Game moments that shocked us: part 4 -.

Scarecrow strikes and looks to scare us beyond belief in Batman: Arkham Asylum

There are a few gameplay elements that stand out, elements that can almost be described as an ace in tennis where the ball travels to you, penetrates the fourth wall, crushes both time and space and leaves you with your chin on the ground. The boss fight with Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid is such a moment, and Jonathan “Scarecrow” Crane with his hallucinogenic, airborne neurotoxin-inducing terror in Rocksteady ‘s first game about Batman is a similar experience.

When I, the player, return to Arkham Asylum’s intensive care unit, I hear a wheezing sound through the air conditioning, Batman starts coughing and…. The in-game image crashes. I fly off the couch as my TV in front of me resembles a broken picture of yesteryear, distorted artifacts succeed each other and fill the screen as a high-pitched sound rises and cuts through my sound system, and the game shuts down. Everything goes black. Is my game console burned out? Is my TV okay? I’ve never experienced such an aggressive hardware crash in my career, and I’ve played a few games over the years. It’s a good thing I have homeowners insurance, because neither my first Full-HD TV nor PlayStation 3 were free.

Fortunately, the game starts over in front of me. A relief in this context, but I am noticeably irritated when I will most likely have to replay a longer part of the game after the crash. The game’s intro is recognizable. or? The screen falters, it doesn’t look right, and I start looking for my insurance company’s number but quickly realize that the game’s intro is not the same intro I’ve seen so many times before, it’s something else. The roles in the video sequence have been reversed. The Joker is now riding in my Batmobile with a crazy Batman as a passenger, heading to Arkham Asylum to check me into the mental hospital where the game takes place. Everything that just happened in my apartment is part of the game. A well-executed and very deliberate way to scare the player in their safe space through manipulation of the game, thematically served up through the horror venom that Scarecrow is behind. I don’t think I will ever forgive Scarecrow for this, but I applaud Rocksteady for a well-executed trick that is unusual.

The laws of physics in Half-Life 2

I saw mostly everything about Valve’s highly anticipated sequel that was available for release. Leaked photos of tech demos, early screenshots of a water hose that never made it into the final product, the list goes on and on. The game promised an unprecedented physics system that could, for example, collapse windows with bullets pierced in different ways depending on the angle of entry, or objects in water that took into account both viscosity and buoyancy.

Welcome to City 17. I step off the train that pays tribute to the original. An authoritarian soldier with a protective mask knocks over a can and asks me to pick it up, something I do and throw it in the trash, but the can collides with the rim, bounces off and rolls beside the trash can. I smile. I pick up the can again and throw it at the soldier who becomes enraged and starts chasing me with a truncheon. I make a mess of Dr. Kleiner’s lab and rearrange the whole place with expensive equipment that the scientist irritably tells me to be careful with. Many of the puzzles I encounter in the game take into account the laws of physics in ways I’ve never seen before. Then comes the bomb, the game’s flagship device is introduced and becomes my first choice on the journey ahead: the Gravity Gun.

This homemade weapon allows me to pick up objects as well as shoot away with full force. I tore elements from the walls while being chased by the Combine in a dilapidated house, the automatic fire in my direction reflected off my newfound roll-up shield, which I then fired at the Combine soldier, probably breaking every bone in his body as the soldier now rolled down the stairs. Only your imagination sets the limits for the objects in your environment that are now considered deadly weapons, as well as imaginative stairs that allow you to reach new heights. Rusty saw blades in Ravenholm split zombies in half, paint cans against head crabs not only drenched them with color, but blunt force knocked out tiny parasites whose barbed tentacles tangled when they hit the wall. Without the physics in the game, it most likely would have been a fantastic sequel to one of the world’s best first-person shooters, but it would have been far from the same game we remember and love to this day. A downright groundbreaking use and integration of physics added dimensions and levels to a game that had never been seen before in the hobby we pursue.

Nostalgic journey and battle of the giants in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

To my surprise, I suddenly find myself playing the first Metal Gear Solid in its original 1998 graphics, only to wake up shocked when Snake realizes he has experienced that dream all over again. Otacon flies Old Snake by helicopter to the same nuclear material storage facility we learned about in the opener of the spy series, a place we have returned to as the hunt for Liquid Ocelot comes to an end. As I sneak onto the frozen helicopter pad that served as a tutorial in Metal Gear Solid, which I have just re-experienced via a dream sequence, The Best is Yet to Come begins to play the same melancholy music track from the first game’s credits, interspersed with original dialogue that echoes softly in the background, as well as both mine and Snake’s head. “A Hind-D… What’s a Russian gunship doing here?” I bathe in memories and deliberately take one cold sip after another of vintage water hitting me in waves – all meticulously recreated in detail and almost an interactive museum for the game that really launched Hideo Kojima’s career. It feels like coming home. The ravens left behind in battle 10 years ago by the shaman Vulcan Raven sit along the railing of the tank hangar. The corridor leading to Otacon’s office landscape, where Gray Fox decorated the walls with half a platoon of mercenaries, is adorned with the dried blood of a bygone era. But like the job that accompanied my entrance, the best is yet to come.

Down in the lair that houses the corpse of Metal Gear Rex, a bloody battle begins, Snake and Raiden emerge victorious against Vamp. Snake takes over the cockpit of Metal Gear Rex, the walking weapon of mass destruction we once came face to face with, and flees the base reminiscent of the jeep scene the last time we were here. The place collapses behind us as we approach the light in the tunnel…. Metal Gear Ray from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty breaks the surface tension of the sea and appears on land as a demonic dolphin, Ray designed to put Rex out of action. From the speaker system roars Liquid: “Brother! It’s not over yet! Not yet!” What unfolds next is a direct homage to Godzilla, with two furious and mechanical kaiju doing it. The two beasts roar like predators in a battle for the right of the strongest, with missiles howling, machine guns clanging and claws scratching at each other. As the next stage of the final battle between Snake and Liquid as seen from 2D on the back of a hijacked Arsenal Gear now called the Outer Haven begins – well, I see a battle between Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone played out in the CQC fight. Kojima ties it all together with stylistic influences in the game’s crescendo, which is so high and amazing that Jerry Bruckheimer’s collected works look like Fraggle Rock. The madness and legacy preserved during the game’s final chapter breaks all norms where the lack of speed limits on my part has not yet been surpassed.

What gaming moments shocked you?