"What were the developers smoking?"

[Free Thinker]

I do love to indulge in the over-the-top games with gore galore. Recent purchase would be the newest Mortal Kombat. Being years since I button-mashed my way to bloody victory, I decided to try Medium being a veteran of the chaos of Soul Calibur 4. I managed to combo and re-learn the buttons up until those annoying 1v2 matches. So I did what any frustrated gamer would do, besides throw a controller through a wall. I turned it down to Easy. No problems yet like Medium which was full of the AI locking you in their combos and getting Flawless Victory.

Finally get to Shao Khan in Story Mode. Beats me to death within 5 seconds. I couldn't block a thing. Ragequit and lower to Beginner. How low have I fallen? Beginner! I'm such a n00b! But hey, atleast I can advance through story mode...WRONG! Shao Khan still beats me to death, but it now takes 20 seconds. He's immune to grabs, immune to staggering from attacks, and immune to Liu Kang's dreaded Bicycle Kick spam. NetherRealm Studios, what were you smoking when you thought making an overpowered, near unbeatable boss? What reasoning can their possibly be to punish us players and give us carpal tunnel, and still never succeed?

Rant over. What developer blunders/asshattery, have completely driven you to the edge of insanity and made you wonder what they're smoking or what kind of sick sadistic freaks they are?

 

[TyrantGanado]

I'll point the finger of blame at fighting games in general since Tekken 5 (maybe earlier) since they've gone on a bender of making impossible final bosses. Fuck you Jinpachi Mishima.

I'd wonder what the studios behind the genre are collectively smoking. Probably PCP given the seeming super-human abilities they possess.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Thats normal for MK though. God help me on the MK I, II, and III final bosses when I was growing up.

Silver Surfer for the NES just to contribute though.

 

[Laser Priest]

There is no way anyone at DICE was in their right state of mind when they thought anything about Mirror's Edge was a good idea.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

Every time Call of Duty on veteran. The game isn't hard, its cheap. You will be killed by rounding the corner in mere seconds. If I could use cover I wouldn't care.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Rant over. What developer blunders/asshattery, have completely driven you to the edge of insanity and made you wonder what they're smoking or what kind of sick sadistic freaks they are?

Basically, any character design for a Square Enix game.

Also, the second Dead or Alive Extreme game and it's... physics. (Didn't play the game myself, and am glad)

 

[AvsJoe]

Actually they were eating rotisserie chicken. Can you just read the lines?

There is no way anyone at DICE was in their right state of mind when they thought anything about Mirror's Edge was a good idea.

I thought that game was a fantastic idea; it was just poorly executed.

 

[ThatDaveDude1]

There is no way anyone at DICE was in their right state of mind when they thought anything about Mirror's Edge was a good idea.

Poor Execution definitely, but no good ideas? What are you smoking?

OT: Other M...self explanatory.

 

[Laser Priest]

Actually they were eating rotisserie chicken. Can you just read the lines?

There is no way anyone at DICE was in their right state of mind when they thought anything about Mirror's Edge was a good idea.

I thought that game was a fantastic idea; it was just poorly executed.

Er... Alright then...

But I respectfully disagree. I think it was executed as well as it could have been. I believe it was just an entirely flawed idea from the start.

 

[Laser Priest]

There is no way anyone at DICE was in their right state of mind when they thought anything about Mirror's Edge was a good idea.

Poor Execution definitely, but no good ideas? What are you smoking?

Nothing. I simply think that running and jumping and anything like that that requires you to see where your feet are and where you're aiming is entirely a demented idea.

Plus, the game was utter shit anyway.

 

[LobsterFeng]

RE5 and the stupid, stupid, inventory system. I rest my case.

 

[Voidpulse]

The situation you describe has happened to me at least once in almost every fighting game I've ever played, although to a varying degree. If you couple it with my deeply ingrained (and quite irrational) view that turning a game below medium is a deathly insult to my own honor, as well as my complete inability to put the game down and go to sleep unless I've achieved some sort of success; you have a recipe for disaster ready and waiting to destroy any semblance of being awake at my lectures the next morning.

Also: A lot of the bosses from varying games by Atlus. I can remember fighting Matador from Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call/Nocturne. He comes out of nowhere, is much stronger than the mooks in the area would indicate and can be damn near impossible to hit. If you don't know what you're facing and prepare accordingly, you will likely have your gibbly bits handed to you for a while, and thats just one of such hard bosses in the game. Of course, that comes from the company who brought us Demon's Souls as well as the statement: "We get off on your tears."

I love the feeling of beating such a challenging boss, even though I can rage about them, as long as there's real difficulty and not just cheapness all over.

 

[Trogdor1138]

Off the top of my head...

FF13, being a sequence of corridors, breaking any immersion or attachment I could possibly have to the world with the lack of towns etc.

Resident Evil 5, making it co-op focused and having to be forced to use a braindead AI as my partner, the game didn't make it very far with me sadly, but I am considering giving it another go and trying to look past this (and the MANY other flaws in comparison to the amazing RE4).

Super Street Fighter II Turbo (the arcade versions), Very easy difficulty=Beat the absolute shit out of me in 7 seconds, what?

Blazblue CT & CS: The insane dialogue between some of the characters that leave me with a O_O expression. It feels like a weaboo's insane fan fiction, the games also happen to be really good.

 

[Palademon]

Well, I'm not complaining but I did wonder what they were smoking with Rayman 3.

Seriously, so many drug references. So many I probably don't even need to wonder what they were smoking, it was rather simply stated.

 

[Carnagath]

Snip

Yeah Shao Khan is pretty terribly designed. From my limited experience, teleport + uppercut works, everything else I've tried doesn't.

 

[Retronana]

Obscure one I know but it has to be the addition of titan battles to castlevania: Lords of shadow, I mean just why? They were terrible and painful quicktime events that were added in just make the game seem more "epic". It's a shame because I loved almost everything else about that game (except the music box section, oh my god) despite the fact it wasn't classic castlevania.

What were they smoking?

And lets not forget changing the inventory system from Resi 4 to 5 which was one of my favorite bits about the game. As well as creating bioshock 2, bioshock never needed a direct a sequal and we didn't want one, it ended near perfectly, I liked playing bioshock 2 but it was never needed and was a shameless money-grab on 2k's part.