Frustration!!!!!!

[BigBadBob141]

Has anyone out there been playing an up till then very good game only to have it ruined by a very frustrating or even near impossible section.
I've had this happen to me a few times, I was playing Tomb Raider on the original Playstation, there one section in a prison under an arena, in order to get into a locked cell to get to the exit you had to pull a lever in another cell then turn and run out and down the corridor before the cell closed back up, but the timing was so impossible tight I just could not do it, I had to resort to using a cheat code which left a sour taste in my mouth.
Also on the Playstation in the game Odd World 2 the was one part that was so hard I think it took about a hundred attempts to get through, the game was hard enough as it was so this was so needless.
Now when it comes to gaming I admit am a bit long in the tooth, so my reactions are none too fast, but making things like this near impossible hard just ruins the game for me.
The was a mech pilot type game on the Xbox, where you piloted and fought giant war robots, I forget it's title, a good no brainer shoot 'em up, a fairly good game all around worth a few hours play.
Then they brought out the sequel, oh boy, some genius thought it would be a great idea to have your character have to run up to an enemy robot, eject its pilot and take it over by playing a ridiculously hard Simon Says type game with the buttons on the controller, this was so frustratingly difficult and nearly impossible to do that it completely ruined what should have been a good game, because of this I could not get past a certain point no matter how hard I tried.
Had anyone else had a good game ruined because of some badly thought out and near impossible obstacle!

 

[Toby Frost]

Many, many times!

Just Cause 3 has an infuriating mechanism where, to liberate any large town, you have to jump from roof to roof as a clock counts down. Any wrong step, of course, and you have to start again. For a fun, silly, do-what-you-like game, it's extremely irritating. Also, Assassin's Creed 2 has a couple of big jumps in difficulty. I suspect that it's a good action game and not a very good stealth game, which means that carefully-made plans can go wrong at the drop of a hat. It's a "good" way to waste a lot of time, which is a shame as the game itself is largely great.

 

[Astro Pen]

There's a section in Riven (sequel to myst) where you have to read inscriptions you have collected on stones in a dark environment and my monitor (1998) couldn't even see them!
It was the only section in this otherwise wonderful hypercard game that I had to use the walkthrough for.
However, it remains one of the most beautiful games I have ever played even 20 years on

 

[Foxbat]

You’re definitely not alone. I tried a Batman game a few years back (Arkham something or other on PS3) and there were so many different button combos that I was just pressing them randomly and watching Batman do stuff. Despite having the controller in my hands, I had no idea what he was going to do next. I thought it was like watching a movie with no real interaction from me (apart from adding a random touch). A frustrating waste of time and I don’t think I’ve played another console game since.

My own personal pet hate are strategy games where the AI opponent isn’t subject to the same rules as a human. I try to be philosophical and tell myself to get used to it until somebody finally develops a competent AI. But I still fly into a rage when I feel cheated of victory. In fact, recently @Venusian Broon used a phrase I’d never heard before: rage quite. I realise now that this is exactly me.

 

[.matthew.]

Too often to count. While I can't think of a specific example of something I've never been able to get past eventually I still have memories of having to replay missions in Commandos 2 over and over again.

For me, usually, I'll hit the point and get really agitated by my inability to beat it, usually getting worse by the attempt. Often though, if I just walk away and do something else for a while (especially on console type games) when I try again I just breeze through it.

This leads me to think the sections I struggle with aren't actually all that difficult, and I just get myself worked up.

 

[Foxbat]

I think this thread deserves a Downfall meme (warning: harsh language in use)

 

[BigBadBob141]

The one game I truly loved and would play endlessly was Halo on the original Xbox, it's a lession on how to design a game, through driving the Warthog on the last level could be a bit tricky at times, it handled like a pig (lol)!
Also Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee on the Xbox was pretty amazing too!

 

[.matthew.]

Ha, I played Halo so damn much. Co-op was so much fun. We even got to the point of doing speed runs and recording it through a VCR

 

[Mad Alice]

I've "accidentally" rewritten bad game code for basically this reason.
I feel that if you are suddenly going to require the sacred oompalumpa of greater outerwherever to finish off a section some mention of it should have been made back sixteen levels before when you were near the what's it to begin with.
But to suddenly say "oh you can't ever win now because you never picked up (insert random infathomable object that didn't even register umpetyteen levels ago)"
Well that's just being both silly and evil and there is just no excuse for that sort of behaviour after you made us pay for the game.
(Of course if the game was torrented and the original creator inserted a virus unless you paid them, I'd call that fair going. But not for a properly bought game.)

 

[Foxbat]

This frustration had me in stitches (caution, it’s in the Scottish vernacular and doesn’t carry subtitles)...

BBC Scotland - The Social, The 8 Stages Of FIFA Grief

There's always someone who takes it a bit too far...

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[JJewel]

I play Iron Rage on Kongregate and have for well over a year and they have this heroic mode setting, so just when you think you are unbeatable they come out with you need to send out 5 maxed heros not one and you end up back at the start of the ladder, working your way up. Equally the russian online players cheat endlessly and crash the system whenever they lose.

Sometimes gaming sucks!

 

[MikeAnderson]

Try playing the original Metal Gear. Even the first fight is a pain in the butt; this game will eat your soul and make you choke someone out with a old school NES controller chord.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Ha ha, I immediately thought of Toby's frustration with the thieves guild running challenge in AC2 when I saw this thread.

I have one that I've reluctantly given up on which is Alien: Isolation. Outstanding game and very tense, but that has worked aginst it for me - very early on, too. As a gamer, I find it hard to remember 'it's okay to die' because I grew up with Spectrum+ games where, in things like Jet Set Willy or Manic Miner etc, you get 3 strikes then it's back to the beginning again, and even with pokes, some rooms were eternal-death falls (We must perform a quirkafleeg, I'm looking at you).

Alien: isolation is survival horror and I get so keyed up trying to survive, I end up running to hide in a locker so often and then just bottle out and never know when the alien is near enough to hear me etc. So, I got to the part where you have to get some dead doc's keycard which I struggled with for a month until VB helped me, I think. That was 2 years ago. I have the keycard, but as soon as you get it, all hell breaks loose and steam puffs out of pipes, and the red alarm lighting flashes, and the klaxxon, and those Bishop THX1138-a-likes come running, as well as the xeno - I ended up spending so much time hidden in a locker I just gave up. One day I'll return to it.

I loved the Resistance gmes on PS3 but in the third (or second?) one, I'd got myself to a place where I'd swapped weapons for this one which has hardly any ammo pick ups and there's a Custer's Last Stand moment where even if I'm super canny with sniping and hiding, I eventually get taken out. I haven't the energy to go back to the previous level and do it again, so I've canned that, too.

There're also some PS2 games I've given up on recently - Wetrix (the tutorial requires you to let only a certain amount of water leak out, and I'm not sure if it's a bug or the iso view is confusing me, but I can't get through that last tutorial. God knows why because I used to play the game in 2011 loads. Also, with Revenge of the Sith for PS2 there's a bug at the end and it's impossible to finish according to gaming sites - I've not even got that far because I can't defeat Dooku. I'm not too bothered about that though, because I hear you have to kill Mace later in the game and I'm not up for that

I think games these days (or, rather the ones I play) are much more robust in terms of too-hard or buggy levels, so I don't see it that often. What does get me is - as I'm a completionist - I like to get platinums on all games; I love AC but some of those platinums are impossible or just too grindy. In Syndicate, there's a don't-take-any-damage-whilst-shooting-from-a-train. Even learning the pattern and walkthrough I couldn't do it. When those things come down to random luck instead of skill I check out.

So for me it's more about the impossble trophies that PMO and not the game itself.

pH

 

[Foxbat]

I have one that I've reluctantly given up on which is Alien: Isolation. Outstanding game and very tense, but that has worked aginst it for me - very early on, too.

This is a game that I haven’t even considered buying. It’s not because I don’t like it but because games like this are too much for my nerves. I remember playing the first Alien Vs Predator game and how much that unnerved me, I know if I bought Isolation, I’d be too scared to play it.

 

[Rodders]

I feel the same way. Dead Space scared the willies out of me and I used turn It off after half hour of play.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I adore the Dead Space games! The first is my favourite but I love to play these scary games!

there’s a great little animation movie called Dead Space: Downfall which happens just before the game.

But yeah it’s a jumpy play!

 

[BigBadBob141]

REF: Foxbat.
Tried playing "Alien" on I think the Comodore 64, it would creep the hell out of me, still the film would give you nightmares, the creature was just so horrific!

 

[MemoryTale]

I can't say I've ever had a section of a game that made me rage-quit, but sometimes game mechanics have. The one that springs to mind was Breath of Fire - Dragon Quarter.

First it had a gimmick where if you restarted the game, more things would become available, and you could carry over levels from one playthrough to the next. The bugbear for me here was that it seemed like you were supposed to do this. Constantly restarting the game to advance? No thanks!

The second was that it had a trap mechanic. You could soften enemies up on the field before engaging combat by throwing a bomb at them, or gather enemies in one space with bait, or combine the two ideas together to blow up a load of enemies before engaging. Sounds really neat right? It was. The only issue is that unlike most RPGs, this game severely limited your carrying capacity, and still had loads of items laying around for you to pick up, so you couldn't really experiment by buying loads of different traps in town, or keep traps for tougher fights because you might need that inventory slot for a powerful new sword. The most frustrating thing is if they'd only made a trap bag item to store all your traps in, both ideas could still have worked side by side.

 

[Rodders]

Trying to get Star Wars: Squadrons to load. Talk about frustration.

The game tells me I don’t have the correct driver, so I go to the NVidia web site (which has to be the most unhelpful website ever), I download the latest driver, but it’s not the right one. arrrggghhh! I’ve rage quit and I haven’t even started playing the bloomin’ game.

 

[Toby Frost]

Alien: Isolation is extremely good (and apparently canon) but it can be frustrating. The way the Alien works can be annoyingly random, and it's extremely hard to "game" (as it should be). As with Bioshock, I got the impression that someone sat down and tried to work out what would make people uncomfortable and scared, which is why you occasionally get strangled by shop window dummies. Are you on some crazy difficulty, PB?

I actually managed to get past that bit on Assassin's Creed 2, but it was a nuisance. I don't think its stealth elements are actually all that good, although running across Renaissance Italy is highly entertaining. I really dislike time limits and jumping on games, as they tend to feel arbitrary and I'm not much good at either.