Game Breakers

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Well I'm on summer holiday time, so I was re-playing a few of my older games. Going through God of War on easy is mad fun let me tell you.
Then I got to the Traps of Madness. Specifically, that bloody spike room. If you've played the game, you know the one. If you haven't let me explain.

There is a room with a lot of holes in the floor. From the various perforated and impaled corpses you can tell spikes come up out of these holes. To move on from this room you need to hop up onto a ledge, the trick being that this ledge is too high up for you to jump from ground level, and the block you need to get the added height is only released once you pull a lever that also sets off the timer for the spikes. And so far, no matter how many times I've pulled the lever, manoeuvred the box in place and then jumped around like the game's *****-monkey, I can't get Kratos to grab that ledge. And you only get one shot. Don't get the block in exactly the right place the first time, and you run out of time and get spiked. It's all the more annoying because you have to get past the spike room to continue on in the game.

So what about you, fellow forum-goers, have any of you suffered any frustrating moments where the game's flow is broken by an annoying stage?

 

[barryween]

All the time. Probably the only games where I HAVEN'T run into this are Fallout 3 and Fable II

 

[Kajt]

Yes, but it's usually in platformers. And it's usually due to the camera being fucked up.

 

[jonnopon3000]

Any mario game. There is always one level that is nigh-impossible. Seriously frustrating

 

[Lord Beautiful]

The camera in Shinobi (PS2) and the imprecise platforming combined make for some rather frustrating bullshit. I could never get past the second fire stage.

 

[messy]

In DMC4, that room where you have to extend your arm from orb to orb in mid-air. Tricky thing is, the camera kinda screws up and it becomes real tedious not to fall under. Bitchy thing is, the room under is a perma-repop zone for creeps... Every time you fall, you have to fight the same creeps, go back up the turning staircase, try again. It sounds easy but god was it frustrating.

Yeah, on the first too difficulties this is piss, but as you go on the orbs move or keep re-spawning and disappearing plus higher difficulties harder creeps (I think its on Dante must die difficulty everything can regenerate health)

Also beat 'em ups where you can win by cheap throws (soul calibre 4)

And these http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameBreaker

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

The level where you rescue Cortana from the flood in Halo 3. On any higher difficulty that level is just stupid. They copy/pasted spawn points from floor to ceiling.

The save system and boss battles of Dead Rising. The whole thing is seriously flawed, which is a shame as the game in general is great fun.

Far Cry 1. Nothing particular about it. Just the whole damn thing.

 

[Wadders]

Some of the combat sections in PoP: Sands of Time were bloody horrible, I think I was almost reduced to tears on a couple of occasions... I just wanted to run around and do puzzles ok!?!

 

[Ginnipe]

What I find a game breaker isn't just one room or stage, it's the controlls, if they are too touchy or one button controlls too much then it gets irritating to just switch your weapon.

On the weapon switching part, can anyone tell me how to switch my weapon in MGS4, i can't even play the game because it's so complicated I can't even switch my gad damned weapon.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Some of the combat sections in PoP: Sands of Time were bloody horrible, I think I was almost reduced to tears on a couple of occasions... I just wanted to run around and do puzzles ok!?!

Seconded. In my case, three fights specifically: The one with what's left of your father, Soldiers' Mess Hall (this one actually stopped me on my first play), and the elevator at the end. Two game mechanic elements that broke the game were (a) the Prince doing an acrobatic move and taking his time getting sand from monsters - while the others were free to whack at him, and (b) Farah dying after something like two hits.

The enemies spawning constantly and teleporting round the place were also a nuisance...

 

[Ginnipe]

Another game breaker is in Mass Effect, when i completed the first mission I was put on that ship and had to go somewhere, the thing is the mini map didn't tell me where, so I would run around the ship for 2 hours trying every single door in the entire thing (i guess except one) looking for a damn room that wasn't there. So I never got to go any farther into the game and I couldn't enjoy it. Luckly it was a rental so it didn't matter all that much. But what really pisses me off is when a game over complicates itself making just traveling through the menus a complete *****.

 

[Wadders]

Some of the combat sections in PoP: Sands of Time were bloody horrible, I think I was almost reduced to tears on a couple of occasions... I just wanted to run around and do puzzles ok!?!

Seconded. In my case, three fights specifically: The one with what's left of your father, Soldiers' Mess Hall (this one actually stopped me on my first play), and the elevator at the end. Two game mechanic elements that broke the game were (a) the Prince doing an acrobatic move and taking his time getting sand from monsters - while the others were free to whack at him, and (b) Farah dying after something like two hits.

The enemies spawning constantly and teleporting round the place were also a nuisance...

Those were the exact fights I was thinking of! And yes I agree, trying to keep Farah alive was infuriating! Another game breaker was the fact the save points only appeared after you had killed all the enemies in an area, causing you to repeat the same fight over and over until you got it nailed...

 

[Slash Dementia]

One of the bosses on disc 4 in Lost Odyssey... I go through some really long ruins only to not get a save-point, not have switched party members and having to get repeatably raped by some boss that can pretty much take out half of everyone's HP in one hit. I'm too frustrated to play through those ruins again with the random annoying encounters and all.

 

[Time Travelling Toaster]

One word, One name:
Otis's Transmitter >.> that killed my game in Dead Rising, he called me just before the Adam fight and I got ass munched by a zombie >.>

 

[scnj]

Any point in any Half-Life game where you have to fight respawning enemies while waiting for a predictably slow elevator to arrive. To add insult to injury, the actual journey inside the elevator takes mere seconds.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

About an hour ago I was really enjoying a game of Endwar. I was doing really well, pushing my way up the map, when: RED FLASHES. Some warning about a laser was muttered to me in a thick Russian accent. I tell my units to retreat. They're about halfway across the bridge when BOOSH. Massive laser wipes out everything I have, defeat because I have no units left. Oh, what the fuck Endwar, I'm going to get punished for being better than the AI? Fuck you.

 

[scatmanfan]

The fights in No More Heroes in which if a guy freaking FALLS on you you fail the mission.

 

[klakkat]

I definitely had that issue for a bit, Palindrome, but once you figure out the trap it's pretty easy. Also, difficulty on God of War only affects combat; traps are the same.

I've had no real significant game breakers other than Jericho, but that was because the game kept crashing and I decided it wasn't a fun enough game to be worth it.

oh yeah. Except Xenosaga. During the final boss fight, the boss used some attack that does enough damage to kill my entire party. I had some auto-rez thing (or someone was in their battle suit, I forget) so I was still alive; I raised the rest of my crew and continued the fight. As his very next attack, he performed the same move again and wiped my team. Enough of that shit, I thought; I'm not going to grind for 10 hours to have a slim chance of beating the boss. Something like two years later I tried to come back and beat Xenosaga and couldn't even find the end boss, so I've stopped caring.

 

[dodo1331]

Every escort mission ever made.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

Yes, but it's usually in platformers. And it's usually due to the camera being fucked up.

Too many POP moments come to mind here...