Alright (insert game here), how the FUCK was I supposed to know that?!

[Maxtro]

The whole Romance thing in Dragon's Dogma. If you're not careful, you can end up making sweet gay love to the blacksmith or innkeeper.

That certain important subplot story quests can auto-fail or no longer be available; which also mean that further quests won't be available.

That the dash button can be used to manually aim spells while casting. I didn't realize that till the end of my Mage play-through. I was frantically casting spells and wanted to sprint while channeling and then I saw the target reticule moving, which normally auto-lockons .

 

[The_Echo]

In Overlord, there's this objective to find a maiden for the castle or something. I spent about an hour talking to every woman I could find, and nothing.

I still don't know how to finish that.

I actually quit that game because of how directionless it was. It was also a little too difficult, but maybe I was just bad.

 

[Beautiful End]

OT: In Pokemon Emerald (And possibly the other Gen 3 games, I'm not sure), in the cave where you catch Regice, the way to open the door is to go up to it, press the A button, and then just stand there . . . for two freaking minutes. Come on, who's going to guess that?

...What? I thought that door was not meant to open! So I just left! Mother of god, after all these years, I find out this! I must go undust my Emerald version!

Final Fantasy XII. Zodiac Spear. how get?

Exactly. It was only because I had the guide that i was able to figure out not to open certain chests throughout the game. That's just mean, Square. Who could possibly guess that without a guide?!
And of course and as always, when i got the spear, I didn't need it anymore.

Anyone remember MGS1 for the PS1? Where you had to contact "whats-her-name" by checking the code on the back of the disk case? Did anyone else look at that and go, "how the fuck do you look at the disk's back?

Specially painful when, after getting fed up and looking online, find out the frequency number is on the back of the disk case... the game's disk case that is!

Kojima... I know you did that to fuck with me... and I am not amused.

You know what sucks, though? When you buy the PS2 Collection and there's no such thing as looking in the back of the disc case. I literally checked every single codec channel until I found her. THAT is how I solved it.


Anyway, for a new one. I was playing Minecraft for the 360. Mind you, I've never played the PC version. Ever. And it is up until recently that I've found out about this game (A month ago, maybe?). So I decided to build a Nether gate because it said obsidian can cast a portal and stuff. So I did. But I decided to create a big gate so that my friends and I could go through without any problem, maybe all of us at the same time. But as many people know, you can only create small 4x4 (More or less) gates. My friend had to tell me that.

Oh, and the reason why i figured something was wrong was because I saw no portal when I finished building it. Once I made it smaller, I still saw no portal. Turns out, I need flint and steel to set it on fire and boom. Done.

I'd say Minecraft is the master at being ambiguous about stuff. I appreciate the game thinking I'm pretty smart to figure it out but...some help might be nice.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt

Do I win? I totally win, right?

NO! Not TV Tropes! What have you done?! Don't you know that's like drugs?! NOOOOOOOOOO--

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

They do tell you to hurry, I just assumed they meant it and actually went. I figured i'd be coming back to HQ later

Damn your sharp ears, and damn Pritchard's smart-alec mouth. And damn Sarif HQ for having so many candy bars to steal. ;-)

 

[Don Savik]

Stalker: Call Of Pripyat, simply because it has no tutorial. I'd played a little SOC, so I knew to put my gun away when I talked to people. However, I didn't know how to do any of these things:

Holster my weapon
Use the artifact detector
Use Binoculars or Bolts
Equip weapon mods
Change ammo types

Those were the main problems, the rest were interesting to figure out. You need to holster your weapon in the first minute (ended up just dropping it). Also, the "echo" detector you get at the start is absolute trash that can't find artifacts, you need the "bear" detector. It isnt that hard to find if you know were it is, but if you don't you be stuck with a shitty detector for a long time.

I have STALKER Call of Pripyat and Shadow of Chernobyl, but I never got that far into them because I just could not figure out the game. So many things didn't make sense. I never fully understood artifacts, or how to find anything, or complete a shit ton of quests (and the timers......gggggrrrrrrrrrrr quest timers). I'm not bad at video games so I could give it another shot maybe, but its not very clear on its direction. Darn Russians...

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Holy shit, you've posted over 2000 times in 8 months? That might be a record.

OT in Phantom Hourglass, I didn't know what the fuck to do with that 'close the DS' puzzle until I gave up on it. I closed my DS and thought I could figure it out later. I then opened it, and seeing the map like that just blew my fucking mind. Nintendo, you guys are geniuses.

Oh God, how could I forget THAT. I actually COULDN'T figure that one out. I had to go on Gamefaqs to figure it out. Felt like a freaking dumbass on that.

Me to! Oh, I can top that. I wasn't to familiar with the DS's microphone, so I got stuck on the first temple, because I didn't know you needed to blow into the microphone to put out the candles.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

I was playing through Ico recently. There's this one puzzle area where you have to swing on a rope over a chasm. The only problem is, tilting the control stick doesn't change your direction while swinging, and you're forced to swing at the wrong angle to make the jump. I spent probably an hour searching every square inch of the area for some clue, item, secret path... This was like 10 hours into the game, and the whole time I had believed that there was no way to rotate while hanging. Because I hadn't tried the shoulder buttons. Of COURSE ICO, the SHOULDER buttons. Not the analog stick, which up to this point was the only way to direct the character! There are actually a lot of really terrible puzzles in that game and SoTC. I love 'em, but wow. All the traditional game mechanics are horrible.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Three words:
Sierra
Adventure
Games
The puzzles... I can't even begin to... ugh...

This x10000 in fact irc one of the games had a puzzle that involved throwing a pie at a Yeti. How the heck are you suppose to figure that out without dropping the same amount of Acid as it took to come up with that puzzle.

And then of course, there's the infamous Gabriel Knight Cat Hair Moustache puzzle. I don't even think that Acid could make someone dumb enough to think that spraying a cat so it runs through duct tape, and then combining the cat hair from the duct tape with syrup to make a disguise to fool a moped shop owner would make even the slightest hint of sense.

 

[Astoria]

In Spyro 1 in the Haunted Towers level there's a dragon and heap of gems that I just couldn't figure out how to get to. Turned out you have to go down both power ups and circle back around the outside of the tower, go up a ramp and then glide over to an island that has a whirly thing that lifts you up to the top of the tower. How the hell was I was I supposed to work that out!

 

[srm79]

I think your Sonic 3 example is a good one. And no, you're not the only one who got held up at that point. Me, and all my friends, always had trouble with it too.

Well, I could spout the names of several different adventure games and call it a day (Riven, in particular, jumps out at me), but I've got another good one.

In one of the X-Men games for the Genesis (I forget exactly which one it is at the moment), when you get to the end of the game, you basically reach a dead end, with no way to proceed. The solution? Hit the reset button on your console. THAT will take you to the final screen.

What in the flying name of FUCK would lead you be believe that would work?

that one reminds of one from Metal Gear Solid...specifically when you're fighting the psychic guy that cheats by knowing every button you press and reacts accordingly, making him invincible.......unless you plug your controller into the player 2 slot.

Now I've never played MGS (I played MGS 2, but by all accounts that's one that is best left forgotten ) so I don't know if there's any hints or tips that you have to plug your controller into the 2nd player slot. But if there isn't, I can't imagine how the hell you're supposed to think to do that.

I've actually never played MGS, but I do know about that boss fight. Apparently, if you call your commander or whatever enough times, he flat-out tells you to plug the controller into port 2. It is a bit ridiculous, though.

Ah, great days! I also spent hours crawling around Shadow Moses looking for a CD case before the penny dropped...

 

[Rastien]

Spoiler

Fucking christ.

I am sorry i was like 13 at the time and was not used to this 4th wall breaking bullshit.

"check the back of the CD CASE" I HAD A BLOODY CD IN MY INVENTORY! i spent hours banging my head against a wall on this shit >:C

Yes im still mad and bitter about this -_-

This pisses me off, you don't ever have a CD in your inventory.

You do get an MO Disk, but it's not a CD.

It does look like a CD and how we were supposed to know about this 4th wall breaking x)

 

[WanderingFool]

Spoiler

Fucking christ.

I am sorry i was like 13 at the time and was not used to this 4th wall breaking bullshit.

"check the back of the CD CASE" I HAD A BLOODY CD IN MY INVENTORY! i spent hours banging my head against a wall on this shit >:C

Yes im still mad and bitter about this -_-

This pisses me off, you don't ever have a CD in your inventory.

You do get an MO Disk, but it's not a CD.

It does look like a CD and how we were supposed to know about this 4th wall breaking x)

Shit like that man... before MGS1, nobody broke the 4th wall in such spectacular manner. You know what sucked even worse for me? It was my older cousins game, and he didnt have the case to start off with. So even if I knew that, I was still screwed. Thats the problem with 4th wall puzzles, the player could always lose the case...

 

[MRMIdAS2k]

Spoiler

Fucking christ.

I am sorry i was like 13 at the time and was not used to this 4th wall breaking bullshit.

"check the back of the CD CASE" I HAD A BLOODY CD IN MY INVENTORY! i spent hours banging my head against a wall on this shit >:C

Yes im still mad and bitter about this -_-

This pisses me off, you don't ever have a CD in your inventory.

You do get an MO Disk, but it's not a CD.

It does look like a CD and how we were supposed to know about this 4th wall breaking x)

So? just because your level 1 card looks like a level 5 card does not mean it should open level 5 doors. It's not a CD, It's not in a case, It's not what you're looking for.

EDIT: Also, you get TOLD the number if you ring Campbell 5 or 6 times.

 

[Cranky]

Those secret transmission codes in MGS: Portable Ops. Granted, not as bad as the examples from the original MGS listed above, but still it pissed me off to no end back then.

 

[elvor0]

Spoiler

Fucking christ.

I am sorry i was like 13 at the time and was not used to this 4th wall breaking bullshit.

"check the back of the CD CASE" I HAD A BLOODY CD IN MY INVENTORY! i spent hours banging my head against a wall on this shit >:C

Yes im still mad and bitter about this -_-

This pisses me off, you don't ever have a CD in your inventory.

You do get an MO Disk, but it's not a CD.

It does look like a CD and how we were supposed to know about this 4th wall breaking x)

So? just because your level 1 card looks like a level 5 card does not mean it should open level 5 doors. It's not a CD, It's not in a case, It's not what you're looking for.

EDIT: Also, you get TOLD the number if you ring Campbell 5 or 6 times.

Right. I was 7 at the time, to be given a disc in game and then told the number is on the back of the case, leads me to think it's on the back of the disc case that the game gave me minutes beforehand.

I had no idea about MO discs at that age as I imagine was the case with most people, and 4th wall breaking stuff like that had to my awareness not happened before, even though it wasn't specifically labelled "CD CASE" most people are going to assume it's something inside the game, not on the back of a case in real life, that you might not even have (borrowed game, PS2 collection didn't have it).

Also: http://images.wikia.com/metalgear/images/5/5a/MO_Disk.png Looks like a fucking CD in a case to me.

 

[MetalDooley]

Legend of Zelda:Links Awakening on Gameboy - The final form of the final boss is a big shadow dude with a giant eyeball and two swinging arms.Now in Zelda games the general rule of thumb is if something has a giant eyeball you shoot an arrow at it and indeed this appeared to be the correct tactic as hitting it with arrows seemed to damage it.Problem is I could never beat him before running out of arrows.After many,many failed attempts out of sheer frustration I tried firing the boomerang and.....Insta-kill

I mean WTF??If I remember correctly that was the only time in the game that the boomerang damaged someone so it's not an item you would ever think of using.Not to mention that the game basically tricks you into thinking arrows are the correct option.A cheap move to say the least

Still love the game though

 

[Chemical Alia]

Well, I saw the thread title and the first thing that came to mind was Casino Night Act 2. It took me months to figure that out. That was the worst introduction to a minor mechanic in a game ever, especially bad for such a simple game.

I had the opposite of that happen once, though. One day, long ago in like 1995, I was playing Commander Keen 4 with my sister. We were in a pyramid level and there were a bunch of inchworms following me on the ground. I said "hey, wouldn't it be cool if I connected these platforms so all the inchworms will come together around me, and maybe they'll turn into a gigantic foot and take me to the hidden level!"

And then they did turn into a gigantic foot and take me to the hidden level. On that day, I was a god.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Strangely enough that never happened to me. I went around the office for a good two hours...and everything was ok.

Well, one died, but that's another story.

Strange. That event is (supposed to be) on a timer and not a particularly generous one either. AFAIK it's the only one of its kind in the game. The idea was that if the player took too long getting to the VTOL to start the mission, it would be too late to get the good outcome. Maybe t'was a bug in your case as everyone else I know who played it had the same experience as I did first time thru.

As for the one that didn't make it, they probably had it coming :-D

Haha, well, what deficulty were you on? I usually start my first play through on easy, because I like to experience a story first.

Maybe that was the reason? Makes some sense to me.

(and that one person was because I let the robber go out of my good mind)

I had the same experience as you (wasted loads of time, but still not too late to save hostages) - also playing on easy. So that may be it.

 

[Rastien]

Spoiler

Fucking christ.

I am sorry i was like 13 at the time and was not used to this 4th wall breaking bullshit.

"check the back of the CD CASE" I HAD A BLOODY CD IN MY INVENTORY! i spent hours banging my head against a wall on this shit >:C

Yes im still mad and bitter about this -_-

This pisses me off, you don't ever have a CD in your inventory.

You do get an MO Disk, but it's not a CD.

It does look like a CD and how we were supposed to know about this 4th wall breaking x)

So? just because your level 1 card looks like a level 5 card does not mean it should open level 5 doors. It's not a CD, It's not in a case, It's not what you're looking for.

EDIT: Also, you get TOLD the number if you ring Campbell 5 or 6 times.

Well my 13 year old intellect was vastly inferiour to yours then i bow down to you good sir.

You win this internet put down, good show old bean.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, almost at the very end. Seriously, how the fuck am I supposed to know that being seen when I'm naked meant I couldn't progress from the big tunnel? I played that game so many times and there was no indication about that at all. The Colonel even says to turn of the console, like an asshole.

What? What are you talking about? I've done that sequence tons of times (Half of which I was spotted so I ran to the exit) and never once has that been an issue. Colonel tells you to turn off the game no matter what.

Nope, I swear you aren't allowed to get spotted or you can't pass. I'm sure that was the thing about it. If it wasn't that entire section was easier than I thought and I have been deceived in an unforgivable way.