Psycho Mantis Reads Your Mind

Metal Gear Solid · PlayStation · 1998

The boss Psycho Mantis breaks the fourth wall by "reading" the player's memory card and making the controller move on its own — and the only way to beat him is to physically unplug the controller and move it to the second port.

Partway through Metal Gear Solid, the telepathic boss Psycho Mantis claims he can read the player's mind, and the game backs it up by reading the PlayStation's memory card. If the player has save data from other Konami games, Mantis comments on it; he also remarks on how the player has been playing, then "demonstrates" his power by making the DualShock controller vibrate and skitter across the table as though he is moving it. During the fight itself, Mantis dodges every attack by reading the player's inputs, making him seemingly unbeatable. The solution is one of the most celebrated fourth-wall gags in gaming: the player must pause, unplug the controller from port one, and plug it into port two. Mantis can no longer "read" the inputs because they are now coming from a different port, and the fight becomes winnable. The sequence turned the physical hardware into part of the puzzle, and it remains a defining example of a game using the player's real-world setup as a storytelling device rather than just a screen-bound trick.