Gaming Moments that Shocked Us: Part 4

Scarecrow strikes and looks to scare us beyond belief in Batman: Arkham Asylum

There are a few gameplay elements that stand out, elements that can almost be described as an ace in tennis with the ball travelling towards you, penetrating the fourth wall, crushing both time and space and leaving you with your chin on the ground. The boss fight with Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid is one such moment and Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane with his hallucinogenic, airborne neurotoxin inducing terror in Rocksteady's first game about Batman is a similar experience.

When I, the player, return to the intensive care unit of Arkham Asylum, I hear a wheezing sound through the air conditioning, Batman starts coughing and... the in-game image locks up. I fly off the couch as my TV in front of me resembles a broken picture from yesteryear, distorted artefacts succeed each other and fill the screen while a high pitched sound rises and cuts through my sound system, and the game shuts down. Everything goes black. Has my game console burned up? Is my TV okay? I've never experienced such an aggressive hardware crash in my career and I've played a few games over the years. It's a good thing I have home insurance as neither my first Full-HD TV nor PlayStation 3 were free.

The game fortunately restarts in front of me. A relief in this context but I am noticeably annoyed when I most likely have to replay a longer part of the game after the crash. The intro to the game is recognisable.. or? The screen keeps glitching, it doesn't look right and I start looking for the number of my insurance company... but soon realise that the intro to the game is not the same intro I've seen so many times before, it's something else. The roles in the video sequence are reversed. The Joker is now driving my Batmobile with a mad Batman as a passenger, heading for Arkham Asylum to check me into the mental hospital where the game takes place. Everything that has just happened in my apartment is part of the game. A well-executed and highly deliberate way to terrify the player in their safe space through manipulation of the game, thematically served via the horror poison that Scarecrow is behind. I don't think I'll ever forgive Scarecrow for this, but I applaud Rocksteady for a well-executed trick out of the ordinary.

The laws of physics in Half-Life 2

I mostly saw everything themed around Valve's long-awaited sequel that was available ahead of its launch. Leaked shots of tech demos, early screenshots of a water snake, that never made it into the final product, the list goes on. The game promised an unprecedented physics system that could, for example, make window panes pierced with bullets collapse in different ways depending on the angle of entry, or objects in water that took into account both viscosity and buoyancy.

Welcome to City 17. I step off the train that pays homage to the original. An authoritarian soldier wearing a protective mask knocks over a can and asks me to pick it up, something I do and throw it in the bin, but the can collides with the rim, bounces off and rolls next to the bin. I smile. I pick up the can again and throw it at the soldier who becomes enraged and starts chasing me with a baton. I make a mess of Dr. Kleiner's lab, rearranging the whole place with expensive equipment that the scientist irritably tells me to be careful with. Many of the puzzles I face throughout the game take the laws of physics into account in a way I've never seen before. Then comes the bomb, the game's showpiece tool is introduced and becomes my first choice through the journey ahead: The Gravity Gun.

This homemade weapon allows me to pick up objects but also shoot them away with full force. I tore elements from the walls as I was chased by the Combine in a run-down house, the automatic fire in my direction ricocheting off my newfound riot shield, which I then fired at the Combine soldier, probably breaking every bone in his body as the soldier now rolls down the stairs. Only your imagination sets the limits for the objects in your surroundings that are now considered deadly weapons but also as imaginative stairs that allow you to reach new heights. Rusty saw blades in Ravenholm cleaved zombies in half, paint cans against headcrabs not only drenched them in colour but the blunt force knocked out the tiny parasites whose barbed tentacles went haywire when they hit the wall. Without the physics in the game, it would most likely have been a fantastic sequel to one of the world's greatest first-person shooters, but it wouldn't have been nearly the same game we remember and love to this day. An outright pioneering use and incorporation of physics added dimensions and levels to a game never before seen in the hobby we pursue.

Nostalgia trip and battle of the giants in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

To my surprise, I suddenly play the first Metal Gear Solid in the original 1998 graphics but wake up in shock as Snake realises that he's experienced that dream again. Otacon flies Old Snake in via helicopter to the same nuclear material disposal facility we got acquainted with in the spy series opener, a place we have returned to as the hunt for Liquid Ocelot is coming to an end. As I sneak onto the frostbitten helipad that served as a tutorial in Metal Gear Solid, which I've just re-experienced via a dream sequence, The Best is Yet to Come begins to play, the same melancholy music track from the credits of the first game, interspersed with original dialogue that echoes softly in the background as well as both mine and Snake's head. "A Hind-D.. what's a Russian gunship doing here?" I'm bathed in memories, deliberately taking in one cold sip after another of vintage water that hits me in waves - all meticulously recreated in detail and almost an interactive museum to the game that really launched Hideo Kojima's career. It feels like coming home. The ravens left behind by the shaman Vulcan Raven in the battle 10 years ago sit along the railings of the tank hangar. The corridor leading to Otacon's office landscape, where Gray Fox decorated the walls with half a platoon of mercenaries, is adorned with the dried blood of a bygone era. But like the track that accompanied my entrance, the best is yet to come.

Down in the lair that houses the corpse of Metal Gear Rex, a bloody battle begins, Snake and Raiden emerge victorious against Vamp. Snake takes the cockpit of Metal Gear Rex, the walking weapon of mass destruction we once came face-to-face with, and flees the base reminiscent of the jeep sequence last time we were here. The place collapses behind us as we approach the light in the tunnel... Metal Gear Ray from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty breaks the surface tension of the sea and appears on land as a demonic dolphin, Ray who was designed to put Rex out of action. From the speaker system, Liquid roars, "Brother! It's not over! Not yet." What unfolds next is a direct homage to Godzilla, with two furious and mechanical kaijus going at it. The two beasts roar like predators in a fight for survival of the fittest, with missiles whining, machine guns clattering, and claws scratching at each other. As the next phase of the final battle between Snake and Liquid as seen from 2D on the back of a hijacked Arsenal Gear now called the Outer Haven begins - well then I see a battle between Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone played out in the CQC battle. Kojima ties it all together with stylistic influences in the game's crescendo, which is so high-octane and astounding that it makes Jerry Bruckheimer's collected works look like Fraggle Rock. The madness and the legacy that is preserved during the final chapter of the game breaks all norms where the lack of speed limits has not yet been surpassed for my part.

Which game moments shocked you?