Have You Hit a Gaming Wall?
Stephen Totilo, at MTV Games, has hit a gaming wall. At the newly un-flashed Multiplayer site he talks about the bane of gamers everywhere, what developer Jamie Fristrom calls a 'shelf-level event': a gaming wall that makes it hard if not impossible to complete a game. While a lot of gamers can overcome difficulties to reach the end credits, there are some frustrations that can suck all the fun out of play. He cites the bosses from Final Fantasy X and Super Paper Mario as dealbreakers. I personally am playing through God of War again, and the incredibly frustrating spear trap in the 'Paths of Madness' section of the game never fails to provoke hysterics. Have you run into any such obstacles lately? What game obstacles have caused you toss away a controller in frustration and swear off a game entirely?
All the time. Almost any RTS I play will have a timed defender level that I just can't be arsed with. I can't bring myself to play HL2 again because of the prison defence bit. Oddly, I hit a wall with Oblivion not because it was too hard, but because there was very little variation in difficulty. Might also have been partly because I couldn't go anywhere without getting distracted by little dungeons and side-quests too, and I eventually lost focus.
Ugh yes. 'Gaming walls' account for nearly half my HDD space...unfinished games that I plan to go back to one day until I remember that I'm stuck at a particularly hard or frustrating point and simply couldn't be arsed. In the past I've resorted to cheat codes just to finish them.
System Shock 2: Couldn't find the bloody pass key. Tried for days, got bored and gave up. Probably just me being a mong.
Oblivion: Just got plan bored narf. Might go back if internets die one day(Random off topic: I fail to see the raved about independent carrying on their own lives thing in this btw?)
[Insert Generic Linear FPS] Amusing for any niche novelty they have but with almost all these games they follow a the same path of bigger weapon -> harder enemy -> more bad guys -> die -> Reload try again. Take Fear: ran out of ammo killing a large robot. Another came. Kept dying. Got bored of killing large robots. Gave up. STALKER has a lot of promise for just this reason.
Any game with a time trial ever. It's such a lame way of artificially inducing pressure on the player. There are many more elegant ways of designing it into a game without sticking a random counter in the top left corner of the screen.
Games that I have finished? Deus Ex 1 & 2. Beautifully crafted and balanced. Especially the first one.
I've never really had that problem, mainly because if I enjoy a game enough to play it to that point, I wanna complete it, so generally I'll either skip the level, or cheat until I stop dying in the same cunting spot (and yes, I have the self control to not keep cheating after that point)
Dog Pants wrote:I can't bring myself to play HL2 again because of the prison defence bit.
The turrets bit? If it's any help, there's an easy way around that. Place the turrets back in their boxes, facing outwards, and stand in the empty turret box. The combine attack the turrets- which now cannot fall over- leaving you to pick off straddlers.
That's how I did the HL2 prison turrets bit as well. I got frustrated on the first go so went to gamefaqs and all was well after that. It's still possible for the turrets to get knocked over with but you're right there so you can reposition them easily enough.
Metal Arms on the Xbox was a game I really enjoyed but gave up on the last boss, so close to the end. But then I wasn't really that bothered with seeing the end credits, they're nearly always a let down anyway. Unless you're playing a something like a story heavy adventure I don't see much reason to fixate with getting to the very end. Just play it until it stops being fun.
Stoat wrote:
The turrets bit? If it's any help, there's an easy way around that. Place the turrets back in their boxes, facing outwards, and stand in the empty turret box. The combine attack the turrets- which now cannot fall over- leaving you to pick off straddlers.
Heh, never thought of that. I ended up piling junk up from all over the level in one of the doorways to narrow down the entrances. Nice to see it made people think, even if I did hate it.
Dog Pants wrote:
Heh, never thought of that. I ended up piling junk up from all over the level in one of the doorways to narrow down the entrances. Nice to see it made people think, even if I did hate it.
Aye i'm pretty sure i barricaded myself into one of the small cells (i think there were cells anyway) and just used that for cover the entire fight, the turrets got about 3 people
Took fucking ages to do mind you, but it was interestingly different enough to try again and again.
Fear and prey, both got me excited enough to play, both bored me enough not to finish.
I holed up in a cell too, but it was annoying. While it was poor in a number of other areas, the only defense missions I've ever really enjoyed were in Unreal 2 - it was the right mix of scary with attackers popping up all over, and ending with a last stand right at the start point, but not frustrating and possible in one attempt.
Devastation had some annoying assault missions, where you had to advance against respawning enemies - usually ended up in me sending my team as cannon fodder while I rushed in and got the respawner. At least it wasn't gave over, though - your team kept respawning too.
Worst in recent memory was Company of Heroes - has a defense mission, where you automatically loose your first defence position at some point and have to fall back to the church. Made me furious, that did - and with 15 minutes setup time, plus at least 20 minutes to defend, I'm not likely to attempt it again in a hurry.
Recent cheats have been the stupid stealth mission in Raven Shield and the Empire Earth II mission where you annoyingly have to open a menu window every few seconds to pay tribute.
Biggest triumph over annoyance without cheats was in NOLF. I hated those stealth missions, but just had to see the rest of the game.
FatherJack wrote:Worst in recent memory was Company of Heroes - has a defense mission, where you automatically loose your first defence position at some point and have to fall back to the church. Made me furious, that did - and with 15 minutes setup time, plus at least 20 minutes to defend, I'm not likely to attempt it again in a hurry.
Ah yes. I got to a mission where you had to defend a hill. I tried it once and gave up - after the one you just described (which took me three attempts) I just couldn't be arsed.
M4niachicken wrote:
I loved that level, its brilliant when you have a gravity gun + big metal hook and just hurl it at that monster that comings running towards you.
now matter how much i love puzzles and adventure games, i'm always stuck with them. i remember the days when i played silent hill 2 on my cold bedroom, wrapped in a sheet. although these puzzles were not very difficult, i was still having problems with them. luckily for me, my best mate was an expert in similar puzzles. from that day on we played every game that had puzzles together. i did the action bits, and he did the puzzle bits. ahh, good times...
yeah in ravenholm just use the saw blades and everything except bullets. I only used guns and explosives on those fucking evil poison zombies with the poison headcrabs on the because those freak me the fuck out and I need them dead ASAP.
Have You Hit a Gaming Wall?
