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Most destructive in-game event?

25 replies · 5,445 views · Started 31 March 2007

ShadowTiger 31 Mar 2007, 23:55

What, in your opinion, is, among all of the games (And what the hell; animes too.) that you've ever played, was the single most devastating event in the entire course of the game? I can name a few things.

1) Ultima 7 P2: Serpent Isle. You release the banes. They escape Batlin's control, and take over your three companions, and they separate, and go out to destroy fully ninety percent of the entire land's population. That's right. 90% of everyone you've ever spoken with is now lying dead in the streets of the three major cities and Sleeping Bull Inn, with litter, blood, and ashes lying all over. Complete and utter decimation. You seek out in utter desperation any living soul that went untouched. You pass by the occasional devious horror left behind by one of the Banes. A wise man's tongue cut out. The most beautiful queen in the lands skinned alive and left in the swamps to wander around forever in sheer gruesome horror.

2) Guild Wars: Prophecies. (AKA the first Guild Wars released.) There are two main "time periods" here. The first is the Pre-Searing character tutorial-like world. Everything is absolutely gorgeous. It goes from This to This, once you depart on a mission. Two years later, the entire region (Basically EVERYWHERE) that you explored Pre-Searing, now looks like that. It's absolutely dreadful. There's nothing green ANYWHERE. It's so depressingly sad to see. 😞 I was practically jumping for freaking joy when I got to Kryta where things grew. Plants. Things that give off oxygen instead of freaking carbon dioxide. God....

3) It's more of a gradual change, and much less surprising, as you're obviously in quite a lot of control over it, but in Warcraft III, how you, as the Undead Scourge, (During those campaigns, of course.) laid waste to much of the entire Lordaeron regions and beyond. Heheh. Awesome.

4) Deus Ex: This is actually not a particular event, but the differences between the game and its sequel. In the beginning of Deus Ex Machinae, you arrive on Liberty Island on New York, pretty much right in the shadows of the Statue Of Liberty. Pretty amazing sight, actually. You ascend the base of the statue during that mission to complete it. In Invisible War, the sequel,... ... Well, I'll use spoiler tags.[spoiler]You eventually arrive back at Liberty Island during the last mission. The entire area is composed of snow, glaciers, and cliffs that weren't previously there. the status has been replaced by a hologram, glowing an ominous blue in the moonlight. Even the UNATCO Headquarters that were there are in ruins, and are now inhabited by the occasional bum seeking the barest traces of warmth which may still be found there. It brings back such incredible memories of your first mission in Deus Ex.[/spoiler] ... Yep.

Daarkseid 01 Apr 2007, 01:45

Well, there was this one time in CivIII where I conquered an enemy civ within the same turn I declared war.

I had a huge stockpile of nukes that I used indiscriminately, and several battallions of main battle tanks ready to invade.

I estimate the enemy lost about 80% of its total population and the only military units that escaped annihilation were the few naval units that had been out to sea when the war started.

MottZilla 01 Apr 2007, 06:23

Final Fantasy VI and the World of Ruin was pretty good. Can't really think of much else at the moment. The opening to Gears of War is good though seeing the space weapons blasting citys.

Nicholas Steel 01 Apr 2007, 11:08

redmage777 wrote:I remeber beating Warcraft III: The Frozen Thrown... Whoever though winning could be so depresing.

i hate NOT being told prior (in-game) that beating it on hard mode unlocks additional animations at the end =\

and most devestating thing i can think of would be either mario bro's (why don't people think of the poor koopa's? [unless there only in the super NES version in the mario bro's multi cartridge]) or dungeon keeper 1.

ShadowTiger 01 Apr 2007, 13:36

MottZilla wrote:Final Fantasy VI and the World of Ruin was pretty good. Can't really think of much else at the moment. The opening to Gears of War is good though seeing the space weapons blasting citys.
I had completely forgotten about both of those. FF6's WoR was so long ago, yet so utterly spectacularly dire. The devastation was kept in check by dividing our attention between character stories and by friends sticking together and such though. Wasn't that much of a chance to inspect the actual destruction other than walking around in a world with a different palatte and an obviously shattered terrain. It's a lot less "personal" than in other things. It's like you've just went to another world, rather than have your own world destroyed.

.. .. At least that's how it feels to me. :shrug: =/

franpa wrote:i hate NOT being told prior (in-game) that beating it on hard mode unlocks additional animations at the end =\
Yeah, I still have to try this out. May take a while though. Eh.

Or dungeon keeper 1.
Both Dungeon Keepers would qualify, obviously, though in a completely different scale. You operate ONLY From the perspectives of the Dungeon Keepers, so it's sort of a "personal beautification" of the land through your own perverse conquerings. It's certainly nothing devastating, since you're not involved with the map at all in the first place.

In Tales Of Symphonia, there's a certain devastating event which does a few things, including totally destroying at least one capital city. Pretty cool, I'd say. Nothing GRAND-SCALE like the WoR or the things in the first post though. Just interesting.

Darth Marsden 01 Apr 2007, 16:07

User posted image

I agree with Franpa about the unlockables thing. Did you know that if you complete Max Payne 2 on the hardest difficulty level, you get a different ending? 'cause I didn't. And did you know that you only unlock the hardest difficulty level by playing through the game twice to unlock it? So in order to get that new ending, you basically have to play through the game three times? I mean, like MP2, but Jesus Christ...

EDIT: The Seven Hour War doesn't actually take place in Half-Life 2, it's merely referenced. But you can still see the devastation and so forth.

AlexMax 02 Apr 2007, 08:16

Total Annihilation, and by proxy TASpring (which is a free 3D recreation of TA itself) have the double whammy of mass descruction by including two vital things in any such game.

1. Nukes. Goes without saying. Seeing 90% of your enemie's base evaporate in an instant because he forgot to build antinukes is always fun.
2. Mechs. This applies to any Tier 3 unit, really. They take forever to build, but when they get going there is no stopping them. Watching one of your Korgoth's slowly stomp their way into the enemies base, cruise missiles coming out the back, instakill lasers on each arm, and nothing in his wake is always satisfying.

And of course, the commander unit can be used as a tactical nuke as well, just atlas him into your enemies base if things are getting desporate and watch as he dguns a few hapless defenders before incinerating everything within a mile radius in a mini nuclear explosion of its own death.

*b* 02 Apr 2007, 15:27

The World of Ruin isn't really all that destructive, you know? It just rearranged most of the world, not destroyed it. Kefka is the one doing that

Personally, I think Sin's brutal rampage was the most destructive event (In any game I've played). Especially that one part where he fires off those bolts and carves those huge holes in the world. THAT was awesome

Samson007 02 Apr 2007, 21:25

Final Fantasy 5 - Entire cities were sucked into another dimention and where the the cities once stood, nothing but a gaping crater remains.

Just lovely.

Glenn the Great 02 Apr 2007, 21:58

-Day of Lavos in Chrono Trigger

-Failing in Commander Keen 2 results in a cut scene of the Vorticon Mothership destroying Earth.

-Breaking the rift seal in Myst 2: Riven. Great scene of the world imploding.

AtmaWeapon 02 Apr 2007, 22:11

Some of you guys haven't really experienced much destruction in your video games; I mean I'd argue that the collapse of that segment of Midgar was way more destructive than Sephiroth saving you from having to spend any more time with Aeris in your party but seriously FFVII was a pretty tame game on the destruction scale. Several games present destruction on a planetary or interplanetary scale, and I really don't think the loss of a single party member (who no one cared about and they obviously faked mourning to be polite because they didn't even bother trying a Phoenix Down) registers on that scale.

In FF3/VI the world was not just rearranged; it was robbed of its ability to support life. Compare the amount of green on the map before and after; that's plant life that isn't there. And you don't get a happy ending either. After you kill Kefka the world still sucks. It might get better one day, but there is never any promise made to confirm or deny that thought.

In the "Make the Moon" level of Katamari Damacy, the Prince rolls every object on Earth save for some clouds that continually respawn into the katamari. In We <3 Katamari, the Prince rolls the entire solar system and some constellations into the katamari.

Samus Aran has not only brought about the genocide of the Metroid species but she is responsible for the destruction of planets.

If Game Over scenarios count the list will go on and on; typically it is your mission to prevent severely destructive scenarios but one can assume after a game over the villain does horrendous damage.

Glenn the Great 02 Apr 2007, 23:58

AlexMax wrote:At least it's not Keen 5, when failing causes the entire Milky Way to go *CRUNCH*.

So Mortimer McMire was only bluffing when he claimed he was taking down the whole universe?

Keen 5 is the only game in the series I haven't played, aside from that new Gameboy game.

The_Amaster 03 Apr 2007, 00:41

Glenn the Great wrote:-Breaking the rift seal in Myst 2: Riven. Great scene of the world imploding.

He he, yeah. It's like the entire planet is falling in on itself.

How about Metroid Priem Hunters, where if you don't make it out of an area on time it explodes.

Darth Marsden 03 Apr 2007, 11:20

AtmaWeapon wrote:Some of you guys haven't really experienced much destruction in your video games; I mean I'd argue that the collapse of that segment of Midgar was way more destructive than Sephiroth saving you from having to spend any more time with Aeris in your party but seriously FFVII was a pretty tame game on the destruction scale. Several games present destruction on a planetary or interplanetary scale, and I really don't think the loss of a single party member (who no one cared about and they obviously faked mourning to be polite because they didn't even bother trying a Phoenix Down) registers on that scale.

If we look at it from a physical point of view, then yeah, any kind of scenario with the end of the world or whatever clearly ranks pretty high. But if we're looking at it emotionally, then I think you'll have trouble finding someone who wasn't shocked and/or horrified at Aeris' death.

BTW, while searching for a good image of said event, I find this. God bless Google Image Search:

User posted image

mrz84 04 Apr 2007, 23:48

Phantasy Star Universe - anything involving the SEED.

Sonic Adventure - Chaos destroys most of the city and floods it before the final battle

that's all I can think of right now that hasn't already been said.....

Yoshiman 05 Apr 2007, 01:33

Halo: Combat Evolved- a few minutes before and during the destruction of the Halo installation. Trying to escape the Pillar of Autumn with the Flood and Covenant after you, barreling down anything in your path with a Warthog. And it has kickass background music with it too.
Once you get off the ring in a tiny longsword ship, you realize that the Master Chief (and Sgt. Johnson) is the only one left out of all the marines and Covenant who set foot on Halo.

Final Fantasy VI- I just had to agree here. Especially since the first half of the game isn't nearly as serious as the events leading up to the World of Ruin and the aftermath.

Darth Marsden wrote:If we look at it from a physical point of view, then yeah, any kind of scenario with the end of the world or whatever clearly ranks pretty high. But if we're looking at it emotionally, then I think you'll have trouble finding someone who wasn't shocked and/or horrified at Aeris' death.

I actually found (FFVI spoiler) [spoiler]Celes' suicide attempt in FFVI to be more emotional than Aeris' death. Sure, any guy can stab a praying woman in the back, but it takes a lot to cause an ex-general to make an attempt at taking her own life.[/spoiler]

Darth Marsden 05 Apr 2007, 08:56

I never really got that far into FFVI, so I didn't know she did that. Thanks a lot, bitch. 😛 Still, Aeris (I refuse to call her anything else, dammit) is the more well-known of the two, so I'm gonna stick with that.

Others that come to mind: There's a DMOD for Dink Smallwood which requires you to quit out of the game and rename a couple of files before you can continue. I didn't know why at first, but upon doing so, I discovered it was because during the adventure, the whole country is totally destroyed, and you need to load the new map featuring the ruined landscape. That was pretty impressive.

Going back to the first post, ShadowTiger includes Anime. Would Akira count as anime, 'cause that nuke at the beginning was pretty destructive. I keep meaning to pick that film up, but I never seem to get round to it.

Also: Fallout. No destruction in-game, but still...

Yoshiman 05 Apr 2007, 19:02

Darth Marsden wrote:I never really got that far into FFVI, so I didn't know she did that. Thanks a lot, bitch. 😛 Still, Aeris (I refuse to call her anything else, dammit) is the more well-known of the two, so I'm gonna stick with that.

Ack, sorry about that. Although, in a topic about destructive game events, there's bound to be spoilers. And someone who hasn't played FFVII could say that both Aeris things were spoilers (although it's more well known that what I said).

Maybe someone should add "Spoilers" in the topic title. >_>

Glenn the Great 05 Apr 2007, 19:38

She only does it if you fail the Cid sidequest, though.