10 Video Game Bosses Defeated By A Cutscene
Video game bosses who defeated themselves.
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00:00The video game boss has changed across generations.
00:03Skill, strategy, health management and recognising attacks all play a role.
00:07But from Bowser to Arkham Asylum's Joker,
00:09the idea is to test every lesson the game hopes you've learned to that point.
00:13However, what's more rarely talked about is death by cutscene.
00:16Some go down in history, others... not so much.
00:19I'm Scott from WhatCulture.com and these are 9 Video Game Bosses Defeated by a Cutscene.
00:24Number 9, Super Joe Gibson, Bionic Commando.
00:28Bionic Commando's 3D debut was met with very mediocre reviews,
00:31despite having one of the coolest physics-based grappling hooks in gaming
00:35over a decade before they'd be everywhere like right now.
00:38The final boss sees Nathan Rad Spencer take the fight to his former comrade, Super Joe Gibson.
00:43After swinging around and dismantling several mechanical archangels,
00:47Spencer's revenge on Joe is handled away from your controller.
00:50At first, Gibson has Nathan crushed in an iron grip.
00:53Then to get on top, our hero violently headbutts his way into Joe's cockpit,
00:57finishing the job by ripping out his power core.
01:00While it may look visually impressive at first glance,
01:02the way Bionic Commando's climax pans out is just as 6 out of 10 as the rest of the game.
01:07How did we not have a final boss mechanic themed around our titular Bionic arm?
01:12Number 8, The Prophet of Truth and The Gravemind, Halo 3.
01:16For the final entry in the Halo trilogy, two primary antagonists remain.
01:20The first was The Prophet of Truth, who after backstabbing his fellow prophets,
01:23became the supreme master of the Covenant forces.
01:26The second was The Gravemind, leader of the Flood and a big ol' fleshy mess
01:30intent on consuming all organic life.
01:32Rather than bringing back the wobbly boss fights from Halo 2,
01:35Bungie instead had The Prophet killed in a cutscene.
01:37It's a fitting story culmination as the Arbiter plunges his sword through the individual
01:42who deceived and manipulated both himself and his whole race.
01:45As for The Gravemind, though, it was killed offscreen,
01:48along with the eradication of the Flood at the game's conclusion.
01:51While players did briefly fight 343 Guilty Spark in the final moments,
01:55there was no similar fight with these other long-form foes.
01:58Halo 3 was a life-defining release, regardless of how everything wrapped up,
02:02and it's down to you in the comments.
02:04Would you rather have fought these two enemies, or were you happy with the way it went down?
02:08Number 7, The Elders, XCOM 2.
02:10XCOM Enemy Unknown had a final boss in the form of the Uber Ethereal,
02:14the leader of the initial invasion.
02:16With a higher health pool and psychic psionic attacks that rarely miss,
02:19it's a suitably climactic battle to one of the best turn-based strategy games ever made.
02:24Enter XCOM 2, a sequel that by many accounts just couldn't keep that momentum up.
02:28Putting you up against three stand-in avatars for the big finish, one for each Elder alien,
02:33once they were down, that was it.
02:34A final cutscene shows you resisting and finally overcoming the Elders' own mind control
02:38as you escape the base for good.
02:40Considering how hard-fought a victory can be in any XCOM, let alone this much-hyped sequel,
02:45the backlash was so substantial that Firaxis released the immaculate War of the Chosen expansion,
02:50introducing three unique new opponents who could show up on missions,
02:53the Assassin, the Hunter, and the Warlock.
02:55It's up for debate whether any of this would have even been created
02:58if the original game had nailed its ending.
03:01Number 6, The Locust Queen, Gears of War 3.
03:04The Locust Queen is a consistent presence throughout the Gears trilogy,
03:07often narrating why the Locust are your main enemies in the first place.
03:11After first seeing the Queen at the close of Gears 1,
03:13come Gears 3, it was time to kill her and the Locust off for good.
03:17For the final encounter, however, you'll be fighting the Queen's monstrous mount, the Tempest.
03:21Not exactly cut out for combat, downing the Tempest takes gameplay away
03:25as the Queen gets stabbed by Marcus Fenix using best friend Dom's knife.
03:29It's a supremely sweet moment to watch as the Queen dies along with the Locust and the Lambent,
03:34purging the planet Serra of all deadly threats, at least for that particular trilogy.
03:39Number 5, Atok Navarro, Uncharted Drake's Fortune.
03:43Typically, Uncharted games rely on two main antagonists,
03:46with the first game featuring Roman,
03:48a rival treasure hunter tipped off by Nate's mentor Sully,
03:51and Atok Navarro, leader of a band of mercenaries and Roman's right-hand man.
03:55For most of the game, Atok hovers over Roman's shoulder,
03:58guiding him towards the El Dorado treasure.
04:00However, in the final moments, he tricks this explorer and takes the statue for himself.
04:05Reaching Navarro's tanker, it's time for a showdown.
04:07You fight your way through the most difficult enemies in the game
04:10and reach the other end for the climax.
04:12However, after a weird cover-system-based advance and a quick-time event,
04:15Navarro is dragged into the ocean along with the El Dorado statue,
04:19as Nate's shoulder barges a helicopter into the sea, killing him off in a cinematic.
04:23Number 4, Harley Quinn, Batman Arkham Asylum.
04:26Thanks to Margot Robbie's portrayal across the DCEU,
04:29it's easy to forget Tara Strong's iconic take across Batman animation,
04:33and specifically the Arkham series.
04:35Beginning with Arkham Asylum, she proves a major thorn in Batman's side,
04:39triggering the Joker's takeover of the prison and kidnapping the warden, Quincy Sharp.
04:43After being tracked to the main penitentiary, Harley is finally cornered in the control room.
04:48Quinn has never been a match for Batman in physical combat,
04:51so the cutscene that follows is very fitting.
04:53After taking out her goons, Harley flips towards the Caped Crusader for one final attack,
04:57only to be immediately countered and subdued.
05:00This would become a running gag across the Arkham trilogy,
05:02with Arkham Knight even having Batman sling Harley over his shoulder,
05:06simply because she presents zero real threat.
05:08Number 3, Elliot Salem, Army of Two, The Devil's Cartel
05:12Of all the co-operative shooters that try to get you and a friend on board,
05:16Army of Two was one of the first, putting players in the shoes of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem.
05:20While it delivered a pretty unique feeling co-op experience with dual emotes and lots of team tactics,
05:25the end result never fully shook that lukewarm critical reception.
05:29Army of Two ended up getting three main entries, which all settled into the AA space quite nicely.
05:34As former PMC operatives turned mercenaries tackle threats for the highest bidder,
05:38the most well-received was Army of Two, The Fortieth Day, which saw Salem turn on his former partner.
05:43Elliot ended up going insane after Tyson abandoned him in combat to save a hostage.
05:47Thus, he becomes a main antagonist later on in Army of Two, The Devil's Cartel.
05:51In one of the game's many disappointing elements, though, you don't even get to battle Salem,
05:56as instead you fight through scores of foot soldiers instead.
05:59With Salem wounded among some flaming wreckage, he ends up being hauled off by Mexico's Special Forces,
06:04providing an anticlimactic end to both The Devil's Cartel and the series as a whole.
06:13In the original Ratchet & Clank, the duo went head-to-head with Chairman Drek,
06:16the corrupt leader of the Blog who sought to construct a new settlement from the pieces of other planets.
06:21The final battle unfolded fittingly on Ratchet's home planet of Veldin.
06:25Some 14 years later, though, the original game in the series got an updated facelift for the PlayStation 4.
06:30For this awesome 2016 remake, many changes were made to levels and story,
06:35with a narrative voiceover approach that let Insomniac address the past while preparing for the future.
06:40While he appears to be the main primary antagonist, Drek is now unceremoniously written out the story
06:45when Dr. Nefarious turns him into a sheep and shoots him out an airlock.
06:49While this twist may have landed well enough with younger audiences, long-term fans had mixed reactions.
06:54Abruptly swapping to supposed fan favourite Dr. Nefarious was fine enough,
06:58but the final encounter felt rushed as hell.
07:05While Aliens is an undisputed classic of sci-fi cinema,
07:08Gearbox's outsourcing development of the much-anticipated Colonial Marines
07:12marked one of the most notoriously bad releases of all time.
07:16Misrepresented and misleading to the fanbase, it was a colossal disappointment.
07:20The few ambitious moments this had were swamped by poor programming, atrocious AI and a supreme lack of polish.
07:26In addition, Colonial Marines focused far too much on battling generic Weyland-Yutani mercenaries rather than the Xenomorphs.
07:32Slogging your way through this disappointing game isn't even worth the effort, as the climactic boss fight is pitiful too.
07:38After battling your way through the ruined surface of LV-426, it's time to make an escape.
07:43Much like the 1986 movie though, the Xenomorph Queen is right there to block your path.
07:48Now, you'd think a final encounter with the Queen would be a worthy showdown.
07:51Maybe use a power rig to smash its gooey face in, but no.
07:55Much like the rest of the game, it's hopelessly disappointing, letting you engage by just hitting some switches.
08:01Afterwards, the nastiest Xenomorph of them all is just taken care of by the commanding officer instead.
08:07And those were just nine video game bosses defeated by a cutscene.
08:10Let me know your favourites, or the ones you hate the most, down in the comments below.
08:14Also, please subscribe to the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, as we have three shows a week,
08:17with myself, Josh Brown, James Dowse, and of course, Jules Gill.
08:21For now, I've been Scott from WhatCulture.com, and I'll catch you soon.