*Centering myself before the rage starts*
Tomb Raider Anniversary: the centaurs. Okay, so I'm supposed to shoot one until they charge what I like to call "the Medusa ray", stop looking at them or duck to avoid said ray, shoot the same one to enrage it again, use a specific maneuver to avoid being charged at, which in turn gives me just enough time to shoot it again, this time stunning it momentarily, allowing me again just enough time to whip out my magnetic grappling hook, latch onto the centaur's shield, at which point I enrage the centaur yet again and use my new shield to reflect back the Medusa ray, thereby buying my a few seconds during which I can manage to injure said centaur, all while avoiding being attacked by the second centaur running around, and I'm supposed to figure this out on my own? Bullshit! I realize that is one hell of a run-on sentence, but either I missed the "explain the entire plot of this scene" button in the menus, or Eidos is giving me far more credit to figure these things out than I deserve. Assuming for the moment I am indeed, to coin a phrase, pants-on-head retarded, and I did miss the "this is what we want you to do now. Have fun with that!" option, that is still some myriad of events to be pulled off in such a short time. Never mind the video explanation of this level which I have running in the background where somebody, even with pauses for further explanation so that people like myself can follow along, manages to blow away both centaurs in just over two minutes, I still call shenanigans on it.
*Focus, focus, keep the rage under control...*
This I hesitate to bring up, but I must, at least for the good of the crazy conspiracy theory I plan to pop in before I end this. Need for Speed: Most Wanted. My only foray into that series, due to the generous and forgetful nature of a friend who bought two copies (it happens), and figured a car game is right up my alley, so a free copy for me. Because I came close to 100% completion through nothing more than simply playing the game through (95% that way, I believe), I figured I might as well work that extra bit for the non-existent glory that would come from 100%. Since all I have left is on my "rap sheet", I pull out my first car, my trust Cobalt SS, the car I earned the vast majority of my bounty on (18 of the 19 million they want me for is on it, the rest that damned BMW you start with), and hit the streets. In top realistically-impossible tune, I hit the streets, and everything else in my path, and the police still take 10 minutes to find me *rage building*. There's two ways these usually end, both of which I call bullshit. The first is where I am physically incapable of getting away, and I'm not talking "I hit the spike strip; I'm not getting away." No, I talk of the Corvette clusterfuck lifting my wheels off the ground so I can't get away even though I easily could were I on the ground. While I'm sure the officers would say "Hey, it stopped you, didn't it?" I feel if there wasn't the remotest chance of my escape, I have been cheated. Along those same lines is when they knock my car sideways, but not enough to respawn, or, I do respawn, but my "busted meter", which does not reset when I do, fills before I regain the ability to control my vehicle. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!
The second way (roughly fifth now, but not the point), the one I hesitate to mention, is when I successfully evade, and the fucking game crashes *raaage...*. Cooldown fills, and suddenly I'm staring my desktop. I don't even get the courteous Microsoft "do you wish to report this problem" message. What the fuck is that all about? Why do I hesitate to mention this? Simple. Need for Speed is EA, and I'd rather not be responsible for turning this into another EA hatefest, but I may need to here, because yet another EA game I have, and returned to only last night, Sim City 4, has the exact same crash symptoms whenever something game-state-changing happens, such as opening a menu. Two entirely different games, connected only by the company that makes them, have randomized crash codes built in which Windows accepts as mere quitting [and that completes the conspiracy theory]? What the fuck, EA? It isn't bad enough you've shown no innovation in any way in over a decade, but you're intentionally preventing people from completing them so as to prevent discovery of said lack of innovation? No, I refuse to stand for that. RAAAAAAAAAGE!!!
*iamnotincompliance reaches for his ever-handy Glocks and sets off for EA headquarters in search of answers. His last reported location was just outside St. Louis, where he was heard muttering about how the majority of the residents in SimTower move out every quarter (all of eight days) no matter how brilliantly designed the tower is. Witnesses mentioned to him that SimTower came out long before EA's acquisition of Maxis, so EA could not be at fault there. It is not known if this made any impact on his resolve. Police continue to pursue the raving lunatic, looking for some way to get his wheels of the ground, or possibly make him crash before making any further progress*
