#brief two

10 Most Heartbreaking Deaths in Video Games

·         Spoilers included for Uncharted 4

With gaming designers working towards creating compelling and interesting stories and plots for their games, comes with it the development of characters and meaningful relationships. Beginning our list of Most Heart-breaking Deaths in Video Games at number 10 is:

Victor Sullivan, Uncharted 4

Victor “Sully” Sullivan is a non-playable character from the NaughtyDog franchise, Uncharted. He is a treasure hunter, fortune seeker, and business man and is Uncharted protagonist Nathan Drake’s most loyal friend, one-time mentor and father figure. Throughout the Uncharted series, Sully appears as Nathan’s closest advisor and ally, often getting dragged into Nathan’s various, life-endangering adventures all in the name of exploration and discovery.

It is revealed in Uncharted 4, how it was that Nathan and Sully crossed paths. Helping Nathan escape violent and murderous henchmen whom were pursuing Nathan for having stolen a small relic ring, we are shown Sully’s moral standing and willingness to put his life at risk for Nathan’s before they had even known each other. Sully’s kindness and obvious care for Nathan whom he raised as if he were his own son, easily draws the gamers in. Sully’s lighthearted and sarcastic humor easily wins even the most stoic of gamers affection and approval. With Sully and Nathan often trading insults and mocking one another on a regular basis we, the gamers, are given a front row seat of watching the warm, caring and humorous dynamic between these men and is one of the many reasons why Sully’s death makes this list.

Nathan having drunk from a fountain of water in an ancient, lost temple in Yemen, looks up just as Sully is shot in the back and killed by the game’s villains, Talbot and Marlowe. Nathan catches Sully before he falls and despite Nathan’s disbelieving pleads, he dies out on the temple floor. Sully’s death was so shocking and the loss so sudden that the blind rage that Nathan feels as he chases after Talbot and Marlowe to avenge Sully’s death is felt like a physical blow.

A man who has been with us for four complete ten-hour games, who has been with Nathan for almost his entire life and who has put his own life on the line for Nathan and by extension, us, time and time again, is killed. With over forty hours spent with the charismatic, friendly, loyal and lighthearted father figure of our hearts, adding Sully to this list was a no brainer.

The only reason why Sully’s death ranks so low on our list is that not long after Nathan’s vengeful rampage it is revealed that Sully’s death had been nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the drugged water of the temples fountain that Nathan had consumed moments before Sully’s “death”.

However, the sheer numbing shock of Sully’s death, guaranteed him a place on this list.

References:

RESEARCH // CONTENT INSPO

1.3.2018

BRIEF TWO.

Thinking about the content for my newspaper, I am going to take inspiration from these three books. 

1. Tracy recommended The Elements of Typographic Style to me, which is packed full of really useful guidelines and information for typographers. This however is quite a content heavy book, so it might take me some time to go through it. I am thinking of just picking some key sections from it and rolling with that.

2. Know Your Onions (graphic design), also has a small typographic section in it, which I thought would be good for a little section on knowing the ‘basics’ of typography, and understanding the starting points.

Curative Lists and What I Learned

Calem Roberts curative list on First-Person Shooter Video Games that Influenced the Genre was concise, easily read and easy to understand. Calem provided a short excerpt of each game’s history of which I found interesting as a gamer to go back and revisit some of the games that held such a strong impact on gaming culture and development over the years. He also included how each game was received by audiences upon its release, providing a clear indication as to why these specific games are those that influenced the First-Person Shooter genre and how these games impacted others included in the list that were released recently.

The list was factual which made it clear that each game had been thoroughly researched before it had been placed within the curation and including a visual image to show the gameplay of each game and the graphics added to interest.

Seth Nicholls curative list of video game relationships and the players involvement in them was broad, providing an assortment of different genre’s and types of games from fantasy to sci-fi and action to adventure. The explanations of the different kinds of dynamics and how they were important to the player was clear as were the explanations of how these dynamics and relationships impacted the story and the progression of the game itself. The list provided different kinds of relationships, from a Ruler and their subjects to the player and a romantic love interest and even familial-like relationships that incorporated the found family trope amongst friend groups.

I think this list could have been improved had the list been involved in a more specific genre rather than branching out into all possible genres so as to narrow down the list itself and provide information for a more specific audience or reader but overall I think the list itself was incredibly insightful and interesting to read.

Samuel Rendall’s curative list of Non-traditional or out of the ordinary heroes in eBooks was one of the most engaging lists that I read. The specificity of the list provided a much more intriguing concept that had me very invested in what and who was included in the list and why. The list itself had clear descriptions of why the characters themselves fit into the mould as well as small descriptions of the story’s plot. It was simple and easy to read and out of the list I even found an eBook that I was interested in enough that I purchased it.

I do think that this list could have benefited with a few more examples of how the “heroes” fit this specific mould of non-traditional heroes by incorporating more evidence from the source material but the list itself was interesting enough that I remained invested until the very end.

I think that all these curative lists could have been made even more intriguing and impactful if they had included a personal response from each blogger, if only to provide a greater insight as to the bloggers opinion on each piece.

References

10 Most Heart-breaking Deaths in Video Games

Throughout this assignment I found myself struggling to come up with a specific curation, not because I had difficulty thinking of a subject and a genre but because there was so much to choose from. From music to movies, gaming to books, there was very few limitations to such a broad spectrum of media that picking just one was the first hurdle that I had to overcome.

The second was picking only ten deaths that had a profound impact on myself personally, there were so many games and characters that I could remember that picking only ten was difficult but after deciding to keep to only single deaths per game or franchise the list narrowed significantly towards those that had the greatest impact.

These ten heart-breaking deaths in video games is one of the key reasons that video games have become such a popular and renown form of entertainment. The relationships and dynamics established throughout the medium help the gamer become engrossed and invested in the story that the game is presenting to the viewers by combining captivating visuals, character development and character interaction that keeps you engaged and intrigued.

10 Most Heartbreaking Deaths in Video Games

·         Spoilers included for Telltale: The Walking Dead

Some video game deaths stay with you no matter how much time has past since you played it, some deaths can have such a profound impact that even when knowing that it’s coming during a second or third or fourth gameplay, you’re still emotionally compromised after having convinced yourself that maybe it’ll be different this time. Ending our comparative list of most heart-breaking deaths in video games at number one:

Lee Everett, The Walking Dead Telltale

Lee Everett is an unconventional protagonist and hero as we’re introduced to Lee during his transport from one prison to the next. We learn that he was a history Professor, arrested and convicted for the murder of the man whom his then wife was having an affair with. Despite Telltale giving us the opportunity to choose our own dialogue and decisions throughout the game it is made clear that while Lee is entirely capable of making harsh decisions when push comes to shove and that he can certainly lose his temper when needed, Lee is well mannered, caring and extremely protective of Clementine.

Clementine is a young girl, aged six at the beginning of the game, whom Lee encounters shortly after the Dead begin to rise. Despite being a total stranger, Lee takes Clementine under his wing as the world around them falls and does everything he can to keep her safe and healthy. The relationship between Lee and Clementine gives the game a chance to raise the stakes, allows the gamer to feel as if they have an important purpose in life by being the role model and the saviour that Clementine needs not only to survive but to live.

Lee’s death becomes inevitable when he is bitten and infected while searching for Clementine who has been kidnapped by an unknown stranger. Knowing that sooner or later he will transform into one of the Walkers, it is a race against time to find and rescue Clementine from this mysterious foe. After a harrowing search and rescue, Lee and Clementine are finally reunited but the infection has spread, and Lee becomes incredibly weak and fears that he may turn and attack Clementine.

Locked in a room with a Walker, Lee’s final moments are spent instructing Clementine how to escape the room to safety and how to defend herself from the Walker. When she finally does get the keys and has her way out, Lee then asks her to shoot him in the head so that he doesn’t turn. The moment shared between the two characters who have become like father and daughter is extremely difficult to watch without tearing up, the emotion in Lee’s voice and Clementine’s fear and childlike naivety only adds to the haunting scene.

Lee Everett’s death takes the spot of number one as even now, after having played Telltale’s The Walking Dead numerous times, this final farewell still manages to get me choked up.

References

10 Most Heartbreaking Deaths in Video Games

·         Spoilers included for The Last of Us

With most Video Games the deaths come after a long and tedious journey and adventure in which the characters and the relationships that they have grow with you on screen and through action and achievements but sometimes all you need is a moment for a character to carve themselves a home in your heart. At number two of our list of most heart-breaking deaths in video games we have:

Sarah, The Last of Us

Anyone who has played The Last of Us knew that this was coming. The Last of Us is a unique post-apocalyptic adventure game in which the world as we know it has ended and the mass population has been killed or turned by a virus that slowly but surely infects it’s host until they become violent, mindless and cannibalistic monstrosities with no sentient consciousness beyond their need to eat. The game opens with a touching interaction between a father, Joel, and his daughter, Sarah, aged eleven, having stayed up late to gift her father with a brand-new wrist watch. From this short interaction we’re given a personal insight into their relationship and how their dynamic is shown as not only a team but as loving, trusting and humorous.

We’re given the opportunity to explore in a short tutorial when Sarah searches her rural home for her father after receiving a disturbing and urgent phone call from her Uncle Tommy. From Sarah’s point of view, we can investigate her home, the photographs and fridge door notes that provide us with subtext of their home life, such as Joel being a single father and Sarah being on the soccer team. All these small details providing us with all the information we need about this dynamic duo until suddenly the game shifts into survival mode with Joel and Sarah forced to flee their home with their Uncle Tommy following a violent encounter with an infected neighbour.

We are then able to play as Joel as he rushes his injured daughter through the chaotic streets of the city, searching for a way out and a way to avoid the maddened infected whom have taken to the streets hunting their prey in the panic. This introduction all comes to a head when Joel and Sarah make it out of town and are confronted by a heavily armed soldier, believing that they had found safety and protection from the infected we’re filled with instant dread when the soldier radios in their presence and clearly becomes conflicted.

Given orders to take them out, Joel attempt to flee and is quickly shot in the back, he falls and for a moment it looks like it’s all over until Uncle Tommy comes to the rescue. The triumph is short lived however when the camera pans to Sarah who is lying on her back and has been shot in the stomach.

Watching Joel scrabble to her small body, still dressed in her pyjamas as she whimpers from the pain, we’re filled with a sense of utter helplessness and despair as Joel tries to assure his dying daughter that she will be okay. Joel’s broken sobs and pleads as he cradles his daughter in his arms is utterly haunting and sets the tone for the rest of the game whilst leaving us all feeling hollow and numb.  

References

10 Most Heartbreaking Deaths in Video Games

·         Spoilers included for Spider-Man

With great power, comes great responsibility. The same could be said to game developers all over the world who are responsible for bringing every story to life in ways that isn’t just entertaining but can provide a lasting effect that can leave you reeling weeks, months and even years after finishing them. Coming in at number three of most heart-breaking deaths in video games is:

May Parker, Spider-man

In 2018, Sony Entertainment released their Spider-Man adventure in which gamers once again can don the Spider-Man suit and mask as Peter Parker, fight bad guys and save the day from certain destruction. Like most of the games throughout this list however, Spider-Man (2018) comes out throwing punches with more heart-breaking moments than are capable of listing. More emotion, more impact, more memorable.

Even if you’re not a Marvel fan, have never read the comics, seen the movies or played the games, you’ll know who May Parker is. Aunt May had custody of Peter Parker after his parents’ mysterious disappearances alongside Uncle Ben but unlike Uncle Ben, Aunt May is right there beside us throughout all of Peter’s adventures, heartbreaks and triumphs. Loving, supportive and trusting to a fault, throughout the game we are shown how committed Aunt May is to her community, her friends and her loved ones. She’s wise, caring and never faulters even in times of trouble and even when an illness threatens the lives of everyone in the city of New York, Aunt May continues to work with and support those who come to her for aid.

It’s within the final stages of this epic saga that Aunt May falls ill with the same sickness that has befallen so many others and threatens her life and it becomes a race against time to get the cure from the villains to create a vaccine.

Our victory and triumph of finally getting our hands on the cure however is short lived, with there being only enough in the vial for either mass production or a single dosage for one patient, Peter is forced to decide between saving his Aunt and condemning an entire city to death or sacrificing his last living relative and caregiver to save a city.

Fortunately for us gamers, this decision is out of our hands and completely reliant upon Peter’s own moral standing and the support of his ever-devoted Aunt. In a heart-breaking last moment, Aunt May reveals that she not only has known that Peter was Spider-Man the entire time, but that she has always been proud of him and that despite his conflict and his pain, Peter knows what he has to do.

Aunt May’s last moments with her grandson and her final moments had a particularly powerful impact on me when I played the game as my own Grandmother had past away around the same time that I got my hands on the game itself. I found myself transported back into the Hospital where I stood with my immediate family members telling my nan that we were all there with her and that it was okay, that she could let go now.

Aunt May being able to have watched her grandson grow up to be a hero not only as Spider-Man but as Peter Parker as well and being able to let go knowing that he could survive the world and all it’s trials made her death rise to spot number three.

References

10 Most Heartbreaking Deaths in Video Games

·         Spoilers included for Mass Effect 2 & 3

With multiple choice games and BioWare’s history with multiple endings it can be difficult to choose a specific death when all characters can die depending on the choices that the gamer makes. Continuing our list of most heart-breaking deaths in video games at number four is:

Mordin Solus, Mass Effect 3

Mordin Solus joins the crew of the Normandy in Mass Effect 2, a Salarian scientist with an eccentric past, recruited by the Illusive Man and the Mass Effect trilogy’s protagonist Commander Shepard to help defeat the game’s big bad villains, The Collectors. In order to fully understand Mordin’s impact and importance throughout the last two games of the Mass Effect trilogy a little history is required so bear with me.

The Krogan, a warrior alien race in the games, once rebelled against the alien Council and began a devastating war with the Turian’s, another Council race of alien. With no sign of either species surrendering, the Salarian’s crafted a bioweapon specifically designed to crush the Krogan race’s chances of reproducing at the same rate that they can naturally. This was called the Genophage. This sudden reduction in population forced the Krogan to surrender and over the decades have been slowly but surely dying out.

Some years before Mordin is recruited to join a suicide mission with Commander Shepard, he and another group of covert Salarian operatives are tasked with modifying the Genophage as the Krogan have begun to adapt to the previous bioweapon. Mordin and his team succeeded and the Krogan once again suffered greatly in the number of miscarriages and stillborn children birthed.

Throughout the game we’re given the chance to learn more about Mordin through dialogue discussions, some topics unlocked the longer Mordin is a member of your crew, some achieved through certain choices or gaming decisions and you’re even given the chance to pursue a Loyalty Mission in which Mordin believes a former member of his covert team responsible for the preserved Genophage, Maelan, has been captured and forced to work with a Krogan Clan for a cure. Throughout the mission we are given a front row seat to Mordin’s conflicting emotions of self-righteousness, guilt and devastating compassion as he bear’s witness to the brutal experiments his former colleague has committed in his search for a cure. Only when finally confronting his teammate does Mordin realize that Maelan has willingly been searching for a cure, riddled with guilt for committing a slow and painful genocide upon the Krogan people.

Mordin is forced to come face-to-face with the horrors that the Genophage has forced upon an entire species as well as the judgment of an esteemed colleague and this spearheads Mordin’s drive to cure the Genophage come the third instalment of the Mass Effect series.

During a harrowing mission to get the Cure airborne on the Krogan’s native planet of Tuchaka, the tower responsible for the Genophage is Mordin’s last chance to correct his mistake all those years ago. As Shepard we witness Mordin’s willing sacrifice, as the tower begins to collapse both Shepard and Mordin know that if he goes to the top of the tower, he won’t be coming back down.

Mordin’s sacrifice is haunting, an eccentric, interesting and noble being willing to put aside his own pride, his own governments orders and beliefs, to correct a wrong, guarantees him a place on this list. Mordin humming Gilbert and Sullivan as he administers the Cure to thousands of Krogan on the planet’s surface provides a unique and powerful impact on the gamer.

References