(Photo by NME)
Video games over the years have evolved from purely a pastime focused heavily on gameplay and relaxation to a fully-fledged juggernaut capable of telling J. R. R. Tolkien length stories in a way that cannot be captured by any other form of media. These playable experiences are now able to completely mess with the player in a variety of ways to either make story progression more shocking, make certain decisions harder than others, or to throw your expectations off completely throughout your playthrough. Whether it is an intended mechanic in the game, a plot twist, or even messing with the player in the build-up to the release of a game, some games simply just want to play YOU instead of the other way around and make you feel like a bit of a fool. Just a quick warning before the video gets under way, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS, so if you see a game on this list that you haven’t quite had the chance to get around to, just be warned and maybe skip ahead a little bit.
10. Undertale
Toby Fox’s Undertale is an incredibly clever game. One of the most incredible soundtracks, memorable characters and it even challenges the conventional ideas of how video games are played and how the player themselves interact with these seemingly unimportant characters, with their actions supposedly having no consequences. When starting your adventure through the Underground, it is expected that upon entering your first encounter, your gamer instinct would kick in and you would smoke everyone around you for EXP and gold to aid your quest. However, this is where Undertale truly messes with the player, with the realisation that you are destroying people that have significance to the world in which they inhabit. This isn’t just one enemy; this is the family member of another character you will meet later. Those two guards you just killed, they had feelings for each other. Over your playthrough the reality of your actions starts to come to life, with the antagonist Flowey having control over the player’s actions and save files, exploring the endless violence and then just overwriting the save file so that you can do a different path without the consequences of your previous actions. But oh boy they have consequences. Realising the horrible person that you are, some people would reset and try a playthrough where you don’t kill anyone, but Flowey and other characters like our beloved Sans will never let you forget what you did. And then after you finish that playthrough the next most logical thing you’ll think of is hmm, can I kill absolutely everything? Don’t.
9. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
An underrated gem on the PS3 and Xbox 360, this anticipated sequel to the 2009 hit sees the return of Starkiller, the once Sith apprentice turned good after being betrayed by Darth Vader TWICE. The first game alone messed with the player after blindly following Vader’s orders, only to be discarded once your services are fulfilled to him. This game ramps up the confusion to the max, with you constantly second guessing whether you are the original Starkiller restored and modified by Vader, or whether you are a clone of Starkiller, despite being assured that force powers cannot be cloned. Again, the game wraps you around its finger by having you constantly question whose dirty work you are doing and what your purpose even is at this point. Deep. Constantly at odds between the dark and light side of the force, the player must try and make sense of the protagonist’s identity and their intentions. Things take another turn for the strange upon selecting the Dark Side ending, where it is revealed that Vader lied (I know, again) about being able to clone force powers as you are killed by yet another Starkiller clone… Yeah, I’m lost.
8. Cyberpunk 2077
Yeah, I know this is a bit of a cop-out, come on get the pitchforks out let’s get it over with. The bottom line is that CDProjektRed’s 2020 release messed with the player as soon as they loaded the game up. Delay after delay after delay kept the fans hungry for when this game was eventually going to come out, with such hype surrounding the game’s dystopian environments, the prospect of making your own character completely unique in how you want to interact with the seemingly beautiful world and how you play the game, (and the fact you get to hang out with fricking Keanu Reeves). But all players were met with was bugs, glitches, and apologies, with the game being taken from console online stores quickly into its lifespan, with refunds being issued for those who were not happy with their new shiny broken game. The game probably works just fine now, but the whole experience has left a sour taste in the mouth of many gamers after all the hassle and messing about it did to those who were so excited for it in the first place.
7. Bioshock
One of the most infamous plot twists in video game history, this game really messed with its player not only in its subject matter, but on how the player themselves interacts with a game and you are unconsciously doing somebody else’s dirty work for them. Your arrival in the once bustling but now desecrated city of Rapture seems by complete chance, with your adventure through the city being your attempted escape and call for help after your plane crashes and points you straight into the direction of Rapture. The player is immediately faced with a plethora of moral dilemmas, the almost epidemic-like spread of addiction to Plasmids, the invention of the mastermind of Rapture, Andrew Ryan. Plasmids are powers that are given to the citizens of Rapture to help with everyday tasks, but through their use, the people craved more and more power, needing ADAM which is a genetic material that grants these powers. What is even more messed up is that ADAM is mostly extracted through the ‘Little Sisters’ which are brainwashed little girls that are protected by the iconic ‘Big Daddies’, killing them means harvesting their ADAM to make you even stronger through your journey, but there is also a chance to save them, forcing players to either put their own fate or the fate of others in their hands. Your interaction with them also impacts what ending you get as well, with you being condemned for the harvesting of the little girls. All of this pales in comparison to the true nature of your trip to Rapture, with the protagonist being the illegitimate son of Andrew Ryan, mind manipulated to becoming a mindless assassin using the seemingly innocent phrase ‘Would you kindly?’ that is so often said by your guide Atlas that will make you execute any action that he asks, playing upon the video game player doing quests without much thought or hesitation. An Orwellian world with killer gameplay, one of the best plot twists in gaming, and the power to control SWARMS OF BEES. Yeah, that really messes with you.
6. PT
Does this even count? Yes, I know this was essentially a teaser for the upcoming ‘Silent Hills’ starring The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus that unfortunately got cancelled, but this game REALLY messed with the entire community surrounding its launch. You know what, yeah, this ‘game’ does count as messing with the player, as the fact that this game didn’t even get released at all is a kick in the balls itself. This took an entire community to decipher what this ‘Playable Teaser’ was even for, with people posting their finds in online forums and Reddit, all working together to uncover Hideo Kojima’s new secret project. The entire gameplay is based around walking through seemingly the same corridors over and over and over again, but people with a little bit too much time on their hands let’s just say, did the most random and unsuspecting tasks during their loops that unlocked the trailer for Silent Hills. It was completely possible for the player to miss these signs however, and just be stuck in an endless loop of walking followed by a jump scare at the end, but the steps to figure out the true secrets of PT were mindboggling. For example, as reported by the Silent Hill wiki, the conditions for the final puzzle must be done after the clock strikes midnight,
Players must trigger a baby’s laughing three times to ring the phone, having to walk exactly 10 steps in a certain location and even WHISPERING CERTAIN NAMES INTO A MICROPHONE.
Yeah, I would have had no clue either. But thanks to some very clever gamers, this playable teaser’s secret nature was truly revealed after messing with its audience.
5. Heavy Rain
Now, I am not the biggest fan of this game, whether it was the laughable voice acting, the overreliance on quick time events, or the sheer unlikability of any of its characters, but one thing I must give Heavy Rain credit for, is how it emotionally warped its player. In this PS3 exclusive by David Cage, you play as Ethan, a father whose son dies after they are both hit by a car. His other son is then abducted by the Origami Killer, a killer that abducts young boys in the autumn and drowns them by rainwater before leaving Origami figures on their bodies. Ethan is contacted by the killer and put through sadistic trials to save his son. The player is constantly guessing who the killer is and where Ethan’s son is, with it being completely possible to screw up and put together the wrong information to result in the death of his son. You must put the pieces together, if you do something wrong, you must deal with the consequences. There are a multitude of different endings depending on what acts and decisions you make with the game’s 3 main protagonists, with the player being teased as to who is the killer and upon the completion of the trials, a piece of the location where Ethan’s son is being held is given. The pieces are all there for you to decipher, but you’d better do it fast as Ethan’s son only has around 3 days to live. A great concept for a game, but it is a shame the execution is so hilariously awful.
4. Doki Doki Literature Club
This one was a wild ride. What on surface level looks like a cutesy anime dating simulation game, turns out very quickly to be one of the most disturbing and heart wrenching horror games in recent memory. The game messes with the player through the manipulation of its characters in a world that they can very much control, with some of the characters even having the ability to modify the player’s save files and remove other characters from the game, with the true ending requiring the player to go into the directory of the game itself and delete one of the character’s files from the game outright. As is the norm in dating sim games, you grow attached to these characters and therefore their horrific journeys are shocking for the player to have to digest, with the game displaying multiple error codes and forcing the game to crash, with the game deleting itself after ending. A truly chilling experience that messes with the player before, during, and after they have played it.
3. Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum
Now this was just pure pettiness from Game Freak… Just imagine this, you are travelling through the Sinnoh region, passing through the beautiful Snowpoint City and wander into this unsuspecting house. There is Mindy, an NPC that wants to trade Pokémon with you. Sounds great! And to make this even better, she is offering to trade you a Haunter for your Medicham. Now any well-informed Pokémon master knows that Haunter is a Pokémon that evolves when you trade it, into a Gengar no less, a Pokémon that is well and truly adored by the fanbase. This is going to be a great addition to your team, so you go through with the trade, only to find to your horror that the Haunter doesn’t seem to want to evolve. Hmm. It turns out that Mindy gave her Haunter an everstone before trading it to you, an item that stops a Pokémon from evolving. Well great, you are now just stuck with a stupid Haunter. This trade messed with the fanbase so much that there is even a dedicated Subreddit called ‘FuckMindy’ due to her betrayal, with players sharing their experiences on how they grinded for hours to get a Medicham, only for you to be given a measly Haunter in exchange. Now with the Gen 4 remakes, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl for the Nintendo Switch on the not-too-distant horizon, I wonder whether this abomination of a trade is still going to be in the game, and how many new players she is going to screw over with her evil ways.
2. The Last of Us
One of the most revolutionary games in modern history with how it redefined the ways that stories are told, a gripping tale of survival sprinkled with the greed and destructive nature of mankind. This game messed with the player by making them one of the main reasons that humanity doesn’t get saved in the immediate future, with Joel sacrificing humanity’s chance at survival just so that he doesn’t lose another daughter figure in his life. One man’s selfish desires have doomed the world and you as the player must make sure his wishes are fulfilled. Sacrificing Ellie was not a decision we wanted to take lightly, as her and Joel’s journey together brought them to like previously mentioned an almost father and daughter relationship after he lost his actual daughter in the opening scenes of the game. This of course led into the events of the much-anticipated sequel released in 2020 as the world suffers from Joel’s choice, making you feel like the bad guy for a rare occasion.
1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Ah, Hideo Kojima. This masterpiece is one of my personal favourite games of all time, for its incredible story, nail biting stealth sections, and the fact that it is sprinkled with some of the biggest plot twists and turns in video game history. But don’t let this distract you from the fact that Hideo Kojima messed with the player BEFORE THEY EVEN BOUGHT THE GAME. All the trailers and gameplay shown before release were of the ‘Tanker’ saga, a section of the game that built up to the main portion of Metal Gear Solid 2 and saw our badass hero Solid Snake sneaking around a tanker and discovering a new form of Metal Gear. Players were in awe of Snake’s transition from the blocky but nostalgic character model from the PS1 into a, well, real human being. This was all great until the actual game came out and the player soon realised that Snake’s journey would end abruptly and instead, you would undergo the main game as Raiden. An unknown character to the player that was billed as being trained for a secret mission by FOXHOUND, the agency that Solid Snake used to work for. Not only was this an incredibly surprising realisation for the player, but this would only go on to be the start of the game messing with the player.
Again, I must stress, BIG SPOILERS AHEAD, so skip ahead if you want to experience this masterpiece for yourself, (which you really should), but basically…
It turns out the whole mission was an exercise put together by an intelligent AI and Raiden is not a FOXHOUND agent, but a child soldier trained by Liquid Snake to try and make him into a soldier in the image of Solid Snake and that the United States' democracy is all an act staged by an organization called "the Patriots", who secretly rule the country.
And this is all unveiled during one of the creepiest sections of the game where the game openly mocks you for playing it and triggering fake ‘Game Over’ screens and telling you to turn the console off (If you know, you know). Yikes Kojima, you really screwed my little head with this one.
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