You know the feeling – you’ve been playing a game for the last hour or so. No checkpoints, you’re playing a proper MAN’S GAME. You’d rather hack off your own limbs than use quicksave.
You’re so close to the end of a level you’ve been playing for the last twenty minutes. You round a corner and BAM – smushed dead by something off-camera. You shrug your shoulders, gird your loins (however one achieves such a feat) and get back into the fray. You get back to where you were, inch around the corner. You’re pumped, aware of the threat. You’re going to do it this time for sure.
BAM – you get smushed by something off-camera. Shit.
Games are like life. They should be hard. Nothing worth anything is easy to achieve, as anyone who’s toiled through a Barbie game just for the 1000 gamerpoints will attest.
But there’s a fine line between hard and too hard. Between the sweet, sweet feeling of beating a game harder than tempered diamond and simply bashing your skull against a brick wall. Capcom normally come down on the right side of this divide (Viewtiful Joe, the DMC games, God Hand etc.), and they are responsible for my favourite game of all time (Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts). That’s because they’re normally pretty good at designing their games.
Games that cross the divide into pad-smashing frustration are normally games with dubious design decisions - possibly due to external pressures, maybe due to general crapness. Everyone’s got their own horror stories of this kind of game. Mine? To pick a recent example I’d cite WET. A game of many parts, not many of which seemed to work.
Whose grand idea was it to have into-the-screen falling levels that could only be beaten with trial and error? Probably the same genius who thought that putting forced timed tutorials into the main campaign was a brilliant idea (one of the tutorials actually occurs after you’ve used the weapons demonstrated in the tutorial in a previous mission. Amazing). The game itself is laughably easy, but the broken platforming bits and the above stuff kept me stuck for hours. Only to beat the final bosses in a fucking cutscene.
So the question I leave you with is this – what’s the most frustrating game you’ve ever played?
The first two games I ever bought = BMX racers (Pretty much impossible to complete from what I recall. Thanks, Darling brothers.) & Jet Set Willy (fall in the wrong place = lose all your lives in one fell swoop. The original annoying insta-death. Plus, the attic bug meant that, even if you got that far without messing up, it was impossible to complete anyway.)
I played them constantly…
(The two games I had before that (that I hadn’t bought myself) were Depthcharge and Pulz64. They were both impossible to complete as well. Didn’t stop me playing them.
Welcome aboard. Now, where do I start?
Rayman (the original) pissed me off an awful lot during the later levels.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma on Ps3. This was my 3rd attempt to play the game. I gave up on both Xbox versions because I couldn’t get past the 2nd boss. I’m happy to report that I managed to beat the game this time, in ninja dog mode.
All of the Devil May Cry games. I hate them all but the 3rd one wins at pissing me off the most. This was probably due to me having the USA version, which was made harder because someone outside the dev team thought they knew better than the director.
Jurassic Park on the Mega Drive. Awful game that was made even harder due to game breaking bugs and flaws. I still completed it with the human and dinosaur mode though.
Resident Evil 3. Nemesis is a twat.
There’s loads more but these instany sprang to mind.
I’d much sooner a game be too easy. There’s nothing worse than wasting 40 quid on a game that you can only get half an hour out of.
I have a fucking shelf full of these. I’ts not so much that I’m crap at them, more to do with me no longer having the patience or time any more.
I’d forgotten about the original Rayman. That game was a twat.
Any game with quick-time events. I hate them. Mostly because I’m not expecting them, and because I’m generally not good at them. Especially on the 360 where the a, b, x and y buttons are the wrong (or rather right) way round.
Usually, I’ve just completed a section and it goes to a cut scene, I put the pad down and BAM! quick! waggle that stick!.. Quick! tap X!! Etc. etc. It just generally sucks. Also, it completely ruins the feelings of immersion. I just think it’s bad game design. There must be a more natural way of performing those sections.
Anyway, most frustrating game? That new Zelda game. I’m pretty much on the last boss at the moment, but I’ve decided to take a detour to get that unbreakable shield. Now this means I have to kill 8 of the previous bosses and with only the life I have on me (I can’t access my items).
To put it simply, the motion controls are terrible. Terrible in the way that they are not accurate enough. Many times I want to stab, and make that stabbing motion, only for Link to swing his sword from side to side. I’d also like to make a side-ward slash and the dude would go diagonal. Christ! it’s frustrating. It’s at moments like this I long for the accuracy of the game pad.
I’ve given up on the game. The boss mode SHOULD be easy enough, I’ve killed all the bosses before, I know the patterns, but at some point during the several attempts at it, those dodgy motion controls will cause me to lose some much needed life or some much needed time.
I’ve never screamed at a game like I have while playing this one.
Don’t get me started on Skyward Sword. I can’t even kill the spiders.
THE FUCKING SPIDERS!
They’re a basic, GENERIC enemy. Not a boss. Not meant to be hard, just intended as a very minor obstacle.
To say the motion controls are awful is an understatement.
For me, Skyward sword is probably the most disappointing game in the history of gaming. I genuinely felt saddened when I had to shelve it due to me not being able to control it. I’m a fucking seasoned gamer Nintendo, If I struggle, you’ve got a problem.
Would it really have been too much for Ninty to have added a second (proper) pad control scheme in there instead of forcing their broken idea onto consumers?
While we’re at it:
God of War 2.
It was ruined due to it’s QTEs. The overall game was annoying, but do-able.
The last boss was ridiculous though. The buttons literally appeared on-screen for a millisecond. If you weren’t fast enough, you’d instantly fail and have to endure a lengthy, unskippable cut-scene before you got to have another go.
Fine, I though, I’ll write down the button presses. That’ll teach it.
Oh Noooooooo, they fucking randomised the buttons didn’t they!
It was pure fluke that I managed to complete the game. The last scene that should’ve taken seconds to do took me about two hours of constant, sweary attempts.
Did I feel a sense of accomplishment upon completion?
Did I bollocks.
I just felt angry. I’m still angry about it half a decade later.
I, like Leeray hate QTEs and would love to see them banned from games completely.
That fucking metal electric snake thing in Ninja Gaiden 2.
Put me off the game.
I’d forgotten about that. That’s the exact moment I stopped playing it and traded it in.
Tomb Raider 3.
Seriously Core, what the fuck do you want from me?
While we’re busily exorcising demons, I completely forgot (or repressed, maybe) Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII.
Really enjoyed it, right until level 6 where I suddenly hit a brick wall. Just a ridiculous jump in difficulty. Thought it was just me at first but I know others who’ve given up on it at that point. Such a shame as I was really having fun til then. Consequently, it’s one of the few games I’ve traded in. That’ll teach it.