10 Video Game Plot-Holes You Can't Ignore

In modern times ‘plot-hole’ has become an umbrella term for everything from genuine plot-holes to logical inconsistencies, continuity errors and in the case of video games, bizarre (and often hilarious) clashes between gameplay and story.

Not surprisingly, we’ve seen MANY examples.

You’ve got Heavy Rain, with Ethan Mars’ infamous unexplained blackouts, Metroid’s long succession of ‘last’ Metroids, Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s legendary time paradox, Gears Of War’s genocidal anti-human human Myrrah - not to mention the suspicious immunity to viruses that near every hero in near every zombie game is seen to possess.

To be fair a modicum of sympathy is in order, because when you’re dealing with a multi-faceted project years in the making, battling tight deadlines, limited resources, and near unbearable hype mistakes are bound to happen. But when those mistakes come down to pure laziness or writers being a little too clever for their own good, then not so much.

So break out the popcorn and grab a cup of tea, because its time look at both the egregious and the unfortunate as we consider ten new entries into the catalogue that you may never have considered.

And beware, spoilers abound.

Horror convention dictates that minor characters should be killed off slowly, painfully, and the more gruesomely the better. Luckily, Dead Space 3 bucked the trend and had its first victim, Austin Buckell, go out as something of a hero.

Crashed on the frozen Tau Volantis and lacking enough snowsuits for him and his three companions, Buckell elected to sacrifice himself and remain behind, surviving just long enough to relay the story to Isaac.

But it didn’t need to happen.

Buckell dies only a few feet away from a generator that powers up a heating system - a generator that required nothing more than a Kinesis module to kick start. So why, despite there being two technicians among the group, and Kinesis seemingly being a ubiquitous piece of technology, could no one start that generator?

It can be argued that neither he nor his companions had a Kinesis module, but a technician on Titan Station in Dead Space 2 had one, and with Stasis recharge points liberally scattered around and Kinesis being a plug-in module for Stasis, that seems a little unlikely.

Still, at least he died peacefully and intact. In Dead Space, that’s a hell of a compliment.