The title says it all really. What is the biggest surprise or shock you have had while playing a computer game? This can be plot twists or pure jumping out of your skin moments.

I will never forget the first time I played Freespace 2. One word. Sathanas. Seeing that behemoth come at me for the first time nearly made me crap myself. And I thought the Colossus was the saviour of humanity...

Wing Commander Prophecy when Blair dies at the end. That was a total shock. What an ignoble way to go.... being sucked through an exploding wormhole inhabited by bug-alien things.

Also how easy that game was. Managed to finish the whole game with 100% missile accuracy and over 85% gun accuracy.

MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. 5 minutes into the game and you find out that the heroic character you played as during the whole of the original game actually turned out to be a monster... so you have to have fun killing him and all his friends. That was... bizzare.

Final Fantasy 7. You go to kick the crap out of the Arch-Evil Bad Guy ™, the nemesis that has been plaguing you since the beginning of the game. Destroyer of Planet and murderer of innocents. That's right, the Head of Shinra.

Then you finally get to his office and you find out that he has already been stabbed to death by someone else. I realy loved the build up, and then you find that you have ol' silver-haired guy to deal with.

Not many others. Like with most films I can pretty much figure out the entire plot 15 minutes in. Go on, feel my spicy brains.

*feels the brains*

Tales of Symphonia had a plot like something out of an Escher drawing. People kept changing sides, turning out to be someone else, and the actual 'mission' as it were kept changing too. At least I thought so.

Just a a suggestion: Would it be worth putting some sort of spoiler warning up so people can explain more thoroughly?

the first time you go back into the house in resident evil (the first one) you think that you have cleared out all the zombies but the game cuts to an FMV, first person shot of something with horrible claws and green skin running through the garden that you have just been in, then through the garage that you have just passed through then the corridor you were just in then it puts it's claws on the door that you know that you are on the other side of (and have you're back to) it comes through the door and finally you get control of your character back and despite knowing that it will be there you still jump when you turn and there is the green leapy thing with claws. ewwww!

I think that the first time you encounter a T-Rex in Tomb Raider has to be a fairly defining moment of 'of my god!' in video games. It was the first third-person adventure game, and the sensation of scale had never really been achieved with such impact before, so to see the huge beast lumber on screen and roar at you was superb!

On a different note, finally getting the ultimate ending on Shadow Of Memories on the PS2 was fantastic. I think that there are something like eight or nine endings, and when you get the best one, the one that avoids everything, the feelings of relief and delight are just superb. It was a little bit like having been reading a novel of the film Run Lola Run, spending a huge amount of time and thought over how to avoid death, and finally realising that a different step at the beginning of it all would change everything. I don't think I've had such a moment of gaming epiphany with anything else. The tragedy is that the game's style was a pretty turgid until you'd gone through it at least twice, so it really took about 16 hours of play for you to realise just how fantastic it was so almost everyone who bought it thought it was bland.

Is that the one where that homonculus has you trying to retrieve a gem for her? Yeah, I've seen loads of endings for it but never the 'perfect' one. The plot twists in that game are supurb. In fact, know anywhere I can pick it up? I really wanna play that again.

Um... I've never been really shocked by a game. I suppose some of the monsters in Silent Hill 2 were pretty startling. And the end of the game when you figure out that you killed your wife. It was a little far fetched, but... yeah.

Final Fantasy X's plot kind of confused me, but didn't really shock me.

I'm just waiting for someone to bring up Aerith...

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Yes, that's the one. It took me ages to work out all of the different ways to get the various endings. I'm pretty sure I've seen them all now, but I still haven't seen everything in the game, but to do that you have to find every manner of death as well as every conversation path. Eek!

Once you get the 'A' ending on the next replay you get a 'this all seems very familiar' option near the beginning. The feeling of satisfaction was immense! I'm also quite excited that there's anyone out there who enjoyed the game as much as me. Most people thought it was really dull!

Anyway... Yes, Aerith was a shock, but I suspect part of that came from 'oh no! She had some really cool items! Can I get those back?'

I have very clear memories of first playing Wolfenstein 3D. A whole new world opened the moment that I began playing, suddenly the computer had space inside it with textures rather than 2D planes or jerky vector graphics. It was a feeling of 'wow, this is the future!'

Being a big fan of RTS and TBS games (and they're not known for their huge plot twists) I dont really have a huge amount of things to go on. The most shocking moment I've had in one of those is in homeworld 2. The 13th chapter of the sp campaign. You come out of hyperspace to see 10 battleships heading towards you, only to be told that you have to almost ignore those and send your fleet off in another direction entirely. It was truely one of those "oh S**T how am i gonna do this moments.

As for pure jump out of skin run and hide... turning the power on in the cradle in thief 3. All through the game you're learning that darkness = good, light = they're coming to get me. But then you have the voices and the clanky metal floors and not knowing where anyone is and the voices and the screams and its all dark but they're out there but you dont know where they are and they're hiding in the dark and the dark isnt safe and then you turn the power on and BOOM noise light no dark no hiding nowhere to run.

And the worst part?

Even after exploring the level from top to bottom you're still not convinced there's no one after you.

I still get the nightmares *shudders*

When I realised that I had been playing Halo for PC so long that my contacts had shriveled from dryness, I had nearly lost the use of my legs, and my hand was not able to function properly for two weeks.

Metal Gear Solid has some excellent plot twists and turns, not exactly shocking twists, but 'wow, that was bloody clever' kinda twists. Also the first time you play it it's very satisfying if you work something out before the game tells you.

And Mata, I remember playing Wolfy 3d - I found it great that you could only see directly infront of you, not knowing when the Nazis and their Nazi gold were gonna jump out at you. Also, when running out into corridors you had to looks both ways before you knew it was clear, rather than being able to see everywhere in a side-scroller (and the best thing about Wolfy 3d? Hitler in a giant robot suit with gatling guns. Fantastic). I also got a similar feeling of 'wow' when I first played Starwing.

Biggest shock? Being able to actually do some of the bonkers hard tracks on Frequency and Amlitude.

Any of the Burnout games would regularly make me shout out in suprise, when some cheeky get sideswipes you from nowhere.

Barely gaming, but the other day I was getting really into an expert minesweeper and I was just about to finish it when my dad walked in and yelled at me to do my homework. I was so near the computer that I didn't realise he'd walked in and turned around, kinda jumping, and fell off the chair a bit. Now _that_ was a big shock whilst gaming.

(This is my 2,000th post! *much cake*)

Same, Burnout games always get me to yell things. Once i was really near completing a level and some guy over took me in the last 200m... I died inside that day...

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The sheer amount of unlockable crap in Soul Calibur III. Holy carp, Batman. Holy carp.

I've quite literally jumped while playing computer games. Maybe it's just because I really get into them, or because it is truely surprising.

System Shock 2, the whole thing of a freaking monkey falling out of the ceiling tiles and landing in front of me to start tossing psi energy at me. Also my first encounter with a rumbler was pretty shock worthy.

Moving up to gameplay and story lines I've always enjoyed the thief games, mainly because I have some weird obsession with thievery.

I remember playing MGS2 through in one 10 hour sitting, it didn't really make me jump, but when the guy came on the radio and asked "Haven't you been playing this game long enough?", it was a real 'WTF, my playstation's talking to me' moment.

I remember playing Ultimate Doom for the first time, on my friend's computer. I was "jumping" (just running at gaps really, as there was no 'jump') between posts above lava, and suddenly came face to face with a Cacodemon. Not only was I shocked by its sudden appearance, as well as being in awe of the 3D-loveliness of the game - something very new to me, but I also panicked as I fumbled for the shoot button, realised to late that I had the rocket launcher selected, and fired it at point blank range - sending me plummeting to the lava below. That was a nice shock.

Back in the days of the Commodore 64, I played a text adventure game called Nythyhel. The occult nature of the game, and the little bits of information that you discovered on your way to various places, was enough to put the little boy that I was on edge, and I was constantly getting ready for something awful to happen. It is funny really because, with the majority of text adventures, you could just sit back and think for a moment, before having to perform an action - there were no time restraints. Yet, despite this, I was still rushing to type in the required commands to enter some magic circle of safety, hoping that a beast was not going to get me. The power of words, huh?

Never did finish it though... even with a solution sent to me by the author.

Half-Life was surprised me several times too, with good monster-jumping-out-at-you moments.