There are two games I will always remember for one specific reason. Both games were superb examples of their respective genres, and were titles I played to completion and think fondly of today. But that’s not the main reason why I remember them.
No, I remember them for the eye-clouding, mouth-frothing rage they managed to induce in me.
It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Getting angry about a game. It recalls a hundred sore losers from childhood, pissed that they lost a match or game against their peers. Maybe it would make sense to get a little irate if you lost a StarCraft II tournament and missed out on a whopping cash prize, but becoming enraged over something you and you alone are experiencing? Ridiculous!
The first game was Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business. That’s the add-on pack to Sir-Tech’s superb late 90s tactical combat/RPG hybrid. Bear in mind that I’d already spent several dozen hours soldiering gamely through the main game, which starts out relatively gently but soon becomes nail-bitingly tense and tricky. That’s not even to mention the fucking tigers or the fucking crepitus or even the bastard bloody tanks. One of the three I mentioned there is an optional enemy activated in “sci-fi mode”. You can probably guess which. Suffice to say the game is bloody hard, and after hours of painstaking progress and copious save-reloading, I beat the damned thing.
Obviously I immediately tried out the expansion pack, and obviously I foolishly dispensed with my highly-trained team of mercs and instead started fresh. The useless shambling meat I selected from the starter pool of available mercs was roundly drubbed by the first enemy patrol I ran into. About ten times, yep. Rather than giving up and doing something else I kept trying and getting angrier and angrier at each failure, and I eventually pounded my keyboard until bits flew off. I felt a bit better. I uninstalled Unfinished Business and felt much better.
The second game was Resident Evil 4. In this instance it wasn’t me being screwed over by a brutally difficult game, it was my failure to understand a visual cue. The second boss you face – the towering El Gigante – needs to be pounded with ammunition until he’s weakened and his parasite pops out of his spine, as parasites are prone to do. The idea at this point is that you jump onto his pack and slash at the parasite in one of the game’s many QTEs. Unfortunately I failed to grasp this – I never saw the QTE prompt as I was apparently too good at staying away from the giant’s clomping feet and fists -Â and kept shooting him instead. After about an hour of running out of ammo and dying repeatedly I hurled the controller into a wall. Torn between throwing the game out of the window and having one last crack at El Gigante, I opted for the latter and this time beat him (presumably enough of my shots hit the exposed parasite). Afterwards I had 1 shotgun shell, 2 pistol rounds and 2 SMG rounds, which made the game rather tricky for quite a while but at least I was making progress. It was only the next day that a friend explained what I’d missed and I felt like a fool.
So! I’m sure you have similar tales of irrational gaming rage. Care to share?
Comments
17 responses to “QOTW: The Filth, the Fury, the Rage Quitting”
I've experienced two ''polar opposite'' types of ''rage''. One towards Samurai Shodown Sen and the other towards FarCry 2.
Two games I still love, on paper, but I must have rage quited them SO HARD that I can only consider playing them with friends, if we were to bring them up, or if I'd be pressured in getting back into them for whatever reason there could be.
I absolutely love EVERYTHING about Samurai Shodown Sen… except the stupidly long loading times. It's bad. When a Dreamcast game known as Soul Calibur had equal OR BETTER graphics than that and loaded with virtually NO loading time… you're bound to ask yourself what's wrong, the game or the console? I don't know… the 360 isn't really that bad when it comes to loading crazy amount of things, so one can easily deduct the game must have been VERY POORLY coded.
Loading issues aside, the game itself while fighting against the CPU is ''unhealthy'', to say the least… in a politically correct manner. I never built up so much blood pressure trying again and again to go through a single opponent which, often, wasn't even ''the last boss'' but just ''some dude with a rapier''. And, no spoilers really, but the boss BEFORE the last boss has a freakin' Winchester rifle for a weapon. Imagine that…
Anyway, with a friend? That game is – for the players and the spectators – one hell of an entertaining piece. With the CPU? Not so much. So after having broken myself through the game with half of the characters, I gave up at some point considering I was doing myself a disservice to go through so much negative energy just to try my hand at every characters and to grant me ''a rather unfelt'' sense of satisfaction in the end.
FarCry 2. The first game that made me feel bad about the loss of a helping NPC. It made me feel GUILT about having accidentally shot him. It was a genuine case of friendly fire. So genuine I couldn't believe how dumb and fast everything happened as I realized too late that I had squeezed the trigger toward my buddy who was just trying to go to safety, wounded, hoping I'd come to fix him up. I still remember the scene – his fall – with heart-shattering accuracy. I hated myself for a week after. Man, I loved that game.
Here, the ''opposite'' type of rage quitting occurred. In fact, a very different type of ''rage'' altogether. You know, that one where you are calm and composed and simply ''move on'' (possibly with a whispered ''f*ck it…'') without even twitching. I got the 65% progression save-corruption bug. I dropped the game. The end.
I have still, never finished Samurai Showdown Sen because of that Winchester wielding sonovabitch. I love Samurai Showdown Sen and I hate it at the same time. Nasty AI even at the easiest difficulty.
AS for Far Cry 2, even with the corrupt save bug, still an awesome game.
Neptune's Fucking Pride.
Although most recently in the single-player space, Jonas Kyratzes' atmospheric but rock-hard Phenomenon 32, a game I don't think I'll ever finish.
I used to be annoyed a lot more back in the 80s and 90s on the Atari 8-bit. Things are definitely easier these days, what they say about game design improving? It's all true.
Oh man, I liked Neptune's Pride in principle but god damn was it hard to claw your way back from any early losses. Also, the tendency of people to abandon a game… weak.
I feel ya on the improving game design comment.
Just read the piece on Electron Dance… It is too much.
The original Sid Meier's: Pirates! from 1987 is a painful memory. I might able to make it through a few battles but I would likely be scuttled at sea by a much more powerful boat during a poorly executed hostile takeover (nearly always by my own foolish design) or defeated in a sword fight if I was lucky to make it aboard the ship. If I was ever lucky enough to actually make it further through the game there was one thing I could never make it past and that was trying to take over any Fort. Just thinking of that game frustrates me.
But really, the games that make my blood boil the most are any of the original Space Quest, Police Quest or King's Quest games. To put it lightly, I fucking HATE those games. They ruined me. I have tried so many times to like them, I have tried so many times to finish them but they just, kept, ruining me…How my keyboard or mouse never broke is miraculous.
There are many games that frustrated me and caused a few fits but nothing is so solidified in my mind as Pirates! and the Quest games.
I've just remembered Dragon's Lair, which doesn't even have the mitigating "being a game" factor in its favour!
Dragon's Lair? I quit out of boredom from dying all the time before I even got into that game enough to rage for it.
Worms. Worms 2. Worms Armageddon. Worms 3D. Every single iteration of that goddamn series used to cause actual fistfights amongst my friends and myself.
Heh, multiplayer Worms never prompted rage but the single player missions certainly did. Pixel-perfect aiming with no quicksave? Screw that!
Oh, don't get me started. I never had time for those, the little pink shits never listened to me in the first place.
N-RAGE(tm)!!!!
Man that word alone causes two Branding guideline failures
errg, I had an initial bout of nostalgic excitement when I saw Worms on the App store for my iPhone, that lasted right up to the point that I got in-game.
I still have fond memories of WWP on the shitbrick. Good times…
Tony Hawk Underground's last mission was a thorn in my side one hungover New Year's afternoon. Turns out pints and pints of Guinness accompanied by Tequila dulls the reflexes somewhat.
I've had so many episodes of rage over the years that I can't remember any specific meltdowns, but I do remember how I used to vent my fury.
There were never any real hulk smashes, no Megadrives off the balcony or anything, but slamming the eject button the SNES was always a doozie. Watching the game launch from the console like a piece of toast was cathartic but then I'd panic I'd damaged it and apologise (out loud) while gently putting it back in and turning it on. Eyes closed, I'd wait for that cute Nintendo loading ding to tell me everything was still groovy.
I used to have this really sweet cat who'd lay next to me while I sat cross-legged on the floor playing games. Whenever I got frustrated, this cat would become my emotional punching bag. I'd just start ranting stuff like, "Aarrrgh! What the hell are you looking at? Who do you think you are, you stupid cat?" All the while it'd stare at me lovingly, enjoying the attention.
I have still, never finished Samurai Showdown Sen because of that Winchester wielding sonovabitch. I love Samurai Showdown Sen and I hate it at the same time. Nasty AI even at the easiest difficulty.