10 Video Game Deaths You Were POWERLESS To Stop (But Kept Trying Anyway)

10. Roebuck & Polonsky - Call of Duty: World at War

Near the end of the American campaign in Call of Duty: World at War, you'll be given a choice of saving one of the two beloved comrades you've been through fresh hell with - Sergeant Roebuck (Kiefer Sutherland) or Private Polonsky (Aaron Stanford).

When the pair search a group of Japanese soldiers, they suddenly activate concealed grenades, at which point the player must choose whether to save Roebuck or Polonsky from sure death.

The outcome is absolutely heart-rending no matter who you save, the survivor left wracked with immense guilt over the other soldier's death. 

And many players felt it too, to the extent that they experimented around, trying to figure out a way to take the Japanese soldiers out before they could ready their 'nades.

It was eventually discovered that you technically can "save" both men by throwing an explosive and killing all the soldiers before they can strike, but there's a catch.

Though both soldiers will stand upright and appear to be alive, one of them will still react as though the other has died. As for the other, totally-not-dead soldier? 

They'll effectively be an unresponsive, spectre-like zombie locked in position from this point forward - a fate worse than death, arguably.