7 Heroic Video Game Sacrifices That Meant NOTHING

well I mean um hello all of you little demons Jules here for whatculture.com back again with another episode of the awesomely named and author Lee hosted Choose Your Own Adventure the weekly Medieval theme format where either the crown jewels of whatculture.com take a left chosen by you yes you the person who is about to go to a Warhammer tournament look at all of these horrible fiends of chaos that I'm running today oh I'm gonna lose yes you get to decide what list I Dole out to you each and every week and this week we have none other to thank them apologies if I mispronounced your name there my friend but thank you very much for your suggestion a video game heroic sacrifices that didn't actually mean that much when you came to think about it and I've applied my YouTube Wizardry and changed it slightly to video game sacrifices that meant absolutely nothing now you see a lot of video games revolve around the concept of sacrifice of what the protagonist or player is willing to give up in order to save the world or a loved one and indeed as a narrative device it can lead to some of the best stories in the medium yet for every Mordin or Dom from Gears of War 3 or indeed my bike that was sacrificed to the cold and wet because I was too lazy to cycle home in both of those conditions so my friend beanie gave me a lift thank you very much buddy there are unfortunately some heroic sacrifices that are anything but and indeed if we're using some other terminology we'd say that they absolutely suck whether it's a character dying only to have their sacrifice wiped Away by a newer more powerful enemy or because it simply causes more problems than it solves there are some video game characters who would have actually been better off just not getting involved at all as horrible as it is to say I wish that they'd stayed on the sideline some other time with the power of hindsight all of these video games contain moments of self-sacrifice that were utterly meaningless and left players scratching their heads infuriated by their loss or simply trying to stifle a laugh at how poorly their exit was structured so with this in mind let's take a look at them as I'm Jules this is whatculture.com and these are seven heroic video game sacrifices that's too many finger quotation marks there heroic video game sacrifices that meant absolutely nothing but before we begin actually we should actually just address the elephant in the room and that is I'm not entirely sure who's editing this video James unfortunately was a bit ill last week and unfortunately got a bit worse so maybe James will be here I I don't know who I'm gesturing at now it could be it could be Joe it could be Dan it could be Alfred comingworth III the secret editor that we keep in the basement you're not meant to know about that one actually thinking about let's move on number seven George Halo Reach now let's address the elephant in the room that's wearing metallic green armor because technically all of the heroic sacrifices came to mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things seeing as reach definitely Falls and the Covenant are very much not slowed down in their sweeping Advance at all however the cream of the crap exit definitely belongs to poor old George I say this because this poor old fella truly believes that his sacrifice is going to save reach and that by taking down the Covenant super carrier that's bothering the planet the Covenant will be a thing of the past as he urges his team to leave before setting off a techno bomb bigger than the song No Limit by The Band 2 Unlimited he turns to the camera to smugly and slowly say my middle school teacher said I'd never amount to anything but here I am about to save that goddamn human race and boom explodes in a blaze of glory that lasts about seven or eight seconds because then the full Covenant Armada arrives whoops yeah that was almost too much peace and quiet in a Halo game I was getting worried there bless you George you did your best but your best was a well pathetic number six Pandora God of War 3. now the God of War series is absolutely littered with sacrifices but thanks to the very aggressive nature of Kratos and the selfish nature of the other gods very few of these would have the word heroic attached to them especially that time that Kratos just like burned a dude alive who was in a cage just so we could open a door that's a dick move still there's one moment in God of War 3 that is both heroic and completely pointless which comes in the form of Pandora's sacrifice in order to open the box sharing her name during a climactic fight between Kratos and Zeus and let's be honest is there any other kind containing these two Pandora realizes that the only way that Kratos can end the fight is to open the box and use the power inside now at this point in the game it's never been made explicitly clear what's inside the box but boy howdy do you want whatever is inside there because Zeus has just been taunting you something rotten and you want to open the box and use whatever it is in there to knock his jaw the other side of his face Daffy Duck style however upon deleting herself from existence Kratos approaches the box to find it completely and utterly empty with the implication being that the only thing capable of defeating Zeus was the power of Hope itself something which is later revealed to her being within Kratos all along now I have many many questions about this mostly what but also why would you even bother protecting a box like that if it had nothing in it what was the point the amount of effort gone into trying to put up traps around this box is more than what is inside would why I turned into Dr Statham from Green Wing they're fantastic well done thank you for that game hell I would have taken a latter opener or a piece of sharpened glass over the UK's arts and theater spending budget and a sad trombone noise number five the lone Wanderer Fallout 3. now if the sheer amount of lasers explosions and bullets that the lone Wanderer from Fallout 3 is able to shrug off during the gameplay didn't tell you loudly enough that you have plot armor so thick it's made superheroes go bloody hell mate that's that's a bit extreme then the narrative itself definitely told you in all the name that you are the chosen one however when Fallout 3 chooses to drop the plot armor it drops it bloody hard has come the end of the game you'll find your once impossibly strong build reduced to a pile of irradiated goo just because the story deems it fit for you to die oh well you might say to yourself it's all for the greater good trademark here and as you walk past of your irradiation immune Companions and your robotic buddies you just thinks he said wait a minute let's just dial that back a second you too right there yes you two I'm looking at you why can't you go into the chamber instead of me you literally will be no effort for you you won't feel the effect of radiation at all well that's because the vanilla based game says so that's why meaning that while your heroic sacrifice definitely meant a lot to the people of the Wasteland it could have so easily been avoided and not even become a scenario requiring a heroic sacrifice in the first bloody place number four self-destructing Pokemon ah Pokemon the franchise in which teens run around with a group of small animals with powers bordering on planet destroying in their pockets and use these bound creatures as Warriors in a never-ending water shake the coins from other trainers comfy and easy to wear shorts yeah it's a bit weird when you spell it out verbally isn't it still one thing that is Crystal Clear is the Pokemon's desire to keep their owner safe no matter the cost which can result in some pretty unorthodox methods of attack namely any Pokemon who has access to the self-destruct move Now when using this move in battle it kind of creates this image of your mind of just like the Pokemon turning to the trainers like hey buddy I know the chips are down we're in a sticky situation right here but don't worry I've got one move left up my sleeve unless I don't have arms and I don't have sleeves and it's tucked somewhere but on my body don't ask questions but I can pull it out right now I'm Gonna Save the Day see you on the other side Amigo this brings the tear to the eye doesn't it except wait because no it's really stupid because suck that tear back in full because this move kind of sucks for the player it may delete one of their opponents poke Pals but will do so at the cost of one of their own and if that foe is a ghost or immune to the attacking question through other me's well you're gonna feel right rubbish indeed worse still is that these heroic sacrifices when used by enemies are even worse as not only do you often outnumber your opponent in terms of available Pokemon on your team but half the time the game fudges the numbers so you don't even lose a single pocket Critter all that banging next to zero bite number three your dog Fable 2 ah dogs seriously you've gotta love em they're hilariously stupid at times brilliant Companions and always on hand for a hug after a hard day and best of all they've usually got your back in a fight whether it's barking at strangers that are getting too close alerting owners to the presence of intruders or the most useful thing of all tearing the absolute [ __ ] out of that council tax bill that's just come through the letterbox like it personally insulted their entire breed however sometimes this Devotion to protection does come at the cost of common sense now one of fable 2's most prominent features outside of a combat system that Peter molyneux described as revolutionary before in the next sentence saying that it was all on one button oh I remember that Peter what are you up to now you mug was that you were accompanied on your quest by a lovely little canine and throughout your adventures this furry little friend would help you find your way attack enemies and even help you find Buried Treasure and come the close of the game it even makes a rather heroic sacrifice to stop you from being shot by Big Bad Lucian now it's quite the moving moment as Lucian lines up his gun takes the shot and the dog Dives in the way to literally take the bullet for you you're probably there just thinking oh this is awful but mainly because it's a bonehead decision because of course lucian's got another bullet for his gun you idiot so yeah he just pulls another bit of buck shot out of his pantaloons reloads and then you're in the same position again in fact this heroic sacrifice ends up costing the player as now we have to make a decision between resurrecting the dog or undoing the evil that Lucian has walked upon the world and without this dog's death we'd just be laughing it up with all those whose lives we just made better number two all of the prior Summoners Final Fantasy 10. now if ever there was an enemy that best represents the current state of the video game industry that it's the main antagonist from Final Fantasy 10. it's a massive bloated whale that just ruins everyone's fun with the likes of microtransactions loot boxes and I guess some Mega Death waves and of course it's sheer heft plus I mean it's called sin is it any wonder why the people of Spira want this Moby [ __ ] gum from their lives and thus send a chosen fion arduously long quests in order to quell this Beast of course not and for the Summoners in question that take this pilgrimage no role could be more rewarding as by their hand they will banish this monster for good or at least a few hundred years but that's good enough for most people however it's revealed quite late into the game that in order to defeat sin you need to use the final aeon which when it kills sin and the Summoner who used it in the first place becomes the new sin oh boys we've messed up here haven't we it's like a pretty pointless cycle of violence death destruction and loss that will most definitely cause thousands more to lose their lives cool all those prior Summoners who either died on their Journeys or just through buying the world some time all of their lives really were for nothing as the cycle would continue indefinitely had Yuna and her crew just said oh okay then let's carry this on and not beaten you even into base elements seriously did no one try this option before and number one book a DeWitt BioShock Infinite now for those of us who have already played the confusing and what the [ __ ] come up that is BioShock Infinite you will know and spoiler alert for those who don't know this bit yet that you are both Booker DeWitt and Comstock you are both hero and villain confused ah don't worry so the rest of us yes that's right you're both the hard-up alcoholic detective and the racist Sky Tyrant thanks to alternate Dimension hopping Shenanigans and throughout the experience you will come to learn that it's not just these two versions of Booker that exist either and thanks to a crop of lighthouses as far as the eye can see there are literally infinite versions of yourself in both good evil and my personal favorite aggressively neutral forms out there gosh dang this is making me so tap it but it kind of makes your heroic sacrifice at the end of the game at the hands of your own daughter Elizabeth all the more pointless because there are infinite versions of Booker out there and endless permutations of those realities meaning that while one Booker did die to stop Comstock from coming to power there are literally innumerable other Bookers that failed at this task hell there are other versions of Elizabeth out there that would have sided with Comstock as well meaning that her quest to stop them all is impossibly pointless and that your death is nothing more than a bullet point for the player to end their Adventure on in this example there is no such thing as a heroic sacrifice because with all of these Endless Possibilities it doesn't matter it just goes on and on and on forever there is no end so the sacrifice can never be made it can ever exist to have made because there's no final end point for it oh my God I'm falling into the void does anyone want to come with me and there we go those were seven heroic sacrifices that actually meant nothing I hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below and put your suggestions for next week's episode down there as well big love to you my friend and I want to say a big thank you to whoever whomever edited this video I'm sure that if it's James there'll be a Meme here I wonder what Joe will do I wonder what Dan will do I wonder what the secret editor that you're not meant to know about will do hmm that's right it's me uh look who it is yeah she's what you really can't see only time will tell but still I hope that you're doing well my friend I hope that you're treating yourself with love and respect because you deserve all of the best things in life all right and do it at anything or anyone else tell you otherwise you are a massive ledge and I want you to go out there and smash it today I believe in you and you need to believe in yourself as well as always I've been Jules you have been awesome never forget that I'll speak to you soon bye

Channel: WhatCulture Gaming

Views: 110,106

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Id: LNwZtxO_uHA

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022