Betrayal

[Doctor X]

Yes, Virginia, there are Dead Rising 2 spoilers.

Dead Rising 2 has two betrayal "plot twists" in it, but neither of them really comes as a surprise because everyone's treating you like an asshole from the moment you hit Start. The only way the betrayals could have been a surprise would be if Katey was the real mastermind behind the whole thing, if the headphones and Game Boy she's playing throughout the game turned out to be how she's getting messages from and directing her minions while you're jumping through hoops to get Zombrex to her in time. (And why the hell can't you just give it to the girl who's in the room watching her the whole time? Even if you don't trust the only person with a speaking role who's been nice to you all game, "Take this life-giving medicine and give it to my child if I don't make it back from fighting hordes of undead in the precise window when she needs to take it" doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to ask a babysitter.)

Even the people who aren't in on the conspiracy seem a bit too ready to believe your guilt. "So, while you were on TV fighting zombies, someone wearing your jacket and helmet, (Which, you being a professional athlete and celebrity, anyone can probably get from any Foot Locker or souvenir stand.) unlocked the zombie cage and made sure to keep their back to the camera and your name on the jacket in view the whole time? And even if this happened after the show, there are at least two witnesses who can verify that you were in the locker room all this time? Yep, you're guilty."

But the Most Obviously Going To Betray You award has to go to The Twins. "Hey, there's that guy we're setting up to be our patsy. Should we allay his suspicions by acting like we like him and flirting, maybe making him think he's got a chance at a threesome with us? NAH! Let's go be really bitchy to him and question his manhood. That'll endear us to him."

 

[EchetusXe]

I don't want to beat a dead horse but on the subject of Battlefield Bad Company 2, your comment that you did not believe that the "single player campaign [was] thrown in as an afterthought".

I think 'afterthought' is the definition of the game's single player campaign. I bought it for the multiplayer and it is really fun, and I had friends who played with me without touching the single player mode (until PSN went down and there was a revival of interest in single player modes). When I played the single player campaign I was almost embarrassed to like the game so much as the writing is so piss-poor.

Judge all games on single player alone if you must, but don't believe for a second that the developers of Bad Company 2 didn't just get their 12 year old nephews to write the story. Why the fuck they couldn't write a decent story when they set up all those set pieces and junk I have no idea, but pretty much everything in single player is there in multiplayer, plus more stuff like piloting choppers.

 

[MaddKossack115]

There was also an article on Cracked.com that covered this issue (as well as several other idiotic developments in story-telling, such as the rise of shocking twists that make absolutely no sense other than to throw in a shocking twist), and not only derided betrayal for being cliche, but also for completely trainwrecking character development: either the traitor is clearly shown to be an asshole so much that it's only a question of "when", not "if", they turn out to be on the other side, or it takes a character EXTENSIVELY shown to be kind, caring, considerate, etc., and turn them into a right-and-proper backstabbing bastard. The latter is particularly insulting, as the reveal throws out all the nice guy character development you've been building for a stupid-ass twist with no foreshadowing in the slightest. Essentially, you could achieve the same result by having a brand new villain burst in from nowhere, murder the character who would have betrayed the group, as the net result is the same: a character we've been building connection to unceremoniously done away because of stupid writing, and a complete prick strutting in because of even stupider writing.