6 Video Game Moments I Did Not See Coming

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People usually love a good plot twist, an unexpected development or genuine moment of intrigue in their video games (unless you're an obsessive Call of Duty fan, in which case mind-numbing repetition is more your thing), and there's been a few that have caught me out good and proper.

It's these moments that can make you realise why gaming is awesome (apart from the Streets of Rage moment listed below).

GLaDOS wants you dead
(Portal - PS3)

A completely new IP with a complete new kind of premise, Portal won the hearts of many- not only with its innovative gameplay, but also with it's sense of humour, capitulated in the sarcastic voice which follows you around the Aperture Science test centre. This was the voice of GLaDOS.



Should I be concerned?

It's electronic, auto-tune-style voice always lead me to believe that she/it was some sort of robot or articifical intelligence (AI) talking to you- however, I maintained that it was simply a comedy "character" thrown in to add a bit of personality to a game with virtually no plot.

GLaDOS is basically the worst kind of jealous ex-girlfriend that you can imagine, whose malevolence and piercing neuroticism knows no bounds (in fact- no, no, that probably really is your ex-girlfriend). Just like your ex, when she's not busy berating your inferior intelligence, insulting your weight and generally belittling your existence, she also- like your ex- wants you dead.

Yes, your bum does look big in that outfit.

That's right- toward the end of the game, as GLaDOS leads you out of the last test chamber on a moving platform, promising you delicious cake, it soon emerges that she is actually steering you toward a fiery furnace.

In fact, it emerges that the reason why you're the only test subject left is because she murdered the rest of them by flooding the facility with neurotoxin. GLaDOS is your ex to the extent that she hooked up with all your work mates, destroyed them all emotionally and then destroyed them all physically- and then came after you.

How's that for closure?

Knuckles used to be a bad guy
(Sonic 3 - Sega Megadrive)

I grew up playing the classic 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Sega Megadrive. However, as I was six in 1996 when I got my first Megadrive, it meant that all the Sonic games had been released years ago. So, I had some catching up to do. I played Sonic 1, then Sonic 2 a few years later, and then freaked out when I found out that there was such a game as Sonic & Knuckles in a Littlewoods catalog back in like 1999/2000.

At this point, I only knew of Knuckles from reading issues of Sonic the Comic UK. In the comic, he was an (albeit awkward) ally of Sonic- so he was cool.

Yeah that's it, Sonic & Knuckles takin' names and-
wait what the, is that a rabbit in a leather jacket?

 Then I discovered that there was a Sonic 3 not long after, and that it came before Sonic & Knuckles, meaning that I had the timeline all wrong. Moreover, when you first encounter Knuckles in Sonic 3, he was out to get you.

Turns out that Knuckles is dumb, and that his parents never taught him not to talk to strangers, or to fat, suspicious-looking men with ginger moustaches floating around in egg-shaped aircraft who build weapons of mass destruction on your island- so when the fittingly-described Dr. Robotnik turned up on Knuckles' island, he managed to trick Knuckles into basically believing that Sonic was some sort of terrorist invading his island in search of his precious Chaos Emeralds.

Haters gonna hate.

Knuckles responds to this by hunting you down with the kind of blind,unbridled, unjustified bloodlust not seen again until George Bush Jr. in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, Robotnik basically constructs the Death Star on Knuckles' island without him noticing. What a tool.


You can go back to Kanto
(Pokemon Silver - Gameboy Color)

I spent many, many hours playing Pokemon Blue as a child. It consumed so much of my time, and was constantly on my mind whenever I wasn't playing it. So naturally when I got Pokemon Silver back in 2001, my life had found new meaning, with the promise of 250 Pokemon to catch/train/abuse and a whole new region called Johto which you can explore.

So I battled my way to the end, beat the Elite Four and sighed a contented, yet somewhat mournful sigh, and then- wait a moment- I can go back to the region from Blue and Red and do it all over again?!

AGAIN?!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

If my mother thought that I was socially inept and barely saw me leave my room before this discovery, then she probably had me on suicide watch while I was trapsing around Kanto. I could go and visit all the old towns and all the old gyms, and it was awesome. And the best part of it was that I didn't know it was coming.

The identity of the Origami Killer
(Heavy Rain - PS3)

(Spoilers in this one)

The famed PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain is an interactive drama (basically a movie which require miminal input from the player) which sees you take control of four different protagonists trying to catch the Origami Killer- some psycho who goes around drowning children in rain water and leaving origami animals by their soggy corpses.

Naturally, the game makes allusions to one of the protagonists being the killer (the main character, whose son has been kidnapped by the culprit), as he struggles with weird blackouts whereby he can't remember a thing when he wakes up.

However, the game takes a shocking turn when you discover that it is one the heroes- detective Scott Shelby- who is the murderer. Just so you know, Shelby is basically a cuddly defender of the weak and feeble, going about his business like Barney the Dinosaur in a trenchcoat with asthma and a good right-hook.

This fella's always been a little shady.

Therefore, I was taken by surprise when this guy- who has probably played Santa at a town hall for at least one Christmas fair- is the same guy going around trapping pre-schoolers in wells and leaving them to drown. Yikes.



The final boss sends you back to the middle of the game
(Streets of Rage - Sega Megadrive)



Riddled with more cliches than Arnold Schwarzenegger's rendition of Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin, Streets of Rage sees you play as three ex-cops who take on a horde of crooks on their way to taking down the creatively-named Mr. X's syndicate crime empire.

When you eventually reach him, you can simply beat the living snot out of him and slam his sleezy behind in jail (assuming no one dies from grievous bodily harm in this game) and that's it. However, the big boss does give you the option to join him. And if you select that option in single-player mode (or if both of you do in two-player mode)...

And THAT's for making me go back to level 6.

He sends you back to the middle of the game.

I'm not sure whether it is the middle so much, but I remember he sent you back a good few levels. Naturally by this point I'd expended every extra life, expended every continue, and expended my will to go through it all again- so I played Columns instead.


There's freaking zombies in this game
(Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - PS3)

(Spoilers in this one too- as if the title wasn't a spoiler enough)

I never liked Tomb Raider (I love how I'm writing about Uncharted and I was only three letters in before I mentioned Tomb Raider), nor have I ever liked Indiana Jones (double points for getting that one in there too)- so I'm not sure why I thought I would ever like this game.

Put, I picked it up on the cheap, started playing it- and I couldn't stop. The graphics were beautiful, the gameplay was near-flawless and the story was of a high, cinematic quality. Nathan Drake could basically be the love child of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones (now that's an interesting thought), but to me his story was far more compelling and exciting than either of those two washed up old hacks had ever managed.

Not pictured- Lara Croft :(

The plot is fairly simple- you're descended from Sir Francis Drake, and are an avid explorer/treasure hunter just as he was. You're looking for some random, extremely valuable artefact and there's a crazy evil treasure hunter who wants it more than you, to the point of wanting you dead. Oh, and there's a rumour that some of that treasure is cursed, too.

However, never did I expect the curse to come alive on the screen, when you are attacked by freaking zombies at the game's climax. Yup- basically, some Spanish pirates from hundreds of years ago looking for the same treasure wound up cursed by it, all becoming undead.

A completely unecessary addition to an awesome game- especially when the video game industry these days is almost saturated in zombie influences- but it was still cool, and certainly unexpected.