10 Greatest Last Stands In Video Game History
The stakes don't get any higher than this.
For decades now, video games have been centred around conflict, pitting the player against waves upon waves of computer controlled bad guys. For the most part, however, we rarely come across sections where the player is fighting such overwhelming odds, they are going to fail no matter what.
This is far more prevalent within the medium of film, with the like of Boromir holding off waves of Uruk Hai in Lord of the Rings, or Captain Miller fighting back a tank with only a pistol in Saving Private Ryan. When we do get treated to some of these moments in gaming, they are some of the most special and most memorable.
These moments take hold of the player and instil such a varied range of emotions. Because gaming is such an interactive form of entertainment, players form incredibly worthwhile relationships with characters over huge amounts of time - all until that point it all goes wrong. Unlike specific shot choices and scenes used in film, if a video game character falls, that gut-punch is like no other.
Even better is going out guns blazing or making a heroic sacrifice, leaving a memory we'll talk about for the rest of time.
10. Chernobyl - Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
A true turning point for the gaming industry, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare forever changed how shooters would look, work and feels going forward. This game took itself deadly seriously and it also expects the same from its audience - so when MacMillan and Price visited Chernobyl, it was no laughing matter.
After creeping through the chilling outskirts, narrowly avoiding a few tanks along the way, they make it to Pripyat. MacMillan is sure to remind the player “Fifty Thousand people used to live in the city, now it's a ghost town”.
The true encounter doesn't come until the target has been taken out and the two are on the run, moving from building to building and laying traps along the way - however the dynamic totally changes once a helicopter crashes and injures MacMillan.
After carrying him to a vantage point, it is up to the player to lay claymores and take out most of the oncoming forces. At this point, the ghillie suits they are wearing might as well be for show, with the number of bullets hailing down upon them whilst in the shadow of the Ferris wheel, that was never used.
But with a steady aim and a decent enough placement of claymores, the pair just make it out.