This is sad. And I mean REALLY

[Dexiro]

So I like to think I play games pretty well. I can get through some L4D missions on Expert, head-shot people from across the map, beat Ninja Gaiden I & II, got all the star in Spec Ops, and other stuff that seems pretty challanging. The only games that kick me in the head are fighting games, so I stay away from them.

Then I played Lego Batman. I have never needed to look up what to do next so many times for a game, and that includes every Water Temple. I constantly find myself running around in a circle, confused. What makes it even worse is that I know this is supposed to be for kids, and I'm positive they don't have this much trouble. I thought this would be a quick, fun way to catch up and pass my friend on number of Achievements, but it's turning into a real head ache.

So, has anyone else ever sat down to play a game you thought would be a piece of cake and ended up banging your head against the wall? Any of them as, um...embarrassing as mine?

It's not embarrassing it's just bad game design.

 

[automatron]

Some of the stuff in half-life 2 is irritating, where it doesn't show you where half the stuff is and you have to find it by walking into it.
And the LoZ games sometimes piss me the hell off

 

[DrEmo]

Halo 3: ODST.
I thought it was going to be easy but it turned out to be quite difficult. Why? Because your guns are pea shooters.

Viva Pinata was unusually hard with its demanding Pinatas and extreme space management.

 

[CultistRat]

The prblem is that after playing complex games, simple ones don't make any sense. So basicly, this happens to me every time I replay a game.

 

[Kragg]

you are right OP, playing games just for achievements is pretty sad

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[dex-dex]

a couple of the professor layton puzzles had be confused until no end

which pissed me off when i looked it up and one of them was so easy i wanted to just hide in my closet and weep

 

[DrEmo]

I think it's pretty much to be expected with kids' games and licensed games - basically, the games we don't see as "proper" games and therefore expect to be easy to beat. These games are often just poorly-designed crap. Thing is, one of the results of poor game design is being frustrating and excessively difficult, because they haven't bothered to make sure it controls well, scale the difficulty properly or design puzzles that make sense. Basically, any idiot can make a hard game (or one that's literally impossible), often without even realising. So don't be ashamed if you can't beat a game like that. Be ashamed that you bought it at all.

Viva Pinata was unusually hard with its demanding Pinatas and extreme space management.

A prime example. That game was controller-snappingly frustrating and I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be. It was just incredibly badly designed.

Missing the point?
I said hat Halo 3: ODST was hard because you're armed with pea shooters and you say Viva Pinata is frustrating for the sake of being frustrating?
Viva Pinata is a kid's game but it's hard to maintain a garden with nice Pinatas when they keep fighting each other and when you have to keep your little pinatas happy while getting new ones to come in.
Halo 3: ODST is frustrating on multiple levels. The fact that the idiot ODST has a knife strapped to his chest but doesn't use it as a mellee weapon is just mind-blowing stupidity. So is that fact that after years and years into this whole human VS aliens conflict the humans haven't come up with alien specific weapons. No bullets designed to pierce a Brute's armor, no guns made with bayonets to stab enemies in close quarters. It's as if the humans couldn't ass themselves long enough to build USEFUL weapons. It's like going up against an army of vampires WITHOUT silver bullets or Crucifixes.

 

[SamFancyPants252]

dude, Frogger.
That little fucker is small, green and gets owned by anything that moves. I pwned that game when I was 5 but now I can't even beat the first level.

 

[Bobsonnn]

I can't remember the name, but it was something like

Bug's and Taz: Timebusters/Lost In Time
or something like that

dug it out fairly recently, was more difficult than I remembered it definitely.

Guess the 'games are getting easier' folks are right...

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[DrEmo]

Well, Viva Pinata was not badly designed.