Modern games that turn you into The Angry Video Game Nerd

[Signa]

Skyward Sword for sure. The first 5 hours of that game made me so angry that I put it down and never touched it again. Overly dependent on precise motion controls that are actually not that precise, bird flying is infuriating, the parachute precision trial killed my soul, the graphics belong in the N64, weird camera angles that have me repositioning it every 2 seconds, maze-like level design without a constant on-screen minimap, according to my calculation there is an 85% chance that it's time for more HIDDEN BULLSHIT DOWSING. Fuck this game.

I just wanted to say I share your pain. I didn't even enter the second temple because of how much rage I was getting from the game. I hope to go back to it again someday with some fresh eyes, but that game was nothing like the game I wanted to play.

 

[jebara]

Super goddamn Meatboy made me rage a lot...

Also, for anyone who played Persona 3, imagine going up 9 floors, beating a boss, looking for a teleporter to to the ground level and getting killed by a cheap insta-kill move you couldn't dodge...rage was unleashed that day...

If you think thats hard , play SMT: Nocturne , you'll break the disc in two . But your right , instakills + unable to control team = rage time .

OT : Catherine . On normal mode made me rage so hard . Great game, fun game , i recomend it .

...I remember Nocturne (Lucifers Call here in Europe)...FUCKING MATADOR!!! I can hardly believe I didn't snap it in half, have to go back and finish it...

With Catherine, I loved the narrative, characters and music, hated the game-play, there's frustrating puzzle solving, then there is Catherine...

If there is one thing that has to be mentioned about Nocturne and the frustration it brings...its Lucifer.
Not only is it hard...IT TAKES HOURS! HOURS I SAY!
He just plays around with you for 50 minutes and after taking ages just whacking at him he finally decides to screw you over with stun attacks that disable half your party, attacks that randomly puts half your team at 1 HP and charm attacks that could possibly have your team revive him at FULL HEALTH... I JUST WANT YOU TO IMAGINE SPENDING HOURS FIGHTING A BOSS ONLY T WATCH EVERYTHING FALL APART RIGHT AT THE END AND HAVING TO SPEND HOURS EVERY TIME YOU FUCKING TRY AGAIN!
YOU WANTED RIP THE DISC OFF? THIS MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH A BABY!

 

[Nuuu]

-

Yeah, what was up with those graphics? I understand the art direction, but making the game look like the fuzzy filler cardboard background textures from N64 games in not what I'd consider a smart choice. Parts of Majora's Mask were more visually appealing and they specifically changed that look when Ocarina came out on the 3DS. Be glad you quit after five hours because the last boss fight depends on those "precise" controls and it all completely falls apart.

Oh and that thing where you have to stop that blob from climbing up the circular pit? (I don't know if you even got to that part.) You have to do it like four or five times, getting harder and cheaper every single time. Seriously, that was probably the absolute worst of the console 3D Zeldas.

And why were the bird controls like that? Analog sticks are designed to control planes.

I agree and I actually preferred Phantom Hourglass to this. I know it gets a lot of hate, and the repetitive "main temple" was a terrible, terrible concept, but at least there wasn't a whole bunch of shit getting in the way between the player and the game. Before they even think of releasing a new Zelda game, they need to burn their existing design philosophy and mechanics to the fucking ground and come up with a fresh approach, one that does not serve as merely a way to pimp out bullshit Nintendo gimmicks. They need to rebuild this series from the ground up, otherwise I personally am not going anywhere near it again.

I see comments like these every once in a while, and it makes me feel like i'm one of the few people who had NO TROUBLE AT ALL with the motion controls (Except for the stab). I found the game really fun, and it had a lot of gameplay to it. I still don't know why people complain about bad motion controls on some wii games (unless the Wii motion + really helps as much as i thought).

On topic: I don't tend to pick up games meant to be really challenging or rage inducing, but i guess the closest thing i can remember to a game that made me rage is Bit Trip Runner. It's really just that 4th world, it's that 4th button they throw at you, i just can't keep up with alternating between 4 buttons, 3 is fine, but 4 makes me scramble. I think i only made it to 4-3 before i quit.

 

[piinyouri]

Brutal Legend.

I could spend all day picking the RTS mechanic apart.
Mother load of fuck shit that game was.
(See, I'm channeling AVGN even thinking about the game.)

 

[Kurt Horsting]

Street fighter x tekken. Holy shit, what a load of ass.

 

[FalloutJack]

Also, for anyone who played Persona 3, imagine going up 9 floors, beating a boss, looking for a teleporter to to the ground level and getting killed by a cheap insta-kill move you couldn't dodge...rage was unleashed that day...

Lemme guess. Got caught without a Homonculus?

-Snip-

I have a few choice words about the Trumpeter battle. But at least it makes sense that LUCIFER will screw with ya. I mean, he's only The Devil. Still, I dunno if this makes anyone the Angry Video Game Nerd. I think that kinda' thing just makes us fucking angry.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Silent Hill: Homecoming

True story: When I first played this game a few friends and I were working on generating some content for a panel discussion/review show. I volunteered to review SH: Homecoming for the upcoming episode. After two sessions of playing the game and furious note taking, I had to call my friends and tell them I needed a different assignment because, and I quote.

"That fucking game is an unreviewable load of pig shit."

You can probably go back and find half a dozen times that I've railed against this game in previous posts. I apologize if I come off as something of a scratched record but I really can't get over what terrible game it is.

I may not have really enjoyed The Room or Origins as much as the original trilogy but I still had fun with them. Silent Hill: Homecoming made me angry within the first few minutes of playing and didn't let up through the entire game it was just an unrelenting assault of terrible story, nonsensical level design and terrible fight mechanics and a total betrayal of the Silent Hill Mythology.

 

[Mutie]

Brutal Legend.

I could spend all day picking the RTS mechanic apart.
Mother load of fuck shit that game was.
(See, I'm channeling AVGN even thinking about the game.)

Lots of folks seemed to have trouble with the RTS elements in Brutal Legend but, honestly...? They're the only RTS sections I'm good at! I went into the game on Brutal mode (which is hardly that harsh as it is) and literally creamed through all the battles. I fucking love em! I play that game time and again just to PLAY THEM AGAIN! Yet still, no one else agrees with me...

OT: Call of Duty (zombie excluded). I've been playing CoD on and off for about six years now and, just the other day, reached my highest record for number of kills on online deathmatch, that being 10... I'm not even bad at shooters, I can hold my own on most out there. But CoD...? "Ooo, there's a dude, I'd best shoot- and I'm dead". "That's annoying, I've unloaded an entire clip into this guy but- and I'm dead". "Oh sweet, a sniper rifle, this is my specialty! I'll just pop that dude with a pistol over there- and I'm dead". I'm not willing to lose my life to what is, essentially, the violent, over Americanized, video game equivalent to tag.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Virtually any modern RPG that I have played. I think I almost immediately had an epileptic fit when I tried to play Final Fantasy XIII, because when I woke up I was any number of hours into the game and still nothing made sense. All I remember was a frat-boy on a motorcycle made of ice, and an overtly-sexualized cardboard cut-out of a woman handing out sharp knives to under-aged boys.

Dragon Age: Origins, for a much different reason. Mostly because I found it over-hyped and the battle system was rather clunky for me. Also, I found the plot to be mediocre at best, basically a cheap rip-off of much better fantasy novels.

WoW. Need I even say more? Never tried League of Legends, but from what I hear the community is just as bad over there, too.

 

[DanteLives]

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
I liked the story, liked the characters, in fact I liked everything but the... Here it comes. The combat.

The cover system was very annoying and more often than not you'd roll onto the wrong side of the cover, for example, you want to get behind a box, but instead Drake sits down next to the side. And given the fact that enemies kill you fast, like really fast, it's already over.

For some reason enemies require a ton of bullets to take down, have unlimited grenades and are bloody everywhere.

And the best part? I was playing on normal, there are two difficulties harder than that. Yeah, I'm not touching those.

You'll probably break your controller on Crushing. I've beaten both Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 on Crushing, but not without getting angry.

 

[Shimmak]

KAG (king Arthur's gold) makes me rage alot sometimes. It's not the game its the players. every time you kill someone : "da fuq? you hacker imma kick you cuz you hack!". But still its a good game.

 

[Carnagath]

I see comments like these every once in a while, and it makes me feel like i'm one of the few people who had NO TROUBLE AT ALL with the motion controls (Except for the stab). I found the game really fun, and it had a lot of gameplay to it. I still don't know why people complain about bad motion controls on some wii games (unless the Wii motion + really helps as much as i thought).

I am using motion plus as well. I also tried playing it on my old CRT tv and my newer flat one. It always sucks. Sword combat is okayish, I can usually get it to do what I want, but everything else is a mess, every single minigame controls terribly, the birds, the harp game, the parachute, everything. It also performs rather sluggishly, the frame rate is not smooth at all, nothing major but you can feel it, and on top of that it looks like a mid-era PS2 game. Why...? Like, at least have it either look good or play smoothly. What really kills it is the constant camera recentering because it just goes all over the place, as well as constantly having to press 2 to check out the minimap because there isn't one on screen, the combination of the two things above make it feel extremely fidgety and tiresome. Oh, and shield durability. Hey, lets take away 1/4th of your shield durability whenever you get hit ONCE. Great idea, muppets. I could go on forever, but just... fuck this game.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3. They both use the word "decimate" as if it means to completely obliterate, wipe out or to completely destroy.

It means to reduce by one tenth!

 

[rob_simple]

Dead Island. Oh god, Dead Island

"Got mah awesome weapons, gonna slaughter me some zombies!

There's one!... Wait, when did 20 of you appear? D:

Well, cleared them,.... F**K, there's a blowy-up one...

HOW THE F**K DID THE EXPLOSION TAKE ALL MY F**KING HEALTH AWAY!?

Restart? Dang it ;__;

Sewer levels!? No one likes those!"

Amen. I especially loved how I could swing a machete at arms length and miss every zombie in front of me, but they could swing an empty-handed punch and wipe out half my health.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
I liked the story, liked the characters, in fact I liked everything but the... Here it comes. The combat.

The cover system was very annoying and more often than not you'd roll onto the wrong side of the cover, for example, you want to get behind a box, but instead Drake sits down next to the side. And given the fact that enemies kill you fast, like really fast, it's already over.

For some reason enemies require a ton of bullets to take down, have unlimited grenades and are bloody everywhere.

And the best part? I was playing on normal, there are two difficulties harder than that. Yeah, I'm not touching those.

Ah, beat me to it. The Uncharted series is one of my favourites, but it has the worst kind of broken combat in gaming; where you can do everything right a hundred times and still die in one shot because an enemy literally dropped from the sky two feet behind you without making any noise.

I also think it's amazing how enemies can hit you with pin point accuracy with any weapon no matter how far away they are, which is at the highest level of bullshit in Drake's Deception when you're fighting them in a God damn sandstorm.

 

[Rack]

Lots of folks seemed to have trouble with the RTS elements in Brutal Legend but, honestly...? They're the only RTS sections I'm good at! I went into the game on Brutal mode (which is hardly that harsh as it is) and literally creamed through all the battles. I fucking love em! I play that game time and again just to PLAY THEM AGAIN! Yet still, no one else agrees with me...

I agree with you...

Also have you tried Sacrifice? It's PC only but Brutal Legend was clearly very heavily inspired by that game. It's not so action oriented, but still awesome and has the best integration of moral choices and gameplay of anything ever.

 

[Kennetic]

Super goddamn Meatboy made me rage a lot...

Also, for anyone who played Persona 3, imagine going up 9 floors, beating a boss, looking for a teleporter to to the ground level and getting killed by a cheap insta-kill move you couldn't dodge...rage was unleashed that day...

Ugh... I had that rage stuffed away somewhere but now you're making me feel it again. That game, as awesome as it was, was infuriating at times. Oh yea, talking about P3 here

 

[Scrustle]

I agree with the beginning parts of Skyward Sword and Fable 2.

Although the game gets a lot less frustrating later on for the first 10 hours or so Skyward Sword pissed me off to no end. Crappy frustrating flight controls, unenjoyable and obtuse dungeon/puzzle design, and fucking Fi telling me what's right in front of my fucking face every 10 seconds. I almost rage quitted that game too. In fact I wrote a pretty big post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.365547-Confession-Of-A-Zelda-Fan-I-Cant-Enjoy-Skyward-Sword] on here about how I hated the game and had pretty much given up on it at that point, but after the first few dungeons the game got much better. The flying controls were still crap, but I had gotten used to them. Fi finally started to shut up (somewhat) and stopped treating me like a fucking retard, and the dungeons got a whole lot more enjoyable. In fact I think it even had some of the best bosses in the franchise.

Fable 2 was just an insult to me as a big fan of the first game. Even as I was going through it the first time I was hating it. I hated how they pretty much cut all ties to the story and lore of the first game. The controls were really really bad and sloppy, there were graphical bugs all over the place, the combat was boring and repetitive, the story was non-existent, variations of weapons and armour were hugely reduced (with awesome looking plate armour replaced with crappy guns), the music was worse, the characters were worse, the dog was a fucking annoying useless piece of crap, you couldn't buy stuff from shops when you wanted, and to top it all off they destroyed Oakvale. They destroyed Oakvale! That's like if they decided to show you Pallet Town as a pile of rubble in the 2nd gen. Pokemon games. It was if the devs were sending a direct message to fans of the first game. A message that said "That's right, we destroyed everything you loved". That game makes me rage so hard. What a piece of fuck.

 

[Mutie]

I agree with you...

Also have you tried Sacrifice? It's PC only but Brutal Legend was clearly very heavily inspired by that game. It's not so action oriented, but still awesome and has the best integration of moral choices and gameplay of anything ever.

Unfortunately, I do not have a PC for gaming purposes; I'm one of those dastardly Mac-bastards! I do intend to build a rig when I'm out of uni, mind, and Sacrifice is one of my favorite words... I suppose I'm obliged! Haha

 

[klaynexas3]

I think the last time I got kind of AVGN was when I was playing KH Re:Coded. I was on a boss battle in travers town, and it was in a side scroller format. I was about to die, so I tried to break a box that would give me more life, it was right beside me, and I was walking into it. I swing my keyblade and it attacks in the complete opposite direction, giving the boss enough time to kill me because I couldn't move. Also when it jumps automatically it prevented me from being able to get one of those boxes also on the same boss, again, letting him kill me. That game had some pretty bad controls in comparison to most KH games.