10

KOTOR

9

Eternal Darkness

Bowser on Mario's side. Mario RPG

This almost seemed like blasphemy to me. How could Mario and Bowser ever fight side by side? It's sacrilege, right? Same as an entire role playing game featuring Mario? But despite what hardcore RPG fans may think, Mario RPG is still my favorite role playing game of all time, probably because it was the first I ever played. And seeing Mario and Bowser together made me think, "What the?!" (I was too young to cuss.)

ScrewAttack favored Eternal Darkness's insanity effects, which never freaked me out unless there was some sort jolt-inducing crescendo, which thankfully only happens once in the game and it's pretty good. But I think I might have gotten jipped. (Or gypped. How do you spell that? I'm too lazy too look it up.) My Eternal Darkness never told me my memory card was corrupted. How do ya like that? A console giving you the Angry Blue Screen of Death. I never saw it. Nor did I see flies on the screen, and my screen didn't "turn off" or anything like that. Damn. (I know, it's because I didn't play on all three settings.)

8

Mortal Kombat

Doom

7

GTA III

Oddworld: Stranger

Most secrets in storylines, particularly game storylines which aren't known for being that great, are kept secret by some other character, usually a villain. But in Stranger when you realize that the dude you've been playing as is actually the last of the predatory animals the locals are trying to wipe out? Damn. And it comes at just the right time, when the gameplay is starting to become repetitive BOOM. Everything's turned on its ear.

Now, my competition seems to think seeing hookers in Grand Theft Auto III was a "What the fuck???" moment, but really. I didn't say, "What the fuck???" I just said, "Jesus." Craig identifies a WTF? moment as the moment in which the player is "amazed, astonished, or just straight up pissed" at what happened. None of those emotions ran through my body when my unnamed man in black leather got some in a video game. I just felt dirty.

6

RE5

Call of Duty 4 nuke

You're kidding me, a trailer? There's only one trailer that seriously made people go, "What the fuck?" and that was the Metal Gear Solid 2 trailer. But Resident Evil 5? No. My mind was not blown. Even if it did have a white guy shooting tons and tons of black people.

What did blow my mind was the Call of Duty 4 nuke. ScrewAttack places this incorrectly at number 2, which is incorrect because many more great gaming moments came before COD4 that were way more significant because they not only had a huge impact on players, but a huge impact on video games in general. I don't think Call of Duty 4's unexpected nuclear explosion will really change games or invent new genres or expand the market.

However, the nuke still did blow my mind. How many times does one die in video game? Infinite, if you never stop playing, but here's a case in which a playable character dies for good, and although my mind was given a massive blow job by this (particularly in how unexpected the nuclear detonation was), there are still instances of this occurring in earlier games.

5

Halo 2 ending

Half-Life 2 ending

Okay, the Halo 2 ending did make me go, "What the fuck?" but that's because of how anticlimactic it was. I wouldn't think an anticlimax is significant enough to make this list.

Instead I'm gonna go with the Half-Life 2 ending. Haven't seen it? Well, play it already! What are you waiting for? Enough money to buy it?

The HL2 ending has got to be the nonsensical ending to end all nonsensical endings. If you haven't played it, definitely pick it up. If you haven't played the first one, don't worry. You don't need need to have played Half-Life 1 to understand Half-Life 2. I played Half-Life 1 and I still don't understand Half-life 2. But here's the ending, anyway.

4

Metroid: Samus

Final Fantasy VII: Aeris dies

For many people Aeris(th)'s death from Final Fantasy VII might just be the very first WTF? moment they ever experienced, although I disagree. It's not a WFT? moment at all. Arguably, the opera scene from Final Fantasy VI/III was more of a WFT? moment for the player because a totally unexpected and unnecessarily brutal death of an essential character seen here in part VII is more of an OMG! moment. But this death stands out for so many players because it's an example of a playable character dying for good when such things rarely happened in games.

I remember reading about the release of the PlayStation 2 in Time Magazine. One article referred to the name of one of the processors inside Sony's new machine being called the "Emotion Engine." This particular writer wondered if it could be possible that, one day, games will actually elicit emotional responses from their audience. Obviously, the writer was not a gamer because he (or she, I can't remember) had no idea that games were already doing precisely that.

Enter Aeiris's death in Final Fantasy VII. Some people cried at this moment. Some people started the game over hoping to save her. And keep in mind that this predates COD4 by a good decade, so it's definitely more significant. This is perfect evidence that games can elicit an emotional response from its audience. Even some gamers didn't think this could be done, or at least they didn't think a game would try to do it. But this one did. And it was successful. And we were all like, "WTF???"

3

Aeiris(th)

The Metroid dude isn't really a dude

You may have noticed my pics for Samus and Aeris are flip-flopped from the ScrewAttack version. This is not the result of me just trying to have my list be different from theirs. In fact, it's quite deliberate.

Upon completion of the original Metroid, Samus removed his helmet (well, the entire suit, really) and we realized we'd been using the wrong pronouns all along. He's not a he at all, despite the fact she was called a he even by the game's instruction booklet.

This is more significant that Aerith for many reasons. Although most of today's adult gamers came of age during the PlayStation/Nintendo 64 days, it was our impressionable youth that made a more lasting impact. For young girls playing NES games, this was a megaton. I doubt we'd have as many girl gamers today if it had turned out Samus was a dude as we all suspected. Furthermore, Samus also solidified female game characters as being way more than damsels in distress or sexpots. Samus, hats (and power suits) off, babe.

If you're curious, I keep switching between "Aerith" and "Aeris" because Japanese-English translation often flip-flop the two. Square Enix says that "Aerith" is correct but the original US version called her Aeris, so it's my little inside joke.

2

COD4 nuke

Metal Gear Solid 2

I've already explained why I disagree with ScrewAttack's selection of COD4 in the number 2 spot, so I'll just go straight into my selection.

Seriously, Metal Gear Solid 2 (and I'm talking EVERYTHING about the game) has got to be one of the biggest OMG!WTF? moments in gaming history. I don't see how ScrewAttack could have missed it completely. First, it's trailer was revealed, and it got probably more prerelease press coverage than any other game ever. This was right when the internet was first becoming popular so for games, this was basically all any of the websites talked about. Then Zone of the Enders shipped with a playable demo, and some magazines reviewed the demo at a higher score than the game it came packed-in with, which is a WTF? moment in its own right. (I'm not making this up. They reviewed an incomplete version of a game and gave it a better score than a fully finished game.)

Seriously, there'd be news stories about how you can break open watermelons and watch ice melt. Then the game shipped and it turned out the villain from the last game lives on the arm of the villain from this game. (WTF?) The tanker chapter ended and suddenly Solid Snake's voice sounded strange. (WTF?) Then it happened. Snake took off his helmet to reveal he wasn't really Snake. He was this prissy bleached-blonde girl-man pretending to be Snake. And we were pissed. (And we were all like, "WTF?") We fought a guy who was a vampire, (WTF?) a chick who couldn't be injured, (WTF?) the President grabbed Raiden's crotch, (WTF?) he told us the US government isn't really the US government (WTF?) and was instead run by a bunch of old men named "the Patriots", (WTF?) we witnessed Otocon's confession that he went Oedipus on his step-mom (WTF?) implying that his sister is also his daughter, (WTF?) and then one of the Patriots actually told us that the Patriots aren't exactly... human. And they're all dead. WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Need I say more?

1

SMB

Bioshock

I've placed Bioshock at number one for a number of reasons. First, the big reveal: (last chance for spoilers) Atlas, the guy helping you throughout the game is actually Fontaine, the main villain controlling you psychically. This got me to question why I play games. I'm not kidding. I gave a good, hard look at my rather meager collection (compared to some I've seen) and seriously considered quitting for good. What this game essentially revealed is that, no matter how free or open any game claims to be, the player is essentially a slave. Really? I'm a slave? A man chooses, a slave obeys, as the game so eloquently points out. For the most part, choice in video games is actually very limited. This entire time I always said that the main appeal of games is that you are in control. No other medium allows its audience to actively participate in its world. But unless you cheat or hack the game, you're always doing what the developers intended. Check out Team Frog's brilliant blog on the matter for a more in-depth analysis.

To me, this is the biggest plot twist/reveal (or whatever you wanna call it) that has ever occurred while playing a video game. I know the first time I ever played Super Mario Bros. was a life-changing event because I wouldn't be a gamer today without it. Super Mario 64 also changed my life, perhaps more profoundly than SMB because Mario 64 pretty much solidified my status as a gamer.

But Bioshock got me to question it. In fact, it almost shattered all that hard work Mario did to make me such an avid gamer.

Speaking of Mario, ScrewAttack put SMB's "Our princess is in another castle" at the number one spot and I really have to question why. It doesn't seem like that big of a WTF? to me. It's just an excuse for a great game to go on longer. In fact, it's better than an excuse. It's a justification. Did Craig pick this just because it's Mario? Talk about blind loyalty.

Honorable mentions: Super Mario 64, Wolfenstein 3D, the first time anyone played Soul Calibur on Dreamcast and there's probably some more. Click here to see a funny bit with Super Mario.