8 Great Games That Said F**k You To The Player

8. The Walking Dead

Walking Dead Almost single-handedly resurrecting the adventure game genre, Telltale Games€™ cel-shaded masterpiece won a slew of awards for its dark storytelling and its open-ended narrative. To be fair, the majority of the time Lee and Clementine€™s quest to survive the zombie apocalypse delivered on its promise of open-ended-ness, with the ability to save certain characters and let others die. Yet the game always had fixed points, and this was where the €˜f**k you moment€™ became apparent. What made the game so good was how emotionally involving the whole thing was €“ controlling Lee, you were thrown into a protective relationship with Clem that wasn€™t at all obtrusive and didn€™t operate like an escort mission. You as a player actually began to feel protective toward Clem as a character and became emotionally involved in trying to keep her safe. For the most part, and after some close scrapes, you managed that, and were relieved. Yet come the final instalment of the series, you were confronted with an unavoidable event €“ having let his guard drop for a moment, Lee gets bitten by a zombie and spends the majority of the final chapter trying desperately to lead Clem to some sort of safety before he snuffs it. For many gamers, this was so heart-breakingly sad that they actually became angry €“ while it was the narrative point that the zombie apocalypse would eventually catch up with us all, to have Lee become unavoidably infected before Clem is safe was an up-yours to all you efforts that came before, and an effective one at that. The only way this became worse was that after Clem eventually escaped the town of Savannah €“ after seeing her zombified parents, itself a gut-wrencher €“ her fate was made ambiguous. She sees two figures watching her in the distance, but she€™s got no idea if they€™re friendly, psychos or just zombies. By not guaranteeing her safety, the game pulled out a potent €˜f**k you€™ of the first degree, and we were gutted.
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Contributor

Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.