Selfishly, I’m going to start this column off with a topic that is close to my heart: boss fights.
Ever since a small stereotyped plumber chased a manic, kidnap-frenzied monkey up a series of ramps and ladders, great boss fights have stood as one of the most consistent cornerstones in all of video games. And so here I present five of the greatest boss fights of the modern era.
1. Del Lago, Resident Evil 4
About midway through the game, the only thing keeping your character, Leon, from crossing a glum, murky lake is Del Lago, a 20-metre long, gigantic zombie-salamander mutation. Resident Evil 4‘s swamp monster is a great boss if only for the fact that you know damn well in advance there’s some real bad kind of evil lurking below the water, and in classic video game fashion it most definitely wants to eat you.
Track Del Lago with your speedboat, survive having it drag you around the lake, harpoon it in the mouth and, if knocked into the water, swim as fast as humanly possible.
2. GLaDOS/Wheatley, Portal and Portal 2
Without a doubt, two of the best video game characters ever created. GLaDOS and Wheatley work brilliantly as partners, villains, protagonists, antagonists, helpful chums, bosses, whatever the situation calls for.
Stephen Merchant and Ellen McLain do such an excellent job as the voices for these characters I wish they had their own sitcom, so I could watch it every single night.
3. The Colossi, Shadow of the Colossus
This game is nothing but boss fights and that is cool. There are more than a dozen boss fights in this game, each one more spectacular than the last, and all involve scaling the body of a giant enemy and stabbing them to death so you can absorb their precious life-juice. You’d better enjoy the view of the sprawling countryside because it’s just about the only thing that separates you from another epic boss fight in Shadow of the Colossus.
4. Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII
If you know this boss then you probably know about 90 per cent of all final boss fights from any RPG of the past ten years. First you fight his demon form, then you fight his angelic, winged form before eventually, finally, fighting his human form. You can switch this order depending on which RPG you’re playing; some bosses will be human-angel, demon, some will be demon-human-angel — it all comes out in the wash.
5. The End, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
The End is an old man who moves fairly slow and falls asleep easily. He is also one of the hardest bosses you’ll ever have to face — a crack shot sniper that can outwait you any day of the week. Your character has nothing but some makeshift spy gear to try and somehow locate The End and get the jump on him.
The battlefield here is a giant expanse of forest and if you don’t make sure to move slow and stick behind cover you’ll end up an easy target. Extremely tense.
Bonus tip: developer Kojima Productions designed Metal Gear Solid 3so that you can bypass The End boss fight completely. After arriving at his stage, players can save their game, set the PlayStation 2 clock ahead by a week then return to walk right past the corpse of The End, who had died of old age waiting for you to fight.
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