helicopter out of the sky. The player controls a severely injured soldier
04:29as he crawls from the helicopter wreckage, past his dead teammates, and out onto the street,
04:33where a mushroom cloud is seen rising nearby. Your character slowly dies of radiation poisoning and
04:38his injuries as you control him. It's yet another instance of first-person shooters exposing the
04:42usually trigger-happy audience to the devastation of war and the cost it has on human life.
04:47Number nine is one of those moments you just can't unsee. Games are no stranger to physical and
04:52mental violence. It's a pretty solid fixture in the medium. One thing the industry has to clear of
04:57though is sexual violence. And in Silent Hill 2, when James first encounters the hulking, iconic
05:02Pyramid Head, this convention was broken. Pyramid Head appears to be sexually assaulting two other
05:07monsters. And while the Silent Hill series is full of vile imagery, this one hit much harder than any
05:12other. Going back to Half-Life, it's a pretty sore subject. One of the greatest gaming series in
05:19history, it's now sitting in limbo, quietly waiting for a return. At the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2,
05:24Gordon's companion and all-round nice guy Eli Vance is killed by a Combine advisor.
05:29This might seem pretty par for the course to kill a companion character, but the last thing we see
05:33is Eli's daughter Alex cradling her father's corpse. It's become a metaphor for most, if not all,
05:38of the fans of the franchise in their frustration at the lack of development on a third entry.
05:43Following the murder of John Marsden at the end of Red Dead Redemption, his son Jack seeks vengeance.
05:48Tracking down his dad's killer to the side of a river, he shoots him and walks away, happy that
05:52he's finally done right by his family. The reason that this was so powerful is that it was completely
05:57unexpected. To give us as players a chance to avenge the character we'd grown attached to,
06:01Rockstar nailed it once again, as well as raising a whole bunch of questions about what will become
06:05of John's son Jack. Could this list even exist without Shadow of the Colossus? After taking down
06:1115 mammoth colossi over many hours of gameplay, this is what's waiting for you. The biggest boss yet.
06:16The guy's a freaking skyscraper. Like adrenaline pumping, terrifyingly big. It's a complete testament to
06:22how epic the game is and how far ahead of its time it was in terms of scope.
06:27The Last of Us transcends game status. It's an experience, something that everyone should play.
06:32But in this scene, after losing so many people to the virus that's wiped out the population,
06:36and after witnessing so much horror and desolation, our two protagonists get a brief rest in the city
06:41ruins, where a family of giraffes go on about their lives as if nothing has changed. In this fleeting
06:46moment, there's more humanity than anywhere else in gaming history, and it allows Ellie, a young girl who's
06:50had her childhood snatched from here by the virus, to experience life as a kid again, even if it's
06:55just for a brief moment. What can we say about Metal Gear Solid that hasn't already been said?
07:02It's a series that does a better job at weaving a massive and emotive story than most, but at the
07:06end of Metal Gear Solid 4, an aged and dying Big Boss reveals himself to still be alive to his
07:11cloned son Snake. They then speak as father and son for the very first time, and he tells Snake to not
07:16waste his remaining years fighting. Finally, Big Boss salutes the boss's grave with great difficulty,
07:21and succumbs to the Foxlight virus as he shares a cigar with his son. It's impossible not to shed a
07:26tear, especially if you're a devout player of the series. It may be corny to look back on it now,
07:33because have you seen how terrifying horror games have become? But for anyone who was gaming in the
07:37mid-90s, horror gaming didn't really exist to the level it does today. When Resident Evil came out in 1996,
07:43it was a revelation. And when we first saw that zombie gnawing away at a corpse, the fact that it
07:48cuts straight back to gameplay and forces you to deal with it is phenomenal. The fear that that one
07:53zombie conjured up revitalized the entire genre. Number 2 is without a doubt one of the hardest
07:59hitting moments in gaming history. After breaking away from the group to follow the evil Sephiroth
08:04into an ancient city, fan-favorite heiress prays to the planet for aid. What happens next tore the hearts
08:10out of millions of gamers worldwide. Sephiroth dives from above, sword drawn and kills her.
08:15It was as horrible back then as it is today. The scene made you feel as helpless as Cloud
08:19and pushed you into maximum overdrive. Killing Sephiroth was now your life's goal.
08:26In at number 1 is the finale of Metal Gear Solid 3. After spending an entire game tracking down your
08:31former mentor or mother figure who had defected to the Soviets and then killing her, you actually
08:35discover that she'd never really defected. The plan all along was for her to give up her life to
08:40retrieve sensitive information to prove America's innocence in the nuclear attack from the beginning
08:44of the game. As if finding this out wasn't enough of a kick in the face, watching Snake reduce to
08:48tears as he salutes her grave is hands down one of the most powerful and moving images in gaming history.
08:53A reminder of the cost of war and how even the toughest soldiers can suffer.
08:57Were there any that we missed? Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe.
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