Most Unfair Moments in Gaming

[Arsen]

And the Chrysler Building in Parasite Eve.

 

[dark-amon]

defeating Ruby in FF7, only to forget saving before turning of the game!!! Yes, it's possible to do that!

 

[TaborMallory]

Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins
Everything is piss-easy until you get to Wario's Extremely Unforgiving Castle.
Make one misjudged jump, one out-of-place dodge, one goddamn pixel off, and you're back to the start.

The music is awesome, though.

 

[RickRoll]

the very end of act 3 in Gears of War 1. This area would be ok if there were actual checkpoints in it, but no....there is only one fucking checkpoint at the very start of the entire final fight where u first encounter theron guards and it is the toughest part of the game! not only is it irritating as shit when u kill all but one theron guard and then get torque bowed in the face by him and die and have to start the whole fight over again, but the moron who put the checkpoint decided to put it BEFORE this freaking dialogue that Marcus has with his squad about defending the resonator and shit, and i swear to god i had to hear that goddamn conversation something like 20 times when i played this section by myself on hardcore! i nearly went fucking crazy!

 

[Blaqheart]

I was playing Fallout 3 recently, and was just exploring when I came upon a supposed Super Mutant camp, but with no super mutants. Being level 20 with the PS3 version, I had nothing better to do than look around. After a few seconds of wandering I was cursing in my mind that I had just been fooled into wasting my time, when I saw what my idiot self had overlooked: a teddy bear in a cart cage. Cue Fawkes' and Clover's weapons coming to life, A message saying "Dogmeat has died", and extremely loud cursing of the fact I had not packed any bottle cap mines, Nuka grenades, or my fat man. I had to go on a two hour bike ride to calm myself down. I came back home, reloaded, found that spot again, and nuked that behemoth to hell.

 

[eatenbyagrue]

Call of Duty 5: After a 10-minute firefight that had me pinned down by machine guns and assorted enemy fire, I get unceremoniously exploded because I walked into a grenade's blast radius *just* as it explodes and before the grenade indicator appears.

The death screen is the "watch out for the grenade indicator" screen. Almost put my keyboard through the monitor for that.

 

[ThisNewGuy]

Finally got to the end of the last boss fight in FF7 and the game crashed because there was a scratch on the disc. I don't even know how it got scratched since I've left it in the machine since I bought it.

 

[Baggie]

There was that one time I lost nearly an hour of progress on mass effect because I forgot to save. Dear LORD I raged hard.

 

[Christemo]

The 5th Dimension/Cerberus boss in Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

There is a checkpoint at the beginning of the area, a VERY LONG trek across the area, and a fight with the HARDEST BOSS IN THE GAME, and that includes the final boss (who I beat on the first try). This means that if you die fighting the Cerberus (and you will, cheap one hit kill floor), you respawn FIVE MINUTES BEFORE WHEN YOU STARTED.

The only thing making the boss beatable is the fact that he doesn't regenerate health, and I could take off about %3 of his health each time.

agreed, except his non-health regeneration had been fixed before i got the game, so he is pretty much invincible on Epic Difficulty. mainly because his melees and the Poison Grenade almost 1 hits me even if dodge the flames.

hardest boss ever.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Final boss for Jak 2, coupled with the most stupid saving system I've ever seen (saves your inventory status when you die), this was the most annoying thing I've ever done in gaming.

 

[RavingPenguin]

So many times on Mirrors Edge, hard difficulty.
I'd take out 3 snipers and 4 cops just to have it end in a crappy jump, I fall several hundred feet and die... restart.
Beat the snipers (again), made the jump, get gunned down by a room full of police because of crappy collision detection... restart.
I then beat the snipers and the police, get to a room with computer servers, no cover, gunned down...

Retry? No, no I will not. You can go fuck off Mirrors Edge, Im not going to play you any more.

Incidentally, I was back at an hour later.

 

[Christemo]

also, the 2nd mission in the final campaign of Heroes of Might and Magic 5: Tribes of the East. the enemy is bullshit on the second half of the map. you got 20 days to prepare your shitty town for an army unmatched by anything else.

ive even complete the Mighter Challenge (look it up, really) and this piece of bullshit still gets me EVERYTIME.

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

Anyone have any memorably unfair moments in gaming that they'd like to share with the Escapist community? Maybe you finally beat that tricky boss only for your game to crash? Or perhaps you slogged your way through an unforgiving level only to die within spitting distance of a checkpoint? If you have any stories or controller snapping, blind swearing moments of frustration and rage, we'd like to hear them =)

To start the ball rolling, here's one of my own - Myself and 3 friends were playing Left 4 Dead on expert difficulty determined to finally complete a level on it (our 8th attempt). We made it to the finale with only one molotov between us and no pipe bombs. The AI director gave us NOTHING for the final crescendo. So we squared our shoulders, loaded our weapons and prepared for the onslaught. We had made it this far, rescue was only minutes away.

The first casualty was "The Rookie", pinned by a hunter and killed by the first tank. He was the least experienced player in our group, but had saved me many times from the infected. As the tank fell, we shed a tear for him before bracing for the second attack. We held off the waves of screaming infected and dispatched the second tank without further incident, but a few close calls. Finally our salvation arrived, but not soon enough. The infected were everywhere, our bullets seemed useless against the closing wall of zombified flesh and we had nothing to thin the horde. No pipe bombs to draw them away, and our one molotov we had used against the tank. A boomer hit "Sarge" and the infected tore him apart before he could reach the chopper. Cut off from him by the rabid undead, there was nothing I could do but run.

Four of us made it to the roof, but only 2 of us escaped. If only we had a single pipe bomb Sarge might have escaped, if that hunter had attacked someone else then the Rookie might still be alive.

We played for 2 hours and they never got the satisfaction of beating the level. They were seriously unhappy about that.

Why? Why?! Curse you AI Director!

That you may both pray to and curse this entity is disturbing - in all the right ways.

That aside - they obviously should have pressed X

---------------

If I had to argue the matter - Every AOE game ever. You are always the piddly little guys with no money, 2 buildings, 5 troops, and you always pick a fight with the bastards sitting on top of a mile high fortress, with more troops than the population counter allows, and enough resources to make captain planet cry.

As to why they never steam roll me as soon as they find out that I am there is beyond me.

 

[Syphonz]

you wanna know whats unfair?

NHL 09 - Be a Pro as a goalie on any difficulty above 'Pro'. (30+ save shutouts are a must if you want A win)

Monster Hunter - those extra 2 seconds that your character takes to flex his muscles every time he heals himself.

DMC3 - Fighting Cerberus with the Gunslinger style.

Mega Man X - the last boss sometimes doesn't allow an oppertunity to attack.

SFIV - people that consistantly do 'double Lirat' with Zangief over and over and over.

Half Life - Maybe its just me, but everytime I get to the boss fight with that giant headcrab called Gonarth or something, he sits at the bottom of this cave and doesn't move when he needs to. It's a rare glitch, but I've gone through the game 4x up to that part and it happens EVERY FUCKING TIME.

Resistance 2 online spawning system... I've learned to wait 10 seconds at the start of every match so I'm not spawning surrounded by 4 people on the opposing team.

 

[Trixia]

Devil May Cry. I don?t know whether it was one or three but I had been working my way through it. I thought I had been doing rather well, right up until I got stuck on a boss fight. I tried and tried and hacked and slashed and bitched but the thing just. Would. Not. DIE.

Then my little sister comes along so see what all the cursing is about, picks up the controller and beats it in one go.
On the one hand I was pleased I could move on but mostly I was staring at her going ?No way.?
Ever had that happen to you?

 

[Vrex360]

Halo 1, the final Warthog drive... I mean yeah it gets the adrenaline pumping like a son of a ***** and after completing it I'm usually shaking like mad and panting with excitement.... but man the frustration from every single crash that slows you down just drives me insane.

Also the first encounter of the Mirelurk in Fallout 3... I mean at first I assumed I could take 'em because after all I was only level one so it's not like they should be too hard to take down... right?
WRONG. They killed me over and over again and it was hard enough evading them in the open let alone doing so in small contained areas. Having enemies that powerful so early in the game is JUST CRUEL.

 

[MajoraPersona]

Any time I realize I'm doing it wrong. For example, in Majora's Mask, I didn't realize you could hold the button to keep swimming for a long time. So I had a little difficulty with the second beaver race.

Also, Warsong Gulch. No matter what class I play, I can't fucking faceroll like the other team can. Doesn't matter what level or faction the other team is, they can fucking faceroll me to hell and back. Though Rogue, Hunter, and Lock work well. As do Priest, Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Death Knight, Druid, and sometimes Warrior. But those are the only classes that even stand a chance.

Also the first encounter of the Mirelurk in Fallout 3... I mean at first I assumed I could take 'em because after all I was only level one so it's not like they should be too hard to take down... right?
WRONG. They killed me over and over again and it was hard enough evading them in the open let alone doing so in small contained areas. Having enemies that powerful so early in the game is JUST CRUEL.

Each area spawns enemies based on your level when you first enter it. However, they have a minimum level, so Mirelurks will show up if you enter an area at level 1-7, let's say, and Mirelurk Hunters will show up at 8-14. Those are just examples, I don't know the exact numbers.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Half Life - Maybe its just me, but everytime I get to the boss fight with that giant headcrab called Gonarth or something, he sits at the bottom of this cave and doesn't move when he needs to. It's a rare glitch, but I've gone through the game 4x up to that part and it happens EVERY FUCKING TIME.

Drop satchel charges on him. I kill Lord Bollock without even going down that pit.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

The two end bosses in Sacred 2. First the one guy, than the four others.
If you didn't spec specifically you will be pummelled again and again, only winning because they keep their damage even when you die (but some can heal a LOT).

Took me many, many hours on end to fight them off.

Also: "Halo 1, the final Warthog drive"
Aaargh! Nightmares from the past are haunting my brain now!