Thumbs on Fire’s Random Awards of 2010: Favourite Moments in Gaming
In the next couple of days I’ll finalize and post up some manner of unordered “Favourite Games of 2010” list, but to be honest I’m even more excited about writing this up. Every year there are a couple of moments in gaming that make you drop your jaw, pump your fist, or just force you to pause the game for a second and think about what exactly you’d just done.
It could be a cathartic ending, an almost implausibly-ridiculous action scene, or even just a moment that causes you to stop and question the implications of what you’d just done. In these regards 2010 was no different, as it was near-full of video game moments that will stick with long after the calendar changes.
WARNING: Here There Be Spoilers! You’ve been warned!
Bayonetta: The Boss Battles
Let’s start off with the “outright insane”. I’m just going to describe the first boss battle of Bayonetta: you’re in a giant Colosseum, fighting a multiple-stories tall flying monster with an upside-down face for a body and dragons for arms. Suddenly the entire ground erupts into goddamn lava, and the platforms you’re fighting on are slowly being destroyed. How do you fix this? By going back in time, of course.
Through the course of this battle you will rip the dragon-head-arms off of this Baroque nightmare, and finally finish the day by summoning a giant demon-bird made of your hair to beat the everloving crap out of what remains of the beast, all while a rousing Jpop ditty plays in the background. Did I mention this is the first boss battle of Bayonetta? It only gets crazier from there.
Bioshock 2: Playing as a Little Sister
Though the game itself was something of a derivative “me-too” follow-up of the original Bioshock, I have to admit the moment near the end of the game in which you take on the visual perspective of one of the Little Sisters, the creepy, Adam-harvesting child monstrosities, is one of my favourite moments of the year.
It’s an incredibly interesting moment when you transition; for the entire duration up to that point you’ve been seeing the underwater city of Rapture at its very worst. The walls are cracking, the inhabitants are either splayed dead on the ground or thirsting for your blood, and there’s just blood and waste and detritus everywhere you look. Not so through the eyes of a Little Sister. Everything is an hallucinatory pink and white, the blood on the ground has become rose petals, and the hideous deformed denizens of Rapture are all shown as well-groomed, well-dressed party-goers.
It’s all an illusion obviously, and the illusion cracks on occasion when people start trying to attack you or each-other. It all makes for an interesting, thought-provoking statement on the depths of perception, and it’ll stay with me for some time to come.
Mass Effect 2: Knocking a Dude out a Skyscraper Window
This moment I feel is better served visually than anything I could possibly say, so I’m just going to let the above video speak for me. Needless to say, though, memorable.
Heavy Rain: Cutting Off your Finger
This is the moment in gaming this year where I had to stop and just shudder. The pure terror of the situation, forcing Ethan to frantically search the room he’s in so he can find some sort of tool to use to cut off a finger so that he can find a clue to help save his son, followed by the slow, almost methodical build-up in psyching yourself and culminating with a swift flick of the controller, the agonizing scream, and the realization of what you’d just done.
Yes it’s just a video game, but there is no way you can watch that scene and not feel some sort of sympathy pain for the physical and mental torture Ethan’s being forced through.
Red Dead Redemption: The Ending(s)
I’m not a huge fan of Westerns. I don’t know why but I just never fell into the theme. Which may explain why I don’t have the same undying enthusiasm for Red Dead Redemption that others do. It always just seemed like “Grand Theft Horse” to me. Regardless of that, however, I can say without hyperbole that Redemption has one of the best stories of the year, as well as without a doubt one of the best endings in gaming. Like, in the entire history of gaming.
Redemption seems like it ends a number of times, each with its own different emotional climax. In the first, you’ve finally reunited with your family, and head back to the family farm for a well-deserved return to normalcy. You even get to go through a couple chores on the farm, such as helping rescue your son from a bear and picking up some new horses. It’s quiet, it’s serene, it’s just the climax John Marston deserves…
But it’s not. The government, despite using Marston to bring in his old criminal accomplices, isn’t about to let him just walk away. They attack the farm, bring in the Marshals, and after a long, protracted gun battle, Marston forces his wife and son to escape before walking out into the sun, in front of a dozen armed men, where he’s brutally gunned down.
But that’s not even the true ending. I’ve already spoiled the most important part of the conclusion, but I’d be remiss to ruin any more. Let’s just say that isn’t where Red Dead Redemption ends. But when it does? It’s beautiful, cathartic, and satisfying. Without a doubt, it’s one of the best moments in gaming of 2010.
