The 5 Best Video Game Moments

The 5 Best Video Game Moments

Whether you’re a casual gamer or an almost obsessive one, it’s impossible to not have an unforgettable moment playing a game. Whether a game makes you cry, laugh, scream or throw your controller at a wall, video games have had the power to capture imagination and make incredible impressions since their earliest days. I haven’t ranked this list in order, but rather I assigned each spot a category e.g. the most beautiful moment or the most epic; trying to make a traditional list of best video game moments led to plot twists and character deaths dominating the list, which is just no fun…so enjoy.

And obviously a major spoiler alert is due.

1) Let’s start with the infamous plot twists. Of course there’s only one game that should rightfully own this spot, but first let’s take a look at some honorable mentions. Braid’s ending is a jaw-dropping moment that beautifully marries its gameplay and story. The reveal that you’re the monster the Princess has been running from coupled with references that your protagonist had something to do with the creation of the atomic bomb, adds incredible weight to the already heavy-handed themes of forgiveness and regret. But what makes it truly special is how it contextualizes everything you’ve been doing within the actual game, reversing time when you make a mistake in the game is really just an extended metaphor for the protagonist’s guilt and longing to take back his potentially apocalyptic actions. Inside’s surprise ending also manages to be simultaneously fascinating and disgusting. The most surprising video game deaths also deserve a shout-out, (but more on them later.)

‘Would you kindly?” This line quickly became legendary since 2007’s seminal Bioshock for being at the center of the most unexpected reveal in gaming. After surviving the dystopian, underwater city of Rapture and arriving at the office of the main antagonist and founder of Rapture, Andrew Ryan, many revelations unfold. The friendly voice helping you navigate the horrors of the game, Atlas, is actually the very man who destroyed the utopia of Rapture with civil war, for his own gain. In fact, you’ve been a pawn in his plan to kill his biggest rival even before the game started: it’s revealed that the very reason your plane crashed and you became trapped in Rapture was that Atlas had manipulated you to crash the plane with the hypnotic trigger, “Would you kindly?” the same phrase Atlas had been using to push you forward to objectives the entire game. Ryan knows his death is inevitable and uses the phrase to order you to kill him, keeping his personal philosophy of “a man chooses, a slave obeys” intact.

It’s a brilliant moment for so many reasons. It twists the cliché of the voice in your ear in so many shooters. It raises questions about whether we’re in control in any video game; despite the fact that gaming’s biggest selling point is its interactivity, and offers a moment of violent introspection. But Ryan spitting “a man chooses, a slave obeys” repeatedly while you unwillingly murder him establishes Bioshock as one of the most mature and interesting games in history, while adding to its political themes of objectivism and secularism.

2) The number two spot goes to a trope often used in all storytelling mediums, the best dream sequences. I use the word “dream” loosely here; this can include anything from actual dreams to drug induced hallucinations, as long as the moment isn’t actually happening or happening in the way it’s presented, it qualifies. These are sections I’m especially fond of. They add a much-appreciated level of surrealism and let the game have fun with itself by experimenting with mechanics and ideas that would normally be impossible with the rules established in the game’s world. I could’ve given the number 2 spot to GTA V, which has plenty of great ones, including Micheal being drugged by his son leading him to be abducted by aliens, probed, then thrown out of a UFO where he begins flying through Los Santos with his numerous dark and hilarious family problems being echoed in the background. A neat creative moment wrapped up in some twisted family drama. Or I could’ve even given it to Outlast 2 which constantly switches back and forth between the games rural horror setting and the hallways of a Catholic school, leading us to question our protagonist’s sanity and the reality of all the unbelievable events that occur in the game, while giving us some insight into a childhood trauma.

Despite many stellar options, playing as the Joker at the end of Batman: Arkham Knight snatches the number two spot. The Joker has been the highlight of Rocksteady’s entire Arkham trilogy- and countless other Batman tales- and even after his death at the end of the previous game, Arkham City, the Joker still manages to be a prominent part at the end of the trilogy. During the events of Arkham Knight we learn that Batman had been injected with the Joker’s infected blood, which included some neuro-toxins that gradually makes its victims adopt Joker’s mannerisms, eventually almost becoming the Joker. So throughout the game instead of having the Joker as a physical threat, he becomes a psychological one, a hallucination wherever Batman goes. Sometimes turning the camera reveals the Joker just standing there, delivering commentary, and mocking you or others and generally just being incredibly entertaining. But these hallucinations crescendo into one of the best moments in all of gaming. After being injected with Scarecrows fear toxins, Batman’s biggest fear is revealed: becoming the Joker. The Batman Arkham series’ third-person perspective is replaced with a first-person shooting section, where the player switches to the Joker as he attempts to take control of Batman’s mind and body. The section begins with the Joker taking his chaotic antics to the next level by massacring famous Batman villains the Penguin, the Riddler and Two-Face along with dozens of their criminal henchmen, quickly followed by an image of a burning Gotham, the city Bruce Wayne has been protecting for almost his entire life. This scene soon transitions to a horror segment as Batman begins to fight back for the control of his mind, playing with the Joker’s fear of being forgotten. Images of Harley Quinn sobbing at the Joker’s empty funeral and other similarly pitiful scenes distort their way into view as Mark Hamill’s unbelievable voice performance as the Joker delivers one clever one liner after the next. Ultimately Batman wins this mental tug-of-war, locking the Joker away in his mind as he whimpers one final gut wrenching, genuine line, “I need you.”

The Joker is arguably the perfect villain; his devotion to chaos is the mirror opposite to Batman’s unwavering pursuit of justice and order. Both of their philosophies couldn’t be more at odds with each other. In the end, what makes this scene so extraordinary is its fascinating depiction of the relationship between the best superhero/villain duo in pop culture.

3) Just like the Joker and Batman, violence and video games are inseparable, so it’s not only appropriate that one of our 10 spots are dedicated to the best video game deaths, it’s necessary since there’s an abundance of good ones. The major deaths half way through JRPG legends Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger are both hugely important and great emotional punches. While John Marston’s last stand at the end of Red Dead Redemption is arguably just as memorable.

However if you’ve finished the first season of TellTale’s The Walking Dead Game, then your mind only thought of one thing the second you read “video game deaths”. If you played the entirety of that game and weren’t left in tears, where’s your heart? The Walking Dead Game’s first season chronicles (soon to be jailed for murder) Lee Everett’s redemption story as he finds a puppy-eyed, 8-year old girl, Clementine, newly orphaned at the beginning of a zombie outbreak. The next 8-10 hours tell an incredibly human story, focused on characters and decisions that are so grounded they could easily exist in our reality. But in the middle of all the loss and sadness at the end of the world, is the intimate relationship between our two leads, Lee and Clementine. As Lee, we teach Clementine how to survive and shoot a gun; give her haircuts and snacks; talk to her about boys and dads. Playing as Lee, by the end of the game it’s impossible to not want to protect this girl. So when Clementine’s been kidnapped and Lee has been bitten, what results is a race against the clock to save Clem and see her one final time. It all results in a final 2-minute goodbye scene where eventually Lee can’t even walk any further by himself due to the infection; he unceremoniously collapses next to a radiator while the player desperately chooses Lee’s last lines of dialogue to Clementine. Giving parting advice and saying goodbye feels both magnificently painful, but also hugely urgent. This is, after all, a relationship that the players have been invested in just as much as the characters. This isn’t just Clementine’s goodbye to Lee; it’s the player’s. The weight of the scene is only elevated by the last shot of Clementine’s face in tears, staring at Lee’s dying body; she’s alone in this world; Lee’s gone; we can’t protect her anymore. That realisation sinks in as the credits roll. So again if you got through that without crying, where’s your heart?

4) If there’s one thing that games do better then almost any other medium, it’s being epic. A moment that makes you feel like the ultimate badass, the coolest thing that’s ever existed, but on a grand, larger than life scale. Despite epic moments occurring left, right and center in gaming, no series is more synonymous with the word then Halo. Being epic is Halo’s bread and butter. It wasn’t difficult to decide that the number 4 spot should go to Halo, however it was difficult to choose which moment from the Halo series to give it to. Crossing the Mombasa bridge with Halo’s famous tank, the Scorpion, in Halo 2 answers the question: what beats the scorpion? Nothing. Crash landing on the titular Halo ring in the very first Halo game, looking up to the sky, expecting to see clouds, only to find a literal ring circling overhead, is still one of the strangest and most mystifying moments since 2001.

However in terms of sheer ‘epicness’, Halo 3’s very last mission easily takes the cake. Titled “Halo”, this epic conclusion brings the original trilogy full circle (get it?!) After setting the Halo ring up to explode, Master Chief and the Arbiter have only a few minutes to make a quick getaway in Halo’s premiere vehicle Warthog, exactly the same way Halo:CE closed. This could’ve easily been, the redundant, but thanks to the improved technical capabilities of a new console mixed with a sense that this really was the last stand for humanity, Halo 3’s ending is an appropriate callback to the first game. Driving through a crumbling Halo ring is spectacular.  Snowy, natural environments quickly fall apart, revealing the architecture that the Halo rings are built on. Huge chunks of the floor explode and fall away, pushing your driving skills to their limits trying not to fall through, while enemy aliens run and scramble for their lives it’s hard not to feel desperate to get to a ship. The incredible sight of an exploding Halo ring is only made even more epic with Marty O’Donell’s mind-blowing guitar score erupting as you make last second jumps between plummeting platforms. Of course the Master Chief, a.k.a humanity’s savior, going MIA at the end when his escape ship gets split in two is a fitting end for one of the most iconic and enigmatic figures in gaming (at least until he made his return 5 years later.) It’s an unforgettable feat of heroism and sacrifice, seasoned with one of the best video game scores and plenty of explosions…doesn’t get more epic than that.

5) The last spot goes to the most beautiful gaming moments, not visually, but emotionally: a moment in games that makes you feel warm or just happy that you’ve experienced it. These are moments like reaching the top of the mountain in Celeste and Journey. The final shot of Inside is just as beautiful as it is perplexingly disgusting. The final audio log in Gone Home is as bitter sweet as a story can possibly get and comes close to taking the number 5 spot. However. The Last of Us’ giraffe scene is the definition of beauty.

As previously stated, this spot wasn’t decided on the moment’s graphical beauty, but it’s undeniable that TLOU’s photorealism contributed to this moment’s poignant impact. The Last of Us’ violence and brutality is prominent in its bleak take on post zombie outbreak America (20 years after the outbreak to be exact.) It’s depiction of violence, grief and pain is immensely shocking, but only because of the game’s remarkable sensitivity. Every kill the player carries out has significant weight behind it thanks to world-class animation that grounds the player into the game’s action in ways few games can. The entire game’s design engrosses you into the stories’ hopelessness, and it’s this design philosophy that elevates the giraffe scene to beautiful heights. Our two protagonists Joel and Ellie share a similar non-biological father-daughter dynamic that Lee and Clementine have from the number 3 pick, The Walking Dead Season One. They approach the third act of their journey at their lowest point yet with Ellie understandably traumatised from some shocking preceding events. What follows is masterfully put together. After moving through the new overgrown city that we’ve arrived in, our characters come across a far up ledge. Joel gets into the same position that he has several times throughout the game, crouching, waiting to give Ellie a boost up it, however this time Ellie doesn’t come immediately. She’s distracted and Joel needs to call out to her to get her attention, she’s clearly not okay. After seeing the ‘boost up the ledge’ animation, Ellie inexplicably runs away, toward something. Chasing her, both us as players and Joel expect the worst in a game that’s taught us to expect nothing but the worst, but what we discover are a herd of giraffes. Huge majestic giraffes. Giraffes roaming a deserted city covered in moss and overgrown greenery. For a game full of despair, this scene might seem simple but actually presents a silver lining that nature has reclaimed the world. It’s a symbol of hope: in a world full of death and destruction this scene is a sight of life and wonder. It’s just one of the many quite moments in The Last of Us that establish it as a masterpiece.