6 Video Game Moments That Make You Feel Like A True Badass

Warning: Please note that this article contains spoilers. A big allure of gaming is the idea of escaping just how mundane and repetitive life can be. We often long to step outside of that and experience a life more exciting and visceral than our own. Video games give us that. They put us in the space armor or give us massive guns and armies of bad guys to slaughter with them. The reality is, video games make you feel kind of badass, and that's awesome. While it is nice that the medium gives us that feeling in general, there are specific moments in specific games that are catered to that exact feeling: Badassery. These are moments that the developers want you walking away from feeling gratified, with your chest high and adrenaline pumping, aware that you just did something awesome. Video game moments that make us feel like a badass may be different for everyone, as they are quite subjective. Maybe you beat a water level JUST before you ran out of oxygen. Maybe you downed a boss that had been giving you hell. The moments tend to change among gamers, but there are some that are universal. Before I continue any further, let me just say that I know you're all going to ask me why beating "so and so" from Dark Souls isn't on this list. The reality is, I understand the sense of accomplishment that many get from that game. I'm just not masochistic enough to put myself through it. Sorry. Anyways, without further ado, here are 6 video game moments that make you feel like a true badass. 6) Saving My Son - Heavy Rain Yup, this is Remy bringing up Heavy fucking Rain again. Listen, people. In my personal opinion, as rough as some of the motion control sections were to manage, Heavy Rain is the most cinematic game of all time. It was very much a movie whose ending relied on how you played it. Honestly, a few hours into the game I thought there was NO WAY I was saving my son. I had failed the electricity section, and just didn't feel a lot of hope about how it would all play out. Then I came to find out that the hopelessness is intentional on the developer's part. That is what drives you to keep going. So, when it finally came to the moment where I had to find my kid or he was going to drown, and I was in the car as Ethan, it was more pressure than I had ever really felt in a video game before. Half the address I needed was missing, and time was running out. But then I listened to the phone for at least a minute in real time, and I heard a fog horn and figured out he had to be at the location closest to the water. When I got there and saw I was right, and also managed to get the grate open in time, the feeling I got was completely badass and beyond gratifying for me. Then I got shot. But that is exactly why I love you Heavy Rain. 5) Beating Final Boss - Asura's Wrath You probably figured there would be a boss fight or two in here, right? Boss fights are a great way to make you walk away feeling like a badass. You are usually much smaller than your opponent, and upon first glance, it often looks like you have no chance of surviving. While we will see another great example of this further down the list, when it comes to big bosses, few can touch on the size of the final opponent in Asura's Wrath. A bat shit crazy game from start to finish, feeling badass might actually be an understatement here. While some may take issue with the fact that the battle ends up being a button mashing fest, it is not about the actual battle. It is about how you are the size of a mite compared to this thing, but slowly and surely, you decimate it. It is outlandish and extreme and encompasses every single thing that makes video games so awesome. Seriously. You need to play this game. 4) Surviving The Suicide Mission - Mass Effect 2 Before I say anything else, let it be known that I survived the suicide mission and kept my entire team alive (except Kanye, who we see highlighted above because I hated him) without looking up any guides or FAQs. I just played the fucking game. The thing is, I got sucked into it, so of course I did every side mission and optional quest. But I had no idea of just how many elements needed to line up perfectly for this to happen. I only found out after, and was blown away by the fact that I somehow managed to pull it off. And those who have done it know just what I am talking about. You are back on the Normandy, and you are giving your team the best post-battle pep talk ever. They all sit there, looking up at you like you are some demigod, and it feels amazing. You feel like you truly pulled off something rare and difficult, and considering how attached you become to your crew over the course of that game, you feel pretty damn proud of the fact that you kept them alive. Plus, if you are like me, you slept with half of them, which made it even MORE awesome. It's an incredible moment in an overall fantastic trilogy. Ending forgiven. 3) First Heist - GTA V It could be said that most of GTA V makes you feel like a badass. It is the GTA we always wanted, fully realized. That said, nothing in the game made me feel quite as badass as the very first heist you pull off. You knew that the game was leading up to this moment, but the way it all came together was brilliant. Later on in the game, the heists may have gotten more elaborate, but the first jewelry store heist and the subsequent escape through the tunnels was like playing a summer blockbuster. Plus, I think most of us fantasize about pulling off heists in real life, fully aware that we will never, ever come close to being able do it. It may have been a simple smash and grab, but it played out differently depending on how you chose to go in and how you chose to leave, as well as who you picked to do the job with you. It set the tone for the whole game and from that moment forth, that sense of badassness stayed with you throughoout the entire playtime of GTA V. 2) Beating Mike Tyson - Mike Tyson's Punch-Out There are bosses in gaming so infamous that they haunt the people who played them. Mike Tyson is one of those bosses for me. 007-373-5963. That's a number I can recite from memory. Why? Because that's the pass code to get to Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. I know this because I spent a good chunk of my adolescence trying to beat him. If you play the game now, you almost realize how it set the tone for quicktime events. No, really. He flashes pink the moment before he hits you and you hit a direction to dodge. You do this over and over until he tires and you can hit him. Then you repeat the process. See, same idea as QTEs, it just didn't have a name back then (and was FAR harder than modern day QTEs). Then he throws in those straight punches to mix it up, but there is a rhythm to it and once you play it enough, you pick up on it. It may have taken me many, many tries, but when I finally felled the mighty beast, it was one of the few times I stood up and cheered out loud WHILE gaming. That is how badass it made me feel. 1) Ripping Off Helios' Head - God Of War III I was really stuck on this one. God of War is a series that is filled with moments that make you feel badass. Hell, every second you play as Kratos, you feel badass. I almost went with the intro segment of God of War III, as that is about as badass as a game opening can get. But then I decided that when I got to tear off Helios' head and use it as a fucking lamp, well, that pretty much took the cake. It may not have had the scale of some of the other boss fights (like the titan), but the gore and intensity of the above moment almost went into horror movie territory. While smashing a guy's face into a rock or ripping someone in half is brutal, slowly tearing someone's head off while they are alive and screaming might be sick and psychotic. Still, I have to admit and accept the fact that it made me feel badass. And that, my friends, is exactly what we need video games to make us feel sometimes. I may be a mere mortal in my real life, but as these video game moments prove, I can escape into badassery anytime I need to. And you can, too.

6 Video Game Moments That Make You Feel Like A True Badass

5) Beating Final Boss – Asura’s Wrath