Flipping the script
Hello, it’s the list goblin.
Every month I bring fun lists to share.
My hideous goblin features and desperate hunger for SEO crumbs hide a generous heart.
People don’t expect kindness from a creature such as I.
But life is full of twists, and so are video games.
Remember whenBioShockpulled the rug from beneath you so hard you cracked your head on the wet tiles?
Remember when the dragon scales fell from your eyes during The Elder Scrolls:Skyrim?
Here’s the 10 best plot twists in PC games.
You’ve been killing the leading members of your own organisation, you fool!
The cleverness of this is that the first few contracts are genuine.
And he’s been commanding your every move with the control phrase “would you kindly”.
I still don’t know how 2K managed to hypnotise every player back in 2007.
Player manipulation has evolved a lot since then.
But it was impressive technology for the time.
But persevere through the judicious bullet admin and you’ll be struck with the mother of all curveballs.
It’s an intriguing doubt, subtly seeded.
It’s not your house!
that actually, oh no, this is not your front door.
But the house is empty.
Was your father always moustached?
Did they renovate the kitchen?
It all comes to a head when you reach the loft and realise, hang on.
This isn’t your creepy multimillion-dollar manor!
Your mansion has corpses in the attic!
You’d better leave.
The real killer - Return of the Obra Dinn
Scurvy.
Plain old scurvy finished off the whole crew, who’d have thought it?
The sailors just didn’t have enough lemons.
This is what Springtime looks like in Skyrim.
Isn’t that weird?
And then true winter comes.
Or “Megawinter” as it is called in Elder Scrolls lore.
You are an orc - Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
This was such a shock.
You were an orc all along.
It explains why you could be such good friends with them all.
Still, you know what they say: “better an orc than a… goblin”.
A goblin…. Hm.
“What the hell is happening?”
And then it comes to you all at once, like a frying pan across the head.
You see the clues now.
God, it was so clear!
A jester in Metal Gear Solid V?
Skyrim in Spring!?
You scroll past the clues, glaring now (Ape Rule Fuel???).
The voice of Christoph Waltz echoing in your head.
“A wurst for the thurst, the first is the worst!”.
You mouth the words aloud, the red strings of your brain putting it all together.
You feel like you’ve lived this moment before, a part of you has always known.
You scroll up and scroll up and see it there, next to the byline on the offending article.
Your suspicions confirmed, your life shattered.
It was all a lie.
You hear the distant laughter of a goblin, long gone now, impossible to trace.
Not the creature of lists you know and cherish.
But another monstrosity altogether, that foul thing, lord of the shitpost.
This is not the work of the List Goblin.
But one of them veered too far out of their lane.
It’s…Dr Kleiner from Half-Life 2.
“I’d say Kleiner should be removed,” says digital human purger ‘Saravis’ with cold logic.
Judgement has been passed.
I will see you all next time, goblin fans.
I promise to be sensible.
