Betrayal

[pigmy wurm]

I have to say the best betrayal I have seen was in Beaten Kaos, I doubt anyone could see it coming and while their might be some small plot holes that could arise from it while I was playing it I had no problems.

About the "game needs to be judged on single player" argument. Personally I tend to fall into a similar camp as you, I predominantly play single player games and when I play multiplayer it tends to be in the form of hanging out with friends instead of with racist 13-year-olds on line. But I feel that you can't necessarily say that games need to be good single player games to be good. Team Fortress 2 is great despite no campaign and what about non-video game media such as playing a trading card game or a board game, they obviously only work with other people, why can't a video game be built on the same principle.

 

[Zombie Nixon]

I think it's okay to judge a game on the multiplayer as long as the game is priced at under $60

 

[SilverUchiha]

I would just like to say that a time when I was able to call out a plot twist betrayal was in "Tales of Symphonia". (Spoiler) As soon as I met the angel guy who was Colette's father, I immediately said that he was going to turn out to be the bad guy. My friend heard my prediction and told me I was right (before I finished the game... end spoilers). I still think I have to finish the game, as a matter of fact... haha

 

[Frozengale]

I think one of the best twist endings I've seen is Phantom Dust

For those who never played it basically it's post apocalyptic, you and your friend are among the last survivors and get discovered by people that live in an underground base. There are a lot of strange creatures and people are discovering they have strange powers as well. So you meet up with these guys they take you down, and you do things for them like help get supplies, find missing compatriots, do general things like that. Your buddy disappears and you find all these AV logs that he had made during his last mission to space (He's an astronaut). Come to find out something goes wrong while he was out there and he comes back and everyone and everything is gone and all that's left is this strange dust. He learns to manipulate it and create things, and he creates a whole new world. He basically cracks and the world falls apart and he forgets it all. There's more to it but that's the basic premise.

 

[psychic psycho]

I just have to leave a comment to mention how awesome Second Sight is. It's such a coincidence that I just finished replaying it a week ago.

I'm surprised Jade Empire wasn't mentioned, as others already commented on.

 

[Ph0t0n1c Ph34r]

I couldn't disagree more with Yatzhee's idea that games should be judges on single player only. My oppinion is that games should be reviewed on their main focus. Would one review Half-Life based on Half-Life Deathmatch? No. Should one reveiw Battlefield 2 based on it's bot-fest of a singleplayer? Of course not.

 

[Flankhard]

Good articel. Still I am a litle bit disapointed...

See, I thought it would be about real betrayal. You know, when the game realy sticks it to you and makes you go: "I can't belive you just did that to me... I spent all this time with you (the game) and now you betray me?"

I can live with unimaginativ so-called plot-twists when a character you supposedly trust in-game sells you out before the end. Thats, like you say, to be expected.
Unfortunetly Mr. Good Gameplay and Mr. Good Story are brothers from a different mother and only get together every other leap year.

No, I was talking about real betrayal. When you shoot, bleed, die, fistfight, blow up buildings, chrash, flap your arms around and die some more... Only to get to the ending an having the villain say something like:
"Ha, ha, ha. I have been expecting you. Yes, you see, I meant for you to come her and face me all along. Thats why I made it so super duper easy for you. Ha, ha, ha, it was all part of my masterplan you see"

Anyone who ever thought it would be cool to make the villain sum up and reduce your entire gameplay experience and sence of achivement to a piece of turd like that, should have theyr head exam... no, removed.

 

[Ph0t0n1c Ph34r]

Someone explain this to me:

Spoiler: Modern Warfare 2 spoilers

Why does Shephard betray you in Modern Warfare 2 anyway? He'd kill his best soldiers in his own task force for...personal glory? Where's the logic in that?

And why do Shadow Company just go along with this? Didn't one of them think "ooh, that's a bit harsh"?

He didn't want anyone telling the world his plan to jump-start WW3, He does it because he wants the U.S. to have complete miltary control of the world, and Shadow Company didn't object because they are US Army soldiers, and he is a general. They HAVE to follow his orders.

 

[King Kupofried]

Disregarding the single-player campaign of a game that includes a "real" single-player campaign by saying it isn't part of "the actual game" is simply wrong. If all the multiplayer includes, mechanically speaking, that the single-player lacks is a few more guns then the single-player campaign is close to half the game, at least. Again: the community is not part of the game. The fact that a huge amount of people play a game in multiplayer does not make that part of the game "more" than the single-player campaign. A single-player tutorial, sure, that's obviously just a tutorial to acquaint you with the controls. A single-player campaign is the foundation of the game if it exists; the multiplayer builds on that, sometimes expanding beyond what's available in the campaign (in this case, as mentioned, weapons). Therefore, if the campaign is crap, the game is likely crap and is saved from the scrap heap by external mitigating factors: the community that plays it, user-created mods, controversy, etc.

I don't think that the single player is the core element of a game all the time. That is, for the most part, your opinion.
A game should be reviewed according to the focus the game gives on each perspective. If the focus is more on the multiplayer side, it should be reviewed based mostly on the multiplayer. Not doing so is like reviewing A hamburger and giving it 2/10 because the lettuce wasn't that good.
So what? So what if the lettuce sucked, we're not reviewing a salad here, we are reviewing a HAMBURGER, A totally different dish, and it should be reviewed according to a completely different set of criteria.
This game was marketed all around multyplayer-all the commercials were about the multiplayer, all the trailers were about the multiplayer, hell-I didn't even know this game had a single player aspect until this very review.

Sorta makes you wonder why they didn't take the time to put in some crisp fresh lettuce instead, since there are people who like that, and there are those who lose their appetite when they find their burger with an old wilted plant hidden under the bun.
Maybe everyone should stop telling a man who's picky about his lettuce to tell you what he thinks about your new favorite burger when you know it's usually served with sub par salad.
Yay exhausting metaphors!

 

[RJ Dalton]

As a writer, I consciously avoid betrayal plot twists for this very reason. It can be done very well, but the trope lends itself to a very particular type of story that puts more limits on the direction I can take it than I feel comfortable with. There's so much baggage involved in betrayal - some of which Yahtzee spoke of in this article - that it's like a dead albatross hanging around my neck (obscure literary reference - ten points to the first person who gets it).

 

[blackjaw1]

FPS devs should just not make singleplayer anymore

I've actually been saying this for quite a long while, mainly because there hasn't been a good single player FPS since like 1998. Well, Painkiller was good. And I did like the first Far Cry and HL2. But generally speaking they're all mostly really bad with the MP being the reason people buy it. There's nothing you can do anymore in terms of innovation in FPS single player. Sure Crysis was gorgeous, but it wasn't actually a very good game apart from that.

 

[Aptspire]

I really have to point out Heroes of the Pacific here, cause it evades that problem nicely:

Spoiler

Basically, you find a prisoner of war pilot captured by the Japanese, and help him escape. A little after you do, however, 'coincidental' problems start happening: he friendly fires one of your buddies, he has mechanical problems before your big offensive, you spot someone who was trying to sabotage your plane, and the enemy makes a too-perfect ambush. At that point, your buddies wanna execute him, so he loses his right to fly. And when, after a strike against the enemy, your plane has engine problems and a huge wave of enemies appear, BAM! there's the ex-POW, who distracts them and becomes an hero (sacrifices himself) so you can land back on your carrier. Turns out the 'saboteur' was just some no-name jealous of your kill-streak

 

[Katana314]

Even though I think most recent MP games have been rubbish, I think Yahtzee is beginning to only see things his way to not judge them at all. I understand the restaurant analogy about how friends can make up for it; but a good reviewer should be able to somewhat ignore them for his review. Heck, it's not even hard in BC2 when NO ONE is talking. He says that everything's more fun with more people, but there are definitely games where people haven't really helped...

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

FPS devs should just not make singleplayer anymore

I've actually been saying this for quite a long while, mainly because there hasn't been a good single player FPS since like 1998. Well, Painkiller was good. And I did like the first Far Cry and HL2. But generally speaking they're all mostly really bad with the MP being the reason people buy it. There's nothing you can do anymore in terms of innovation in FPS single player. Sure Crysis was gorgeous, but it wasn't actually a very good game apart from that.

I'm liking Far Cry 2 (though it does have it's problems) and I count Metroid Prime as FPS which just about pops into my top 10 games so while Singleplayer FPS does have it's place, people shouldn't feel the need to add a bad story to weigh down a decent multiplayer game. I played the latest Shadowrun and while it wasn't a great game and had no singleplayer (I felt it could have had a pretty good one tbf) it had tutorials and then was just multiplayer. I don't think popular FPS (especially CoD) do either well but simply scrapping the singleplayer and perfecting the core mechanics , it could work well, though I wouldn't pay £40 a year then an added £40 for the game itself if it was just multiplayer, I don't think people would and as the xbox has a bigger community and us westerners eat this crap, it's not gonna change.

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

Even Portal had betrayal

Yup. And it did it masterfully.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I would just like to say that a time when I was able to call out a plot twist betrayal was in "Tales of Symphonia". (Spoiler) As soon as I met the angel guy who was Colette's father, I immediately said that he was going to turn out to be the bad guy. My friend heard my prediction and told me I was right (before I finished the game... end spoilers). I still think I have to finish the game, as a matter of fact... haha

Yeah but did you call the Kratos twists or Mithos or...god damn that game has too many twists most are cheesy as hell others are pretty wtf, I think they were handled well though

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

I hope Yahtzee codes Fun Space Game so that anyone trying to play the "2 player mode" suddenly finds Fun Space Game is swallowing so much of their systems RAM it forces them to restart their computer or crawl along like a pirate with woodworm...

I'm getting sick of everyone trying to correct his opinion on their abbreviated-favourite-cookie-cutter-FPS and how it should not be judged without first considering the merits of its BAAA BAAA BAAA BLEET BLEET BLEET

 

[ImpostorZim]

Yeah, that comrade plot twist is terrible. The only time it was shockingly well implemented in my opinion was in the Metal Gear Solid games or maybe Persona 3.

 

[Karacan]

One of the few games with a surprise betrayal to me was Anachronox - I always kept expecting either Stilleto or Dr. Bowman to pull the trigger, but seriously didn't see the end-sequence coming.

Betrayals make interesting story-concepts, but right now I like how they're foreshadowed and then surprise by NOT betraying (Lost Odyssee comes to mind).