Which meaningful and memorable quotes contained in a videogame can you recall?
Video games can teach deep truths about life, society and human nature.
Which ones stand out for you?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"
Cave Johnson
So motivational and inspiring.
"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer" Javik (Mass Effect)
“A man chooses, a slave obeys.” — BioShock
From Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture, the underwater utopia gone wrong in BioShock. This is Ryan’s philosophy valuing individual freedom and rationality over collectivism and morality. I can never decide whether I agree with this or not. There's truth in it, but it can be misguided and extreme as well.
"Number One: In 1945, corporations paid 50% of federal taxes; now they pay about 5%. Number Two: In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2%... It's called consolidation; strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time." - Leo Gold in "Deus Ex"
“What is better: to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?” — Paarthurnax, Skyrim
That is the quote that stayed with me the most after 30 years of gaming. Also, fuck the Blades.
I've always thought this quote was silly, because the first one is obviously better.
Paarthurnax did atrocities. Plural. If he were born good, less people would have died horribly, which is better all around.
The quote isn't about which is more good, because yeah, obviously it would be better if no one was evil, but the quote is asking which is more praiseworthy. Do you think the person who naturally is a hero saving everyone they meet is more honourable, or is it the one who desires violence and destruction by nature and rejected that to choose to do good instead?
In a world without gold, we might have been heroes!
—Blackbeard, Assassin's Creed IV
Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle...and wonder if we'll ever get the chance to kill him.
—2B, Nier Automata
I am a potato
—GLaDOS, Portal 2
NieR: Automata is pure love, joy, and sadness, mixed with action and philosophically induced emptyness.
And this quote is just the perfect example of how strong it starts.
I know there have been a lot of great meaningful quotes in games I've played throughout the years...
But all I can remember is shit like "this guy are sick" and "Oh no! The truck have started to move!"
My all time favorite, though, is "The president has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"
“Rise and shine Mr. Freeman. [...] The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world."
KotOR 2 Kreia:
To be united by hated is a fragile alliance at best.
Apathy is death. Worse than death. Because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects
I don't trust a man that doesn't have something strange going on about him, 'cause it means he's hiding it from you. If a man's wearing his pants on his head or if he says his words backwards from time to time, you know it's all laid out there for you. But if he's friendly to strangers and keeps his home spick-and-span, more often than not he's done something even his own ma couldn't forgive.
No-bark Noonan, FNV
“Enough talk, have at you”, which is what I feel like saying every single fucking time there’s a cut scene
I have two, both from the same game and both by the same character.
It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.
And
It is a far greater victory to make another see through your eyes than to close theirs forever.
Both by Kreia from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Fantastic. Whoever wrote this had an inspired day.
Chris Avellone was the writer, he's had his hand in some incredible games
"it's my business doing pleasure with you".
@originalreader You fight like a cow - Guybrush Threepwood in Monkey Island
That's the SECOND biggest monkey head I've ever seen!
“I got TB.“
"Adopted a turtle as a pet. The average lifespan of a box turtle is fifty years. It will outlive you."
- Achievement description for "Love Turts" from Firewatch
🐢
"Protocol 3: Protect the pilot"
Instant heartbreak
From Library of Ruina. The song "And Then Is Heard No More" from the OST touches on similar themes, go look up the lyrics if you're intrigued
"My kind weren’t always like this. We weren’t always so afraid. I did what I could to set things right, yet I am still of my kind, and you know now what they did. I cannot promise our fear won’t stain your mind. And so, a choice: Are you certain you want to remember me?"
May you find your worth in the waking world
Where's that from?
Bloodborne
Pappapisshu!
"Whether we wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars. So let's get to taking out their command, one by one. Valus Ta'aurc. From what I can gather he commands the Siege Dancers from an Imperial Land Tank outside of Rubicon. He's well protected, but with the right team, we can punch through those defenses, take this beast out, and break their grip on Freehold." - Commander Zavala, Destiny 2 (RIP Lance Reddick)
"Shouldn't we wait for reinforcements?"
"I am the reinforcements."
"Tell me… Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls? They say it’s the only time when our world intersects with theirs… The only time we can feel the lingering regrets of spirits who have left our world. That is why loneliness always pervades the hour of twilight…" -Rusl, the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
As a teen I loved the ambience of Twilight Princess and as an adult I understand the strangely cathartic melancholy a lot better. This quote was the perfect thesis statement for the game and it stuck with me.
@originalreader "Everything has its beginning. But it doesn't start at "one." It starts long before that, in chaos. The world is born... from zero. The moment zero becomes one is the moment the world springs to life. One becomes two, two becomes ten, ten becomes 100. Taking it all back to one solves nothing. So long as Zero remains, one... will eventually grow to 100 again. [...] And for that reason, I'm taking it upon myself to send Zero... back to nothing." - Big Boss, Metal Gear Solid 4
War, war never changes. -Fallout
Rivaled only by "War has changed." -Solid Snake in MGS4
Made me think of this one :
War, it's fan-ta-stic !
"Just because you fear the dark does not make the light your friend."
-Sunless Skies
"If you have to kill someone - if you have to - is it somehow better to do it clean with a bullet through the head? Is it somehow worse to chop them up with an axe? And what if you have to kill ten, or a hundred, or a thousand? What if in doing it you save a thousand, or you spare ten? What if you save yourself? What is the measure of a man - or of his murder? By what insane calculus can we answer questions like these? Should we even try?" - Far Cry 2
"I don't want to get better. I want to get worse." - Disco Elysium
I loved it when gordon freeman said "..." it really stuck to me as a life changing quote.
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” - Carl Sagan (in No Man's Sky)
"Sometimes people make choices that leave them alone." - Bastion
"The Old Ones perished because they didn’t embrace change." - Aratak, Horizon Zero Dawn
Time to kick some ass and chew bubblegum. And I'm all outta gum.
"The numbers Mason! What do they mean?!" Seriously though, there are so many great quotes I can't think of any specific one.
Big Smoke : I'll have 2 number nines, a number nine large. A number six with extra dip. A number seven. Two number forty-fives, one with cheese, and a large soda.
A man chooses, slave obeys. -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
"Dream...not of what you are...but of what you want to be."
I feel such a sentiment can be misguided, because it can lead someone to be utterly discontent.
Applied properly with perspective, it can lead to discoveries about oneself, of course.
"Be safe friend, don't you dare go hollow" -Laurentius, Dark Souls
"Hatred and prejudice will never be eradicated. And witch hunts will never be about witches." - Geralt, Witcher 3
“JOSH-YOU-A”
"There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life, and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness.” from Stardew