Yesterday I experienced what video game frustration is truly about (as evidenced by the video I've provided) and it convinced me to spark a little discussion here on GiantBomb about what games you loathe the most, and what games have frustrated you the brink of insanity. I personally think it's a really interesting topic, since some people have vastly different opinions and experiences regarding this. I've heard people cry out in anger over games like Super Meat Boy, whereas some people have breezed through it while experiencing no frustration whatsoever.
What games have frustrated you guys the most?
Now, to quickly summarize this slightly entertaining video, I take a second stab at the "World's Hardest Game" -- an internet flash game -- and you can sort of guess where it goes. Keep in mind, I'm not trying to garner views or subscribers, I just thought this video was funny and worth sharing with the rest of you all, while also trying to spark some discussion in the process.
Yeah it's generally games like Super Meat Boy, Trials or SSX where I want to constantly one-up my time or score and beat friends on leaderboards. Basically when a tough game encourages playing through those levels a million times to compete with friends. It brings my blood to a boil, even though they're also the most fun I have playing games usually.
Sins Of The Solar Empire having a fucking awful tutorial with practifcally no tips. Playing a game for 4 hours only to be beaten by some stupid shit the game didn't bother to explain. Waste of time.
@Fozimuth: Yeah I remember Street Fighter IV, that cunt of an end-boss made me cry.@MikkaQ said:
Yeah it's generally games like Super Meat Boy, Trials or SSX where I want to constantly one-up my time or score and beat friends on leaderboards. Basically when a tough game encourages playing through those levels a million times to compete with friends. It brings my blood to a boil, even though they're also the most fun I have playing games usually.
I agree, chasing leadboard positions can be a taxing endeavour.
I know this is gonna sound lame, but the campaign on Battlefield 3 on Normal-Hard. I died 23 times defending my troops on top of a bridge.
Oh! Now that you mention it I actually remember the part where you're operating the tank turret and a suicide-bomb car tries to ram right into you. I could not shoot that care in time to save my life until the 7th try I think.
Hehe pretty funny video, man. I really dislike the way some people act while playing a hard video game in front of a crowd, making it out to be much harder than it is. Sort of making all sorts of sounds and sighs and grrs. Really looking like they are concentrating and talking to themselves, telling how hard it is. Basically acting in a way they would never do by themselves, where they wouldn't flinch a muscle. It's like they are trying to draw the crowd in, which just falls flat and feels fake. Brad does it too, which can be seen in the Meatboy video shot behind his shoulder in the old office and others too. But I guess you had to make a video, so it doesn't piss me off quite as much. Ha! Ha!
Anyway, I don't get frustrated anymore since I started listening to Bombcasts or similar while playing. Now I can tackle Ninja Gaiden without getting pissed whatsoever even though I still hate Alma and certain gauntlets on Master Ninja.
Any online game where I get decimated without a single chance to defend myself at all. Battlefield 3 spawn kills tend to do that, so I quit playing. Also, and fighting game when it starts lagging, that bugs the shit out of me.
Just thinking about fighting games kind of does it for me. Don't get me wrong. I fuckin' rocked Kens with my Guile, but the moment SSF4 was announced I quit because I didn't want to keep having to relearn each character's behavior with each new iteration. The fact that an SSF4 is out there just destroys my love for SF4 cause I'm also one of those peeps that constantly hit the "check for updates" button. If it ain't the standard then going back to it becomes hard.
Hehe pretty funny video, man. I really dislike the way some people act while playing a hard video game in front of a crowd, making it out to be much harder than it is. Sort of making all sorts of sounds and sighs and grrs. Really looking like they are concentrating and talking to themselves, telling how hard it is. Basically acting in a way they would never do by themselves, where they wouldn't flinch a muscle. It's like they are trying to draw the crowd in, which just falls flat and feels fake. Brad does it too, which can be seen in the Meatboy video shot behind his shoulder in the old office and others too. But I guess you had to make a video, so it doesn't piss me off quite as much. Ha! Ha!
Anyway, I don't get frustrated anymore since I started listening to Bombcasts or similar while playing. Now I can tackle Ninja Gaiden without getting pissed whatsoever even though I still hate Alma and certain gauntlets on Master Ninja.
Haha, yeah! Well you need to interact with the audience whilst making a video, so naturally I didn't keep my mouth shut the entire time, but yeah, the reaction at around 3:39 is entirely real! ;)
Catherine. I just started playing it last night (been on the backburner for a while) and that game is infuriating!!! I guess I just don't have the brain for that block puzzle crap. I was biting my knuckle so I wouldn't call it off colour names and throw poop at the TV.
@Twinsun: What parts of Jak 2 did you find hard? i really like those games and cant really remember too many frustrating parts. Well maybe except some of the driving stuff in 3 and "floatboard" in 2.
COD: Black Ops. I've lost two PS3 controllers to that game. I'm just one of those people who will never be really good at FPS games, and I still try so hard it gives me fits. I've had some pretty shameful meltdowns, but I blame people like Sandy Ravage for making FPS look so easy. I almost got suckered into buying that SCUF gaming controller at one point too. Nice try though, Sandy.
@ComradeKhan: His only viable combos are one-frame links, no effective shoryuken equivalent but is susceptible to it himself (to the point that I would intentionally end combos abruptly and block to bait shoryuken, because if you miss the one-frame link you'll get hit by a shoryuken anyway), and there were only one or two high-level players to watch, while the vast majority of the rest of high-level SFIV was Ryu, Sagat, and Rufus.
Arcade Edition nerfed his damage, pointlessly nerfed one of his moves (c.hp) so it couldn't properly anti-air anymore, and introduced two new characters that he had a huge disadvantage against, to the point that top players who had been maining him since vanilla switched to characters like Makoto.
Aside from Arcade Edition being a disaster for nearly everyone, Abel was never a bad character, but you need to actually learn how to play the character to be effective at all. Which sounds ridiculous to any serious player, until you remember the vast, vast majority of players lnline were using overpowered vanilla Ryu (200 damage shoryuken with 3 frame startup and plenty of invincibility? How fun) while I was trying to learn a new character with very little to go on.
The only frustrating parts of Super Meat Boy were the stupid gimmicks, like rockets and enemies. You have to perfectly manipulate the rocket/ enemy/ whatever in just the right way, and if you're off by a tiny bit then your timing is completely blown and you'll get hit.
Games that lack a color blindness option where telling the difference between colors is important.....beating Puzzle Chronicles without being able to tell the difference between yellow and green gems sucked.
Catherine. I just started playing it last night (been on the backburner for a while) and that game is infuriating!!! I guess I just don't have the brain for that block puzzle crap. I was biting my knuckle so I wouldn't call it off colour names and throw poop at the TV.
Catherine looks fun and all, but yeah, it definitely looks annoying as hell.
Fez has made me mad as shit a few times. Still love the game though.
Wait, Fez? Really?
Yeah. It doesn't play fair. It's always more complicated and arduous than it looks at first. And it's always there smirking at you in its 2D voxel cuteness.
The first time you encounter the EFFING Minotaurs in God of War 3 on normal. I was teetering on the edge of clawing my eyes out because of my inability to, right away, sense their vulnerability. The game asking me to scale down the difficuly only added to my frustration and temperament. I bet if I go back, I'd still get hung up in that section, longer than I should. I stood up and cheered, feeling like I've made history when I killed those bad boys, after, give or take, two dozen times of dying -- probably more. Damn those things.
I really can't think of any. There are games that would do so, but I usually "calm-quit" before I reach the point of rage. Trials HD is definitely guilty of making me grit my teeth and power off the machine.
On a semi-related note, I have no respect whatsoever for game designers whose only goal is "make it ******* hard." I like a challenge, but I need a reason to want to attempt it. Moving a 2D block to avoid AI-less hazards to get to the end doesn't do it for me.
Lately, it's been Soul Calibur 5. Been a huge fan of the series since 2000 and have been playing as Nightmare/Siegfried the entire time. This is, without a doubt, the worst incarnation of the character. I can't think of a single thing that he has going for him in his favor, and it's a borderline chore to play as him. He's clearly supposed to be a character that trades speed for reach and power, but his damage output isn't anything special, nor is his reach, and he's probably the easier character to read in the game. Online has been so frustrating to play with ol' Siggy.
When a game is unfair I get mad. I was playing Tribes and I could t get a Shrike because a person was camping and killing everyone by the spawn station. I get mad at Super Meat Biy because it always lags and that pisses me off.
The short answer would be fighting games with bosses. Mortal Kombat and so on.
This. Even when you know how to cheese Shao Khan, he's still a complete pain in the ass, and the direct opposite of fun. That goes for most bosses in fighting games, but Shao Khan is on a special tier of unfairness. (this applies to both MK3 and MK9)
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