Game moments that shocked us: part 3 -.

Metal Gear Solid 2 – Turn off your console!

The sequel to Metal Gear Solid was already a shock when it was revealed that Raiden is the main character in the game, but the moment when the game began to become self-aware and break through the fourth wall was a little further down the road. It was around the time that the colonel began to wander, shape-shifting into a skull and asking the player to turn off his game console for a moment, that I froze. In a cold sweat, I obeyed the artificial intelligence…. It is worth noting that I was sick the night I experienced this, so this did not help my fever dreams at all. There was far too much conspiratorial information for my sick brain to process, and the shock only disappeared when I woke up the next morning more rested. Metal Gear Solid 2 offers several brain-melting twists, but this was something I will forever remember as one of my biggest shock moments in a video game.

Mass Effect 2 – The opening scene

I was so excited to play ME2 once it was released for the PS3. Since the first game was exclusive to Xbox, I played it on my crappy laptop and called in sick the day the second was released to play it all day. It was so magical to see the Normandy again in the first two minutes, waiting to see my old crew again to have new adventures…. Only to have my heart in my throat when the Collectors destroyed the ship and killed Shepard, who then drifted away and began to burn in a nearby gravity field. I couldn’t believe my eyes and for a moment thought I wouldn’t be able to play as Shepard again. Talk about an opening scene! The game’s suicide mission is another matter, but the most shocking thing was that I managed to save all my crew members on the first try. Otherwise, this placement probably would have looked different.

Bloodborne – Kidnapped by a Snatcher

Horror games are all well and good, but one of the most shocking moments took place in FromSoftware’s perhaps best title of all: Bloodborne. In these games, it’s worth remembering that enemies come back to life as soon as you activate a bonfire, and once you’ve played some of the levels about fifty times, it all becomes a calculated routine where you’ve learned the enemies’ behavior patterns. Anyway, while I was on one of my usual rounds, I decided to go around a church corner to kill some monster crows. But there were no crows waiting around the corner; Instead, a three-meter-long creature jumped out, covered in rags and carrying a large body bag. I was so surprised by the sudden change that I was instantly killed, and it didn’t get any better when my character woke up in a creepy prison in a seemingly parallel world that wasn’t behaving as expected. I was terrified for a few minutes, and this kidnapping scenario was just the beginning of the game’s ongoing agonizing cosmic horror.

Shadow of the Colossus – Agro falls to his “death”

Watching your horse die in the amazing Team Ico game felt like a flashback to that traumatic scene in Neverending Story – a moment I vowed never to relive again. Yes, we now know that the faithful horse Agro survives the fall in Shadow of the Colossus, and there are many more traumatizing death scenes in the world of video games, but once it happened, this was one of those game moments that turned everything upside down. It is a simple ploy to take away the player’s only sense that they were not completely alone in the world and that they had a companion until the end – until Agro meets his “death” against the game’s final boss. This was downright devastating and mostly just mean, because I remember the shock being so great that I didn’t really think it was worth finishing the game. I was so irrationally upset that I put the game on hold for a few days to try to recover from the developers’ evil pranks – and the ending in which you were turned into a demon didn’t soften the blow either.

Doki Doki Literature Club – Hang in there!

It’s not uncommon to take offense through visual novels, but I don’t think anyone was expecting the darkness that paralyzed the player when it became clear that Doki Doki Literature Club was not a cute little slice of life. Without spoiling it for ourselves, a friend and I played through this for fun, trying to figure out why this seemingly boring title attracted so much attention. Once we reached the scene where one of the characters hanged himself, the funny mood died down for me and my friend. I laughed because there was really no other way to react. We knew there was a weird twist to the whole thing because there were hints of something strange behind the scenes, but that moment killed a bit of the fun that night. Of course, the rest of the game is also a display of effective horror, such as when the antagonist touches the player’s mouse, but the hang-up remains one of those gameplay moments that is burned into our retinas and will remain so for quite some time….