15 Most Cinematic Gaming Moments
Awe-inspiring game bits we bet you'll recognise...
BY Sep 16th 2009 15:15PMFILED UNDER: Features
User Comments (11)
We love movies and games at totalfilm.com.
With Gamer on the horizon, we've decided to celebrate the moments when games and movies converge, creating scenes that'd look as good on cinema screens as they do on our battered portable tellies.
So, rest your joypad on one knee, rest your DVD remote on the other knee, and join in. How many have you played?
BioShock (2007)
The Moment
After miraculously escaping a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean, our hero Jack swims towards a mysterious lighthouse.
Inside he finds a bathysphere that plunges him deep below the sea.
As he descends a film plays of enigmatic entrepreneur Andrew Ryan describing his underwater Objectivist paradise, Rapture.
And as the haunting orchestral score begins to swell and Ryan's speech reaches its rhapsodic peak, the screen drops to reveal the city in all its Art Deco glory.
At once beautiful and intimidating, the city is one of the most evocative video game settings of all time.
Cinematic Equivalent
The first time we see Ridley Scott's vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in Blade Runner (1982).
The camera glides slowly across the city, past smoke-stacks belching flames into the polluted air, as Vangelis' stirring title theme reaches its crescendo.
Just like our introduction to Rapture, the scene is beautiful, but with an ominous quality.
Something's clearly not right with either city, and as we make our journey inside – as both Deckard and Jack - we learn exactly what that is.
Next: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Print Comments (11)
1: MattMaytum says
Great feature. Makes me really want to play all those games.
Posted: Sep 17th 2009 // 11:50AMAlert a moderator
2: MattMaytum says
Great feature, makes me really want to play all those games!
Posted: Sep 17th 2009 // 11:50AMAlert a moderator
3: sowasred2012 says
Would've picked a different moment from MGS4 - the battle with Snake/Rex vs. Liquid/Ray at Shadow Moses follows up with the most incredible cutscene as Snake defeats Liquid, only for him to go jump off into Arsenal Gear at which point Snake pretty much gives up.
Up steps Raiden, who cuts off his own arm (he was caught beneath falling debris in their fight) to get into the action, and then (literally) single-handedly stops this Titanic-sized ship from destroying Snake.
Not entirely sure what that could be compared to in a movie, maybe Randy Quaid's sacrifice at the end of Independence Day, but turned up to 11.
Posted: Sep 17th 2009 // 11:56AMAlert a moderator
4: Buried At Sea says
the intro to dead space was the only good bit from the game. such a piece of s**t.
Posted: Sep 17th 2009 // 6:50PMAlert a moderator
5: TheTingler says
Medal of Honor: FRONTLINE?! I think you should go back and play Medal of Honor: Allied Assault instead. Frontline was the crappy console equivant. Allied Assault was the PC version which was made by a team that immediately split from EA after finishing it and formed Infinity Ward, creators of Call of Duty. Allied Assault is unofficially the first Call of Duty game, then.
Allied Assault also had the Omaha landing, but it wasn't a stupid tutorial mission. It was several missions in and re-created it perfectly, including all the Saving Private Ryan moments.
Posted: Sep 17th 2009 // 11:05PMAlert a moderator
6: hreyy says
Wait theres no Halo 1 FIRST time you encounter the flood? LMAOO fail
Posted: Sep 18th 2009 // 3:25AMAlert a moderator
7: somewhatfrail says
Great article guys.
Call Of Duty 4 is jampacked full of film references, I absolutely love it.
'Crew Expendable' - Alien. And the line of dialogue "I like to keep this for close encounters" while pulling out a shotgun being lifted straight from Michael Beihn in Aliens.
'Charlie Don't Surf' - Apocalypse Now.
'No Fighting In The War Room' - Dr. Strangelove.
Also, Spielberg actually wrote the first MoH games so it's unsurprising to see so many things in those games which feel all too Ryan-esque.
Posted: Sep 18th 2009 // 12:42PMAlert a moderator
8: somewhatfrail says
Oh, and in CoD: World At War there is an Xbox achievement called Saved Private Ryan. XD haha
Posted: Sep 18th 2009 // 12:43PMAlert a moderator
9: KerrAvon says
No Knights of the Old Republic? Pity. Better script, acting and effects than all 3 prequels but its easy to bash the prequels because they are awful. Should check out the Conflict series, Vietnam for all the Apocalypse Now references and Desert Storm for the Black Hawk Down ones, or just shout your own with a mater "Charlie's in the trees!"
Posted: Sep 18th 2009 // 11:40PMAlert a moderator
10: shinysavage says
No love for Mass Effect? Plenty of cinematic moments there - the Salarian captain's speech to the troops, the first time you see Sovereign (in game, at least), the final space battle over the Citadel, the first jump in a mass relay, the Mako getting catapulted out of the mass relay to the Citadel...
Or Halo 3, and the first Scorpion fight. Epic stuff.
Good list though.
Posted: Sep 20th 2009 // 8:37PMAlert a moderator
11: bentgaga says
Wow I thought that as well with COD MW somewhatfrail
I love it when stuff like this is done, makes everything so much more exciting
I hope COD MW2 exceeds all expectations..
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