What games drove you to insanity? or What games couldnt you finish? (1 Viewer)

For me

Max Payne: I probalby couldve finished had I tried harder but I got frustrated during the 2nd act and I had a couple other games going.

GTA: Vice City: It got waayyy to hard. I love that game too. But it was driving me crazy. "Death Row" and the "Snipe 5 guys" phone booth mission almost made me cry.

Dead to Rights: The prison levels drove me insame!! I almost threw my controller across the room.

Cool thread.

I too have had difficulty with GTA: Vice City, though since I made it past the abovementioned missions (not without major effort, mind you) maybe it's not hurting me as badly. I do recall having middle-of-the-night epiphanies about various ways i might approach a mission differently... in some cases they worked!

Midnight Club II ... I CANNOT pass the very last race of L.A. I've tried it well over thirty times. I've gotten second place, but "Ruby" always is way ahead... too bad, because I get to open up another city after this race. I can SEE how this one is possible, but my dualshock just isn't coming through. It's really difficult using slipstream turbo in those free-environment courses.

Still, these two games keep me coming back for more. As for GTA: San Andreas, I find it both more fun AND less difficult. The improved control has quite a lot to do with this I think...

One of the most ridiculously difficult racing games I've ever played for ANY system is 4-Wheel Thunder for the Dreamcast. If you circle the track utilizing full turbo boost without stopping, you usually make only 5th place and a cruel-sounding voice booms out: "YOU LOSE!"

Pike's Peak for the Atari 2600 gave me nightmares, it was that hard. I also remember playing the text-based Pirate's Cove for the Commodore Vic-20 back in the day... and I could NOT make it out of the first room. How pathetic is that?

A shout-out to: Fester's Quest for the NES. That game is "f*****g kidding me right now."

~s

Original Legend of Zelda for me. I got it when I was about 6, and it was way to advanced for my skill level at the time. I got about half-way through the first quest (maybe up to the 5th dungeon) and gave up. I picked it up again when I was in the fifth grade, and finally beat it. I remember playing it like 5 hours a day for 3 weeks before I killed Gannon the second time.

I remember getting completely stuck on Turok for the N64.

More recently, I gave up on Splinter Cell. I know I could have finished it, but frankly I'd had enough of that thing to last me a life time.

Martin.

For me it would be South Park for the N64. It was real easy until I got to the final boss. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't beat him. So eventually I gave up.

Brion

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES
Top Gun for NES

~T

Project Gotham Racing 2's final race at the Nurbergring had me ready to dynamite my entertainment center. But of course the reward is in the jubilation when you finally complete it.

I've been stuck on many many games
these are a few I never finished as a result:

The second level of Jedi Knight

The forest temple of Ocarina of Time

The armored car mission of GTA3

The third or so level of Jedi Outcast (darn puzzles and sans lightsaber)

One of the later levels of Max Payne

I don't think I ever seriously tried to beat DOOM and DOOM II (and Wolfenstein)

Mortal Kombat 3

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and Clone Campaigns - got too bored with it, although MP was good

Star Wars Episode I: RACER

Metroid 2 -couldn't figure it out

Mega Man 1, or any Mega man really

Commander Keen Dreams -Gameplay felt different from all the other ones

Super Mario Bros 1 and 2

Star Wars TIE Fighter -one of the later missions I couldn't destroy all the TIE Advances flying around

Quake 2 -Didn't really enjoy it after playing the first level

Unreal Tournament, UT2003, UT2004 -never got around to finishing the single player modes

Wow, that's a lot of games. :b

Well here's a few I've been able to beat : Jedi Academy, Super Mario Bros 3, WWF Wrestlemania the Arcade Game, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Battlefield 1942

F-zero GX remains the hardest gaming experience I've ever played. I did manage to completely clear Story Mode on very hard and all four GP races on Master, but it took hours and hours of effort, sometimes taking 3+ hours to clear a 40 second segment of the game. I haven't ever gone back for all the unlockable endings for the other 40 characters or tried to beat every staff ghost, although I probably will eventualyl at least try to get all the endings.

Splinter Cell I put down in frustration during the CIA level. I got sick of way too much trial and error gameplay, the endless reloads, and the like. Someday I'll probably go back and finish it.

Viewtiful Joe I found too difficult at times, and it also just got too repetitive for my tastes. It seemed like I was fighting the same 8 or so enemies over and over, and the only thing that changed form one level to the next was the background and the number of them I fought simultaneously. Another I need to go back and try to beat.

I remember for some reason Ninja Gaiden giving me fits on the NES, but over the last year, GTA vice city really frustrated me near the end, so I just went around causing as much trouble as I could.

[Games I just gave up on]

Blue Lightning for the Atari Lynx, I got pretty far into the missions but then......AAAARRRRRGGGG!! Good lord that was a steep difficulty curve...practically vertical...but it was a pretty damn fun game nonetheless, anybody here ever play it?

SENTIENT for the PS1 was a fairly difficult "immersive simulation puzzle/mystery" game to begin with but I think I gave up on it in the end because the hyper bizarre blocky polygon graphics (namely the creepy faces) just got on my nerves after awhile. I always meant to download a strategy guide & go back and beat the damn thing.

Final Fantasy 7.....yep...I never beat the damn thing, I have beaten 5, 6, 8 and 10 but I just stopped playing the FF game that most players say is the best. It's not because I didn't like it, I thought it was fantastic, I just stopped playing one day & have not returned....I'll go back...I swear!

[Games that drove me insane]

Deathtrap Dungeon for the PS1. When I was a teen I loved the "Fighting Fantasy/Chose Your Own Adventure" Game book that this was inspired by and had high hopes for the game.....dashed against the rocks they were, my hopes. This game had a lot going for it at the time, using the Tomb Raider engine, the team making it was a fairly good one as I remember & the sound design was pretty good too....but those damn controls!
Yeah let's make a highly detailed combat centered D&D game....but we'll give it really muddy control handling. What? The testers say that the controls are bad? BAAA! What do they know? It's a shame because it could have been great.

Evil Dead: Hail To The King for the PS1. Once again, why spend so much obvious time & money crafting a game but mess up the controls to the point where it is such a task just playing the damn game that any enjoyment you could have gotten out of it is completely ruined? Who do you have testing it? Hamsters? "Well those hamsters sure like looking at the screen.....SEND IT OUT!"
Fist Full Of Boomstick was so much better.


BTW Steve Y, I loved Xonox's Spike's Peak for the 2600....and yep it was pretty freakin hard! The flip side game (Ghost Manor) to the double cartridge was pretty fun as well.

I feel the exact same way about Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox. I got it in the spring and still haven't beaten the game yet.

I've been playing Classic NES Castllevania for GBA.

Stuck on level 13. Last part of level... medusa heads and knights throwing axes.

GRRRRR

I gave up and bought FFI&II Dawn of Souls instead, and went back to playing Dragon Warrior III GBC too.

Games I gave up on
Most recently, Fatal Frame The game itself wasn't all that bad, but damn if I couldn't get stuck on every singe wall, door frame or corner. And when your in 'camera mode', it seems as though your speed is reduced to that of a grandma shuffling along with her walker thats missing a wheel. By far, the single most infuriating game I've ever played. I ended up saying F-it and just sold it,,,,with no regrets.

From the old 'stand up arcade game styles'
Dragons Lair Had I invested my money in Microsoft stock instead of pumping it into this machine, I'd be the 3rd richest person in the world now.

Tempest My favorite stand up arcade game of all time. One day, when I have the spare funds, Im going to buy one of these machines and spend the time to beat it.

Pac-Man Was there even an end to this game?

Defender See above.

I wasn't aware that you could "beat" Tempest, only beat your own high score.

I agree, Tempest is my favorite game from that era...any era really as it has an addictive gameplay that is hard to come by these days. I still play Tempest X from the early days of the PS1 and I love the spot on emulation on Atari Anthology...although without the knob control it just doesn't feel the same.
Damn it I wish someone would come out with a paddle controller to go along with all of these old school game collections that are coming out, that way I could play Kaboom again without the frustration of trying to make the DS2 analog controllers work.

Legend Of Zelda(NES): I loved the game, but could never get through Gannon's stage or to the second quest.

Fighting Street AKA Streetfighter 1(TurboGrafx-16): I couldn't beat most of the first guys, no matter how much I tried.

Mega Man series(NES): Could never finish more than a few of the levels. The farther along the series came, the harder time I had with the games.

Metroid(NES): Could never figure this one out or beat it. Strangely enough, I got very good at playing Super Metroid for the SNES and can beat it now within 3 or 4 hours while getting between 80 and 90% of the stuff.

Bonk's Adventure(TurboGrafx-16): Everyone in my family could beat this but me. It aggrevated the hell out of me because I could never get the hang of the game. My mom was particularly good at this game, as well as the first couple games in the Sonic The Hedgehog series on the Sega Genesis.

Evan, that sounds very familiar. That's exactly what F-Zero GX was for me on the 'Cube. There were some of the levels in story mode that I probably tried well over a hundred times before beating them, maybe more then that. the most tries was probably this obstacle course that gave you 40 seconds to complete, and if you didn't have a flawless run with a ton of luck on top of it, you were screwed. It took me three days trying for an hour or two a day to beat that bastard. 4 or 5 hours cumulative, for a level that takes 40 seconds to try. And yet I never got pissed, thought the game cheated, or threw my controller across the room in frustration. That game made me its bitch, and on top of that, it made me like it.

Let me add one here on the insanity part.

Woke up yesturday Christmas morning, started WoW at 9am.

First "Elite" quest(Van Cleef) pops up for me, I group with 4 other guys, all pretty good levels. Pretty cool start, cool mini bosses,nice items, no deaths or anything. Until we reach the final stage run of this quest and we proceed to die again and again, more again even more, and yes we still keep dying. Next thing I know it its 1 am, and we decide to quit the mission. ARGH

Good thing is I just finished the mission, danced with the party, screen shot it and that had to be one of the best gaming moments in a while.