Plot twist of the generation!

Bioshock

To me none were as effective and influential (people talked about it months after the game came out) as the "Would You Kindly?" Andrew Ryan info dump on Bioshock. What a haunting and effective scene.

Everyone hates the game, but the entire Haytham sequence on Assassin's Creed III bloat aside, was phenomenal up until the early plot twist. Too bad that game squandered all that promise in the slog that followed for the next 10-ish hours.

@tennmuerti: oh yeah lords of shadow was a awesome twist!

Out of the games I've played it's gotta be Spec Ops: The Line.

Gonna go with Deadly Premonition here. Unlike so many twists in games, it caught me by complete surprise.

The Walking Dead: Episode 2.

The part where you find out the family are cannibals was pretty savage, you just kinda find Mark laying there with no legs, telling you not to eat dinner. Brutal.

Also, episode 3. It's not a straight up twist per say, but the part where Lilly shoots Carley RIGHT IN THE GODDAMN FACE OUT OF NOWHERE is abrupt, shocking and brutal.

@tesla: but that was just fight club, that twist has been used a million times.

@tennmuerti: You saw the Binary Domain twist coming? Really? Are you half robot?

It borrows heavily from Asimov fiction. Only it's a more crude, simplified version. The AI part that is. The chick part is just plain telegraphed (even tho the "science" part behind it is super dumb).

"Eu Sunt Dracul!"

But I also really dug "Would You Kindly?" and the ending twists of Bioshock Infinite.

Portal 2 ... First the switch from Glados to Wheatly and then Wheatly apologizing to you in the end. The last one doubles as the single best scene in a videogame ever for me.

Sooooo happy Star Ocean 3 is still getting referenced. Thx for that. ;D

@tennmuerti said:

I think people tend to forgive that in Binary Domain because it really is the Little Engine That Could. Sure it "borrowed" (I would say stole, but there's nothing wrong with that either) from Asimov but it still used those story beats effectively. It was just a fun game that unexpectedly had heart. I'm sure it didn't hurt that expectations were as low as possible for it to begin with.

@oldirtybearon: Oh yea sure, i totally don't hold that against Binary Domain. It's in my top 10 that year, it surprised me in that regard as it did a lot of people.

Did anyone say Mass Effect 3's ending yet? HEYOOOOO

When it comes to plot twists there have been some pretty good ones this generation, Dragon's Dogma threw me even though I kinda knew it was coming because of it's presentation and it's fall from heaven resolution.

I'll always come back to Xenoblade Chronicles because after it's 80 hours of mainly drudging gameplay and empty side quests the story goes nuts in the final 10.

Basically you're a human living on Bionis, a giant sleeping titan and your god who lies frozen opposite Mechonis (his mechanical opposite), after Mechonis attacked Bionis years ago, and wars between the mechanical and biological of each have waged for ages with the robots winning. The humans do have the sword of their god, the 'Monado' and it's a trump card vs the robots unfortunately it's wounding the war hero that can use it. After years of peace the robots attack, led by a 'faced' robot unaffected by the sword. The protagonist finds he can also wield the sword and without consequence but his love interest is eaten, first twist the robots eat people for no reason, so he sets out to destroy all the robots. Stereotypical JRPG so far.

As the hero goes on he discovers: his love interest is alive but is some form of host in another face robot, the first face robot is the war hero's traitorous friend as host but still with his memories, There are friendly humanoid robots on the fallen arm of Mechonis, the person using the love interest's body is the god within Mechonis, Bionis attacked Mechonis first in the ancient war giving the robots cause to attack the people of Bionis, that the god inside Bionis (Zanza) was hiding inside the protagonist and the sword the whole time, then kills the mechanical god and takes her Monado and turns out to be the big bad. Still nothing super crazy.

For those only interested in the crazy: After fighting a bunch of ghosts while running about space passing all our solar systems planets (the game not set in our universe) until you reach earth, you discover the two gods were scientists who were running a LHC experiment with the ring around earth. One sets off an experiment to create life and the other attempts to stop it; it goes off, new big bang, both are gods in this world. To remain gods they must both harvest their people or fade away Bionis wants to remain a god while Mechonis is ok with her fate, starting the war. In the end the protagonist kills Bionis and is asked by the mysterious all knowing dude, who turns out to be the facility computer, whether he wants to let this world die or start a new world and also if he wants to be a god. The protagonist decides to start a new world free of gods so people can control they're own destiny, and they all live happily ever after.

The whole cycle of reclaiming life for some purpose parallel made me think of Mass Effect and how it handled it's ending and whether this did it any better.

Also I apologise for the wall, it's hard to condense all the madness without foregrounding.

That part in Gears of War 2 with Dom's wife I remember being pretty jaw dropping and haunting.

ACII was pretty good as well.

@peakborn: You stole my idea... and I agree, that was a total surprise to me :P

Xenoblade is an awesome game :)

@tennmuerti: I know the surroundings of the twist are telegraphed but the actual events are pretty damn out of the blue to the point of complete absurdity; Asimov or no.

It's mostly the part where Minerva says she ain't talking to Ezio, she's talking to Desmond, and she's got a hot apocalyptic message for him in the future/present/whatthefuckthisisawesome.

When the meat and potatoes are telegraphed and I see them, it really doesn't matter if they are layed out on the plate slightly awkwardly :P They are still meat and potatoes that were coming. The plot or the plot "twist" were not a surprise to me. I've already had this conversation in another thread. For example it doesn't matter if a partner X stabbed you or shot you in the back, he still betrayed you, you don't need to predict every minutia of an event, plot or twist, to predict it's essence, meaning and result.

@freshbandito: In a game that is 100% scripted it's a bad twist. Same with Spec Ops. Poor writing when the player is forced into these actions and condemed for playing a game that the developers forced them to only be able to play 1 way.

BHAHA. You're a joke.

Your reliance on a review score of, somebody who isn't a good reviewer for that matter, and the fact you chose the most generic answer for this type of thread "Bioshock Infinite", shows you lack any sense of of your own

@tennmuerti: The circumstances of the twist do impact the result though, e.g. the twist in the Prestige is purposefully telegraphed so that the audience can figure it out even halfway through the movie but the method and portrayal of the foreshadowing elevates the material to an incredibly high level.

Similarly in Binary Domain while you could figure out what was going on the circumstances of the event can both shock/baffle you as well as create new possibilities which are completely bizarre but probably also the most interesting aspect of Binary Domain's admittedly shallow world view. It's not enough to say "so and so is going to betray me."

Additionally if you're going with Bioshock while the twist itself is incredible it doesn't actually impact or change the plot that much because it happens at the midway point. The climax has to be in the last third of the proceedings almost always but due to the falling action dragging the game declines pretty severely as a result. This is why the storyline in Bioshock just gets tossed the "good for a video game" label but the storyline in the Last of Us gets the "fifth best movie of the year" label; because the pacing in one of the games is very well thought out and designed but the pacing for the other is atrocious (original Bioshock, Infinite has really bad pacing issues too but the twist isn't really comparable to any of the above).

Qualitatively, I absolutely agree. A predictable work is not inherently bad or inferior. I advocated as much myself in another thread (sorry I keep mentioning this, but there was a thread a couple of weeks back about a person predicting twists). You can still derive a lot of enjoyment from a story even if you see a twist coming. Which I absolutely did, in case of Binary Domain (enjoy it that is, despite or maybe because of it's stupidity). I just don't consider it a good "twist" by itself as it was predictable. Specifically when talking about twists. The events didn't shock or baffle me, what else can I say. /shrug All I remember is a feeling of pleasant amusement (and seeing some cool looking fights).

As for Bioshock I personally found it a great twist. The story going downhill later and it eventually not mattering in the later stages didn't affect my enjoyment of it and how it took me by surprise at the time of it occurring.

This is exactly why I talk about the twists themselves specifically. You can have good twists in average works, and you can have middling twists in enjoyable works (stories).

The storyline in the Last of Us while I again enjoyed, I wouldn't put up for any awards in terms of storyline. It's very by the numbers predictable. Tho very well done and still effective in the end. Effective direction/acting/execution. Not plot.

The two are very much different, in spec ops it tries to make it seem like your choice was monstrous. In Bioshock it says you had no choice from the beginning.

Deadly Premonition

You like that he is a troll in the guise of a journalist, and I don't. That is where this conversation ends. I don't care if he likes or dislikes things for that reason. When someone openly writes with the intention of comment-baiting, his opinion ceases to matter to me. No more argument needs to transpire on this subject. Feel free to keep suggesting that AC2 is an objectively poorly-made game, though, having never actually elaborated on it - you will find lots of resistance, none of which you'll hear from me, as you're mirroring your darling critic Sterling at this point.

Assassin's Creed 2, Bioshock, Braid

I think Bioshock is sometimes overrated in terms of its gameplay.

But the one thing you can't say about it was that it didn't have the best twist. The Bioshock twist is up there with Fight Club and Sixth Sense in the "best twist, period" territory. It's brilliant and the entire game comes together at that single point. The Bioshock Infinite twist was a shadow by comparison.

This is not even a contest.

I vote for Bioshock Infinite

infamous was great

BRAID

Ghost Trick

Binary Domain - boning robots produces humans

999 if DS is this gen. VLR if 3DS. Personally would count DS as the previous generation even if the DS lived in the current home console arena. Plot twists are exactly why I love everything from that game's writer, and even 6 games into projects he was involved with in a number of roles, often writer, and coming to expect those twists and subconsciously over-analyzing every word of dialog because of it, something/things still manage(s) to throw me for a loop.

Braid. That whole part was perfectly executed.

I never knew there were people who disliked AC2 as much as I did.

So underrated. It got me pretty good as well, especially because I thought Reznov was just a CoD bro buddy in World At War.

Wait... how are games having good plot progression and set-up NOT pulling off twists? I was guessing the whole way playing Infinite. Until suddenly everything spun out of control and went bonkers in the end. I'd say that is a twist. Also, although the players' experience of the story varies, as in if you guessed it/saw it coming or not, I think a game's story-telling should be mainly judged on how well-executed it is. Because by the time I got to play Bioshock, it's been spoiled or hinted at a thousand times over on the interwebs I can already guess what happens. CoD:Black Ops however caught me by surprise because I expected nothing, played the game dismissing all the obvious in your face moments as "Call of Duty logic", and ended up really enjoying the twist. Was it well-executed? Maybe a bit hamfisted as compared to the naturalness of Bioshock, but you see my experience is so different from a lot of other people. If I knew to look out for the plot twist of Black Ops I might have pointed out the problems very early on.

I would agree SO: The Line was unearned though. There was no actual choice, but tries to make you feel bad for playing it. I think good twists should feel natural, and The Line doesn't really.

@themangalist: I have already talked about earlier in this thread that I differentiate between a twist in a story and a story overall. If you want my perspective on that.

As to the first question it's something is not a twist, if it follows a fairly logical progression of events as they are happening at the time. In terms of Infinite it's because it slowly doled out it's plot, in a well done manner that build itself up little by little quite effectively via smaller and bigger discoveries. I didn't need to guess or not guess anything coming, I didn't feel like there was anything to guess overall, it was just a tapestry slowly revealing itself to you piece by piece. It was up to the player how much you saw or put together, before it pulled back into bigger views of said tapestry each time.

In other terms, there needs to be a record scratch kind of moment for me to think of it as a twist moment. A total change of perspective, direction, plot that comes out of nowhere unexpectedly. I need to believe in something being X only later to be told it's actually Y and not X (and not just X+1 either). It's hard to put down in words.That never happened to me in ME1 or Infinite, it was just a build to a crescendo via discovery in the best way. Infinite is probably the most vague and debatable for me in that sense (it not having twists, or a dozen small twits, or a few huge twists for others) and I will go as far as to agree with you to a degree, where as something like Last of Us is way more clear cut steady narrative with no twists just well executed. Again this is a very subjective area, that hugely depends on personal experience. Which is also why I added the "per se" in there, because I recognize they can be viewed as such by others, in different circumstances, or with a different categorizing of them.

Finally just because I don't think of them as having twists doesn't mean I don't think of them as good stories.

@tennmuerti: After some long hard thinking I think you're right. Good setups towards a twist would be subtle. Yet a lot of people here may have confused a "twist" with a "reveal". ME1 is more of a plot progression/reveal than a twist.

Bioshock Infinite does have some subtlety (such as the Lutece statue change) outside of major plot points communicated to the player. And I do think the multiverse reveal is a record scratch moment, and made every weird thing b oth major and minor throughout the game make sense. So I would still classify Infinite as having a twist.

I thought the ending of 999 was pretty surprising. It's not plot twist of the generation, but I thought to mention it.

Bioshock, Portal, Braid, Deadly Premonition, all of those deserve a mention and have been mentioned a lot.

So I'll add No More Heroes seeing as the last hour of that game throws at least 51 plot twists at you.

Buying Forza and then smacked with $60.00 car purchases in the game.

I don't know if I would call it the best twist of the generation, but I really like the twist in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

Would you kindly? Bioshock.