Top 5 Acts of Sheer Patriotism

Greetings, fellow lovers of liberty. Today is a very special day. A day of joy and celebration for Americans the whole world over. Because today…is every day. Every day you wake up an American is a day worth celebrating.

But every once in a while an American citizen goes above and beyond the call of freedom and commits an act of exceptional patriotism, one worth honoring with beer and fireworks for all time. So I present to you this Top 5 list of awe-inspiring patriotic acts by the greatest video game Americans of all time. Because as everyone knows: the best Americans are fictional Americans.

5. Fallout 4

Liberty Prime stops to salute Bunker Hill in the middle of a one-man nuclear rampage

Some have questioned the authenticity of patriotism coming from a machine. Such doubting notions reek of communism, and offend the heavenly nostrils of Uncle Sam. So long as the love of freedom and the American way shines in their heart/beryllium agitator, patriotism can come in any shape and size. In Liberty Prime’s case, that patriotism is loud, thermonuclear, and 40 feet tall.

Liberty Prime’s operational history is a glorious parade of heroism and service to his country, but one moment in particular stands out as simply, but inspiringly patriotic.

(SPOILERS, citizens!) While liberating Boston from communist aggressors, his programmed route happens to take him past Bunker Hill, a memorial to a great battle of the Revolutionary War. Now as everyone knows, communism is a relentless scourge that must be weeded out wherever and whenever it rears its oppressive head, and there was no time for Liberty Prime to dally. But at the sight of this great memorial to sacrifice and bravery, our ironclad hero couldn’t help himself. He paused for a moment from his fiery march of justice, turned towards the mighty obelisk, and gave a hearty salute to the honored dead. As he resumed his reign of atomic justice, he reminded everyone in earshot that honoring the fallen is the duty of every red-blooded American. (SPOILERS END!)

Truism, Liberty Prime. That includes ones with no actual red blood in them. And indeed, democracy is non-negotiable.

4. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Sergeant Rex Power Colt doesn’t do drugs

Even in the far future of 2007, our armed forces fight for our freedom and the continuance of the American dream. Meet Sergeant Rex Power Colt, a top-of-the-line Mark IV cyber commando with enough cybernetic enhancements to improve his combat skill, but not enough dampen his human American spirit.

Case in point: when his former commanding officer Ike Sloane goes rogue and supercharges himself with dragon blood, the pantywaist Canuck scientist Dr. Darling tempts Sgt. Colt with a dragon blood cocktail, claiming it will make him as powerful as Sloane. But Sgt. Colt knew better. He knew that this Cankie temptress was really offering him was only thing more destructive to the American way than communism: drugs. And drugs, inevitably, would lead to something even worse: communism.

So Sgt. Colt told that flim-flamming Puck-chaser what for: that he swore a solemn oath to Lady Liberty to always be a winner, and that winners don’t do drugs.

You tell ‘er, Sergeant. While American heroes like him exist, those drug-peddling Shoobies will never poison our precious way of life. Damn Canadians. Build the wall!

3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Senator Armstrong punts a cyborg into the side of a giant robot while campaigning to make America great again

Steven Armstrong had the epitome of an American upbringing. Born and raised in Texas, he became a star football player for the Texas Longhorns before leaving to serve in the U.S. Navy. He then went into politics and was elected Senator of Colorado, and then set his sights on the Presidency itself. He was a driven, focused, and courageous leader fought to restore the American Dream restore his country to its former glory.

This man is the perfect American. So what does one pick as the ultimate act of patriotism in a lifetime of exceptional Americanism?

One time comes to mind. It was when he was trying to explain his plans for a better America to some pretty-boy cyborg ninja who was trying to assassinate him. Senator Armstrong tried to reason with him, but this gutless mercenary had not a drop of red white and blue blood in his body, and had no ear for the irrefutable logic of democracy. Now, this ninja was almost all machine, with the most advanced robotics available and wielding a vibrating sword that could cut through anything. Our Senator, toned and fit as he was, was an unarmed middle-aged man only lightly enhanced with nanomachines.

So what did Senator Armstrong do? When words failed and the remorseless killer prepared to strike, he summoned up the old football champion in him and gave the cowardly ninja a mighty shoulder tackle. He then tore off the assassin’s mask, punched him in the face, threw him in the air, and on the way down, he punted the bishie runt into the side of a giant robot.

If ever a man deserved the vote…remember him, fellow patriots. Remember his sacrifice. He died a true American: shirtless and beating up ninjas barehanded.

2. Wolfenstein: The New Order

J plays the star-spangled-banner on electric guitar while being gunned down by future-nazis

(SPOILERS, lovers of exceptional shooters!)

Not all patriots need to be fighters. This patriot was barely an American. The musician known only as J was a hippie and a pacifist, two repulsive character flaws that turn otherwise good Americans into preachy communists-in-training. But two things redeem J and put him at the penultimate spot on our list:

He had a legendary hatred of Nazis, which almost as good as Commie hatred. His death was quite possibly the most patriotic death of all gaming time.

When the robo-nazis stormed the rebel hideout he was in, J found himself trapped in his room and completely surrounded. BJ Blaskowitz, a certified American legend whose own patriotic acts are too many to count, offered to help him escape. Any sensible man would have taken that offer. But that day, J decided to be an American.

Instead of running, he put on his electric guitar, turned up his sound system as high as it would go, and started playing The Star Spangled Banner. Berlin echoed with the heavenly sounds of freedom. When the Nazis broke down his door, they had no idea what an electric guitar was and feared the power of his rocking. They shot him down, thinking it was a weapon. And it weapon it was: a mighty axe to dispel the cold, torpid silence of all lesser -isms, and in his final moments, J let freedom ring.

Most Patriotic Act of Sheer Patriotism:

Broforce

After saving the world from terrorists, aliens, and the forces of Satan, you are appointed emperor of the world, high-five the president, get invited by Jesus to live in Texas with him, and after all that’s done, you piss on Satan’s grave

I can’t do it. I can’t go on. Something that American brings tears to my eyes. No explanation of mine can improve that. Just go play the game. On Hard Mode, you pansy, or you won’t get that ending.

America.