Favorite Video Game Plot Holes

[Vivace-Vivian]

Why do you blakc out when your Pokemon die in every Pokemon game? Better yet how do you get back to the Pokemon Center?

 

[ReinofFire]

Fable Games: How come at the start of every game you have been training your whole life (with the exception of Fable 2 where you just grow up I guess)but start out at practicaly level one from the beginning. Then only days later you defeat the big boss and everything is fine and dandy. Of course there are time skips that are put into account but apparently those times are spent playing jinga and singing folk tunes to your dog, you know, rather than honing your skills to kill the endless supply of bandits.

Halo: Humanity has been able to use covenant technology for a long time apparently (thank you Halo Wars) but in all that time they still use bullets. In fact, if Spartans could use covenant technology to begin with, why didn't they use it more often (you know other than for scavenging, which by the way is not a part of war, thank you video games).

Uncharted: How did these acient civilizations hide themselves for so long if they were so obvious to begin with. In fact, unless that ancient civilization in the Himalayas was underground (which it wasn't, thank you sunlight) I'm pretty sure that crap was visible from Google Earth.

 

[mireko]

I want to just write paragraphs berating Metal Gear Solid and the metaphysics of the Final Fantasy games, but I guess that's off-topic.

So.. every zombie game where a bite will infect you yet doesn't?

Also, in Dragon Age: Origins, the darkspawn taint (yes, yes) doesn't affect anyone in your party. They were originally going to have everyone undergo the joining, but they decided that was stupid. I agree, but when you have all the characters DRENCHED in blood after each fight, you'd think they'd pick up a minor infection, at least.

Hahaha. DA2 is pretty bad.

"Wait a minute. Wasn't this room just a thiefs hideout? How did it so quickly get populated by Apostates? I could have sworn I looted it ten minutes ago."

Most efficient landlords in video gaming history can be found in DA2. Must make a bloody bundle thanks to the champion.

That's lazy design, not a plot hole.

If this thread goes down that path, we'll have fifteen pages of nothing but "Why does this guy have so many identical clones? Why do monsters drop gold and equipment? Where are all these monsters coming from?"

 

[TyrantGanado]

In Metal Gear Solid 2, Liquid Snake says, that Big Boss was "In his late sixties when they made his clones."
But in Peace Walker, it is officially revealed that Big Boss is 39 years old in 1974, which means he was actually 37 when they made his clones.
The only way to explain this is that Liquid (or Ocelot) completely sucks at math.

The Patriots do love their misinformation. Between "The Patriots," "AI" and "nanomachines" you can explain any plot holes or loose ends in the Metal Gear universe. Probably.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

In Metal Gear Solid 2, Liquid Snake says, that Big Boss was "In his late sixties when they made his clones."
But in Peace Walker, it is officially revealed that Big Boss is 39 years old in 1974, which means he was actually 37 when they made his clones.
The only way to explain this is that Liquid (or Ocelot) completely sucks at math.

Maybe it was a translation error and meant to say "his clones were made around the late sixties", still not accurate but it does make a bit more sense like they started preperations to do it in the late sixties. It could also be that Kojima is crazy and time means a different thing to him on his duck horse (I'm sure we've all seen the picture) than it does to us.

 

[Silent Biohazard Solid]

Maybe it was a translation error and meant to say "his clones were made around the late sixties", still not accurate but it does make a bit more sense like they started preperations to do it in the late sixties. It could also be that Kojima is crazy and time means a different thing to him on his duck horse (I'm sure we've all seen the picture) than it does to us.

That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that mistranslation. Yeah, that's possible, that they got his DNA in the late 60's, since the clones were born in 1972.
Still, it did turn it into a plot hole. And even without Peace Walker, there's no way Big Boss was in his late 60's in 1970's, because only six years earlier, Snake Eater happened. Not to mention that would mean that when he first fought Solid Snake, he would've been like, 90 years old. And yea, that's definitely not the case.

 

[kane.malakos]

Half Life - How does a random scientist have the power to destroy everything in his path?

It's pretty well established that the only reason Gordon Freeman survived was the HEV suit, plus getting really lucky (maybe with some help from the G-Man). In fact, canonically speaking, basically everyone who had an HEV suit survived, while the vast majority of others died.

 

[kane.malakos]

Halo: Humanity has been able to use covenant technology for a long time apparently (thank you Halo Wars) but in all that time they still use bullets. In fact, if Spartans could use covenant technology to begin with, why didn't they use it more often (you know other than for scavenging, which by the way is not a part of war, thank you video games).

Even if they have the technology, reverse engineering it is not exactly easy. Plus the covenant weapons have some drawbacks compared to the human weapons - overheating problems, no scope technology, poor accuracy. I'm sure the humans could integrate some of the advances into their own weapons, but they're more focused on fighting the war.

 

[Euhan01]

Half Life - How does a random scientist have the power to destroy everything in his path?

It's pretty well established that the only reason Gordon Freeman survived was the HEV suit, plus getting really lucky (maybe with some help from the G-Man). In fact, canonically speaking, basically everyone who had an HEV suit survived, while the vast majority of others died.

I haven't played Half life in ages, but weren't there loads of dead HEV suit's in Zen? Surely they were trained more in wafare then Freeman?

 

[zfactor]

LoZ OoT: Considering the sages had the power to weaken and kill Ganon in his fully empowered form at the end, why did they seal themselves in the Sacred Realm along with Link (while Ganondorf was still just some magic-wielding normal dude, no less) while he fucked with Hyrule for seven goddamn years? Couldn't they have beaten him when he still didn't have the Triforce's power?

-sigh-

Spoiler: Explanation!

They never had the power to kill Ganondorf in the end. Link had to weaken Ganondorf for them. When Ganondorf first entered the sacred realm, the only sage there was Rauru. Link had to gather the other sages by getting rid of the evils in their temples. Rauru was not powerful enough to stop Ganondorf on his own and, as soon as he entered the sacred realm, he has the Triforce of Power. So Rauru did not try to stop him and just sealed Link in the realm for seven years. Yeah, they all probably could have defeated him, but not while he had the Triforce of Power. In the end sequence, they are able to seal him in the sacred realm because link weakened him by shooting him with light arrows, hacking his face off, crashing a castle down on him, then stabbing him in the face. Repeatedly. Ganondorf was weakened by link and that is why he is able to be sealed away. Of course, he still has the Triforce of Power, so he might be able to break out later (then they made Windwaker, where he got out.)

 

[EHKOS]

Any CtF game: Why can't you teleport with a flag?

Its a well known fact that flags in fact interfere with quantum processes while armour and guns do not. Do you want your character to rematerialise fused with the flag?

Jak and Daxter: Oh man, time travel right? So it is hinted strongly that:

Spoiler

Jak is in fact Mar

Jak runs around picking up pieces of Mar's armour and then time travels a bit with the otsels. When he emerges from whatever it was he was doing in the past he still has the armour on.

Spoiler

If he is mar and he picked up Mar's old armour in the future then he must have left it at some point in the past

What's going on there?

There are also a few involving the child that is Mar's descendant in the future and what happens to him.

I can explain this one. In the game they say Mar was old. I can't remember how old but enough that he died a while back. Jak is his decendant. That little kid IS Jak. They sent him back to the first games location to protect him until he was old enough. Wether they knew he would find another time machine or just hoped to get him out of danger is still a question.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Ok, I know this is video game plot holes, but I'm just going to have to hijack this for a moment and turn to book/movie plot holes.

Harry Potter: Why don't they ever use the Time Turner to fix stuff?

A bigger question is, why didn't Hermione brew up more Felix Felicious (luck potion) during 6th year and summer break after? Lucky Potion would have been a really effective weapon in the fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named[sub][sub][sub]Voldemort[/sub][/sub][/sub]. Even if the trio didn't use it themselves, there was a window of opportunity during the end of year 6 when she could have left it in the Room of Requirement or something.

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Final Fantasy VII & Crisis Core: There were literally dozens of G clones. Why did Cloud and Tifa forget about them and yet retain memories (no matter how faint) of Zack?

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Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy VIII: Who the hell is Leon? What have you done with Squall!?

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Mass Effect 2 & Dragon Age 2: If you played the Kasumi Loyalty mission, you may have noticed a statue of an Ogre from DA:O/ DA2. If that was there then it could be argued that Ferelden and it's Earth coexist with Shepard. Looking closely at default, Male Hawke, you can kind of see something familiar:

My current theory involves Hawk being a son of Shepard since Shepard's Earth is ours IE: no biotics/ magic until after the discovery of Mass Effect Drives. That one isn't a plot hole: just an insane theory.

 

[archvile93]

Not really what you would call "Favorite" since it kinda spoils the story but, Bioshock:

Spoiler

So Fontaine sends Jack to the surface as a baby right? What happens when he gets to dry land and exits the sub? How did he survive alone, as an infant no less, on the surface? We learn that his memories of a family are fake, so he probably didn't live with anyone on the surface, how did he make it as a baby all the way to able-to-buy-a-plane-ticket-for-myself adulthood?

Also, how did Fontaine know where to send the package? Did he have someone tailing Jack his whole life?

Well I can't explain the package, but it's stated that Jack's development speed was greatly sped up before being sent to the surface. There's at least one diary by doctor Su Chong (I think that's his name) complaining how useless children are, and that he needs to find a way to make them grow into adults where they're useful faster. I guess he did.

OT: There probably is an explanation for this, but why in Halo 1 when Cortana finds out about the Halo's through Covenant data do they believe that the halo's are simply a weapon, whereas in Halo 2 it's stated they believe them to be objects of transendence?

 

[baddude1337]

The crazy number of inconsistencies/retcons in Halo games, such as Noble being mainly Spartan 3's even though nobody knows about them, and theres even a Spartan 2 on the team. How all the spartans seem to have regenerating shields even though chief is the only one who actually has the armor to do that, and that fact that it is Spartan 3's who are using this armor, How the Spartan's in Halo Wars have shields even though they hadn't been invented yet. That's just a small number of the many problems.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

LoZ OoT: Considering the sages had the power to weaken and kill Ganon in his fully empowered form at the end, why did they seal themselves in the Sacred Realm along with Link (while Ganondorf was still just some magic-wielding normal dude, no less) while he fucked with Hyrule for seven goddamn years? Couldn't they have beaten him when he still didn't have the Triforce's power?

Dead Rising: .......How did Frank West escape from the tank?

he zombie-walked.

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

Jak and Daxter: Oh man, time travel right? So it is hinted strongly that:

Spoiler

Jak is in fact Mar

Jak runs around picking up pieces of Mar's armour and then time travels a bit with the otsels. When he emerges from whatever it was he was doing in the past he still has the armour on.

Spoiler

If he is mar and he picked up Mar's old armour in the future then he must have left it at some point in the past

What's going on there?

There are also a few involving the child that is Mar's descendant in the future and what happens to him.

I can explain this one. In the game they say Mar was old. I can't remember how old but enough that he died a while back. Jak is his decendant. That little kid IS Jak. They sent him back to the first games location to protect him until he was old enough. Wether they knew he would find another time machine or just hoped to get him out of danger is still a question.

Okay I'm going to assume everyone that wants to play this game has already so without spoiler tags:

They say that Jak is his descendant but it is heavily implied by the sage/otsel characters that Jak IS Mar as well as his descendant. I.e he time travelled back built haven city and fathered a child who then fathered a child until Jak was born.

Basically they imply that he is his own ancestor. So the timeline looks like this:

-Jak is born the descendant of mar and grows up in a city at war with metal heads.
-He is captured but later saved by the resistance and future Jak.
-Child Jak then opens the temple of mar for future Jak who is too tainted to do so himself.
-Future Jak saves the city
-Child Jak is sent back in time to the past with the young green sage as his guide/mentor.
-Events of Jak+Daxter 1
-Jak, Kiera and Daxter repair the old time machine and activate it this allows the metal head leader entry into the past world from the future and his conquest begins creating a stable time loop.
-Jak is sent into the future and saves the city while picking up artifacts Mar left behind in the past
-Jak saves the world from the Dark Makers
-Jak time travels to the past with the otsel makers for unknown reason
-???
-Jak (Mar) travels back to the past to build Haven city and temples that he had already used in the future by using mako. He leaves behind his armour and other artifacts.
-Jak (Mar) fathers children one of whom is the ancestor of Jak.
-Jak is born the descendant of Mar and grows up in a city at war with metal heads
It's clever but it makes your brain hurt.

 

[Witney]

Games are better without plot anyway. Stories only get in the way of gameplay, and are usually completely extraneous.

 

[Witney]

Traumatic amnesia.

 

[Zachary Unkle]

Call of Duty games:
MW2:Random militia soldier.He has access to some of the most potent firearms in the world as well as attack helicopters,fighter jets,supply drops,and sentry turrets.All he needs to do is kill people to get these things.
Black Ops:Hello soldier!You're being assinged to a combat mission in nearly every country involved with the Cold War.Also,you're brainwashed so that there's an imaginary Russian guy who seems to follow you around everywhere and is able to kill people when he doesn't even exist.
Yup,it all makes sense.