Suicide inducing gameplays

[vimes]

I'm talking about Heart of Darkness. And Another World. And to a certain extent, Rez.

I can't help but feel these games are wonderful : they are smart, quite unique, inventive and they would make me care for the characters with a string and a piece of wood. But I can't help to think that I would enjoy them more by watching someone else play rather than playing myself.

Right now, I despise Eric Chahi.

But I think I'll love him again when I'm through the Amigo Village in Heart of Darkness and pass through the triple guards house in Another World.

Typically, playing Heart of Darkness made me like Dreamfall even more : I am not a ûber-gamer, I don't like being brought to tears by a challenge. I like the game to unfold before me because I care about it and because I'm willing to move forward.

Don't take me wrong, I like difficulty, but overall I like better to feel smart, I like the feeling of knowing that it's difficult, of experiencing failure once or twice before overthorwing the difficulty with an ease that makes me want to shout my victory on rooftops. I like God of War.

What kind of dark event in the life of Chahi made him come up with the sweet torture that is the gameplay of Heart of Darkness?

Anybody else feels like I do?

[elmuerte]

Anybody else feels like I do?

Meat Circus

[Spaff]

haha yeah the meat circus made me throw the controller at the wall, something i havent done dome since when i used to chuck my gameboy across the room whilst playing some awful fucking batman platormer.

Hitman can also cause this kind of reaction, after the 500th time a tossing jogger rats you out to some bodyguards for some trivial reason... at least you can shoot that fucker in the head and chuck his body in a man hole... that makes you feel better

[brkl]

Oh, man, Hitman 1 was soo frustrating, dear god. The newest one is so versatile, though, that you don't really get frustrated (see Spaff's tip). I wonder why they took the occasional save point away from the hardest difficulty level :/ I thought that was rather smart in Hitman 2.

[Aussie Ben]

The Meat Circus made me enter those push-button codes.

"YOUUUUUUUUU CHEEEEEATED!"

Yes I did, Zim. Yes, I did.

[miffy495]

I beat the Meat Circus, but lost about 20 lives in the process. Damn that level pissed me off. How come no one's mentioned Ninja Gaiden yet?

[Lechimp]

Almost all of Battletoads makes me want to kill myself.

[David]

The Meat Circus isn't that hard, Jesus.

Jesus, M.D.?

[miffy495]

The original NES Battletoads isn't so hard. On the SNES though, Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team can be near fucking impossible without a friend coming along on co-op. Still, the co-op is good enough that I don't care.

[Lechimp]

I thought Battletoads and Double Dragon was a lot easier than regular Battletoads, and I never play coop in battletoads because when someone has to continue, it restarts the level for both people, making you want to kill your friend.

[BigJKO]

I thought Battletoads and Double Dragon was a lot easier than regular Battletoads, and I never play coop in battletoads because when someone has to continue, it restarts the level for both people, making you want to kill your friend.

You need friends who don't suck at Bt&DD, then.

[nsps]

I'm not that good at 3-D platformers, and died quite a few times, but I didn't think Meat Circus was all that hard. Sure, I died a bunch of times during the final sequence, but it's not like I had to start from the beginning when I screwed up. It was really just about observing the environment, then using the powers that you spent the whole game learning.

When I was a kid, the last level was supposed to be hard.

[miffy495]

That's true. The level itself wasn't really that bad, and in retrospect, it made beating it all the more satisfying. The reason that I died so many times, though, was the camera. All of my deaths were on that bit when you're trying to climb a spiraling net while your father is flinging stuff at you. I just couldn't see what was happening and as a result missed jumps and got hit with things. The camera couldn't keep up with the spiral. It was the only time the entire game when the camera got in the way and thus became really frustrating. If the camera is constantly requiring adjustment (Mario 64, Kingdom Hearts, etc) I'm used to it by the end and can cope. In this case, I had to develop a way to work around an irritating camera at the very end of the game. Kinda throws you.

On the subject of Kingdom Hearts, what the hell is with certain parts of the Aladdin level? Drove me fucking crazy.

[Noyb]

Playing Breakdown (first person beat-em-up for the original xbox), and was reminded of this post. OMFG, the final boss wasn't too bad (only took me about four tries on normal), but the fight *after* that is insane. It puts you up against five waves of enemies, grouped about 4-5 at any one time, each capable of hitting you for 1/6-1/3 of your lifebar in one shot, each likely to flank you if you're not constantly aware (since you have no peripheral vision and pretty much must use hand-to-hand against them). It's a sudden, annoying, random increase in difficulty completely unlike everything that went before. If there's one thing I hate in games, it's the groundhog day effect of replaying a significantly long relatively easy part just to get to a jaw-droppingly difficult part. What's worse is that the checkpoints were fairly generous except for this one crazy instance.

Edit: Finally beat it, after having to completely change my tactics for that fight, and that fight alone. It didn't help that the last wave's victory condition was taking care of the slow-moving minimal threats while killing the fast-moving major threats only resulted in them respawning indefinitely..without *telling* the player.

[miffy495]

Now that the thread has been revived, I'd like to add Prince of Persia Classic to this list. Still on level 5 and still having my ass handed to me every time I enter combat. I've yet to ever throw a controller, but that game has gotten me closer than any other ever has.

That, and any time I attempt Jordan on Expert in Guitar Hero II. Only song I can't beat, and God am I starting to hate it. I've now had two controllers die on me on attempts of that song...

[Roderick]

Wait a tick, Vimes. I'm the same like you, I don't like a super-difficult challenge either, yet I wouldn't describe myself as 'not an über-gamer' at all! I don't think the way in which you enjoy experiencing a game says anything about the die-hardness with which you are enveloped in your pastime. It's a matter of taste and disposition. We are both hardcore gamers, but simply with acquired tastes and nothing to prove anymore

Anyway, Meat Circus was a bitch, especially because of the time-pressure that was being forced on you. If there's one thing I despise in most all games that have it, it's time pressure. Doesn't matter if it's lenient; as soon as there's a clock I'm getting stressy and assume I don't have time to leasurely enjoy the game as I choose.

A frustrating game I'm playing/reviewing now is Spider-Man 3 for the Wii. Hotdamn that game is difficult to control. Webslinging is a pain in the butt. Fortunately, the game is crap in all areas, so I'm burning it to the ground in my review for [N]Gamer.

Also, we NEED that Dr. Jesus game, stat.

[Ginger]

I don't mind difficulty like ninja gaiden, it was a challenge, u had to push yourself, but I never found I hit a brick wall, I just had to hone my skills slightly in order to progress. Trauma centre’s style of difficulty really annoyed me, the difficulty would suddenly jump up, forcing you to do one level repeatedly and significantly improve your skills. The difficulty would remain similar for a few levels, then drastically increase again.

It also pisses me off when varied difficulty levels in a game are a bodge job, hard mode is implemented by changing some numbers in terms of life and damage. It is a real joy when turning up the difficulty can change the way you interact with the game, the one that is coming to mind is MGS2's European extreme setting, the guards were more realistic with their extended vision and audio ranges, which altered the way you had to deal with them.

[Thrik]

Haha, God. The first time I tried re-playing Twin Snakes with hard mode on I was almost in tears thanks to their massively superior vision and hearing, and literally took about two hours just to get out of that first bit where you come up in your scuba gear. It doesn't help that the attack force they send out for you is also highly advanced.

I did actually give up just after I got indoors though as I sorted my PC out and got a Wii, so I'm looking forward to replaying all three games next year or something with hard mode for the first time. Just the first part of Twin Snakes alone demonstrated that it's a totally different experience, which is indeed a great approach to difficulty.

[DanJW]

Yeah, AI changes are a much better way to handle difficulty levels than increased damage/health. Compare F.E.A.R to Dark Messiah - hard level actually made the game more fun and interesting rather than merely more tedious.

I also agree with you that difficulty spikes are more annoying than a constantly hard game. Ninja Gaiden is known for being hard and it is part of the game's appeal, whereas repeating a single 3-minute section of game in which you previously made steady progress can be a deal breaker and is probably the reason why "casual" players fail to finish most games.

[aeryxz]

I'd like to add xbox 360's Ninty Nine Nights... especially Boss levels. You spend like 15 minute fight sequences to get to the boss, only to get 4 hit killed. Plus, there's of course the locked camera distance, and the million different combos to remember. It is a really fun game, just the bosses. ugh

[lobotomy42]

Any NES game?

[miffy495]

Bionic Fucking Commando.

Case closed.

[Tanukitsune]

The games that make me want to kill myself are the ones that are almost easy all the up until the end where it goes from "Multimedia Mother Goose easy" to "Contra hard"...

Like Bonze's Adventure, a Taito game which is easy, because it doesn't have any bosses, except for a final boss that never seems to die.

Or like Actraiser, an awesome game except you have to beat all the bosses in a row at the end, and you can't refill your magic...

Or Snatcher, an adventure game with shooting sequences, where the final sequences is way too hard!

I didn't find Meat Circus hard, it wasn't easy, but it was managable.

[miffy495]

Really? I never had a problem with Actraiser. Each time I fought a boss while going through the regular game, I'd died at least once and had to learn a technique for getting through them unscathed. When it came time to fight the final, I just did that and got to the big boss on my first try. Then he killed me. Then I did it again, learned his pattern, game over. Hooray! Actually, in terms of older games which typically do have higher difficulty levels, I found Actraiser pretty reasonable.

If we're talking about fucking brutal boss-grinds at the end of a game, Viewtiful Joe. Holy hell was that endgame hard.

[Tanukitsune]

I guess I was relying too much on the magic and didn't know what to do without it...