Games With Stories That Don't Make Sense

In the video game industry, weird and wacky games are abundant. In fact, weirdo games have been the standard since the medium first came about. All of this is to say that you don't have to scrape the bottom of the barrel (or the clearance bin) to find a game with an insane story. But this list highlights some of the weirdest offenders.

We honestly could have picked just about any Metal Gear game and slapped it at the top of this list: but Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty stands out just that much more in our minds. Though the gameplay was solid, merely an extension of the first game with some added weapons and cool equipment, the story was an off-the-walls kind of crazy.

To start out, you don't play as the main protagonist from the first game (not for long anyway), most of your team has been replaced, and pretty soon you're pitted against an immortal woman with a rail gun, a wizard vampire, and several ridiculous out-of-nowhere anime plot twists with cutscenes to match. Not to mention the game ends by telling you that you basically just played the first game all over again in a different setting, that it was all a scheme by the game's main villain, and that you've actually been on the Metal Gear you've been looking for the whole time. And it's not just a Metal Gear. It's Metal Gears! Plural!

But even then, the game goes further off the deep end by convincing you that the villain is actually the first two villains from the first game in one, with one arm being from villain #1, and the rest of a human body comprised of villain #2. And the arm was sentient and behind the whole plot!

And that's just one game! There's a handful more! Come to think of it, maybe we don't even need the rest of this list...

Though the tales spun in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe tend to be riddled with weirdness, they've always been charming and spunky at their core. However, the 2006 reboot was a real dark spot for the franchise—and in ways reaching beyond just a rotten story. Creepy inhuman characters, horrifying controls, and some of the most abysmal game dialogue we've seen in years await those who dare to play it. And that's just the start of a terrifying spiral into the insanity that is that putrid game.

The whole story is about a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog chasing after a clearly-too-young human girl in pursuit of some gross human-hedgehog hybrid relationship. Oh, and saving the world from an Egg-shaped man who's literally named Dr. Eggman, with the help of an orange flying fox with two tails (named Miles "Tails" Prower) and a host of other unreasonably human-like, animal hybrids.

But at least those cutscenes were rad... right?

Rage begins with so much promise. In 2011, it was the anticipated next game from the developers of classics like Doom and Wolfenstein, and was being driven by some of the most advanced video game engine technology around—all designed by the same man who programmed the engines of Doom and Wolfenstein decades before. And while Rage can be complimented for its fanatical and tight gunplay, gorgeous visuals and notable voice acting talent, it story left a huge hole in many gamer's hearts.

You're pitched as the survivor of a global nuclear holocaust, destined to possess a cure and hope for the continued existence of mankind, even after the fallout. As the game progresses it becomes clear that the scope is shrinking significantly, with environments transitioning from huge open vistas to the monster-ridden corridors of the developer's past games. The story follows suit—setting up a powerful world-rescuing plot in which you find your way to a "solution" for the world's situation—only to have it end just a few hours in with a lazy, answer-less cutscene that cuts the game off before it even winds up for a pitch.

So many ideas were put on the table in Rage: from tight corridor gunplay, to intense boss battles, and interesting car combat. But altogether it produced a game that felt half-baked, with a story (or arguably lack thereof) that left a lasting bad taste in gamers' mouths.

If you've been playing games for a while, you probably don't even need to read why BioWare's space epic RPG made this list. Endless articles, forum posts, and video comments have loathed the ending to Mass Effect 3 since its release, so much that Bioware opted to create a new ending for the game as DLC to provide context to what many deem a shallow, unfulfilling conclusion.

In short, what was expected to end in an amalgamation of your personal choices and actions over a trilogy of games climaxed in the equivalent of a final act where you are given a choice among three options. A "red or blue pill" scenario, some might call it. Making your decision did affect the ending you received, but didn't really account for your past actions, and it left many passionate fans of the series feeling short-changed. To them, hundreds of hours played and decisions made amounted to little more than a rock, paper, scissors ending.

At some point, Call of Duty as a franchise went off the deep end in terms of narrative focus. What was once a heavily single-player game with a well-written story and action-packed moments is now a multiplayer-driven battle arena where players shoot, stab, and shout expletives at each other online. Some think the shift happened with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which laid the foundation for much of online gaming as it exists today: player leveling, unlocks, lobby systems, constant rewards, and more. We think the sequel, Modern Warfare 2, is the more likely culprit.

In the original Modern Warfare, the story follows a band of gritty soldiers looking to prevent the outbreak of a global nuclear war. Amidst the action, the game keeps a relatively level head with some spikes in insanity. Modern Warfare 2 comes in swinging with snowmobile getaways, rooftop chases, and more guns than you could shake a stick at. On top of all that, the story follows multiple characters, some old and some new, across multiple countries from multiple armies. There's even a mission where you play as a terrorist in an attack on an airport. It's at times uncomfortable, and others hilariously silly. It's by no means a bad campaign, but it's by far one of the weirdest and nonsensical. No Call of Duty game has turned back since.