Glaring plot holes in games

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Most of MW2. Rushed campaign, tacked on, etc.

How did the Pillar of Autumn find Halo if they made a 'blind' jump? Though i think it may have been explained somewhere...

It was. In The Fall of Reach. Wasn't blind. They decided to plug in coords from a Forerunner artifact they had because they knew it would take them far, far away from Human Space.

in halo reach it sounds more like cortana is actualy a forerunner ai that we just found cause humans are too stupid to be able to do shit (sounds like the spartan armor was also based on forerunner tech)

Yeah... that kinda [TOTALLY] contradicted the books.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

How hell is Jak Mar in Jak 3, when Mar is the long-dead builder of the city? I suppose it's possible that Damos just named Jak after Mar, but the game implies that Jak is Mar, the builder of the very city he's in. It might also be possible that he went back in time to build the city. But for a game with an otherwise awesome plot, it sure did fall with that one revelation.

If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that when Jak/Mar left on the Precursor ship at the end of Jak 3 that the Precursors and Jak/Mar actually travel back in time, with their adventures later becoming the stories of Mar, which also apparently also explains why Jak is back on the platform that the ship left off from even though he was seen boarding, implying that he travels back in time, then comes back to the present outside of the colliseum so he can meet Daxter right after Daxter sees him leaving. Convaluted, I know, but it at least sets up the frame for a next-gen Jak game.

 

[crudus]

You know for Raiden being a trained special agent who is supposed to notice things or die, he sure and shit missed that huge fucking bomb hovering 6 feet above his head.

How did the Pillar of Autumn find Halo if they made a 'blind' jump? Though i think it may have been explained somewhere...

Blind fold yourself and walk in a random direction. You will end up somewhere. That is what was meant by a blind jump. They could have ended up anywhere.

The Hitman stealth system. I'm pretty sure people are going to notice if one of the doctors of a clinic suddenly became a bald albino. Really, if anyone suddenly became an albino cause that's the sort of thing you notice.

I think that is brought up in the higher difficulties. If you hang around too long in one place the suspicion meter goes up.

anc[is]How Shepard knows about thermal clips after being dead for 2 years. They were invented while s/he was dead. Tiny one, but still there

A person with Shepard's expertise and knowledge probably would know about weapons of old days. It wouldn't take much to figure out "Oh, we went back a few centuries to clips...annoying".

What are the bizarre lapses in logic in a game's story that just leave you wondering 'Why'? For me, I was completely dumbfounded in Portal (Warning: mild spoilers ahead) as to why they'd even have a system for flooding the place with a neurotoxin, much less give control of it to a supercomputer of dubious sanity, or at the very minimum remove the capability after she tried it once.

So, your examples?

We have machines that have an AI that determines what software it needs and writes it for itself. Glados could have thought she needed software that flooded the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin since these humans are too slow at researching.

 

[Littlee300]

sc2, why doesn't karrigan unburrow in your base on the last mission and kill everyone, or use stronger units in the last mission, or just send in 50 broodlords with a shitton of mutas as back up?

Because it is a rule to have to collect resources during the battle if you are planning to attack.
Not much of a plot hole at all. If you were told the plot "Raynor won the battle thanks to that artifact" It would make sense.

 

[7amurai]

all the pokemon games. What mother would allow her twelve year old child to wander around the country side gambling over who is the best at animal abuse with complete strangers and career criminals. Where would such a sport be socially acceptable anyway. Also I find the possible motivations of a so-called professor in inviting the neighbor child over to give them a pet quite dubious. Also how can a country survive with absolutely no infrastructure or government. The list goes on...

 

[SonicKoala]

Spoiler: Red Dead Spoiler

John Marston steps out of a barn to meet his death at the hands of a bunch of lawmen at the end of the game, despite having multiple fire bottles (Molotovs) and sticks of dynamite in his possession. With the building/roof climbing skills he displayed in previous quests, he could have easily just climbed up to the hay loft of the barn and taken out all of his attackers with a single throw. Then maybe we wouldn't feel totally gypped at having spent the entire game trying to reunite with the family and getting all of five minutes with them before being turned into a bloody pulp.

Or, Hell, he could have just shot them all. It's not like he's never faced uneven odds before... his whole character is built around his ability to take out ridiculously large hordes of armed men without a scratch.

It's a logical extension of the storyline - the whole game revolves around this idea of "redemption", and John's quest to rid himself of his past and start anew. Ultimately, we're being told that such a goal is unachievable - you simply can't leave all that behind, as it's going to catch up to you sooner or later. It's like what Dutch said to John on that cliff:

Spoiler

something like, "Our time has past, John"

However, I'll agree with you that it is by no means a logical extension of the gameplay - then again, if you think about it, this is a problem inherent in many games: the disconnect between gameplay and story, which are ostensibly treated as two separate entities by game designers most of the time (as opposed to the two complementing each other, which they would in an ideal world)

 

[flagship]

Metal Gear Solid Games. The series is pretty much a spiderweb built over the grand canyon of plot holes.

 

[dakorok]

sc2, why doesn't karrigan unburrow in your base on the last mission and kill everyone, or use stronger units in the last mission, or just send in 50 broodlords with a shitton of mutas as back up?

Because it is a rule to have to collect resources during the battle if you are planning to attack.
Not much of a plot hole at all. If you were told the plot "Raynor won the battle thanks to that artifact" It would make sense.

Also, one could assume that her massive assault force was toasted in the initial attack, in the mission intro.

 

[HT_Black]

A-hem...

WHY THE SEEKER DRONE
WHY THE CERBERUS AFFILIATION
WHY THE SPACE BABY
WHY THE LAWFUL STUPID
WHY THE QUARIAN IMMUNE SYSTEM RETCON
WHY THE SPACE BABY
WHY THE CONTINUED TERRORIST CONTACT
WHY THE HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
WHY THE SPACE BABY
WHY THE TINY SKILL TREE
WHY THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SPACE BABY
WHY THE UNFROZEN ASHLEY
WHY WHY WHY WHY?!

Yeah...Most of Mass Effect 2 counts. Honorable mention goes to the tangled mess pertaining to be a plot that guided Twilight Princess.

 

[garlicncow]

sc2, why doesn't karrigan unburrow in your base on the last mission and kill everyone, or use stronger units in the last mission, or just send in 50 broodlords with a shitton of mutas as back up?

Because it is a rule to have to collect resources during the battle if you are planning to attack.
Not much of a plot hole at all. If you were told the plot "Raynor won the battle thanks to that artifact" It would make sense.

but ive completed the mission with out the artifact on brutal, as well right away when all i have is scvs and a few units should could pop up and kill said scvs and burrow again

 

[Tdc2182]

*AHEM*

WHY DID SHEPHERD KILL ROACH AND GHOST?

A few reasons.

The mustache.

He really, really wanted to set someone on fire.

How else would we have known he was a bad guy?

But mostly just the mustache.

 

[Drummie666]

_> ....Why did I massacre civilians in a Russian airport in MW2? I mean, everyone knew that Makarov was a terrorist. If America could get someone close to him, surely they knew were he was and could just barge in there and arrest him... Or, just have you kill him right there. It wouldn't have been that hard.
Quite frankly I was one of the ones offended by this bit because there was no point to it and it was just IW seeing what they could get away with.

 

[-Samurai-]

Metal Gear Solid 4. Microwaves...

Spoiler: Microwaves and the MKII

Why send Snake when the damned MKII made it through just fine? It could have stayed in stealth mode and finished the job without the need for Snake to get all crispy.

 

[Tdc2182]

In Heavy Rain, why did Ethan keep having those random blackouts and why did he have an origami figure?

Good one right there.

What was up with the black outs?

 

[DaHero]

In CoD people thought it was fun...I'm still baffled at that plot hole...

Then there's BF2, where the anti-air never actually hits aircraft...I mean really?

 

[Tdc2182]

_> ....Why did I massacre civilians in a Russian airport in MW2? I mean, everyone knew that Makarov was a terrorist. If America could get someone close to him, surely they knew were he was and could just barge in there and arrest him... Or, just have you kill him right there. It wouldn't have been that hard.
Quite frankly I was one of the ones offended by this bit because there was no point to it and it was just IW seeing what they could get away with.

They didn't know what the plan was yet.

Or something mindless like that.

 

[Xanadu84]

_> ....Why did I massacre civilians in a Russian airport in MW2? I mean, everyone knew that Makarov was a terrorist. If America could get someone close to him, surely they knew were he was and could just barge in there and arrest him... Or, just have you kill him right there. It wouldn't have been that hard.
Quite frankly I was one of the ones offended by this bit because there was no point to it and it was just IW seeing what they could get away with.

If they killed or arrested him right there, they can pat themselves on the back and feel like they did something important when the rest of his organization declares him a martyr and launch a few biological weapons on major US cities. If they gain his trust and are fully accepted into his organization, they can take down the entire organization and prevent countless deaths. Right choice or not, there was legitimate logic behind it. Listen to the introduction to "No Russian".

 

[SonicKoala]

Metal Gear Solid 4. Microwaves...

Spoiler: Microwaves and the MKII

Why send Snake when the damned MKII made it through just fine? It could have stayed in stealth mode and finished the job without the need for Snake to get all crispy.

And make that sequence something like 8000% less epic? I'm glad Snake did what he did

 

[rjc34]

What are the bizarre lapses in logic in a game's story that just leave you wondering 'Why'? For me, I was completely dumbfounded in Portal (Warning: mild spoilers ahead) as to why they'd even have a system for flooding the place with a neurotoxin, much less give control of it to a supercomputer of dubious sanity, or at the very minimum remove the capability after she tried it once.

So, your examples?

A bigger question concerning that same subject: If they imposed a morality core on GLaDOS to stop the flooding of the Aperture Science Research Center, then why is everyone dead?

Do you actually see any bodies in the game while exploring? I believe they all fled.

 

[blankedboy]

How hell is Jak Mar in Jak 3, when Mar is the long-dead builder of the city? I suppose it's possible that Damos just named Jak after Mar, but the game implies that Jak is Mar, the builder of the very city he's in. It might also be possible that he went back in time to build the city. But for a game with an otherwise awesome plot, it sure did fall with that one revelation.

Jak's named after Mar...
I felt that was just straight-up obvious.
Holy shit, I really want to play through Jak 2 and 3 again now. But it's not worth it for the vehicle sections.