10 Videos Games That Totally Trolled Players

These games made a sport out of messing with our heads.

Michael Gta
Rockstar

To troll is, as defined by Wiktionary, "to attempt to lure others into combative argument for purposes of personal entertainment and/or gratuitous disruption, especially in an online community or discussion." The term has been adapted heavily in the last couple years: A TV show deliberately taunting its audience by exploit certain emotions, especially traits visible in their internet fanbase, could be referred to as trolling them. That would also go for a video game doing the same thing.

Being an interactive medium, video games benefit greatly from messing with our expectations. More and more each year, games mess around with what we know their interface is to throw us out of our comfort zone. Boss characters in fighting games were historically overpowered, requiring us to play much differently from everything we knew up to that point in the game. They keep us on our toes, and much of the time it makes them a lot more fun.

Sometimes, though, games outright screw with us. They actively work to annoy us, to confuse us, and to get reactions out of us that we normally wouldn't have playing video games. In other words, they troll us. There are even certain franchises from specific developers that have turned this type of thing into a trademark...

Contributor
Contributor

Formerly the site manager of Cageside Seats and the WWE Team Leader at Bleacher Report, David Bixenspan has been writing professionally about WWE, UFC, and other pop culture since 2009. He's currently WhatCulture's U.S. Editor and also serves as the lead writer of Figure Four Weekly and a monthly contributor to Fighting Spirit Magazine.