• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Biggest videogame shockers?

M

Matlock

Banned
Your replies have a chance to make it to the frontpage in a Halloween feature, so make 'em good.

-that means try and post something insightful about your shocking moment ;)

Well, in the world of videogames, there's been quite a few shockers...not only in-game, but on the business side. So I ask you GAF: what do you think are the biggest videogame shockers, whether they be in-game or business related.

One to start us off:

Raiden - Metal Gear Solid 2

The legions of Playstation 2 owners saw Metal Gear Solid 2 and salivated. It represented everything they thought they wanted in a next-gen title. Cinematic flash, amazing graphics, and a convincing action hero in Solid Snake. Zone of the Enders came out with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, and used that to piggyback to commercial success. Metal Gear Solid 2's demo featured a tanker filled with marines, a level that most gamers know by heart now.

...then, the retail copy came out. Players traversed the tanker again, watched as Snake went down with the ship...and then the game truly began. It mirrored the intro to Metal Gear Solid, with the hero in a wetsuit and mask. What lie under the mask made a generation go "huh?" Raiden, a effete prettyboy, had replaced Solid Snake. Surely it was a joke, gamers hoped, but they were wrong.

Although Solid Snake did survive and was in the game the fact he was knocked out of his starring role by Raiden was a shock to millions of gamers worldwide.

List of ones I might use in the top 10

Metal Gear Solid 2 - Where's Snake?!
Metroid - Samus is a Girl?!
FFVII - Aeries Dies?!
Nintendo - Remote control?!
Sony - Taking on the GBA?!
Square-Enix - They merged?!
Super Metroid - I died?!
GameStop/EB - They merged, too?!
Saturn - It launched?!
Wind Waker - More like Celda?!
KOTOR - I'm...him?!
SOTN - I'm only half done?!
Halo 2 - What happened to the ending?!
Bionic Commando - Did...Hitler's head just explode?!
System Shock 2 - SHODAN?!
Aria of Sorrow - I'm Dracula?!
Ico - I'm killin' my own lineage?
 
raiden-clee1.jpg
 
Biggest for me comes from Xenogears. The FMV cutscene with Weltall turning into the Red Gear and revealing that Fei is actually Id was amazing.
 
Matlock said:
Well, in the world of videogames, there's been quite a few shockers...not only in-game, but on the business side.
Click to expand...

So you're looking for both? (in-game *and* business?) Just wanted to check.
 
I'd say one of the biggest shockers is Square & Enix jumping ship to the playstation.
 
3 Sports Gaming Shockers


#3 Tiger Woods 2001 (PS2)

Ships with 3 courses

Quoting myself upon finding this out, and basically my sentiments on Tiger Woods golf this whole generation.

F*** that I am going to play the PC version of TW or Links.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------


#2 World Series Baseball 2K1 (Dreamcast)

Fielding be damned, we will tarnish this once grand series.


I remember heading to mall to pick up WSB2K1 on a rare Saturday release. Coming home and checking the internet first to see who all has the game. Went to Daily Radar and seeing the infamous DUD rating imposed on my beloved WS game. I still had to open it just to see if it was all true.

It was... She was a looker though.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



#1 March Madness 2002 (PS2)

Ships without even a season mode of any type. Not even half of the teams are in the game which makes playing the tournament mode unbearable.


From the IGN Review - Dave Z

Closing Comments

The sad thing about March Madness is that I was really looking forward to this game and was probably one of the most excited sports gamers on the planet when EA first officially announced that this baby was headed for PlayStation 2. Hell, NCAA Football 2002 was unbelievably fun and stole away more than 200 hours of my time this past summer and I was hoping to get the same results out of NCAA March Madness 2002.

However, once I got the game my excitement quickly turned into bewilderment. The game does not have a Dynasty mode, which is the mode that made EA Sports' college football game so damn fun to play. And what's worse is that it doesn't even have a single Season mode, either. What you get with this game is only an exhibition mode and a tournament mode, nothing more. You can't take your favorite team through a full season and you can't take a program from loser to dynasty over the course of few years.

If you don't care about this stuff, just go ahead and give the game a look. It has a bunch of gameplay problems and AI flaws, which I've mentioned above, but it's a decent enough two-player game if ultra-realism isn't the most important thing in your life. Personally, I wouldn't go near this game with a ten-foot pole. EA Sports is still the king of sports, but their crown has some tarnish on it in my book thanks to this lackluster performance.
Click to expand...
 
The Raiden part in MGS2 truly is unbeaten.

But from a company perspective, Sony's PS3 unveiling.
How the hell did they keep all that quiet?
 
Wollan said:
But from a company perspective, Sony's PS3 unveiling.
How the hell did they keep all that quiet?
Click to expand...

I think the PSP was more surprising than that. With the PS3 people atleast expected it to be there, with the PSP no one was expecting it.
 
business: um Nintendo selling Rare.

I think it's a big shocker since Rare did some pretty amazing games in the past.


in-game: Samus was a woman.

I still remember the surprise when I beat Metroid for the first time, and samus unveiled herself. No internet, no magazine or gossip spoiled this for me.
 
Business would be the Square Enix merger. After that, it seemed like anything a fanboy said had a chance to come true.

In game? Yeah, KOTOR's big surprise was handled pretty well. "You mean I'm *not* just a vaguely defined ego projection?"
 
180px-Super_Metroid_Mother_Brain_hyperbeam.png


End of Super Metroid. Down to your last life, knelt before the mother brain. You have one hitbox left. Motherbrain concentrates her energy pulling in force to eventually destroy you and all you journeyed for in one last concentrated mega blast. Right? No! Right before motherbrain unleashes her fury, a adult Metroid crashes into the room and lands on her head sucking her energy from her. Sucking that hoe dry! Motherbrain grays into a supposed lifeless form as the adult Metroid floats down to Samus and starts exporting motherbrains converted energy into her. Samus grow strong! But as Samus recieves motherbrains lifeforce from the adult metroid, motherbrain starts healing herself, she starts attacking the metroid. The metroid doesnt let go, continuing to fill Samus with power as motherbrain attacks it. It dies. Motherbrain kills the metroid.

Samus stays there knelt, glowing, filled with power and energy, glowing like a motherfucking rainbow. The music is pumpin, epic is written all over the screen. Revenge.Samus shoots motherbrain with super energy beams causing her head to flyback. Bitchslap. Bitchslap. Over and over causing motherbrain to scream each time. Motherbrain dies like the old hag she is. Dunno about you other gaffers, but I was on the edge of my goddamn seat the whole time.
 
Quellex said:
180px-Super_Metroid_Mother_Brain_hyperbeam.png


End of Super Metroid. Down to your last life, knelt before the mother brain. You have one hitbox left. Motherbrain concentrates her energy pulling in force to eventually destroy you and all you journeyed for in one last concentrated mega blast. Right? No! Right before motherbrain unleashes her fury, a adult Metroid crashes into the room and lands on her head sucking her energy from her. Sucking that hoe dry! Motherbrain grays into a supposed lifeless form as the adult Metroid floats down to Samus and starts exporting motherbrains converted energy into her. Samus grow strong! But as Samus recieves motherbrains lifeforce from the adult metroid, motherbrain starts healing herself, she starts attacking the metroid. The metroid doesnt let go, continuing to fill Samus with power as motherbrain attacks it. It dies. Motherbrain kills the metroid.

Samus stays there knelt, glowing, filled with power and energy, glowing like a motherfucking rainbow. The music is pumpin, epic is written all over the screen. Revenge.Samus shoots motherbrain with super energy beams causing her head to flyback. Bitchslap. Bitchslap. Over and over causing motherbrain to scream each time. Motherbrain dies like the old hag she is. Dunno about you other gaffers, but I was on the edge of my goddamn seat the whole time.
Click to expand...

Now that's a great post.
 
Didn't EGM have this last year?

I'll go with Vagrant Story, even if it turned out to be false (I think):
Ashley murdering his wife and son. With a arrow. Or just the scene played. Him running towards his family and they show an arrow harpoon next to him getting there first.
I couldn't believe they put a scene like that in a game.
 
- The Brain Tranning games in Japan. All people were laughing at them, and they still sell a fairly good 20.000 copies each week.
- Sheik is Zelda.
- Sega and Nintendo doing a game together.
- The GameCube having a handle
- When in Golden Sun you chose not to do the adventure and there appears a mesage saying "and you went on your own way and the world was destroyed".
- Sorry Mario, but the princess is in another world castle.
 
FallenOne666 said:
Biggest for me comes from Xenogears. The FMV cutscene with Weltall turning into the Red Gear and revealing that Fei is actually Id was amazing.
Click to expand...

I agree that was awesome and shocking.

IAmtheFMan said:
KOTOR

The bigger shocker was that I didn't go hunt and beat down the idiot on GAF that spoiled the big secret for me.
Click to expand...

yeah that was big shocker too!

Chance turning out to be a traitor and killing Teresa in Syphon Filter 2 was a huge shocker for me.
 
Playing Jet Force Gemini for the first time and thinking "haha, that ant just gunned down a tribal" or purposely taking out a a whole family of tribals with the Tri Rocket Launcher.

Then making it to the part where you are told you have to save every single tribal :(
 
Finding out Samus is a girl in Metroid!

(Don't laugh. The fact that this is a classic, and really was remarked on so often in gaming history, may indicate just how much game stereotypes were taken for granted... even in the 8-bit era.)
 
- The first time I knocked down King from Art of Fighting with a special move.
- King of Fighters. Having people from Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury fighting in the same game was a shock.
 
[fixed, sorry]

In shadow of the colossus, when you
are clamoring for a place to stand out of the water at the 5th colossus in SOTC, all the while it stares at you from its perch - an enormous bird of prey. You finally get onto one of the platforms and without even putting thought towards the consquences - shoot at it with the bow. It leaps off of its perch and starts coming -straight for you-.
That was the first time I really felt that one of the colossi was out for blood, and it scared the crap out of me.



Oh also, when I heard killer instinct was coming to the super nintendo (I was thinking "how the hell are they going to do that?!").

Then the disappointment after seeing the horrible port. It's like playing a gameboy (the original) port of a good Revolution game.
 
Celda is a great nomination for industry stuff, as would be the Revolution controller.

I can't claim to have been shocked by Raiden because I didn't play MGS2 until probably a year after its release and hence already knew all about it, but I would like to nominate

Metal Gear Solid 1 - final conversation
Having insisted on playing the game on Hard from the start (I'd decided the radar took away much from the stealth), I'd slowly made my way through the first Metal Gear Solid. Finally, I'd reached the final chase sequence. My first few attempts to liberate Snake and Meryl from Shadow Moses Island were unsuccessful, and before retrying, I stopped to think back on the game now that I'd seen everything. Did it live up to the hype?

"It's been very good," I thought, "but for all the great presentation, the story really didn't have it all together." It relied on too many coincidences and plot holes: if FOXHOUND hadn't accidentally killed the DARPA chief, the whole mission to "stop" the Metal Gear launch really wouldn't exist. The writers had completely forgotten about one of the main henchmen, that old guy with the gun. And did this whole FOXDIE thing really have any point? It was a good game, I thought, but not AWESOME. Given all advances in cinematic video games, I thought, it was too bad that game directors didn't really know what they were doing when it came to storylines.

Soon afterwards, I cleared the chase sequence -- and only then did I discover I hadn't seen everything. FOXDIE took down Liquid and his superior genes. Revolver Ocelot hadn't been forgotten about at all, and the DARPA chief's death was no accident. Solid and Liquid weren't the only clones. A third son of Big Boss was out there and had set up the whole incident. The entire story turned on its head. Kojima knew what he had been doing all along, and I -- and Solid Snake -- had just gotten punk'd.

As with any good shock, it's shocking only because it's not obvious you're about to be shocked. Too many games practically clobber the player over the head with their "surprises," hinting over and over at a character's mysterious past or a comrade's imminent betrayal. Metal Gear Solid, on the other hand, drops its clues without rubbing them in your face, so that you're free to develop alternative hypotheses like "The writers suck." The game doesn't even explain every step Ocelot's plot; it gives the basic details and respects the the player's intelligence enough to assume everyone will realize Ocelot offed the DARPA chief on purpose. The result is that everything you thought was irrelevant suddenly collides into a single moment of horrified revelation as you realize that Ocelot and Konami had been playing you the whole time.

edited to correct a typo
 
The first and thus the most memorable was Ninja Gaiden 2 (I think) on the NES. You go through the entire game trying to save the girl and just as you get to the villian and start to think everything is going to be all right...He STABS HER IN THE BACK!!! That was the first time I remember anybody not being able to save the damsel in distress.

Oh and FF2 (US) when Palom and Porom turn themselves into stone to save everybody else was far more shocking than Aeris biting it.
 
JRPereira said:
When you
are clamoring for a place to stand out of the water at the 5th colossus in SOTC, all the while it stares at you from its perch - an enormous bird of prey. You finally get onto one of the platforms and without even putting thought towards the consquences - shoot at it with the bow. It leaps off of its perch and starts coming -straight for you-.
That was the first time I really felt that one of the colossi was out for blood, and it scared the crap out of me.
Click to expand...

You should label the game that's a spoiler to outside of the spoiler. :)

Jive Turkey said:
The first and thus the most memorable was Ninja Gaiden 2 (I think) on the NES. You go through the entire game trying to save the girl and just as you get to the villian and start to think everything is going to be all right...He STABS HER IN THE BACK!!! That was the first time I remember anybody not being able to save the damsel in distress.
Click to expand...

They did that in Revenge of Shinobi a year earlier, only the option to save her required a lot of skill. Zeed, what a bastard.
 
:lol spoilers for 'title' would be good to mention. No problem though. I seen SOTC and immediately clicked elsewhere.
 
I may be biased, but the revelation at the end of Dragon Warrior III has always been my favorite videogame moment, and suitably shocking to boot. You go through I and II hearing about the legendary hero Erdrick/Loto, and upon starting III the player almost feels alienated by the new world map and no mention at all of previous games.

But then you go further in, head into the second, more familiar world, and discover that III is
actually a prequel, and that you've been playing as Erdrick/Loto the whole time.
Yay! This is exactly the kind of thing that blew my mind as a kid.
 
From Shadow of the Colossus (do not read if you haven't finished the game)

SotC being a prequel to ICO was completely unexpected. There were suttle hints since both games had a few things in common, but the ending was a complete shock.
 
Bataman said:
They did that in Revenge of Shinobi a year earlier, only the option to save her required a lot of skill. Zeed, what a bastard.
Click to expand...
But am I right? It was NG2 right? And yeah I obviously never played Revenge of Shinobi.
 
40+ replies and noone's mentioned when Sega announced that they were going out of the console hardware business and that the Dreamcast would basically be their last console? That was one helluva shocker.

Also, to add to Castlevania SotN, the real shocker came to me after I beat the castle thinking I cleared the game only to find out that was just 50% of it and you had to play the castle inverted. OMGWTF!@!@#!@!@#@#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@!!~~ >:( >:( >:(
 
koam said:
From Shadow of the Colossus (do not read if you haven't finished the game)

SotC being a prequel to ICO was completely unexpected. There were suttle hints since both games had a few things in common, but the ending was a complete shock.
Click to expand...

not only that but
being able to "play" during the final sequence was surprising too, and in the saddest moments to boot, I tried to reach the girl for around 5 minutes before I finally gave up

The ending of MGS 3 too
I kept thinking how could big boss do the stuff he did in MG1 and 2, he seemed to be a model patriot, until EVA tells you what happened and everything makes sense

and the obvious ones: sheik is zelda, mario 2 was just a dream, samus is a girl, but I didn't mind Raiden, mostlty because I already knew about him...
 
You guys are being very helpful so far. I'm trying to try to be fair on coverage, so my list isn't going to be all Sega and Nintendo. :)
 
I was shocked to find out that baby Bowser was actually the fake Mario in Super Mario Sunshine. Nintendo blew dust in my eyes. Didn't see it comin.
 
jenov4 in post #43 said:
40+ replies and noone's mentioned when Sega announced that they were going out of the console hardware business and that the Dreamcast would basically be their last console? That was one helluva shocker.
Click to expand...

MutFox in post #7 said:
SEGA going 3rd party... ='(
Click to expand...
Your thread skimming skill has been found...Lacking.
 
Realising that most of the games GAF masturbates over -- SUCK!

I was like "Wait, why does this game fucking suck? I thought it was supposed to be good???"

Seriously, I was shocked and appalled at how they could furiously beat their meatstick over this wacky jappy shit.
 
Jive Turkey said:
Oh and FF2 (US) when Palom and Porom turn themselves into stone to save everybody else was far more shocking than Aeris biting it.
Click to expand...

Hehe, yeah that was a shocker. And when the credits were rolling and they showed all the characters I was expecting them to come back to life. Square really knows how to kill off a character(s).
 
I just remembered a good one, No zombies and no umbrella (well, kinda) in RE4

that one really shocked me, almost to the point where I considered ignoring the game
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Videogame Museum, Arcueil, France
Retro 
35
480
Ziglax replied
The Biggest Game Releases of May 2026
Opinion Event Trailer 
2
166
adamsapple replied
Are we headed for a videogame crash?
2 3 4
152
2K
Ozzie666 replied
The biggest Video Game disappointment of 2025
3 4 5 6 7
311
3K
ShadowkillXNA replied
I'm becoming an agentic videogame player
2
61
957
ReasonBeing replied
Top Bottom