Video games can be predictable things as in order to be playable they must follow some sort of logic. Every once in a while though some plucky developer finds a way to hide a chunk of madness in the logic like some sort of insane s’more sandwich and when that happens the world cries out in happiness. This article hopes to enlighten you to some of the greatest times a cloud of 1′s and 0′s made you cry yourself to sleep.
Eternal Darkness
The Game
Basically it was a really fucked up survival horror game. The premise we’re not going to talk about too much as that’s one of the biggest selling points of this game but just to entice you it involved undead centurions, a haunted mansion, and it was made by Dennis Dyack before he got totally obsessed with making “Too Human”.
…Wait what’s happening now
This game was one of the first games to institute a sanity system which would actively fuck with you as you’re playing by doing things like muting the sound, blacking out the screen, or randomly having your character die but these were all child’s play compared to the biggest trip it sent your way.
Oh hi there
Oh jeez, oh man, make it stop, make it stop.
Should your sanity drop too far and should the situation line up properly the game would tell you it just deleted your whole memory card…YOUR WHOLE GODDAMN CARD! The “Gamecube” in its early days had aggressively small memory cards and losing all that progress from all your games would have been devastating. This trick alone caused many a shit brick and as such the game is fondly remembered to this day.
Deadly Premonition
The Game
Another survival horror game except this one is notorious for being incredibly poorly made. The game features poor controls, odd animation, and bad voice acting not to mention it apes ‘Twin Peaks” so hard you half expect David Duchovny to show up in drag once the mystery has been solved (yep that was in “Twin Peaks” for those not in the know, David Lynch is a disturbed man). This game has gained cult status and costs only $25 bucks new so if you’re looking for a new title and are poor as hell, well there you go.
…Wait what’s happening now
Like “Twin Peaks” the story centers around a murder with a supernatural twist and every once in a while the protagonist (whose name is FBI agent Francis York Morgan but you can call him York everyone calls him that) is transported to a dark version of the place he was in which will now be filled with ghosts (or zombies, or something…the game is never clear on that), evil red vines, and fog. When in this realm he fights his way out the situation and by the skin of his teeth he gets back to the real world.
Oh jeez, oh man, make it stop, make it stop
What would you do when you get back to the real world after such an experience? I know what I would do, I would scream my head off and burn down whatever building just teleported me to hell but that’s not what York does. York does absolutely nothing about the situation either ignoring the whole experience or only mentioning it vaguely in passing.
York, he takes it easy like sunday morning, no ghost dimension of unspeakable horror is going to ruin his mood.
This might be acceptable the first time with denial and all but this continues even up past his fifth trip to bizzaro world. My personal theory (I’m yet to beat the game so I have no clue if I’m right) is that he’s the killer and every trip to hell is just a murderous haze but then again probably not.
Metal Gear Solid
The Game
MGS is one of the founding fathers of the stealth genre promoting sneaking and killing quietly compared to the run and gun mentality of other action games. The plot was also unique focusing on a military based espionage conspiracy story with more twists, double crosses, and plot holes than an entire season of 24 but it still came with the crazy randomness you’d expect from a Japanese game.
…Wait what’s happening now
Everything feels fairly straightforward and somewhat believable (if not a little over cinematic) which allows you to feel nice and engrossed in the storyline and then the crazy fucker in the gas mask shows up.
Oh jeez, oh man, make it stop, make it stop
Our respiration impaired friend goes by the name Psycho Mantis and decides to promptly to fuck with any disbelief you had suspended pretty much the second you meet him face to face. To start with he takes over the mind of the spunky female sidekick making her come on to you and then later fight you, odd but nothing compared to what he does next. After he’s done with her he then tells you put your controller on the ground at which point he moves it from inside the game and then he reads your mind tells you’re a pussy for saving so much but that you have good taste because you’ve been playing the hell out of some Castlevania (ok yes it’s doing all these things through simple tricks of the hardware but still, holy hell that’s freaky)! The game has now become sentient and clearly it’s angry at you but if you haven’t destroyed your Playstation yet there’s more weird shit to come. Psycho Mantis knows he’s got you scared now so he starts cackling away at you and so do the portraits beside him as well most of the rest of the room (Hideo Kojima is a Sam Raimi fan I guess). He’s now ready to fight so here’s your chance to end the madness and shoot the bastard but wait something’s wrong. You can’t hit him no matter what you try, you’re at a loss so in frustration you call the Colonel on codec and what does he tell you to do, he tells you to “switch the controller ports on your Playstation”. You ask yourself how that could possibly help as that’s the sort of thing you’d try after 11 hours of screwing around in this boss battle and all your other attempts have failed including sacrificing a pizza to appease your “Playstation” but you’re stuck so you try it and it works. Psycho Mantis is dead and you can move forward with the story but don’t forget your brain it’s on the ground back there as that fight just blew your mind.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
The Game
“Batman: Arkham Asylum” is the perfect Batman game, hands down. You have the stalking of criminals, world-class detective work, free-flowing combat, and some of the best voice acting ever to grace a video game. The plot has you as Batman trying desperately to control a prison break at Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s premier institution for the criminally insane. If you haven’t played this game go buy it now and play it, it’s fine we’ll wait.
…Wait what’s happening now
One of the most frightening villains in the Asylum is the Scarecrow and I know what you’re saying, “oh the Scarecrow’s a pussy, he always get his ass kicked and thrown to the side in the comics and stuff”. Yeah well prepare to change your mind.
Hmm, seems he’s channeling Psycho Mantis in this game, that’s not a good sign.
Oh jeez, oh man, make it stop, make it stop
The Scarecrow strikes when you least expect it but more importantly you won’t know he’s struck until it’s too late. While every scene he has in the game is an existentialist brain melt I’m not going to go into detail on them because explaining them will ruin the actual experience if you haven’t had it yet and if you have experienced it I know you need no reminders as it’s burned into your memories. That said his moments are easily some of gaming’s greatest mind fucks and are great examples of games as an art form (no I’m not stirring that whole bee’s nest up I honestly couldn’t care less about the whole Ebert thing) as the gameplay is what makes these sequences a true experience and simply watching them doesn’t suffice.
As a little taste of how weird it gets, that’s the inside of an Arkham Asylum hallway during one of these sequences.
Nolan Freaking North
The game
There isn’t a strict game here as really this applies to every game ever made ever for all time. We’ve all heard the joke about how’s he’s in everything and that when studios have a male character with brown hair they just hire Nolan “golden throat” North so he can smarm the hell out of it. Hell, he’s been protagonist model #XJ894 for so many games it’s hard to count but pigeon holing is pigeon holing right?
I can hear the dry wit and self-deprecation from just looking at him.
…Wait what’s happening
Nolan north is just confined to the PS3 and Xbox 360 it’s not like he’s been on every major console… oh wait yeah he has (he was in MadWorld, you know that cool Wii game you never played). Well at least he’s confined to shooters and ultra violence you’ll never hear him in RPGs particularly not any JRPGS… except that he has been in tons of them from “Lost Odyssey” all the way through “Dragon Age”. Well he’s a recent phenomenon and only exists in this console generation right… not quite he’s doing video game voice acting since 1999 meaning the last console generation was his bitch too.
Oh jeez, oh man, make it stop, make it stop
The only truth you hold about Nolan North at this point is that all his voices sound the same. I’m sure you could go back through all your games and pick him out easy now that you’re looking for him. It’s not like he’s done any characters with really distinct only them kind of voices like N-gin from Crash Bandicoot except no wait he’s totally N-gin from the crash series just go look at his IMDB page!
Yeah he voices this guy. This and Nathan Drake are in the real world one and the same.
You like Marvel comics well that’s great because he’s done half their roster (DC isn’t safe either just ask Nolan “Green Lantern” North), how about Nickelodeon cartoons because he’s been there too, ok let’s go far away from those last references and say The Hardy Boys, I mean hell I’m not even sure there’s an HB video game… but yeah he’s in there too.
I hope you enjoyed this article and remember that the next time you hear any sort of sound in a video game that you’re probably hearing Nolan North.
