10 Images That Completely Killed The Magic Of Gaming

8. "Turn The Game Console Off Right Now!" - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty

Now we're onto an immersion-killing moment that was actually intentional, as Hideo Kojima decided to break the fourth wall near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Once Raiden makes it into Arsenal Gear and the virus is transmitted into GW, he begins receiving weird messages from Colonel Campbell, the most meta of which is unquestionably Campbell's urging Raiden to turn the console off and stop playing. Though it serves a grander narrative purpose, as Raiden is in fact unknowingly taking part in a scripted mission in much the same way that the player is, it completely drew us out of what was up to that point a pretty awesome game. Was Kojima being a little too smart for its own good? That depends on your perspective: many love to praise MGS2 as the first true "postmodern" game, what with its increasingly surreal, meta tone as the game progresses, and its characteristically talky, philosophical ending. Some, however, see the final hour of MGS2 as needlessly breaking the emotional connection between the player and the game. After all, Kojima may have made his intelligent point well, but it was at the expense of player engagement in the story, which when we already loathed the protagonist wasn't necessarily a great move.