WTF moments in games

At what points during games you thought "Hell no, this didn't just happen, right?"

I'm playing Saints Row 3 at the moment, and why it's full of weird shit something truly batshit just happened:

There is a mission where you get a face and body and gender change to infiltrate an enemy base. So far pretty normal. Well, you need to grab a VTOL (plane that can take off vertically) then and head for an aircraft carrier with two AI buddies.
Well, I got into the VTOL and fired it up and started to fly away when the game told me that I was leaving one of my buddies behind. Oh well, happens quite often, so I turned back and started to descend upon the landing platform again. But there was no buddy on the platform, even though the map said he was there. I looked up and what did I see? A helicopter. My buddy had grabbed a helicopter to follow me, even though he had to be in the same plane. Ok, no problem, I'll just land and wait for him to come down. Only... He didn't. He kept hanging in the air, doing little jerks up and down, just chilling there. That's when it dawned on me... The AI can't land their helos again! Takeoff yay, landing nay. My options were to get him out somehow or to restart the whole mission, which was annoying. No guns to shoot him down, so I started the VTOL again, rose and simply crashed into him, destroying his helo. He fell to the ground burning, and I only had to land, revive and take off with him again

 

It depends on whether you only mean moments when the game does something insane and implodes or is bound by some weird limitations, or if you also mean situations when that was supposed to happen in the game did but you didn't want to believe in it.

And if it's the latter, it also depends on whether you only mean video games, or games in general (I do have a few stories where things happened which threw the whole party off their seats, but they are from tabletop RPGs rather than video games, and there was one occasion where someone asked me this after playing a certain card game against me).

 

If you are talking about something which was just weird...
I got my motorcycle stuck on the top of a Cactus in Fallen Earth once... Had to get a GM to help me get it out. They also had a very amusing bug after a patch -- they had two-headed cats running around (not on purpose lol).

As far as things that took me by surprise... since NCSoft is shutting it down, and it's a game that I'll always have fond memories of: City of Heroes/City of Villains. They had these "task forces", which essentially were a series of missions that formed a story suitable for being done by a full group over the course of several hours. When the game was brand new, these task forces were fairly generic, far too long to complete, and, honestly, not that great.

However, at some point they really started putting some thought, work and creativity into their task forces, and the result was the "Ernesto Hess" task force. I did that one, without reading anything about it prior to receiving the quest for it. And it totally blew me away. Their were a couple of wtf moments, such as a part where your team gets split up by closing doors and attacked by automated robots, etc. But the best was a climactic battle in a secret villain lair underneath a volcano. Your team had to fight your way up a tall scaffolding surrounding a giant robot that was about to be activated. There were automated defenses and soldiers shooting at you from both above and below, that had to be taken out, and so on, until you reached the boss. But that's not the best part of it. The best part was something that the very first time I did it, it caught me COMPLETELY off guard -- as you defeat the boss, he activates a self-destruct sequence, and you have like 30 seconds to figure out how to escape from the volcano before it is destroyed.

OMFG! After doing it, I HAD to lead the rest of my SG on the TF just so I could show them how great it was. It really made you feel like you were in a James Bond film. And I always always insisted that no one give away any of the surprises first, because it was the surprises that made it so much fun. Best group content EVER in any game, as far as I'm concerned.

CoH did add some good stuff, and revamped some of their old TFs, etc. But that one was one that I will never forget. I actually must have run the TF about a dozen times with various characters. It was a shame that it was in a zone that a lot of people skipped over or had assumed the TF was the same old generic crap that the early ones were. CoH had a lot of repetiitve content, but when the devs put their minds to it, they had some real gems.

 

I will have to scour my mind for memories of those precious WTF moments in games.

One I can think of off hand is the first time I fired the "Blaster" in Xcom. (The original.)

I blew the everloving excrement out of my entire team in one shot. But I reloaded a save from just before I launched for the mission and managed to figure it out. It was pure WTF on the aliens side from then on.

 

I was playing Diablo (the first one) in one of the few times I have ever played a game multiplayer. I was playing with 3 others and we were having fun trashing the dungeon and the monsters. Then we came to the skeleton kings level (Leoric I believe) and we went down the stairs. When the screen popped up for me I was suddenly surrounded by around 40 or 50 skeletons and within about 10 or 15 seconds I was dead. Everyone else didn't even last that long. We were all laughing like crazy. We were owning the dungeon to that point and suddenly the dungeon mobbed us and wiped us out in an instant. Probably one of my most memorable gaming moments and my most fun. Just goes to show you, don't get too overconfident or you may just be put into your place.

 

I played The Hell mod for Diablo 1. Decided to go with sorcerer, since it was the one I was most familiar with. If only I knew what I was getting myself into. two rooms in I was confronted by two zombies. These zombies were unfazed by firebolts. They then proceeded to tear me to pieces in less time than it takes for the telling.

I reloaded and managed to beat them to death with a stick. Then I opened up a nearby room. It had GLORIOUS BOOKS in it! It also had a unique zombie and his pack. I had to kite them all out of the room, which fortunately had a book of charged bolt and some useful stuff. Else my run would have definitely come to an inglorious end right there.

LOSING IS FUN.

 

Well to add to the Diablo stories, I played d2 for years before playing d1, and had no idea it didn't autosave like the sequel does. AAH FRESH MEAT!

My d3 legendaries have been pretty WTF too:

#1: Randomly dropped from a skeleton for my level 20-ish barb in one of the Zultan Khulle temples; he had like 10% magic find at the time. (it was Splittusk btw, a level 9 WD helm, when my WD was level 30+ :/ )

#2: I loaded my "lucky" barb up to like 60 MF; after 30 levels with no new legendaries, I went ahead and replaced 30 mf with some better Strength/Vit gear. Less than 10 minutes after cutting my MF, random spiderling drops #2 in Hell Arachnae's cavern.

#3: Barb still cruising with only 30 mf; in the Hell Zultan Khulle cave, I found the door to floor 2, but went back to a fork in the road in case there was a chest or something. Random bug swarm dropped #3.

#4: Patch 1.04 happened! My WD was questing through Inferno Oasis (with PETS!) and found Bashiok for the first time ever in over 60 oasis runs! Patch 1.04 removed the ability to "accidentally" (or on purpose as it turns out) remove a skill from your hotbar. After 5 minutes of yelling at my screen, I finally just kill him (a few minutes later I realize I could have traded Frogs for Darts on the battlefield and been able to melee during the 1 minute cooldown...) and skip the achievement, but keep my 5 stacks of NV (which I was totally willing to give up, see "60 runs"). I then enter the Zultan Khulle temple, random skeleton drops #4.

#5: Wizard in act 4 Hell. Kormac aggros a treasure goblin (GLOOORIUS!), we chase it into a boss pack of succubi WITH KNOCKBACK. They pinball me around long enough the goblin gets away with 3% health. I immediatly turn to the boss and shout "YOU F****** B****", kill her, she drops #5. I apologize to her corpse; I doubt the goblin would have been that generous

EDIT: #6 dropped last night, random puked-up soldier from the Hell Bearer at the fifth torch.

So yeah. First was pretty normal, but then I get one immediately after cutting MF in half, one by backtracking, one by failing an achievement, and one by missing a goblin; and the first 4 came from White monsters rather than Elites.

For a non-Diablo story...eating a Root of T'char.

 

Does my incredible ability to open doors just a critrocket is flying towards it in TF2 count?

 

Playing around with reverse-pickpocketing in Fallout 2. Oh that was a joy!

And the clever trick of using 20 or more Super-Stims on the President of the Enclave to kill him without actually turning everything hostile. That was another WTF. (But it makes sense if you knew how they actually worked.)

 

Well, the one moment I remembered from games that made me go "what do you have against me, world?" was one from when I was playing Worms: World Party against a few friends. There were only two worms left that round, one mine and one of the other guy, and it was my turn, so since the worms stood close to each other (an after-effect of a not-entirely-accurate grenade throw of his) and there was a mine in the area below, I decided to just prod him there. And, well... his worm fell there, was shot up by the mine's explosion (random mine timers, and this mine exploded instantly), bounced on another instant mine (and with him flew another mine, as there were two of them), and landed behind my worm from where the last mine propelled him into my worm, causing it to fall down into the hole made by the first mine.

An important lesson, guys - if there are only two worms left in "Worms", don't use prod - just carpet-bomb the guy from safe distance.

 

i don't know if i should do spoilers for a 15 year old game but anyway, SPOILERS

Parasite Eve: when the baby comes back to life and chases you! I was 10 or something and I was so freaked out and scared.

 

Off the top of my mind? Everytime i've been up against an SNK fighting game boss. I tend to have those everytime said boss uses the most basic of his abilities. The special just make me go - "Did that just happen?" the first time I see them. The thing is, if you've played the franchise from the start, the bosses ACTUALLY GET HARDER each time. So if you go into it thinking - meh, i beat the last game, how much harder can this be? Well, it actually is harder. Duh.

 

They did have to get harder, though - the game was originally an arcade one, so it was a good (if cruel) way to increase revenue. The same could be observed with the Metal Slug series, as well as with many other. But I'm digressing here...

 

Yeah. And Morrowind spells/alchemy/crafting abuse? WTF indeed.

 

Oh, that one was actually amusing after you won the game and only wanted to have some random fun. Because there's nothing saying "I laugh at your puny attempts" like getting a healing effect that heals 800% of your health every second for duration of a whole week.

 

100% sanctuary. Congratulations. You are winnar. Enough said.

 

You aren't dramatic enough. You have to give your opponents the feeling that they have a chance to win.

Yeah, clearly cheese in that world is made of asbestos.

 

My favourite part of alchemy in Elder Scrolls has always been eating everything I come across to learn about its alchemical effects. It's what I feel a real alchemist would do. And it levels up your alchemy skill!