Solutions in games that made you feel really stupid

[Lieju]

I don't think I managed to convey in the title what I meant, so let me elaborate.
Have you ever been stuck in a game, unable to figure out the solution to a puzzle, or what you should do next? Finally asking your friend, consulting a walkthrough, or stumbling upon the correct answer by accident, only to feel absolutely foolish, since the answer is something so obvious you should have figured out, but for some reason completely overlooked?

Or had trouble with the fighting system the whole game, only to figure out you have one attack/function that just instakills everything in sight?

I can think of a few times.

In Prince of Persia: Sands of time, there is a part where you have spikes on the floor, and need to get on the ladder hanging from the ceiling. No matter how I tried, I didn't manage to jump on it, I always ended up on the wrong side of the ladder, and couldn't figure out how to jump on the other side.
And then, I finally accidentally noticed you could simply turn on the ladder after you jumped on it.

Games with a lot of puzzles in them(especially older adventure games) have, of course a lot of moments like these, (as well as the complete opposite, something that makes you yell "How was I supposed to figure THAT out!!!?) but one thing that I can clearly recall is the puzzle in the original Resident Evil, where you need the two emblems. You have the two books that clearly hint at them, and yet I couldn't figure out what to do with them.

I was stuck for so long in that one spot, since back then I couldn't just google for walkthroughs, before finally figuring out you needed to OPEN the books by examining them, to find the things inside of them...


So, share your stories of moments in games where you just feel stupid for not figuring the most obvious things out.

 

[ultrachicken]

Yeah, Uncharted 2 is a prime example of this.

 

[baddude1337]

Uncharted 2, Limbo, but the one that sticks the most in my mind is the original MGS. I was pissed for hours trying to figure out what the colonel meant by Meryl's Codec is on the back of the CD case, and then I glanced at the case on the floor and realized he meant the game case.

 

[Polaris19]

Three hours into half-life 2 I felt really stupid...


This eventually changed because I learned to look for things and to pay attention, but the first three hours I got lost, confused, and frustrated multiple times because I didn't understand a puzzle.

 

[Wutaiflea]

My husband bought a Monkey Island game (MI 2 maybe? I dunno) on Steam recently, and he got stuck on this puzzle with a dude behind a door who would only give information after solving a puzzle password involving holding up a certain number of fingers.

We must've been there for fucking ages between the two of us, trying to see what the pattern was. In the end, when my husband finally consulted a walkthrough, the solution was so embarrassingly simple, I literally felt like a foamy-mouthed retard. We'd really over-thought it.

Good old Legend of Kyrandia was another great retard moment on my part too.

 

[Adzma]

Fighting the butcher in Castlevania. I couldn't believe I didn't realise you were meant to hit the pot on his head. I raged hard that night. FML! Sad face.

 

[Randomspike]

In one of the Portal challenge maps I spent ages wedging a turret under a door so I could shoot a portal through and get to the other side only to get stuck as I didn't have a cube to place on a button to open the next door, after looking around for a while I realized that there was a cube dispenser above the area you start in.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Yeah, in Beneath A Steel Sky, a point and click adventure game from the 90's. Right near the end of the game you need to extract some flesh samples from a cryogenic freezer but cannot get them directly because it's too damn cold. I spent ages trying different ideas and solutions to get the samples out, linked inventory item with inventory item a hundred times over in the hopes of creating something that would allow me to get at what I needed, but to no avail. Two months later I found out there was a pair of forceps hanging above the cryo-chamber, made almost invisible by the wall texture. To this day that remains my biggest gaming fail.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

My husband bought a Monkey Island game (MI 2 maybe? I dunno) on Steam recently, and he got stuck on this puzzle with a dude behind a door who would only give information after solving a puzzle password involving holding up a certain number of fingers.

We must've been there for fucking ages between the two of us, trying to see what the pattern was. In the end, when my husband finally consulted a walkthrough, the solution was so embarrassingly simple, I literally felt like a foamy-mouthed retard. We'd really over-thought it.

Good old Legend of Kyrandia was another great retard moment on my part too.

The good old "If this is four, what is this?" puzzle? Yeah, that was a pain in the ass. I really got stuck

Spoiler: In LeChuck's Fortress

When you need to figure out how to get through the revolving skeletal panels. I spent ages stuck in that one location until my mate George helped me out. Good ol' MI2!

 

[repeating integers]

Lots of the bosses in Yoshi's Island made me rage at my own stupidity when I realised how to kill them.

EDIT: Also, the whole of Metroid Fusion. Every single puzzle in it. I just sucked at those, I had to look up walkthroughs.

 

[Hosker]

Half-Life 2 made me feel stupid several times. They should really make it more obvious what it is you should do sometimes.

Portal as well. I got stuck right at the start, straight after you can make one portal.

 

[Normalgamer]

Plugging the controller into the second port...

 

[AwayFromKeyboard]

The part in portal when you have to get the rocket turret to shoot through a portal to blow a hole in an cube tube made me feel like I had the problem solving ability of an inbred donkey. Mostly because I spent ages looking for a cube instead of realizing there was a tube of them above my head, then having to consult you tube in order to find out how to get to them.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Portal, put cube on switch.


Or


The way on the Hitman: Blood Money demo, I spent a rather long time trying to open the Sniper Case.

 

[Veldel]

To many games iv had this happen and felt so stupid for it....

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

In Silent Hill Homecoming, there's a clock you need to set to a certain time to progress in the level. On the opposite wall is a riddle in the form of a poem. I spent hours running around the level, analysing the riddle and being sure I figured it out, just wasn't triggering whatever it was that was meant to reveal the answer.

Turns out, the time is written right next to the riddle, you just have to change the clock's time to match. The riddle was irrelevant to the answer.

That disappointed me severely.

 

[Astoria]

Urgh this happened to me so much when playing Oddworld Abe's Exodus.

Also, in the original Spyro it took me literally months to figure out how to finish two levels. One was something that I should've thought of and the other...well let's just say that I'm embarrassed by how obvious it was.

 

[2xDouble]

My uncle was stuck on a certain elevator puzzle in Myst. I forget the name of the Age (ages had names?) but it was the machine world. A couple of levers in the main room showed you the city could turn, letting you access new areas, but didn't actually do anything. And in the next room was an elevator that apparently led to nowhere. Inside the elevator are three buttons. An arrow pointing up, and arrow pointing down, and a bar in the middle. The up button brings you to the seemingly empty room, the down button brings you back. The bar in the middle, when pressed, blinked for a few seconds, then set the elevator between floors, requiring that you press another button to get out. He'd puzzled over it for weeks when I suggested a simple, but obvious solution that turned out to be correct.

Myst is actually full of puzzles like this... once you see the solution it's so painfully obvious you can't help but feel dumb for not seeing it.

 

[Popadoo]

Any Riddler challenge in Arkham Asylum.

 

[BENZOOKA]

I've noticed to face this dilemma in about every other puzzle I encounter. I just think completely differently than I'm supposed to think by the minds of the makers of the puzzle. I usually end up trying some twice more elaborate plans than actually needed and feel dimwitted after I realize how obviously simple the solution actually was, and how it's probably the last thing I would've thought.