Six Times Games Threw Us A Curveball

Playing games can be fun, no doubt and with the constant development of storylines and characters, it's easy to get immersed in that world, your imagination flows as you notice the same subtle patterns crop up in the story mode. But every now and again, the game catches us off guard with an unexpected twist and turn that leaves us more confused than an Italian plumber chasing after a princess. (Seriously, what?)

Before I go on, I should say there will be potential spoilers ahead so scroll at your own risk. Here we go.

Assassin's Creed Three

So you've followed the games this far. It's the fifth in the series (don't ask) and you've become familiar with Ubisoft's way of introducing you in to each game. You've seen the trailer, you've followed all the news on IGN and you're prepared to don your white hood and discreetly take down Templars at the height of the American Revolution. So you start your game as the charming Haytham Kenway, not exactly the poster boy for the Assassin order, but it's a new game, so new image. Right?...You still have all the skills, climbing, killing, eagle vision, blending in to the crowd (yeah you get it). As you enjoy your time negotiating with the natives and trying to secure the location of the piece of Eden through elaborate missions designed to make you feel like you're making a difference. It's then that you become friendly with Charles Lee. He seems nice enough so after about three hours of gameplay (kept getting caught by guards who'd sound the alarm!), you decide to initiate old Charlie in to your order. After he takes the oath, you (as in Haytham) present him with a ring and utter the words "congratulations, you are...a TEMPLAR!" So it turns out you just spent the first three sequences helping the very order you've spent the last four games trying to defeat. A complete digital middle-finger from Ubisoft, but still the best part of that game.

Batman Arkham Asylum

One of the defining superhero video games of it's kind. Arkham Asylum let's you play as Batman as you find yourself trapped in the one place you've locked up most of your rogues gallery, all because of that laughing a**hole, the Joker. You get yourself immersed in the role of Batman as you strike fear in to the hearts of your enemies with stealth attacks, combos and gadgets. You are the ultimate predator as you stalk your opponents in the somewhat eerie asylum. When you're finally used to this power stance, you find yourself walking through a corridor and suddenly...your tv flickers for a few seconds, then the game crashes and the screen goes blank. "Don't tell me it's faulty" you say to yourself. Your panic increases as you see the opening scene to the game. "Do I have to start all over again?" (You bloody hope not!). Then it becomes apparent that this is meant to happen. So hang up on technical support, everything is fine. The game has now reversed the roles and Batman is now the insane inmate being brought in to the Asylum by the Joker. That clown then pulls a gun on you and fires, causing you to die. Your given a hint by the game "dodge Joker's shot by moving the middle stick". Eagle-eyed gamers among you will know that the controller has a left stick, yes. A right stick, of course. But a MIDDLE STICK? Evidently not. This is just the game laughing at you as you stare at your controller (which you've been so familiar with up until now) looking for a second chance, which never comes. Good one Rocksteady.

Batman Arkham Knight

Rocksteady's third game in the franchise, it's been a long and bumpy journey as you've navigated your way as the Dark Knight. But you'd think by now (being the World's Greatest Detective and all) that you know enough about these games to not fall for anymore of Rocksteady's shenanigans. Ok that first game was the result of Scarecrow's toxin. Yeah second game where you tried to tell us there were two Jokers, very good Rocksteady but you wont catch me a-oh what!? Yes they did it again. Ace chemicals lab. You've already briefly bumped in to the Arkham Knight but you've got to stop the Scarecrow dispersing his newest toxin. So as you take down all the guards in textbook fashion and confront the Scarecrow (so early on, this must be easy), you're faced with four tanks of toxin. Your job is to carefully move them from one side of the room to the other. What's that? I have to move them slowly? If you say so. You're in full swing you've carefully taken care of three of those gas canisters as Ace Chemicals basically falls down around you, but you're fine. You're calm and composed, just take this canister, turn around and....argh! (I literally screamed like a girl when this happened) there you are, face to face with the Joker who's holding a gun to your head. You panic, "I thought he was dead!? Where's the middle stick? Ugh!" But it's just a long-lasting side effect of Scarecrow's new drug. The Joker is now by your side for the rest of the game. Damn you, Rocksteady for taking away my masculinity in one swift move (apart from Man-Bat where I fell off my chair and had my wife laughing her head off).

The Last of Us

Now personally, I had no clue what to expect from this. I was reluctant to play it purely because I'd heard it was a survival horror game and, as you may have gathered, I don't do too well with the unexpected. I gave it a bash and ended up getting my own copy (I actually think it's a complete work of art, but anyway). The introduction to that game is cinematic beauty. You're briefly thrown in to this normal, every day world of Joel (for some reason pronounced Joal) and his daughter Sarah where Joal (sorry, I mean Joel) has just come home from work, he chats to his daughter and puts her to bed...then things get interesting. You play as a confused Sarah who's woken up to the very beginnings of an apocalypse and the game shows you how quickly things escalate as father, daughter and uncle Tommy try to make their way to safety. You think you've adjusted to the forthcoming apocalypse until Naughty Dog throw a nasty surprise at you. Yes you all know the scene I'm talking about. Poor Sarah gets shot down by a soldier and Joel holds her in his arms helplessly as she passes away....now I'm not saying I was so shocked that I actually cried, but...yeah I did, I cried more than when I realised I had to buy a PS4 to continue with the Arkham games. But seriously, it was emotional because it was unexpected.

Fallout Four

So when I first played this game, I had no idea what Fallout was all about (sorry, I know) so jumping in to the franchise on the fourth game was a leap. You start the game in an alternate America and contrary to the impending nuclear apocalypse, civilians in the game seemed relatively calm. You play the role of either a father or mother to your newborn child, depending what you pick (although if you're anything like me, you spent twenty minutes trying to make the character look like you). All is going well as you roam around your house interacting with various objects/people including Codsworth (not to be confused with the talking clock from Beauty and the Beast) when suddenly you have to evacuate your house and get in the shelter seconds before a nuke drops (though what's wrong with hopping in a fridge/freezer?). You start to adjust to your life underground once you've been given your overalls and frozen in cryofreeze. Then comes the horrid twist, you wake to find everybody is dead, including your wife/husband and a gang of people have taken your child. You wake up some time later to fend for yourself against giant insects (this is where I came out of first person mode). Maybe Fallout fans wouldn't consider this a curve ball, but being new to the franchise I felt as though Bethesda studios had asked me to do the trust fall and stepped back as I dropped to the ground.

Assassin's Creed Two

Just to be clear Assassin's Creed Two actually is the second game in the series (unlike three) and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Gone was the repetition of the first game and now ushered in a ground-breaking addition to Ubisoft's ever-growing franchise. You play as young Ezio Auditore, a young Italian from a wealthy family, who'll soon follow in his father's footsteps to become an Assassin. The game cleverly introduces us to a variety of characters and associates including Uberto, a friend of Giovanni (Ezio's dad). A few sequences in to the game, Giovanni is imprisoned and it's down to Ezio to don his father's Assassin suit and prove his father's innocence by bringing a set of documents to Uberto. Upon doing this, we're shocked to find out that Uberto (wait for it) is a Templar. He denies possession of these documents and executes Ezio's father and brothers. Playing this game, I truly felt just as betrayed as Ezio I mean, here you have this guy (who kind of looks like Kyle Gass from Tenacious D), he's friendly with you and your family and his betrayal comes out of nowhere, leaving Ezio to carry on his father's legacy as an Assassin.

So there you are. Six curveballs that games launched at us quicker than Pong.

Have you ever been caught off guard by a game? Let me know below.

Thanks for reading.

Six Things All Gamers Are Guilty Of

After recently having a few games of Crash Bandicoot for PS4, (still stuck on the High Road, it's bloody infuriating!!) I caught myself doing a series of things that I only ever do whilst gaming. It's a disturbing thought that something digital can cause even the calmest of gamers to lash out in rage when something doesn't go our way. So here's six things all gamers are guilty of.

The Rage Quit

Now this is a heavy one to open with but everybody has raged on some level. From tutting at your TV at the minor inconvenience you've been caused by not beating that boss on the first try, all the way to throwing your controller after the game punishes you in an endless fashion. Whether it's struggling on a boss battle, stuck on a certain level or an online player constantly quick scoping you. We've all felt this rage. Your sat there playing, escaping from the harsh realities of the world and you should be enjoying yourself as you double-jump your way through levels, punching out thugs and feel like you're making a difference in the confines of your game. But you can't get passed that one boss. No matter what strategy you have, be it run in and hit all the buttons (going on the offensive) or keeping back, stocking up on health potions as you chip away at your opponent bit by bit. It doesn't work. You die. Again and again and again. Sometimes you convince yourself "it's only a game, it doesn't matter, I just need to stay calm and - OMG LOOK HOW MUCH HEALTH HE JUST TOOK OFF ME!!" So you do the only thing you can. After seeing that screen for the hundredth time "Are you sure you want to quit?". Quite possibly the most patronising question you'll see on screen. Infuriating as it may be, as if the game is laughing at you, you begrudgingly hit "yes". You turn it off, eject it out the console and (if you're like me) you don't touch it for weeks.

Standing Up When You Lose

This is a bizarre move that we've all done at some point. You'll be racking up combos with ease as you play Arkham Knight. You're confident in your ability to take down all the thugs that come at you, you utilize your gadgets in impressive fashion, you feel like you are Batman. Until you take too many hits and die before you get a 50X combo. In disbelief you feel your thighs tighten, your grip is firm on the controller as you rise off your sofa/bed to THE STANDING POSITION. In this form you fully utilize your gaming skills, you are 100% focused as energy now fills your entire body as opposed to just the top half. You hit RESTART, your game face is on as your thumbs hover over the buttons you are Vengeance, you are the Night, you...are...dead, yeah you died again. You then realise that standing up does absolutely nothing to hone your gaming skill, it's about as instrumental as Ellie's swimming ability in The Last of Us Part One. Standing up is as useful as Ezio Auditore "blending in" by sitting on a bench between two courtesans.

Blaming Hardware

Oh yes, the classic "there's something wrong with this controller". Anything from losing a boss battle to a one on one versus match, sometimes it's not our fault. Sometimes our loss isn't down to our lack of skill as gamers, sometimes the controller seems to stop working just before we die. But it's fine, we don't get annoyed. We simply give a little tut and then (wait for it) "I pressed block but the controller didn't do anything". It's strange because up until that point, you're doing very well, you're smashing out combos, special moves (HADOUKEN!) but right before you die, your controller decides not to register that block button you DEFINITELY pressed. Other variations of this include "I DID jump!" when you fail to clear that gap, "I f***ing PRESSED SQUARE!" when your character doesn't throw an attack and "WHAT IS HE DOING!?" when your character is still sprinting face first in to a wall instead of scaling it. I caught myself doing this a lot on Crash Bandicoot I was even convinced the game (a piece of hardware) was lying to me when that short-wearing creature wouldn't jump precisely on the planks of wood on the High Ground level exactly when I asked him to. Little f**k!

Unwanted Guide From a Fellow Gamer

So you've just bought a new fighting game, maybe it's MKX, Injustice 2 or Tekken 7. You're enjoying that stage of playing as characters, learning their moves, discovering their combos. You're far from perfecting your skills on them but you know enough to win a fight. You'll be playing against the CPU or an online player, you're losing. Suddenly your friend who turns into Mickey from the Rocky movies, hovers in next to you "quick, press down back square". Yeah thanks. "Block, block, block!" Yeah, I got it. "Hold down circle that'll -". Go away and let me play!! Every gamer has a friend like this who knows every character's combos and specials it's even more infuriating on a fast-paced online game like COD, they basically become your corporal. "Fall in! Flank him! Grenada!" This also causes issues in story mode for virtually any game as your friend drops you hints as you discover this new immersive world of a brand new game often leading to major spoilers. It's as infuriating as the end to Arkham Knight when you find out it's actually....oh yeah, spoilers. I see now.

Trolling

This simply had to make the list as one of the more common things we all do for those moods where you just feel like being a d**k. This ranges from causing your team mates to die in COD all the way to insulting people on a headset whilst you're safely tucked away in the comfort of your bedroom. There are different levels of trolling, personally I like to disrupt people's view in COD by standing infront of them or blocking them in a door way, I even go as far as to mute their headsets so I don't feel guilty as i enrage an American teenager who can't get passed me and also cant kill me, as I'm on his team. Occasionally, I prefer the harmless fun of moving around the battlefield in the crouch position, knowing I'm gonna die at some point I go passed the point of caring and watch how it looks on the killcam. GTA 5 is another game I enjoy for trolling, which is probably why I've never completed it. The possibilities are truly endless. Often I like to hop into a Dune Buggy and floor it as high up a mountain as I can and accelerate down on to some poor motorists who don't suspect a fully grown, suit wearing civilian to come crashing down a mountain whilst jumping out of a vehicle at the height of a jump. Do I pack a parachute? Not always.

Reinstalling a Game

So you've now reached a stage where you have so many games, that it's chewed away at your system data faster than Pac Man. The only thing you have left to do is find a game you won't be playing anytime soon (for me it's gonna be Crash Bandicoot) and delete the application. Well done, you've now freed up about 40GB on your console. Some weeks go by and you organise a well constructed gaming evening with your friends. You've hoovered the rug, adjusted the furniture, the wife is off to her mother's, everything is set. Until (oh no) you remember that the game you're all so intent to play (let's say UFC 3 in this case) has been uninstalled to save space. So now you have to reinstall the game there and then and attempt small talk with your friends whilst the game takes forever to get back on to your console byte by byte, pixel by pixel. Your eyes locked on to the status bar "8%, 12%" yeah this may take a while. You're left feeling deflated, your perfectly organised evening has now been delayed by an hour all because you deleted UFC 3 because you needed the space to play Goat Simulator because you were in a funny mood that day.

So there you go, six things all gamers have experienced, if you're guilty of any of these, drop a comment below.

Thanks for reading.