Hold the Line: Difference between revisions

[[File:redline.jpg|frame|"The Thin Red Line", by Robert Gibb<ref>No, it's not [[The Bee Gees|who you're thinking of]].</ref>]]

 

 

 

This is common in [[Real Time Strategy]], where success usually required a balance between creating defensive structures and units to protect your objective, and scouting out and eliminating enemy bases to reduce their number. It also crops up in [[First-Person Shooter]] games, most commonly as an objective-based multiplayer gametype.

Sometimes it might be linked to an [[Escort Mission]], where you have to escort someone to a location, and then protect them while they (for example), hack into the enemy's computer system.

 

 

When the "objective" is to kill the enemies, you got yourself a [[Multi Mook Melee]].

== Fighting Game ==

 

 

== First Person Shooter ==

** Any ''HL2'' player's hatred for the pesky turret guns that [[Weak Turret Gun|fall over if you look at them wrong]] will be raised to the power of itself after the level in Nova Prospekt where they are hacked to be on your side and need to be used to keep the baddies at bay. The hacking does not improve their stability.

* The game ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'', includes a mission called "One Shot, One Kill." You and a wounded partner attempt to defend a landing zone next to the famous ferris wheel near Chernobyl.

** In fact, there isn't a game in the ''Call of Duty'' series without at least a couple spots where you have to stop advancing and defend a position. Many of these follow a pattern: Get to the place you're defending, survive the infantry attacks until the enemies deploy armor and/or heavy weapons, then destroy the heavies to win the battle.

*** Or, in the case of levels like [[Modern Warfare|Loose Ends]], get the hell out.

* ''[[Halo]]'' multiplayer has a bunch of these for their objective games; notably [[Capture the Flag]], Assault, which involves one team trying to bomb the other, and Land Grab/Territories, which fits this trope to a tee as it involves holding parts of the map to stop the other team from capturing it.

** The single player campaigns have several examples of this too, for example, parts of the second mission of ''Combat Evolved'', and the last part of "Sacred Icon" in ''2''.

* Each of the finales from the Campaign mode of ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' involves one of these situations, wherein the Survivors must fend of literally ''hundreds'' of Horde and ''dozens'' of Special Zombies until some form of evac arrives.

** Specifically, it's two Hordes and two Tanks, alternately.

* This is ''[[Halo 3: ODST]]'''s Firefight mode in a nutshell. 5 waves of enemies in a round, 3 rounds in a set, infinite sets in a game. Of course, they also activate skulls as you complete rounds and sets. Getting one of the seven Vidmaster achievements (you need all seven to unlock the Recon armor for multiplayer matches in Halo 3) requires a four player team to finish the fourth set on Heroic difficulty (which is easier than the first version, which required getting though the seventh set on Legendary. Good thing it was changed before release). A Firefight game ends in one of two ways: Everybody leaves, or everybody dies (or someone without a 360 hard drive, which is needed to play co-op, joins the game and causes it to abort).

** Similarly, the epilogue of ''[[Halo: Reach]]''. [[Failure Is the Only Option]].

* Part of the Assault gametype in both ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'' and ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004]]'', which re-enacts a 'historic' battle, and each team trades off attacking and defending sides. The first attacking team can get a serious advantage if performing well in their round, as defenders they only have to hold the line for the amount of time their victory took.

** In ''2004'' and ''[[Unreal Tournament 3|UT3]]'', holding the line is a good Onslaught tactic for the side that already has the points to win. A team with control of a Leviathan, and a coordinated defense, can simply count frags until the clock runs out.

== MMORPG ==

 

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' loves this trope both in missions and challenges. Two that immediately spring to mind are the Factions mission "Arborstone" where the player must defend a character who is casting a spell to open a door, and the Prophecies mission "Sanctum Cay", where players must hold off waves of bad guys on a beach as a mage stands on a pier summoning a magical ship so that the party can escape.

* ''[[Monster Hunter]]'' goes in this direction when you fight certain gigantic monsters, namely the huge crab Shen Gaoren, and the even bigger dragon Lao-Shan Lung. Instead of hunting them like you do with other monsters, the creature shows up at one end of a linear area, and past multiple obstacles is a fort on the other end of the map. You have to prevent it from destroying the fort, by either killing it before the timer runs out, or repelling it by dealing enough damage that when the timer hits 0, it flees. If you run out of time before damaging the monster enough, get knocked out three times, or let the fort get destroyed, you lose.

** Mind you, you ''can'' win these scenarios by destroying all enemy runes, but good lucky pulling that off on the higher difficulty levels.

* Several randomly-selected missions for conquering unoccupied territories in the ''[[Rise of Nations]]'' map campaign, as well as the first mission of the Napoleon campaign in the expansion, require defending a base (or several) against the barbarians/Royalist insurgents.

** Some lines removed from the final version suggested that was the intention.

*** The third mission in ''Starcraft 2'' is basically the exact same battle being fought over the same ground. Wiping out the Zerg bases nets you achievement points.

** The final mission in Brood War's Protoss campaign is a version of this: you have to get your two hero units to a structure, then they go inside it, then you have to defend that structure until the task is complete.

* ''[[Age of Mythology]]'' has a few. The first mission of the main campaign involves holding off the pirates until the main army shows up, the mission after the Norse gate is destroyed is to hold off the bad guy's horde until Odysseus comes and rescues you, in one mission of the Titans campaign you have to hold off the giant troll until the good frost giant can summon the dragon to kill it, etc. etc.

* ''[[Sacrifice]]'' does this in Pyro's seventh and ninth missions. In his seventh, you're being attacked by two wizards who both have way bigger armies than you; after five minutes, one of them disappears, and after a further ten (or if you manage to get near her altar) the other one snuffs it in mysterious circumstances. In the ninth, you have to fight off three wizards, one of whom was supposed to be on your side; after ten or so minutes, Acheron explodes because his God dies, making it (at least technically) possible to deal with the other two.

** Oh, and Charnel's fifth mission has you desperately trying to defend a scythe that's having a demon summoned into it from a pair of righteous wizards. When the ritual is done, you get to use it against your tormentors.

** In ''Generals'' the Chinese had to defend a nuclear plant from the GLA until reinforcements, in the form of one bulldozer, can arrive.

** And in ''Command and Conquer 3'', a GDI campaign mission had you holding off Nod forces until reinforcements (in the form of an MCV) arrived. The catch was that thanks to low power, only a few of your defense buildings could be working at one time.

* ''[[Fable]]: The Lost Chapters'' has a side-quest wherein the player must protect an NPC while she recites a complicated spell.

** ''Fable 2'' has you defending Hannah aka Hammer from zombies as she fills a jug.

* One of the final missions in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' pits [[Fur Against Fang|you against a Werewolf]]. Since a Werewolf is effectively invulnerable and kills you with two or three blows, your only hope is to evade it for full four minutes until the tram that brought you there returns. Unless, of course, you looked up {{spoiler|the way to kill it by crushing it with observatory doors}} [[Guide Dang It|in a walkthrough, you cheater]].

** An earlier sidequest pitted you against a [[Zombie Apocalypse|whole cemetery of zombies]], whom you had to keep away from the gates for five minutes, until the real caretaker returned. The problem was that there are ''two'' gates on the opposite sides of the graveyard, an you have to defend them both against exponentially growing hordes of zombies...

* The final chapter of Gustave's storyline in ''[[SaGa Frontier 2]]'' is a hold-the-line tactical battle, in contrast to the previous tactical battles. It could be won outright (in fact, the game has defeating the enemies as one victory condition), but this required a great deal of luck and would make holding the line impossible if unsuccessful.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': Despite being the current page quote for the trope, the mission [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXLVFnl3WcE that speech] occurs during is a quasi-aversion; it's an ordinary mission for you, though it's implied that the NPCs offscreen are going through one on your behalf. However, there is a DLC mission, where you take on a simulation, of a mission by one of your commanders, which involves you waiting for 4 minutes fighting off wave after wave of enemies.

** Human mooks [[Most Annoying Sound|scream this endlessly]] while attacking.

** The sequel has multiple missions of this type. The most memorable is probably the defense of Archangel, where you fend off an entire army of mercenaries trying to kill the local [[Vigilante Man]].

** [[Deadly Doctor|Mordin]] (who used to work with Kirrahe) uses this as an infrequent [[Catch Phrase]]. If you let him {{spoiler|get killed, it's even his last words}}. Of course when you first mention Kirrahe to Mordin, the good doctor mentions how he did find the speeches somewhat stirring ... if [[Big Ham|excessive]].

** Parodied in the ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'' DLC, which includes dossiers on all the crew. Mordin's has a mission summary where he works with Kirrahe. Kirrahe repeatedly "reiterates the importance of holding the line," despite the fact that there is no line, and if there was it wouldn't need to be held.

** The second time occurs during the salarian homeworld; Sur'Kesh {{spoiler|Your goal here is to guard the female krogan against several Cerberus enemy soldiers}}

** All multiplayer missions end with one of these as you wait for extraction from the area.

* Many ''[[Gradius]]'' games have penultimate bosses that are huge, walk around slowly, and in most cases fall under this; they cannot be harmed by your weapons, only waited out until they self-destruct.

** And the infamous [[That One Level|Cube Rush]] in ''Gradius III Arcade'''s Crystal stage. The first game also did this with waves of a certain type of [[Mook]] before each fight with the Big Core.

 

== Simulation Game ==

* One of the few mission types in ''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X'', so expect to see it several times. Can either take the form of keeping waves of enemy air, ground or naval forces away from an important stationary object, or an [[Escort Mission]] where you babysit a big plane (a bomber, an AWACS, or {{spoiler|Air Force One}}).

* Used several times during the course of the ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' series of games. One Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries mission had an incredibly short briefing that invoked this trope by name.

* Nav Alpha lights up on the map. It is surrounded [[Oh Crap|by a dozen enemy contact signatures]].* }}

 

== Stealth Based Game ==

 

** One boss in ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' cannot be hit at all; all you can do is dodge attacks until you get an important codec call.

 

* There are several of these in ''[[Fire Emblem]]''. The fourth mission of ''Blazing Sword'', for example, has you protecting an injured woman from bandits in a crumbling building.

** ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Radiant Dawn]]'' had a literal hold the line chapter, in which there was a thin blue line that that your Lord could not cross (your Lord receives a long-range magic spell to make up for this) and no enemies could be allowed to cross - this became rather annoying when enemies that could fly appeared - since you would never have enough people to cover every block of the line, you would often fail the chapter when one of the hawks decided to attack one of the people holding the line, causing a Game Over instantly, when the hawk in question had 1HP left.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' has a few missions where the enemy needs to be kept away from a certain area. Which is easier than it sounds because the AI doesn't seem to know that and will simply fight as usual. Just make sure the AI doesn't walk in there because of facing advantages... Not all of them are timed, mind you. Some of them require you to both defend a specific area AND defeat all the enemies.

** ''[[Jeanne D'Arc]]'' has several of these missions, such as defending the gates of orleans or keeping alive with no room for error.

== Turn Based Tactics ==

 

** This is mostly true for most of the games in the X-COM series and even lots of those inspired by it. In ''[[X-COM]]: Terror from the Deep'' this unsurprisingly is pretty much the same as in the original. In Apocalypse, you actually take the fight to the enemy after a while (however, mostly you'll be holding the line at home while you carry out covops-style missions in the alien dimension. And the only way to actually win is to destroy the one last buildings the aliens have - and you can't skip buildings). In ''[[X-COM]]: Interceptor'' you are delaying the {{spoiler|construction of a planet destroyer weapon designed to eliminate Earth (which is out of reach for the player)}}. In UFO: Extraterrestrials, you are holding the line to prevent the alien mothership {{spoiler|which is parked near Earth (the game itself is set on a far away colony of Esperanza) from refuelling after being attacked by Earths [[La Résistance]]}}. Again, in the end you go and kick their ass. Most of the time though, you are fighting against better equipped and numerous aliens which are out of your reach.

 

** Black Watch's whole [[Badass Creed|"We are Black Watch, we are the last line of defense. We will burn our own to hold the Red Line, it is the last line to ever hold"]] deal.

 

 

 

* The Crown Game in ''[[Tower of God]]'' consists of getting on the throne and wearing the crown and then defending it from all the other trios. It is set in five rounds a ten minutes with new contestants being able to enter each new round and the crown holder being the only ones who entered who are allowed to proceed to the next round, where they had to defend the crown. This lead to such moments as [[Magnificent Bastard|Koon's]] glorious trolling, [[Mysterious Woman|Hwa Ryun's]] [[Curb Stomp Battle]] against everyone, the (re)introduction of several characters and a glimpse of the main characters potential.

 

 

* [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|Yu-Gi-Oh]] players who use cards such as Exodia and Final Countdown need to stay alive long enough complete its requirements. Exodia requires the player to collect all 5 Exodia cards, and Final Countdown requires the player to last at least 20 turns to win the duel. Players who use them would usually wall themselves with monsters with high ATK or DEF till they can complete all the requirements.

 

 

* The victory condition in ''Infernal Contraption'' is to be the last one with cards remaining in your Parts Pile.

 

 

* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', the final battle of the Earth-Minbari war is ''The Battle of the Line'', a massing of Humanity's remaining ships in an attempt to hold off the Minbari for as long as possible to evacuate as much of Earth's population as can be. At the end of the battle the Minbari surrendered to the badly beaten Earth forces.

* The battles at the end of seasons [[Series Fauxnale|5]] and [[Series Finale|7]] of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' have elements of this, as they have to hold back forces that only have a certain time window to achieve their tasks. Buffy even says the trope name to Faith as she hands over the leadership after being {{spoiler|almost}} mortally wounded.

 

 

* [[Toto|Love isn't always on time. Woah, woah, woah.]]

 

 

* The Greeks at Thermopylae and Artemesium attempted this tactic during the Second Greco-Persian War. The fleet at Artemeisum managed to hold their line. [[300|The Spartans at Thermopylae...]] [[Last Stand|not so much.]]

* The "Thin Red Line" at the Battle of Balaclava, 1854. The [[Badass Army|93rd]] [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Highlander]] [[The British Empire|Regiment]] in a two-man deep firing line successfully routed a Russian cavalry charge, saving the vulnerable British camp in the process.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]

[[Category:Strategy Game Tropes]]