5. The Death of A Friend – Fable 2
We previously covered this moment in a dedicated Defining Moments article a while back, but it bears repeating.
Fable 2 may have more problems than a confused bipolar-bear, but when the game closes, it rips your heart out with turmoil and tough decisions.
I don’t normally care for pets, but my dog (Rubble) in Fable 2 played the part of a sidekick flawlessly. He found me treasure, gave me someone to talk to, and saved me on more occasions than I can count. Sadly, the one time I actively needed to save him, I couldn’t. Dogless and broken, I enter the endgame with a burden of grief and loss.
I get my vengeance, sure, but killing Lord Lucien didn’t make feel any better about the death of my companion.
What did make me feel better was when I learned, shortly after, that I can resurrect my dog and my sister.
This is the part where it gets hard. I can bring my dog and sister back to life, but there’s a price to pay. I can either get rich, bring my loved ones back from the grave or bring back the hundreds of innocent people who died at the hands of the spire.
Be a hero and save hundreds of lives, or bring my dog and sister back? This decision is to date one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make in my gaming life.
And I thought games were supposed to be fun …
4. Anders Blows Up a Chantry – Dragon Age 2
Let’s face it: we all knew BioWare were going to be on this list. They are, after all, fuelled by fans’ tears.
Towards the closing moments of Dragon Age 2, Anders sends the player to collect a selection of items he claims are to aid him in ridding himself of an evil spirit that lives inside of him feeds off him, named Justice.
By the time we learn of Anders’ and Justice’s plan, it’s too late to do anything.
Every item you’ve been collecting to “help” him, is actually the components of a makeshift bomb - a bomb that he then uses to blow up a chantry, the Dragon Age equivalent of a church.
Anders blowing up a holy building is a hard pill to swallow and is the ultimate betrayal. He tricked the player into helping him, and used us to accomplish a goal to further his own ambitions regarding the treatment of mages.
What makes this scene so excruciating to watch is what follows. The repercussions of Anders’ actions are decided by the player. We decide his fate. Do we let him off, despite blowing up a holy building and murdering its leader, just because he’s our friend? Or do we do the right thing and execute him there and then so that “justice” prevails?
Still to this day, I don’t know if I made the right call.
3. Shepard Watches a Child Die – Mass Effect 3
With all the controversy that surrounded the ending of Mass Effect 3, it’s easy to forget the opening moments - which for me, contain the single most heart-wrenching imagery I’ve ever been witness to. It’s not just because the moment itself is forlorn, but the music that plays alongside the scene is truly harrowing.
As Commander Shepard sets off on a journey to save the inhabitants of Earth, he has to leave his home planet, while watching it fall under a devastating attack from the Reapers. This alone is hard. As gamers we aren’t used to having to run from a fight for the greater good. We stand our ground and we don’t ever flee.
What makes this whole ordeal worse is that as Shepard’s shuttle is taking off, he’s sees a child. The child appears to have avoided the Reaper armada and collapsing buildings, and has made it to a shuttle to take him out of harm’s way.
As the shuttle takes off and makes a break for freedom, it is hit by a Reaper laser, spirals out of control, and ultimately explodes, killing all on-board.
The act of watching a child die is distressing enough, even more so if you’re a parent, but what makes this scene so chilling is the soundtrack from Clint Mansell. There’s something about piano pieces that add a sense of agonizing anguish to an already emotionally charged scene. Something that Mass Effect 3 does tastefully and beautifully.
2. John Marston Sacrifices Himself – Red Dead Redemption
We previously discussed Red Dead Redemption in a Defining Moments article, looking at the border crossing into Mexico – but there’s plenty more about Rockstar’s western game that’s worth discussing.
Sometimes the saddest endings are the most powerful, and it’s the most powerful ending that stay in our psyche for years after we finish them.
John Marston isn’t a hero. He’s just a family man who gets dealt a few bad hands.
Red Dead has two endings: The second shows the retribution of Jack Marsten, John’s son, and while this is a great ending, the main ending for me will be the death of John Marsten, he dies, to save his family and goes down in a blaze of glory.
The closing moments of John’s story portrays him as a great husband and an even better father, one who will lay down his own life if it means protecting his family.
John spends his last moments shipping his wife and son off on horseback to safety, while he attempts desperately to stall the pursuers who have finally caught up with him. When stalling fails, he opens fire into the group of people meaning to do him and his family harm, and he damn well takes a few of the bastards down with him, before climatically being shot to pieces.
John may not be a hero, nor does he try to make out he is. But what he is, is a good man, and a man who puts his family first.
1. Dom Finds Maria – Gears of War 2
Dominic Santiago just wanted one thing following E-Day – to find his wife, Maria. – He mentions that this is the force that drives him in Gears of War, and by Gears of War 2, he is stricken with worry and determined to find and rescue her.
Around two-thirds of the way through Gears 2, Dom is finally reunited with Maria, but it’s not the happy reunion we imagined.
Dom finds Maria trapped in a pod-like prison. It transpires that she is now a Locust prisoner of war. The Maria that we finally see isn’t the radiant beauty, full of life, that Dom’s picture depicts. In place is a hollow shell of a malnourished women, who is barely alive and near-incapable of speech.
The moment quickly turns bittersweet.
The light that kept Dom going, and fighting a losing war, is now extinguished. She’s not the Maria he married. Following on from this, Dom makes the brutal, and selfless, decision to euthanize her, in a bid to end her suffering and free her from this nightmare.
People focus on how Marcus is the hero of Gears of War, because he’s the commanding officer. For me, the hero of Sera will always be Dom.
