OK I decided to take a break from my Top Ten Gaming Moments that Shaped my Life to talk about one thing that video games can potentially improve on. Do not fear, entry # 3 on the arcades of my childhood will be up shortly. It's just I finished writing that list almost two months ago, and I wanted to work out the writer's rust on something different. I had seen the Monthly Topic of Untapped Potential, and after randomly thinking about Bioshock I had a topic. Two warnings before I get into the post. First, it is a long read, longer than I originally anticipated. So if you want to finish it in one sitting now is the time to get a snack and a beverage. Second, I will admit that there are spoilers in this post. I'm letting people know now because I don't want to hear complaints. I think many of the games and films I'll be talking about have had their shocking moments revealed already, so I don't mind talking them. But just in case anyone skipped over this top paragraph, I'll make it clear.

WARNING THIS POST MAY CONTAIN WHAT COULD BE CONSIDERED SPOILERS TO YOU, DON'T COMPLAIN TO ME YOU DIDN'T KNOW SNAPE KILLED DUMBLEDORE OR WHATEVER.

OK, now that that is taken care of onto the main show.

Untapped Potential: The Twist or Shocking Reveal

I assume many of you have been asked this question by a casual or non-gamer, “Why do you like playing video games so much?” It's a question that has a multitude of answers, it can be an escape into a world that you don't live in, you could enjoy the competition of gaming, or it can even be as simple as games are fun. I tend to answer with a comparison, why do people read books, watch movies, or tune into a TV series. It's about being entertained, and I'm entertained by video games. People get entranced by the media for different reasons, but I think it breaks down into two factors plot/storyline and the characters.

A good film, book, or TV show makes you relate and understand what the characters are going through during the plot. Video games take that idea one step beyond, once you become that character, you truly are living through them. You control actions, make decisions, and depending on the game what you do effects what happens next. Other forms of media cannot touch that aspect of realism, simply because there isn't any real interaction. If you scream at the TV telling Jack Bauer not to go through a door because it's a trap, he's still probably going to walk into it and manage to get his way out of it. To put it simply your input has no effect on the outcome.

Plot/Storyline and Character Development must be in a constant balance in order to ensure a good game, or for that matter any good media. If we as gamers don't get a good understanding of the character or characters we are playing as, we can end up not having an attachment to them, thus we might not care enough about them to want to play through the game. On the other hand, we could also be given every single fact of a character's life thus far, which can make us attached to them and then be very upset if something happens to change everything we know or think we know about them. The same goes with story, if it's kept vague, not at all detailed, or doesn't really have something that draws us in, then it creates a severe lack of motivation to continue playing. If there is too much detail and time spent on the story, what could be a great game may suffer due to people simply getting sick of knowing every tiny detail that is happening in this world. Even in the 8-bit era this balance can be seen. Mario Mario is a regular guy, he's a plumber in a world that is not his own. The storyline is as simple as possible, you've got to save the princess. The game doesn't try to be too complex on either end, that's the beauty of the balance. When you get through the first world of Super Mario Brothers, and find out Princess Toadstool is in another castle, you're inclined to keep playing because you know one of these times you will be in the right castle. It could be considered the first, if not one of the first twists in gaming history, and it was effective.


Dammit Toad, why didn’t you just tell me what castle she’s in so I can go there directly and save her?

Personally I think character development is the easier thing to maintain and control, if you can get a gamer feeling any real emotion towards a character, they are much more inclined to continue playing. As for plot and storyline, most games do fine. A lot of the time, especially in modern games, developers let the player determine how much of the story they want to know. Let's face it, we are all guilty of skipping a cut scene in a modern game at least once, there are just times when the story doesn't feel right but since the game itself is fun you don't care. Developers of games luck out because they can view other forms of media, and see what works and what doesn't in terms of story telling. Application of these ideas is a whole different matter, and I'll be looking at one application, the Twist/Shocking Reveal.

You can define a twist or shocking reveal as something that comes out of left field, it can be set up early before the big reveal, or it can just happen and leave the audience thinking what the fuck. Movies are full of them, Bruce Willis was dead the whole time in The Sixth Sense, it turns out Andy Dufresne rock hammer wasn't for making statues but for spending nineteen years digging out of prison in The Shawshank Redemption, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are respectively the id and super ego of the main character in Fight Club. They can even be kept vague to let the viewer make their own choice, who knows for sure if Deckard is a human or replicant in Blade Runner. To me though, the best twist in anything is the following video.


It's funny how everyone quotes it "Luke, I am your father." When Vader actually says "No I am your father."

Nobody saw it coming. When I was a little kid watching the Star Wars Trilogy for the first time with my dad he didn't speak a word about it until that scene. That is how you can tell it's such a good twist, it's something you don't want to ruin for somebody who doesn't know what's going to happen. But now I'm forced to wonder, if movies can do it, and do it so well, why can't video games. Yes there exist some games with good twists, a few great twists, and even one that rivals any listed above. But for the hits, there are many misses, twists that are lackluster, pointless, and even ones that make you question why did they do that. There are four components in games that a twist should try to obtain. They should be unexpected, they should shock the player, they should make a gamer rethink that he's just played, and finally they need to make sense within the context of the game. So let’s take a look at these four factors.

They Should Be Unexpected

This doesn't mean hints cannot be dropped, or the gamer doesn't ponders about the twist while playing. But the build up to the twist should remain vague, or even in some cases it’s even better if it’s non-existent. If there are small hints about a potential twist, they should make a gamer think briefly about it, but then forget about it until the twist happens. If it is a twist with no build up, it should then happen out of the blue. The perfect example is Metroid for NES, the reveal at the end that the entire time your badass hero was actually a badass heroine, is perfect. It's simple yes, but nobody expects it at all. The problem with many games that try and have a twist is they reveal too much information about it, then it isn't really a twist, it's just a reveal that the gamer already knew would happen. The unexpectedness can also be a bad thing, if a player has invested time and energy into a character, story, or just a game in general, then something comes in to rock their world it can cause anger, frustration, and can ruin the love a gamer has for the game. For example, you're playing an RPG and you reach what appears to be the end of the game, but it is merely a halfway point. You're going to be upset and rightfully so, then if the second half of the game pales in comparison to the first half, you get the feeling that the developer just ruined a great game.


Unless you knew about Justin Bailey before you beat the game, you had no idea

They Should Shock The Player

Some people might consider this exactly the same as being unexpected, but I think they are two different animals. If somebody decides to play Ding Dong Ditch at your house, when you go to the door you expect somebody to be there. Nobody being at the door after the doorbell is rung is not what you expected. Now say someone does the exact same thing, except they leave a flaming bag of dog shit on your porch. If you stomp it out you realize your feet are covered in warm shit, that is a not what you expected and a shock to the system. These are two nearly identical scenarios but with different outcomes. In video games shock value is easy to find, a dog jumps through a window in Resident Evil, a horde of zombies rushes you from nowhere in Left 4 Dead, or you find the town of Andale's secret in Fallout 3. The difficulty is that developers can do these all with ease in games. It ends up at a point where a gamer is numbed to it, and it's hard to know what will and won't shock somebody. The key with shock value in a twist I think is that it has to make you wonder what the fuck just happened and was what you were unaware of the intent of the game the whole time you are playing. A perfect example is Braid, you play through the entire game wondering why Tim can rewind time and just hoping you can rescue the princess. Once you unlock the last world it’s title “World 1” is confusing. Until you come to the realization that the entire game has been in reverse. The end of your game is the beginning of the story, and it turns out the entire time the princess you're hoping to rescue has been fleeing from you. That's the kind of mindfuck that shocks a gamer, learning that you've been playing as the villain the entire game and not knowing it.


Who would’ve known the buildings engulfed in flames were your own fault

They Should Make You Rethink What You Just Played

Gaming is very logic based and I feel gamers like to think about games in the present (what you are doing in the game at this moment) and in the past (what you had done to get to this point). There may be multiple ways to complete a game and while playing it the gamer feels they made the decisions to get to the final outcome. It's why people like to reflect on games they enjoyed, if you talk about the same game with two different people, you'll get two different stories on their experience. But even in reflection you're just describing an experience, rethinking the entire game itself is a something else entirely. A twist is the perfect way to make a gamer question what he was doing throughout the game. I feel when a game makes you reflect that way, it's much more memorable than multiple paths to the same end. Bioshock is the prime example, throughout the game Atlas is your guide, friend, and the only person you can trust. If you pay attention to some of the bosses, which can be difficult as most are completely insane, the seeds of doubt might be planted. Listening closer to Atlas makes you even more confused, I'll even admit that I was wondering if he was just using me to his own ends. But I didn't expect that my character never even had a say in the matter. Finding out you are a puppet who can't truly control his own actions really made me wonder did anyone in Rapture need to die at all.


After beating this game I’ve heard a few people ask me “Would you kindly….” And it scares me.

They Must Make Sense In The Context Of The Game

This is the biggest one by far, if a twist doesn't make any sense, is it even really a twist. Video games may be able to take us off into unrealistic worlds, locations we'll never visit, and put us into situations that would never occur within real life, but they still must follow their own plot and context. There’s a difference between unrealistic and nonsensical. Unrealistic situations involve anamorphic animals that walk and talk, travel forward and backward through time, and managing to carry 17 different guns and the individual ammo for each. It wouldn’t happen in the real world, but we must remember “It’s a video game, it’s fiction.” However there can still be problems when logic doesn’t apply to the world that you’re in. Games seem to manage to get away with this all the time, just look at any first person shooter. Oh yeah, you can climb up this wall, break through that one, but DON'T YOU DARE JUMP ON TOP OF THAT BOX OR TRY AND HOP OVER THAT ONE FOOT HIGH BOUNDRY. I think most of us hate spending 20+ hours playing though a game, only to get an ending that leaves us scratching our heads, and feeling like we wasted time. If a major plot point or event doesn’t fit a story’s context, it's essentially the developer telling you, “Yeah, we aren't following the storyline that we made you play through anymore.” This is where a twist can become really screwed up, because there’s a very fine line that it can cross before it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the game. To me the best example of a twist that makes perfect sense is best twist in gaming ever.

It’s fairly appropriate the best twists in both movies and games come from the Star Wars Universe. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is a phenomenal game, and should be the measuring stick of how to pull off a twist in gaming. Starting out with no force abilities, no real memory to speak of, you fight your way through the game. You learn of the powers of the force, work on bringing peace to the galaxy, and become a Jedi. When you have a major confrontation with Darth Malak you learn the horrifying truth. You aren't a nobody you are his former master Darth Revan, who he attempted to kill, and the Jedi you've been helping out are the ones who erased your memories of this and your powers. Look at it this way, in the Star Wars universe Jedi and Sith are just the straight up badasses, always have been, always will be. The only people who can match up in battle with the Jedi are the Sith, and vice versa. The idea of a nobody, who manages to discover his force powers but doesn’t have formal training taking down the Dark Lord of the Sith is far fetched. Even Luke Skywalker needed Obi-Wan and Yoda to take down the Empire. Up until the reveal the story in KOTOR was just a normal guy trying to take down the Sith because the Jedi’s want him to. It seems a little off, and if it were the story of the full game, the game would still be fun, but not nearly as memorable. The twist changes the entire storyline, it’s now a Jedi Master and former Dark Lord of the Sith, coming to the realization that he’s been unconsciously hunting down the man who betrayed him. It tells us why we’ve really been hunting down Malak, why our character is so powerful, and even why the Jedi would come to you for help. As for the other factors it’s shocking, unexpected, and makes a gamer wonder if they will follow the light or return to the dark.


It’s fairly awesome and scary finding out you’re the Baddest Mother Fucker in the universe

So we know that Twists can be good for gaming. They make gamers reflect on their experience in the game, and they help a game have a lasting impact in the marketplace. Not all games need twists, that's not what I'm saying, but in the right context they can help games. The problem, at best when a twist fails people don't seem to care or notice it, at worst they can upset, confuse, and flat out piss off gamers. Many games have fallen into these two traps, you can feel free to add your most hated twists in the comments since I’ll look at two games, one falling into each trap, and give ideas I have to improve the twists. In The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time Zelda and Sheik are one in the same. Hell you don’t even need to play Ocarina of Time to know the twist, Smash Brothers let it out in the open. The problem with this attempt at a twist is it’s far too easy to figure out, Zelda is one of the few people that helps you as young Link, and magically Sheik is one of the few who can help you as an adult. Even worse it doesn’t truly effect the story. Instead of believing that Gannondorf already has her captured or she’s locked away in a temple, we get to see her get captured. Nearly all the Zelda games follow the simple premise of saving Zelda, so we know we’re going to have to rescue her anyway so where's the impact, where's the shock, does it change the outcome. It could have been anyone teaching you the songs to warp, it just happens to be Zelda in disguise. How I would've done it, instead of going with giving Gannondorf the Triforce of Power, he has the Triforce of Wisdom instead, and thus Gannondorf is Sheik. When helping you out to unlock the sages, he's really forcing you to find Zelda so he may obtain all three parts of the Triforce. Is it the best idea for the game, probably not. Does the twist really change Ocarina of Time, absolutely not, the game is phenomenal, it’s just this was an attempt to have a big reveal that if removed probably wouldn’t effect the game one bit.


Come on Nintendo, you gave them different colored hair in Smash Bros. Brawl, couldn’t you have done it in Ocarina of Time?

The Resident Evil Series may be the worst culprit of the bad plot twist, usually involving Albert Wesker. It's so sad because Wesker is a phenomenal character, his personality is complex almost Machiavellian, and throughout the entire series he's the master manipulator of all events. In the original Resident Evil the attempted twist is finding out it was Wesker who betrayed STARS. Yet the gamer quickly realizes the betrayer is the only character in the game that isn't a main character of a helper. Thankfully you think he gets his comeuppance watching him get killed. Then Code Veronica comes out, Wesker is back with Superhuman powers. Thank god he managed to take that experimental virus that only his body can handle right before he was killed. Personally I would've had him escape the mansion in RE 1 without the Tyrant killing him. Then have the reveal in Code Veronica be that he knew he'd be found eventually so the only way to ensure he can eliminate those hunting him down is to become more powerful than them, using the virus naturally. The worst though is Resident Evil 5. The moment I heard Chris Redfield talk about his old partner, I was predicting Jill's in the game some how. Once I saw her fall to her apparent death along with Wesker, I was sure of it. The woman in the cloak, I knew my prediction was correct and it was going to piss me off. I can forget about brunette Jill now having a blonde dye job, I can look past the fall that should’ve killed her because it’s a video game and I didn’t want Jill to be dead, but even forgetting those it remains a stupid reveal. It's just a twist that pissed me off. I don't want to fight Jill Valentine, mind control or not. I don't think anybody did. But, if I’m forced to, I want it to be a real battle. The fact that they tried to pacify the fight made it even worse, I understand Chris believes he can reason with her and break the mind control, but that should be a cut scene, not a boss fight. In my opinion if Capcom wanted Jill in the game, there were two things they could have done. They could have had her appear close to the end, Chris and Sheva rescue her from being captured, and she helps them in the final battle with Wesker, she's alive, she's in the game, not a twist, but a good showing. Or they could have gone the dark route, under Wesker's mind control Chris eventually realizes that he cannot reason with her, and is thus forced to take down his closest friend and the person he's been searching for all game. That's the kind of twist I can handle It's unexpected, the hints in the game reveal she's got to be there, but not that she's there as a soulless killer. It's shocking, nobody would believe Chris would kill Jill no matter what the circumstances. You're forced to think about having to kill a beloved character to kill one of the most evil villains ever. And of course it is something Albert Wesker would do so it fits the story context, we all know Wesker has a grudge against Chris, it's why he went after Claire, it's why he aims to stop Chris's BSAA, what better way to break his worst enemy than by forcing him to kill his best friend. I know I said I don't want to fight Jill, but if I was forced to in that situation I would, simply because it's the only way to save the world in the game. As it's been said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.


GOD DAMMIT CAPCOM, JILL IS NOT A BLONDE

We've seen what a twist can do to a game, how to make a good twist, and even the ways a twist can fail. But we haven't gotten to the core of the issue, why is it that for the most part when a twist in a game is attempted it flops. Movies, TV, books, all have a much higher success rate when it comes to twists and surprises, what is it about games that makes a twist fail. It comes down to two factors I discussed slightly before, the investment a gamer puts into a game and the attachment they have to it.

A TV show is over in thirty minutes to an hour, a movie is usually around two hours, most novels can be finished in five to ten hours. Gaming, especially modern gaming, is a much deeper investment that has changed over time. Where gamers were once happy to boast about how they beat Super Mario Brothers in an hour, now we tend to want as much as possible out of a game. In the 8-bit era game length wasn't even considered because most of the time there was re-playability, be it from beating the game over and over or say playing a difficult game over and over in an attempt to beat it. Modern games do not have that luxury, if a game has less than 10 hours of gameplay it's considered short. And unless a game is exceptionally well made, most people aren't willing to invest their time for a second play through of the main story. Thus the game designers want to ensure that while playing the game there is nothing that will hinder a player from finishing it. One stupid plot point in the story, a single section where a gamer gets stuck, or even something that randomly just pisses them off, can cause them to drop their controller and forget about playing it for awhile. We're fickle, let's face it. I can man up and admit at one point I got stuck in Bioshock about halfway through the game and didn't pick up the game for six months. I ended up bored one day, popped in back in, and was wondering why I ever stopped playing. The risk of putting a twist into a game is that if it backfires gamers get angry. They feel they've wasted their time investment, and it can completely remove any enjoyment they were having from a game. With the internet twists in games can be revealed with ease, and can stop many gamers from purchasing a game if they know of the twist in advance (ruining part of the storyline), or the in the case of a bad twist can bug them enough not to purchase a game they had already planned on getting. It's simply high risk with low reward, and enough companies stave away from them.

Gamers get attached to Characters, because whenever we play a game we are that character. When they're going through a difficult portion of the game, we feel their pain, when something funny happens to them, we laugh, it's part of the experience. Most of the time our goal as gamers is simple, we want that character to accomplish their mission (whatever it may be) and give them their happy ending. If anything happens to that character that changes why we enjoyed or related to them, it can be disastrous. In Chrono Trigger, the lead character Crono dies before the end of the game, the gamer can make the choice to attempt to save him, or to finish the game without him. In my opinion it's not even a choice, I enjoyed being the mute protagonist thrown into a battle to save the world, and on my watch he is not dying, case closed. I've never even brought myself to beat it without him, because I was attached to him. This pays off because while it is a twist, the gamer still maintains control of the game. The point of gaming is to have control, even if a story is linear you still complete the events as the main character that lead to the conclusion. The risk of doing a twist, especially one involving a main character, is that in most circumstances is the gamer doesn't have control over it. Basically if we like the character we like to be in control of what happens to them, the moment that control is taken away, we get angry.


Imagine how pissed gamers would’ve been if you couldn’t save Crono

With games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Mass Effect, we've been given more freedom and control than ever in games. Character's are now being created by the player, not the developer, and in these circumstances especially we have our attachment to them. That's what makes the twist so difficult to pull off, as games continue to become more player oriented when it comes to character creation, it's getting to be near impossible for a developer to put in a twist that isn't going to upset fans, even if it's a good one. KOTOR managed to pull it off with character customization because it didn’t change the character you created, it changed what you thought you knew about the character you created. The twist can be used effectively, it can change everything about a game in a good way, and in a way that will keep fans happy. The problem is ensuring that the aspects of a game and it's character's do not change when the twist is used. If developers can do that, and follow the four factors that make up a good twist, it can work out. For my final example we can go back to Bioshock, after you're released from being mind controlled, your mission changes to taking down Fontaine who has done this all to you. However the gameplay and mechanics remain the same, the character is still who he was at the start just a bit wiser, and the player is enticed to finish the game to deliver some payback to the man who did this all to you.

I warned you didn't I, for those who stuck around till the end Thanks For Reading. Any comments, questions, feedback, complaints, arguments, whatever I’ll be happy to read. If you want to debate me on this topic, feel more than free, I’ll be happy to keep talking about it. I just felt I needed to get this off my chest, I have a love/hate relationship with twists, and know many other gamers do as well. NEXT UP, My Childhood Arcades