Day 9: The saddest video game moment.

Mike 

Metal Gear Solid 4

 WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

...BECAUSE I JUST DID.

Say what you will about MGS4. It's either the greatest conclusion to one of the most awesome video game sagas in recent memory or the blunder of the century as an interactive movie with minimal gameplay.

I personally love it, but that's not what's important right now.

What's important is that it still manages to deliver an emotional story in spite of yanking control away from the player constantly. One of the defining moments for me was the Microwave Hallway scene near the end of the game.

Throughout the entire game, Snake is constantly dealing with is mortality and eventual early demise. In spite of the fact that everything is against Snake; he's aging rapidly, he's going to die from a terminal disease, and and his past is quickly catching up with him, he fights on anyway: well past the point where any normal human would break. Snake continually fights even though he's slowly killing himself. His body is weak and failing, but Snake's iron will keeps him alive.

In this way, the Microwave Hallway is sort of an allegory of Snake's entire struggle.

In this portion of the game, you are encouraged to mash the triangle button to keep Snake moving through the deadly hallway, Snake being wounded and trudging along at a painfully slow pace. As Snake goes further and further into the hallway, the electronics in his suit malfunction and stun him from time to time, and his health bar continues to decrease. Each time you get to what you think it the end, it opens and reveals an even longer passageway.

Eventually, Snake's health bar completely depletes and Snake collapses on the ground. The player is led to believe that this Game Over, and they'll have to try again...

But then...

Snake keeps moving, and a bar underneath his health bar begins to drain instead. This is his "Psyche" bar. At this point, Snake should be physically dead, but he's so fucking determined that he'll continue forward even if his entire body was reduced to a quivering mess of Jello.

I dunno, that raw passion that fueled Snake to keep going in the face of certain death really spoke to me. He'd give everything to see his mission through, even it killed him.

Kam

Mother 3

 

 There's this part in...(sniff) Mother...(sniffle) 3, where the main character. (sniff) He, uh (choke)

I can't do this, it's just so, (sniff sniff)
I need to be alone.