What are the worst "game killers" you've encountered?

[23skidoo]

A "game killer", for me, is a puzzle or a scenario that is unnecessarily difficult, perhaps bordering on impossible, that as a result destroys your interest in a videogame. It's something that can't be skipped with a cheat code, and isn't something that you choose to take on yourself (such as the infamous "Nightmare!" difficulty level in Doom), but rather is something you encounter playing on a regular difficulty level. And game killers, by this definition, usually happen fairly early in a game.

I've encountered these from time to time. Back in the 1980s, you'd often encounter "game killer" scenarios in some of the text adventures games that required the player to basically be able to read the mind of the programmer to figure out the first move.

I've hit a "game killer" with the new Nancy Drew mystery game, Shadow at the Water's Edge. It's set in Japan and incorporates a number of Japanese puzzles and games (one reason why I bought the thing). But very early on in the game - indeed, the first major puzzle you encounter - is a nearly impossible wire puzzle. You have to take a bunch of pegs, connected by wires, and rearrange them in such a way that none of the wires cross.

I'm sure it's easy for those who can solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded, but for guys like me who just want to get on with the story and not spend 3-4-5 days on this (which some users of the game have reported in the forums, most ending with "I finally gave up"), it's a game killer. In those "hidden object" games that have become quite popular, there are plenty of impossible puzzles to solve, too. But at least they have "skip" buttons most of the time. You get penalized, but you get to continue the story. But as far as I've been able to tell, there's no cheat code or other mechanism to get past this, and according to the walkthrough, while you don't have to solve the puzzle right away and can go away and do other stuff for a while, ultimately it's necessary to advance the story. But I've lost interest and the game might as well be a coaster, because of this one puzzle spoiling it.

Oh, one other aspect of the "game killer" definition is it's often a very individual thing what makes a game killer. Some players of the Drew game reported they solved the thing in 5 minutes and don't know what the fuss is about. And I'm sure someone will read this and say the same thing. And that's what makes game killers even MORE frustrating!

So I've had my rant - let's hear yours. Have you encountered "game killer" scenarios in games yourself? (Doesn't have to be puzzle games - could be RPGs, FPS, MMORGs, campaign games even virtual world scenarios like Second Life). Console or computer or iPhone app, it doesn't matter. Has anything made you "round file" a game?

Alex

 

[Mr Light]

I run into one of these with almost any game I play. I don't play games for frustration or difficulty but for entertainment dammit! I usually end up playing it ten times and finally declaring THIS TIME when I die I'm selling the game off and then I get past it.

I never beat the final boss in Prototype. I played him 20 damn times and a couple times got really close but never won.

I gave up on FF13 right near the end where you fight two motorcycle things who can insta-kill you.

 

[Eld Phaedrus]

Growing up on 2D platformers, here are a few of mine:

The third level of NES Battletoads-the infamous Turbo Tunnel. For so many, this was the breaker for an otherwise fun and very challenging game.

The overall gameplay of Street Fighter 2010. Its only connection to the franchise is you play as a bionic version of Ken Masters. The combat mechanics were too complex, really, for the NES controller. That and the insane difficulty of its final level were major turn-offs.

The original TMNT for the NES, which was so unlike the awesome arcade game Konami tried to capitalize on. Only two Turtles worth playing as (Don and Leo), and the level where you disarm bombs underwater, dodging electric seaweed that kills you really fast.

Games that do their heritage injustice, like Donkey Kong 64. DKC 1-3 are still my favorite 2D games of all time-I've never had so much fun playing video games. But this? It's all about the minigames. That's it. Don't get me wrong-the minigames were fun. But I was expecting a 3D rendition of Donkey Kong Country-style gameplay-it's an awful waste to have such huge 3D enviroments and have so little to do. Disarming the Blast-O-Matic and the final boss fight are my favorite parts, really.

I think single-player games have gotten too easy overall, which is why I love it when somebody pays homage to the old-school of beat-you-into-submission style gaming. Like New Super Marios Bros. Wii, Super Meat Boy, and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.

/end rant

 

[Kelthaz]

I tend to play games for difficulty, so it's very rare I'll stop a game because it's too hard. Dying 100 times on a single 60 second level is child's play to me. I may take a long time to finish a game (Ghosts 'n Goblins, 15 years and counting), but I don't give up.

What will make me quit a game is poor design (bad controls, crappy camera, etc.). I tend to have little patience for crap that's just there to pad the game out. Dying 200+ times on a boss? Fine. Slow walking speed? Game goes in the trash. If it wasn't for the sprint shoes I never would have played Final Fantasy VI.

A example of a game killer to me was Kirby's Dreamland 3. Decent enough game, but it was so slow. And those annoying mini-games you had to win to get the hidden Heart. Screw up the memory game? Play the whole level again. Bah.

 

[bullethead]

I stopped playing the BSG video game for PS2 because of this one level where you have to fly a Cylon Raider around in formation with a flight of other Raiders who will blow you away if you slip up and don't correct within a few seconds. This has to be done several times apparently. I once once managed to start up the second flyby, but I died and thanks to save system, had to restart the entire mission (actually, all the levels were like that).

 

[Sparky]

Dead Space. The part where you are on the bridge I think, and you have to shoot asteroids out of the sky. I just could not beat that part. I sold the game shortly after.

Maybe I gave up too early, maybe I just didn't try hard enough. I just don't have time for that crap anymore.

 

[RoJoHen]

Two games immediately come to mind, and maybe it's just because I was an idiot at the time, but I always got stuck at the same parts no matter what.

The first game is Zelda for the original Gameboy. I would always end up in this cave where you're supposed to move rocks around in order to make a path to the other side, but there was absolutely no possible way to make it happen. Only certain rocks would move, and no configuration of them allowed for passage to the other side of the cave.

The other is one of the Metroid games for Gameboy, and it would be a similar situation. I'd get to a certain spot every time, and there was no discernible way out. I had no idea how to continue the game, and I never figured it out.

Both of these were very frustrating because I enjoyed the games and wanted to keep playing, but I never learned how to do it!

 

[captcalhoun]

Spider-Man on Master System 2, you defeat Electro in a power plant and then have to web-swing upwards to get this key and you have to web between arcs of electricity and it's. completely. fucking. impossible. to. do.

Red Alert 1, there's a mission where you have to attack some Soviet camp with jut Tanya and an artillery piece and it's impossible to keep both intact and impossible to finish with only one.

C&C 1, one mission has you trying to retrieve nuclear fuel rods and i ALWAYS wound up getting my units wiped out trying to get in to the camp.

JKII:JO, trying to get some whosit in an Imperial Base and you have to fucking Force leap from one walkway to another and bounce around going from these mad block rooms on 3 levels in order to do what you need and it's like some crazy Sonic the Hedgehog game and not at all obvious where you go...

 

[TheGodBen]

It wasn't exactly game-killing, but there was a mission in GTA Vice City called The Driver that I had to repeat almost 30 times. The concept of the mission is stupid; you're trying to recruit the best driver in the city, but he'll only work for you if you beat him in a race... which would make you the best driver in the city and you wouldn't need him.

Anyway, they made the mission artificially difficult by putting him in a race car while you're in a crappy four-door with lousy acceleration. To make things harder, the police chase you for taking part in an illegal street race, but since the police in that game couldn't chase NPCs, the police would let him go and try to ram you off the road. He kept on beating me, and on the few occasions when I'd be in the lead, I'd hit a bump in the road and somehow spin out, or I'd crash into so many objects that my car would explode. The fact that I had only just gotten a PS2 and wasn't used to playing with a controller didn't help me. I eventually beat him on attempt 28. To add insult to injury, during the bank heist that I had hired him for, he was killed and I needed to drive the car myself anyway!

Since then, I've played the game a couple more times and never had much difficulty with beating that mission.

 

[Canadave]

Games that do their heritage injustice, like Donkey Kong 64. DKC 1-3 are still my favorite 2D games of all time-I've never had so much fun playing video games. But this? It's all about the minigames. That's it. Don't get me wrong-the minigames were fun. But I was expecting a 3D rendition of Donkey Kong Country-style gameplay-it's an awful waste to have such huge 3D enviroments and have so little to do. Disarming the Blast-O-Matic and the final boss fight are my favorite parts, really.

Really? I loved DK64, myself, though I didn't think it was quite as good as it's spiritual cousin, Banjo-Kazooie.

One that comes to mind for me, when I was first playing it years ago, is the original Homeworld. Near the end of the single player campaign (mission 13, I think?) you encounter a "graveyard" where a mysterious alien ship is able to take over any capital ships that get close to it, forcing you to destroy it with corvettes and fighters. I threw everything I had at it and failed, and was left scrounging for the minimal remaining resources with little luck. I gave up, and it was years before I finally finished the game.

 

[Lindley]

Red Alert 1, there's a mission where you have to attack some Soviet camp with jut Tanya and an artillery piece and it's impossible to keep both intact and impossible to finish with only one.

C&C 1, one mission has you trying to retrieve nuclear fuel rods and i ALWAYS wound up getting my units wiped out trying to get in to the camp.

These sorts of maps always have a "back door" into the base that makes things much easier. I'm guessing the artillery was intended to blow away a key bit of wall to let Tanya in somewhere safe, for instance.

 

[The Fatman]

I know this doesn't count since it's optional, but I found getting the "ultimate" weapons for each character in Final Fantasy 10 to be game breakingly frustrating. Specifically wakka's ball that needs to be offered in Blitzball as a random grand prize ( I had to play 45 hours of seasons before it was offered to me.), and Tidus's weapon from the chocobo race where your final time has to be less than zero. I remember all of them being pains-in-the-ass, but those two still give me fits.

I wouldn't count Battletoads since the whole game was insanely hard.

Here's a good one (it's necessity can be argued, so again, not sure if it counts)! Super Mario Galaxy 1, where you have to collect 100 purple coins on a giant 8-bit Luigi. You are on a giant lava field and the platforms under your feet keep disappearing when you walk on them. On top of that, the Star appears clear at the beginning of the stage, so even if you manage to get 100 coins, you then have to pray you allowed yourself a path to get back. I spent a month trying to complete that stupid stage, which is the last star in the game for me, and never could, so I shelved the game in frustration.

 

[Kelthaz]

Here's a good one (it's necessity can be argued, so again, not sure if it counts)! Super Mario Galaxy 1, where you have to collect 100 purple coins on a giant 8-bit Luigi. You are on a giant lava field and the platforms under your feet keep disappearing when you walk on them. On top of that, the Star appears clear at the beginning of the stage, so even if you manage to get 100 coins, you then have to pray you allowed yourself a path to get back. I spent a month trying to complete that stupid stage, which is the last star in the game for me, and never could, so I shelved the game in frustration.

Just plan out a route through the level beforehand. If you planned well you'll have a decent margin of error when it comes to missing coins and you'll only have to make 2-3 difficult jumps. It'll take a few tries, but it's nowhere near as hard as it seems.

There's actually an article showing a map of the level, strategies on beating it, and a video showing how best to do it. You don't want to quit the game with just one star left.

http://www.playhaven.com/guides/wii/super-mario-galaxy/luigis-purple-coins/nIoWdkrOcHik/

 

[Ood Sigma]

The one that sticks out for me was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. About an hour or two into the game, there's a boss battle that involves the prince fighting not only a boss but about 5 other regular enemies. When attacking one of them, the others beat on you mercilessly. I must have tried 50 times and the best I could do was kill one of them. I watched a video walkthrough to see if I was missing anything, but apparently I just really suck at combat, which is a shame since the appeal of the game was the puzzles. I put the game down and haven't picked it back up since.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Can they be bugs or be technical problems? I encountered one last night while trying to play Pirates of the Burning Sea for the first time. The game uses UDP connections instead of the usual TCP, and as such, it causes many problems for those who have ISPs who block these kind of connections. TCP causes less problems as it's more widely accepted. So, because the UDP connections were being blocked, I couldn't even get past the ship control section of the tutorial since my keystrokes wouldn't be sent to the server, as such my ship would just go around and around in circles. Bad design on the part of the devs on making UDP the default. Many have complained about this problem and they hadn't done anything about it since launch. It could have easily been fixed by giving people the option, but I had to add something to an .ini file to force TCP connections. Many people don't know about this as it's not publicized, hence many people are dead in the water with uncontrollable ships.

 

[FPAlpha]

Mine was during Ninja Gaiden when fighting one of the level end bosses called Alma.

She's very agile, has very good attacks and is simply quite hard to beat (at least for me). A few mistakes and you're done and can start all over.

It's gotten so bad that i had put the game away for weeks sometimes out of frustration and then had the added difficulty of "re-training" or re-remembering some of the better moves to be able to beat her. Took me quite a while but i managed it.

 

[Chris3123]

The original TMNT for the NES, which was so unlike the awesome arcade game Konami tried to capitalize on. Only two Turtles worth playing as (Don and Leo), and the level where you disarm bombs underwater, dodging electric seaweed that kills you really fast.

Yep. I was never able to get past that level when I was younger.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

This happens alot in strategy games where you have to build a giant army and a massive wall of defenses or you're going to die in the first 10 minutes. I cheated/skipped a lot of the Night Elf missions in WC3 because of it.

Also repeatedly having to do the same thing over and over. There are many times I'd considered giving up on Final Fantasy IV and VI because of the massive grinding required to beat the final bosses.

 

[Kelthaz]

Also repeatedly having to do the same thing over and over. There are many times I'd considered giving up on Final Fantasy IV and VI because of the massive grinding required to beat the final bosses.

I'll agree with you on the Final Fantasies. I was playing Final Fantasy IV (the PSX version) and I made it to Zeromus -- cue my entire team dying in a single round before I had a chance to heal. I didn't feel like grinding for hours and going through that long dungeon again, so I stopped playing.

As for Final Fantasy VI, I don't know yet. I've always gotten bored shortly into the World of Ruin. I'm playing through the game again now, and we'll see if the end game drives me to quit again.

 

[Canadave]

This happens alot in strategy games where you have to build a giant army and a massive wall of defenses or you're going to die in the first 10 minutes. I cheated/skipped a lot of the Night Elf missions in WC3 because of it.

I found Stronghold to be like that. It's a great game, but every mission basically involves dying the first time through so you can see where and what you need to defend for the second attempt.