Biggest plot holes in games

[Spiritmaster]

Baldur's Gate 2, don't know if this is explained in game, but why after draining your "bhaal-hood" does Jon decide to send you through a laughably easy (but long) dungeon rather than kill you with his instant-kill death magic while you are weakened? Seeing as though he is still at the asylum when you get back from the dungeon (and resting in 8 hour intervals) he clearly wasn't pressed for time.

 

[Suncatcher]

That base was full of tech which could be used against the Reapers...

According to you. YOU. Shepard knew the Illusive Man was evil and going to stab him/her in the back the second s/he showed it to him. That's you talking (That's me paraphrasing you)

And willing to work with people who are clearly evil because he can't accomplish what he needs alone

That's you taking.
Would you trust someone who is "clearly evil" with that level of technology?

Personally? Yes. Under those circumstances, I'd power up the evil xenophobic bastards behind Akuze and Admiral Kahoku and Subject Zero and Overlord and all those other horrors. I'd cure the genophage and revive the rachni even if I was sure that they were going to rampage across the galaxy the instant the Reapers were gone. Hell, I'd uplift the bloody Yahg if they gave me a chance, because compared to the extinction of all sapient organics everything else is a lesser evil. If it makes the forces resisting extinction stronger, and the problems it creates in the future are smaller than the Reapers themselves, it's the right choice. That's what the Renegade path means: recognizing that you can't save everyone, accepting the collateral damage from your actions, finding a route that does more good than harm because you can't remove all the harm, and getting the job done however you can because failure is simply not an option.

 

[Mikeyfell]

That base was full of tech which could be used against the Reapers...

According to you. YOU. Shepard knew the Illusive Man was evil and going to stab him/her in the back the second s/he showed it to him. That's you talking (That's me paraphrasing you)

And willing to work with people who are clearly evil because he can't accomplish what he needs alone

That's you taking.
Would you trust someone who is "clearly evil" with that level of technology?

Personally? Yes. Under those circumstances, I'd power up the evil xenophobic bastards behind Akuze and Admiral Kahoku and Subject Zero and Overlord and all those other horrors. I'd cure the genophage and revive the rachni even if I was sure that they were going to rampage across the galaxy the instant the Reapers were gone. Hell, I'd uplift the bloody Yahg if they gave me a chance, because compared to the extinction of all sapient organics everything else is a lesser evil. If it makes the forces resisting extinction stronger, and the problems it creates in the future are smaller than the Reapers themselves, it's the right choice. That's what the Renegade path means: recognizing that you can't save everyone, accepting the collateral damage from your actions, finding a route that does more good than harm because you can't remove all the harm, and getting the job done however you can because failure is simply not an option.

Saving the Rachnai queen is Renegade now? Anyway...

That's how I'd play it too. Except that there was no inclination given that that was the decision you were making at the end of ME 2. The decision you were making was presented as: do you want to stay on the Illusive Man's good side or not?
There was no threat of betrayal foreshadowed if you handed over the collector base. In fact the foreshadowing was much closer to your crew turning on you than the Illusive man.


Unfortuantly that's not how Bioware played it either because Cerberus had the exact same amount of resources and did the exact same amount of damage whether you gave them the base or not.

Back in the day when I thought Bioware could write worth a damn I thought if you handed TIM the Collector Base the Alliance would refuse to work with you and you'd enter Mass Effect 3 with a Cerberus crew. And that the council Races would be less inclined to work with you if you killed the Council, or would outright refuse to work with you if you let Udina form the new council with all humans.

Even back then I knew it was a pipe dream, but I could never have foreseen the horror story that was what we actually got.

 

[Suncatcher]

Saving the Rachnai queen is Renegade now? Anyway...

Well, at the time you probably didn't know anything about the Reapers, so it was a choice between giving the innocent queen a chance or committing genocide to keep the rest of the galaxy safe from the potential for another rachni war, so sparing her was the Paragon thing (idealistic, merciful, soft) while ending her was the Renegade thing (greater good over personal kindness, taking no chances). In a hypothetical situation in which you knew that freeing the Rachni would lead to bloody, genocidal war in the future, but would assist against the Reapers in the short term, the sides switch as the Paragon tries to prevent all that bloodshed before it starts and the Renegade accepts the future price for better odds of immediate survival.

Anyway, I agree that ME3 was not all it could (and maybe should) have been. There were many choices which didn't have as much of an effect on events as I had hoped. The whole war seems to have been delegated to the background, the multiplayer, and a tally of numbers instead of an active conflict Shepard could participate in, and in accordance with that the primary villain shifted from someone to fight against to a silent feature of the terrain. These are flaws, but not plot holes and none of them are unreasonable. And even with them, if we were to discount the ending I would easily consider this game the best of the trilogy. The problem is that we expected a perfect game, and instead got 90% of an awesome one.

 

[Mikeyfell]

choice between giving the innocent queen a chance or committing genocide

Allegedly innocent.

Anyway, I agree that ME3 was not all it could (and maybe should) have been. There were many choices which didn't have as much of an effect on events as I had hoped. The whole war seems to have been delegated to the background, the multiplayer, and a tally of numbers instead of an active conflict Shepard could participate in, and in accordance with that the primary villain shifted from someone to fight against to a silent feature of the terrain. These are flaws, but not plot holes and none of them are unreasonable. And even with them, if we were to discount the ending I would easily consider this game the best of the trilogy. The problem is that we expected a perfect game, and instead got 90% of an awesome one.

You actually think a game who's entire series was based on a narrative driven by player choice can be "90$ awesome" when it outright ignored all but 2 choices you made?


We're way off topic at this point but what did Mass Effect do "90% awesomely"

 

[Enverex]

Not so much a plot hole, but in FarCry3

Spoiler

during the hallucinogenic sequence where you have to kill Hoyt,

what the hell happened to all the guards?

It just irked me a little. Not enough to be an "oh my god this game sucks because it missed a few details" moment (not like I have those, anyway), but still, what the hell?

I found the Vaas bit even more annoying.

Spoiler

He stabs YOU, but because you kill him in a dream, you're fine and he's dead. What?! What the hell happened? Then you wake up back in the temple! How did you get there?!

 

[Lord Kloo]

First off, after the mission "No Russian", wouldn't the Russian authorities have launched a massive investigation, which would involve identifying the three other gunmen? Which would, in turn, reveal that the leader was a known terrorist and madman.

Two, since when is it considered sane to declare war on a country for the actions of one crazy-person (who wasn't actually crazy)? Some may cite the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and WWI, but I (preemptively) counter that there were already factors and men/idiots who were pushing for war and the assassination was just the straw that broke the camel's back. As far as we (and the game) know, war is declared for the sole reason of an American being involved in the slaughter.

Three, the entire invasion force is shown to be attacking from the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Pacific? Yeah, I can buy that, since Russia has direct access to the Pacific Ocean. But the Atlantic? No way. That would mean that Russian forces had to either a)launch from the Barents Sea and make a long sea trip, b)take a massive road trip through Europe, or c)fly massive armadas over Europe, all of which involve (illegally) passing through the borders/airspace of almost every major European power.

Four, how do you launch a massive, full scale invasion force in the digital age, which has almost-instantaneous-communication and satellite surveillance, without anyone noticing until the last minute?

And finally, the coup-de-grace, the most glaring hole the Russian invasion in MW2 has. The entire invasion force: all the men, the equipment, the armor, the aircraft, the supplies and ammunition. All of that was gathered, prepped, organized, and mobilized, within the span of three days.

No sense at all.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate MW2. It's a solid and enjoyable shooter. It just didn't think things through.

My own personal remedy to the whole of MW2 was that Makarov had enough power over the Russian government with his blackmail terrorist operations to start a war with Shepard's backing that the US would be weak and powerless (due the the satellite already being stolen but I also think Shepard had helped to shut down the US defenses, somehow..). The Ultra-nationalist and presumably anti-US government of Russia after the civil war probably leapt at the idea of invading a powerless USA and so invaded so on Makarov's promises (partially explains why the Russians were ready in 3 days in that they already planned to invade the USA) meanwhile Shepard was still running all the shit but actually had no plan what-so-ever for getting the Russians out of the USA (apparently only Price's nuke EMP saved the US bacon).

However it never seems to be explained if Makarov is in with the Russian govt. or not, I think he dupes them like Shepard dupes Makarov into giving the US 'a new patriotic generation'... I guess thats why the Russians want a peace treaty in MW3 because they've just realised they're complete tools

Although it doesn't explain why the US president didn't just ring up the Kremlin and threaten nuclear war unless the Russian troops got off his lawn right now... would have been a hell of a lot simpler than almost going scorched earth on your capital city just because its under enemy occupation for a few hours

Also I'm not sure if Shepard wants Price to launch the Russia nuke to help the US soldiers in Washington, Price won't know the situation and it seems the US would have been pretty screwed if the nuke had not launched and downed all the pretty Russian equipment (despite the fact that the US Army and Airforce probably could have mobilized to defeat the invasion in days, though i guess there is more Shepard magic going on here in his making the uS a prime target for the Russians

All seems a bit extreme just because the general lost the 30,000 men of his Marine force to a Russian rebel and terrorist, would have made more sense to aid the Russian loyalists by sending US forces in to fight the rebels

 

[imagremlin]

Super Mario 64.

Princess Peach invites Mario for cake, Mario toils for endless hours to save her, and at the end she says: "Let's bake a cake, for Mario".

YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T BAKED IT YET?

 

[Beautiful End]

Super Mario 64.

Princess Peach invites Mario for cake, Mario toils for endless hours to save her, and at the end she says: "Let's bake a cake, for Mario".

YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T BAKED IT YET?

Well, that's not much of a plot hole. A plot hole would be if she never even mentioned the cake. That just means she lies/she's lazy/she lost it/ etc.
However, your post did make me laugh cause that would be my reaction.

 

[Erttheking]

It's probably been said before, but it bears repeating.

http://jmstevenson.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ai.png?w=500&h=290

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

In Heavy Rain, they never explain Ethan's blackouts, which is a pretty big deal because they are the reason he is the main suspect. What is more, they contain information about victims Ethan wouldn't have even met...

they came out in a video and explained that one but it had a supernatural like explanation so the scenes that explained that were cut out of the game. shame really

You dont need a supernatural explanation. He was in a car accident and had a concussion which causes blackouts. Simple.

You don't understand, he's not proposing a supernatural explanation, he's saying that the explanation was supernatural.


They cut all that content explaining it and left plot holes.

EDIT: I dont remember him miraculously learning new information via blackouts but they do cause memory loss, maby he forgot how he learned said information. It's a stretch I know but it makes some sort of sense.

When Ethan comes to from the blackouts he has origami. That's a plot hole.

 

[Auron225]

I was replaying it recently, noticed it and remembered this thread;

In Final Fantasy IV;

When you go back to Baron castle with Palom, Porom, Tellah and Yang - there is that scene where the walls are closing together and Palom & Porom turn themselves to stone to hold them apart. Why couldn't Tellah just teleport them out? o.o

 

[Narfo]

Snip

Snip

Interesting theory.
My only real problem here's that Twilight_guy didn't say that. I did.
Not sure what happened there.

 

[Cheesus Crust]

Dragon Age 2.

All the way through it you get drummed with "Mages are good .... Templars are bad".

Yet all the way through it the Templars are helpful and polite and the Mages are trying to eat my face.....

Kind of hard to follow a plot and take it seriously when it doesn't know what the fuck it's doing itself. In fact, the Templars don't turn "bad" until the very end and even then it's only 1 person .... who turns bad because of a corrupt sword .... made from metal Hawke found.

WHO WRITES THIS SHIT.

While I wouldn't agree to everything you said, I do agree that overall the plot made no sense as it had no direction. I think Yahtzee said it best, each chapter of the game felt like it was just build up that ended within the same chapter, which is why at the end it felt like Hawke didn't really achieve anything because there was no overarching plot like in DAO. I also felt that there was no sense of closure to the game's story.

I had the suspicion that EA planned to actually end Hawke's real story through DLC which they bailed out of at the last moment feeling that it would infuriate a lot of fans.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

On the mars mission, why did Cerberus bring land based vehicles? And if they brought them, where was the ship they brought them on? Wouldn't it have shown up on the SR2's scanners like every other Cerberus vessel does?

Who is Vega and how does he know Shepard?

So reapers attack earth and Shepard and Anderson start climbing around on the rooftops. Why? Why didn't they just take the stairs, how is this in any way faster or safer than the sensible thing?

So Legion and all his buddies have been on Rhannoc for 290 years. Why during that amount of time didn't they just pack up their shit and leave when the Quarians came? what is so valuable about a planet to a bunch of machines that they would be willing to risk everything just to keep it?


I can do this all day!

1. Space ships have a pretty handy ability of being able to fly away very fast. I'm assuming it would be a drop run similar to how they drop the Mako in ME1 to get a bunch of small squads down on the ground quickly.

2. It's in the comics. They did a really weird thing with the canon of the series where they had a lot of really important information that was only available in the comics. One of those important pieces of information being Vega's relationship with Shepard and why he ended up on the Normandy.

3. Shit's crazy. The building they were in was very clearly hit with a Reaper blast. Stairs could have been out of order. Plus, it made a very cinematic scene when you look out to see the city being destroyed, similar to the Normandy's destruction in ME2.

4. The Geth were very clearly shown to be sentimental as well as very rational in regards to the life of others, especially the lives of the Quarians. Sure, the Geth almost wiped out the Quarians, but they let them leave and didn't pursue them. You see Legion holding a M-98 Widow in the Geth "memory", and when asked about it being the gun he uses he hesitates and says it's an "efficient model". Clearly not having a rational reason reason prepared other than sentimental preference.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Oh god why won't this thread leave me alone?!

1. Why didn't they just use makos, especially since that's the vehicle they use to make their escape anyway?

2. this was addressed long before you responded. It turns out Vega explains what his deal is if you ask him sometime later (Though having it told to us earlier would have probably been wise)

3. Could have. You don't know for certain, the walls all look kind of fucked up, but we don't really get a good look of the wall the door was in. As for sacrificing logic/proper story construction story for the sake of drama? What a horrible way to think. What you're referring to is nothing more than empty sensationalism.

4. It is never established that sentiment trumps the survival and betterment of the geth "species" It's also established that the only reason they were still on the planet is because they intended to give it to the quarians in exchange for peace. So really they might as well have just left and built their "Dyson sphere" (Which is another, bigger can of worms to be honest) somewhere else.

1. Makos apparently fell out of style. They have you using the drop shuttle for every mission, so assumedly so is Cerberus.

3. It was incredibly unnecessary, but it looked good. They did the same thing in ME2, but it was implemented better. It's not a plot hole, just visual storytelling.

4.I think it established in a way. They said more than once that the Geth seemingly cared about the Quarians. They let them escape extinction by not chasing the ships when they left in the first place, wouldn't attack life ships in skirmishes, etc. Almost ensuring that there would be more attacks on them, but always preferring to let the Migrant Fleet live. But the Geth that weren't loyal to the Reapers never really had the chance to explain their intentions.

 

[dmv]

Nero in DMC4. He is a walking, rarely talking, plot hole. Perhaps he could've been explained, but bugger it lets reboot.

 

[Lord Kloo]

Snip

Snip

Interesting theory.
My only real problem here's that Twilight_guy didn't say that. I did.
Not sure what happened there.

Ah sorry, I must have fudged up the quoting :/

 

[Keith Faulkner]

Super Mario 64
1. How does Peach send a letter to Mario and Luigi's house when she is locked in a tower?
2. How did the paintings turn into portals which lead to another world?
3. Although the moat is drained, the two gold coins underneath the moat brige are impossible to reach.
4. The Toads don't help out but like two or three toads give Mario a star after he gets a certain amount of stars. (The two toads that I can think of that give him stars are the ones located near the floor portal in the castle basement and another one on the floor closest to the tower.) That gets me thinking. These toads must have had stars all along before Mario even reached a certain amount of stars. Mind boggling.
5. The Grandfather clock: Why are there three sets of motions on the clock. Slow, normal, and very fast?
6. Why does Bowser set up spikey bombs around the battle field? It's like he wants Mario to blow him up.
7. Mario can't cheat but Koopa Quick can? If Mario uses the warp portals in the Bob-Omb Battlefield Mountain he loses the race. But Koopa Quick can win the race by taking a shortcut up the white hill?(which holds one of the stars captive till Chain Chomp breaks free). That is hypocritically right there.
8. Peach decides to bake Mario a cake after they have been kidnapped and tortured by Boswer. They aren't even traumatized after all that? If that was real life nobody would be able to bake a cake. They would need lots of therapy and a good psychiatrist. I know it's just fantasy but still.
9. The course that has the giant snowman. Why doesn't the penguin get blown away by the giant snow man, but Mario does and loses his cap?