1. Raiden's Transformation
Konami's robot-battling spectacular Zone of the Enders was released in March 2001 to a fantastic reception. It received widespread praise for its story, graphics and gameplay and is one of my personal favourite PS2 games. However, it somehow only mustered
fewer than a million worldwide sales, even though it came boxed with a Japanese demo for Metal Gear Solid 2. It was unbelievable. Snake looked better than ever in his shiny new polygons (and mullet), and the new gameplay additions - such as shooting in first person - had the gaming world frothing with excitement for the full game's eventual release. Snake was back... ... in the Tanker episode. After infiltrating the ship, giving Olga an overdose of M9 and snapping some raunchy photos of the military's new Metal Gear, that was it; for the remainder of the game, players took control of Raiden. Raiden. In fairness to him, he's pretty tough and controls in exactly the same way as Snake. But he wasn't Snake. He was Raiden. There was a multitude of reasons why everyone hated Raiden. He had a whiny voice. His sneaking suit looked silly. Much of his codec talk consisted of him complaining at Rose for one stupid reason or another. Hell, even his cool no-hands cartwheel became annoying after a few minutes. Everyone hated Raiden. That is until MGS 4 came along and achieved the impossible. No, not getting Otacon laid (
though he totally did) - Raiden was... cool. Like, really cool. He easily destroys a group of Gekko (little but formidable Metal Gears), defeats the immortal Vamp in combat and even slays a load of baddies after he's lost his arms. You read that correctly. And so, to go from being one of the most despised characters in video game history to one of the coolest (he was popular enough to get his own spinoff game) earns Raiden's transformation a spot on this list of WTF moments. Don't hesitate to post your own ideas, suggestions, criticisms and such in the comments!