- 7 hours ago
They won't let me do THAT, will th- oh.
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00:00Now, video games love presenting the player with choices. Whether moral or practical,
00:04a lot of games present you with two or more options for what you get to do or where you
00:08go to next, and usually choosing one locks off the others for whatever reason. But some of these
00:13decisions are incredibly difficult, and some of these incredibly difficult decisions once made,
00:19well, you immediately regretted. So let's have a chat about them, as I'm Jules,
00:22this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Hard Video Game Decisions You Immediately Regreted.
00:2810. Choosing a Starter Pokemon Pokemon
00:31Kicking off with the choice that every gamer has made and then immediately regretted,
00:35choosing a starter Pokemon. Picking a starter can be a problem even when all three options are great,
00:41because you're always left wondering what could have been with the other two. But what adds to
00:45this are two things. Firstly, depending on which game you're playing and which starter you choose,
00:50you may find yourself at a disadvantage with the first couple of gyms, depending on what type they
00:54specialize in. Secondly, even if you pick the best starter Pokemon to have the smoothest experience
01:00possible in the first several hours, it is tradition at this point that your rival will
01:04gravitate towards whatever your Pokemon is weak to, giving the player a hands-on lesson in the type
01:08system. This shove-you-into-the-deep-end approach has been a series tradition since the beginning,
01:14making sure the player knows right off the bat that it doesn't matter what type of Pokemon they have,
01:18because there's a Pokemon out there that can technically beat it easily.
01:219. Aiding the Stormcloaks – Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
01:26When you first play Skyrim, the idea of working with the Empire is a bit of a difficult sell,
01:31to say the least. I mean, the game literally starts with them trying to cut your bloody head off.
01:35What logical person would then respond to with, hey, you guys hiring? Well, if that logical person
01:40then proceeds to try and join the Stormcloaks, they might amend their earlier opinions somewhat,
01:45mostly on account of the Stormcloaks being bigoted, xenophobic monsters. The game makes no secret
01:50about the Stormcloaks' plan for the other races of Skyrim should they prove victorious.
01:55If you're not a lily-white Nord in Ulfric Stormcloak Skyrim, you're essentially a second-class
01:59citizen at best. The Empire is far from being perfect, especially since Ulfric's one actual
02:04valid point is that Thalmor are quickly seizing control of it with every passing day, but following
02:09the Imperial storyline shows that the Empire isn't taking this line down as Ulfric is actually
02:14convinced. And also, you know, they aren't xenophobic monsters, so yeah, they've kind of got that in their
02:19favor as well. 8. Making Lokine a Grey Warden
02:22Dragon Age Origins
02:24Throughout Dragon Age Origins, you constantly have to contend with General Lokine McTeer,
02:28making your life more of a living hell than it already is by trying to straight-up murder you.
02:33Convinced that this area does not need the Grey Wardens to defeat the Darkspawn Horde,
02:37he leaves them all to die at the hands of the beasts at the beginning of the game,
02:40and then spends the rest of it trying to finish the job with you and Alistair.
02:44So when you finally get him at the end of your sword, it's a shock, to say the least,
02:48when the idea is put forth of making him into a Grey Warden. I mean, why not, right? Given that
02:53becoming a Warden shaves down your lifespan to just 30 years after joining, and every second of those
02:5730 years will be spent in deep dark caves fighting an endless horde of terrifying eldrit zombies,
03:02it's basically the same as killing him. Plus, with the Wardens being the only ones able to kill the
03:07Archdemon at the head of the Darkspawn Horde, it only makes sense to have more than three Wardens to
03:12throw at it, right? However, the problem there is that you're stuck with just three either way.
03:17Recruiting him makes your best buddy Alistair quit the party and flee the country in sheer
03:21disgust at your actions, costing you a valuable party member in the process.
03:257. Accepting Kara's Offer
03:28Undertale
03:28The genocide route of Undertale is gruelling, tedious, punishingly difficult, and bleak as all
03:34hell. And at every point, the game basically hands you opportunities to stop doing this. Hell,
03:39you just have to not go out of your way to viciously murder every living creature in the
03:43underground to avoid this route, but if you do, you are given one last out at the very end.
03:48You see, at the very end of all of this, after you've absolutely, positively killed every mother
03:53lover in the underground, you are greeted by the mysterious Kara. They offer you a way to go back
03:58and do it all over again differently for the low, low price of your immortal soul.
04:03Now, obviously, this offer is some absolute BS, but you'll find that saying no just causes Kara
04:08to leave for about 10 minutes before coming back and making the same offer. Your only choice is to
04:13say yes or turn the game off and never come back. It's a very, uh, I've come to bargain Dormammu
04:19situation. What makes this hard is the same thing that drove you to the genocide route in the first
04:23place. Curiosity. I mean, you have to see what happens, right? Well, what happens is that the
04:28game plays like normal all the way through to the ending of the true pacifist route until the very,
04:32very end when Frisk walks up with Kara's eyes. Okay.
04:376. Chopping off Lee's arm. Telltale's The Walking Dead. Telltale's magnum opus The Walking Dead,
04:43although being easily the peak of their storytelling abilities, also suffered from
04:47some of the developer's biggest weaknesses. That being that choices don't often carry nearly
04:52the weight that the game tries very hard to convince you that they do, and nowhere is that
04:55more obvious than the infamous scene where Lee has to chop off his own arm. Now, without spoiling too much,
05:00Lee ends up infected via a bite to his arm, and the only way that he's going to avoid becoming a
05:05zombie is if he removes the source of the infection and does it pretty quickly. You are then presented
05:09with the choice of either toughing it out or biting the bullet and chopping off his arm.
05:14At this point in the story, the game has thoroughly trained you with a desperate times,
05:18desperate measures mentality, so most players will likely just go ahead and chop off the arm.
05:22But the kicker here is that it changes absolutely nothing. The ending is unchanged regardless of your
05:28choices, so cutting off Lee's arm is technically completely pointless.
05:325. Helping John
05:33Infamous 2
05:34Infamous 2 concluded the story of Cole McGrath with him facing off against the mysterious,
05:39all-powerful Beast that is teased at the end of the first game. The Beast is revealed to be
05:43FBI agent John White, who seemingly died in the first game when the Ray Sphere exploded. Instead,
05:48it's turned him into the most powerful conduit on the planet, and he's intent on using these powers
05:53to help conduit kind. Unfortunately, in this case, helping conduits means humanity has to die.
06:00John has the means of curing the plague that's ravaging America throughout the second game,
06:03but only for conduits, and doing so requires killing a lot of humans just to cure a single
06:08one. And just to add the cherry on top, Cole learns that the big plot MacGuffin that they've
06:13been powering up to fight the Beast with, the RFI, is essentially a no-more-mutants button for
06:19conduits. So, killing the Beast means wiping out all currently living conduits on the planet.
06:24Kill millions to save billions, or kill billions to save millions. This is the final moral choice
06:29of Infamous 2. Now, choosing the evil option always makes you feel like an a-hole, basically,
06:34but Infamous 2's final evil choice just rubs your damn face in it, as you have to kill all of your
06:39friends who choose the other side, including your best pal Zeke, who you have to manually shoot
06:43with lightning until he finally stays down. 4. Destroying the Genophage Research
06:49Mass Effect 2 One of the key plot points in the background
06:52of the Mass Effect trilogy is the inhumane bioweapon used to end the war with the Krogan,
06:57the Genophage. The Genophage doesn't kill anyone currently alive, but it did heavily cut down the
07:01rate of successful births of Krogan infants. This, frankly, monstrous method of population control
07:07is brought to the forefront in Mass Effect 2's companion Morden Solus, the doctor who created
07:11the Genophage. His past comes back to haunt him in his personal mission, as a pupil of his is
07:16reported to be experimenting on Krogan women. In the end, it turns out that these brutal experiments
07:21are meant to cure the Genophage, and he's gotten very close. After subduing him, you're faced with
07:26a choice. Keep the research and have Morden continue working on it, or destroy it, either to keep the
07:31Krogan down or out of disgust at the inhumanity, the birth debt. Even if you destroy the research for
07:37the latter reason, and then convince Morden to start his own research into the cure, you're still left
07:41feeling very morally murky about your actions. And it definitely doesn't help in Mass Effect 3 when
07:46Rex confronts you about it, and says that keeping the research would have had all that horror actually
07:51mean something. 3. Amita or Sabal? Far Cry 4
07:55Now these last three entries are choices that suck no matter which one you choose, and there is no
07:59better entry to kick off this cheery subject than the infamously screwed up ending of Far Cry 4. Now if
08:05you don't know about Slash were too impatient to wait for the secret ending of this game and chose the
08:09violent revolution over Crab Rangoon, you're eventually forced to choose between the two
08:13resistant lieutenants, Amita and Sabal, one of whom is going to lead the golden path once pagan
08:18min is forced out. Now one of them has new ideas but is hot-tempered, the other is very wise but
08:24very traditional, and you may find yourself slaving away over these choices as both seem like good picks
08:29for rebuilding this area. Well don't bother, because you know what, they both suck in different ways.
08:34Sabal, as it turns out, is a religious zealot, while Amita is a child kidnapping tyrant. Choosing
08:39either one and killing the other means replacing one dictator for another, and the game ends on that
08:45note. So this is what you get for saying no to Crab Rangoon. Honestly, who even does that?
08:502. A High Price to Pay
08:52Starfield
08:53Now Bethesda games don't really like to hurt the player of their own accord. I mean, sure,
08:57choosing this or that side in the latest faction conflict will definitely have consequences,
09:01but you still have to choose that first, being well aware of what's coming next, and even then,
09:06Bethesda players are pretty good at cheating the system. And then Starfield comes along and puts
09:10his foot down and says, no, you're losing a companion, now pick one and deal with it.
09:14The main story mission, High Price to Pay, sees you and your companions separated just as the main
09:19villains finally make their move. The game will cheekily separate your two most favourite companions
09:24that are determined by affinity level, and stick you with one and have the other be attacked by the
09:28bad guys. You'll hear that they've been heavily injured and maybe have minutes to live,
09:32but the bad guys are also coming for you next, since you have the big, important plot,
09:36MacGuffin. You then have seconds to choose between going back to check on your friend or lover,
09:40and leaving your other buddy to fend for themselves, or staying to protect the MacGuffin,
09:44leaving them for dead. And they do die, make no mistake, whichever one you choose,
09:49the other dies. No ifs, no ands, and definitely no buts.
09:521. Choosing which of your friends to die, Wolfenstein The New Order
09:57But you know what, at least in Starfield, the choice was mostly out of your hands,
10:01and at least you don't see the death of whoever you've abandoned. But Wolfenstein The New Order,
10:06on the other hand, ooh, well. The opening act of this game sees D-Day end in total disaster,
10:12and with BJ and pals being captured by the sadistic General Deathshead and his super soldiers. He then
10:17offers you a choice, which one of your buddies gets to die in the most horrific, painful way
10:22imaginable. And don't worry, he'll give you all the time in the world to choose, standing there
10:26patiently, however long it takes. You cannot advance the story until you pick either Fergus
10:31or Wyatt to die, and Deathshead wants to make sure that their death is on you. Whichever one you pick,
10:37he then makes you watch as he subjects them to one of the most gruesome, torturous death scenes in
10:41gaming history, all while you are fully aware that you did this to them. Whatever choice you make,
10:47you are immediately made to regret it with every fibre of your being.
10:50I mean, what else could top this list, right?
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