Top 5 Badasses in Video Games
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
4) Nathan Drake – Uncharted Series
Did someone order a tall glass of handsome? Also, I crashed your plane
I love me some Indiana Jones, so it was no surprise that fell head over heels for Uncharted. With campy but solid dialogue, intense action, and the best set-pieces ever seen in gaming, this was the killer app for the PS3 for this here gamer.
Nathan Drake, the Han Solo-esque tomb raider, galavants around the world stealing priceless artifacts from various ruins, all while dodging bullets and wooing ladies. It was the realized fantasy of at least one billion men. Given how well the games did globally, I feel justified in saying that.
Over the course of three titles, I think it’s fair to say that Drake brutally killed at least a thousand people. He breaks necks, snipes, assaults and explodes soldiers and pirates and thieves and monsters. Though Nathan does express some sense of fear when dealing with the supernatural creatures in the series, he is never put off by the mere mortals at the wrong end of his guns.
Man, I can’t even wait to shoot you in the face
Nathan is every bit the action hero, joking during the pauses and flinging out killer zingers after dispatching particularly heinous baddies. And while there are some dramatic action sequences, the violence never rises above the par of a decent adventure film.
In his most epic scene, Nathan chases after a cargo plane headed off toward an unknown treasure. He has, at this time, already conquered an entire base-full of henchmem. After crashing a car onto the back of the plane, Nathan fights with a dozen goons as the craft climbs higher and higher over the desert. Then comes the boss.
Welcome to THUNDERPLANE
A huge soldier, all head scarfs and muscles, knocks the weapon from Nathan’s hands and begins pummeling him into the floor of the plane. The cargo door remains open as a brutal hand-to-hand battle ensues. Just as the fight seems lost, an explosion cripples the aircraft and puts it into a deadly dive. Most heroes would choose this moment for a hasty retreat, but not Nathan.
All of his fucks were checked with the baggage, and he has none left aboard. Nathan shoves the hulking boss from the flight and dives after a cargo container, letting the plane explode in the air above him. He catches up to the container in free-fall and pulls the chute, landing hard on the dunes below.
Never flying Air Crashalot again
Nathan’s adventures do put him at odds with a few humanoid monstrosities, but he is always able to match them with a simple combo of bullets and bombs. Not all heroes face such easy foes.