When games use cheap tactics for a challenge....

[Nomanslander]

You know, I love hard games as long as they're fair, but for instance I try to avoid games with QTE especially when they're used in cheap ways to kill you instantly and the game bogs down to Dragon Lair style step by step trial and error game play.

Either than that recently I've been playing Bayonetta which is a pretty fun game not very hard as long as you avoid some it's own cheap tricks it pulls. Mostly from what I remember in Ninja Gaiden where you can spend the majority of the time dodging every move, but that one mistake a certain enemy pulls a combo and takes you health down to 5% from full, and from what I've seen in Bayonetta it happens a lot....plus on normal mode too....0o

So in this topic, where else have you guys seen cheap tricks being pulled?

 

[xHipaboo420x]

The last level or two of Mirror's Edge.

Instead of appropriately fiendish obstacle courses to overcome (although, in the game's defense, there are some of those present as well) you are presented with rooms and rooms of armed guards - combat being the one downfall of the game. I ground my teeth into a fine paste after the 70th death at the hand of some tool (of the establishment) with an SMG. Grrr.

Also Medal of Honour: Airbourne. Those armoured Nazis.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Street Fighter (forget which but they are all the same), Ken would spam hadokens untill I got close then he'd use the uppercut thing and knock me back just in time for more hadokens.
Tekken 5 saw Jinpachi as the final boss, whose unblockable and almost undodgeable fireballs would drop you to under 1/3 health with 1 hit. If he missed, he'd often fire a second one just as you are preparing to counter attack him. Not to mention his unavoidable stun move.
In the Total War games upping the difficulty does nothing but gives enemy units a stat-boost. I had Royal Pikemen get destroyed by lowly phalanx pikemen (phalanx pikeman having quite a lot lower stats in all areas and it was a 1v1 strategy-less showdown). Plus retreating AI units tend to come back from routing way too often.

 

[Omikron009]

In burnout 3 there's one type of event called the "burning lap" where you have to complete a course in a certain amount of time. To get the gold medal in any of them you essentially have to be boosting nonstop the entire time, and never crash.

 

[Scumpernickle]

MOH Airbourne was a really big cheater.

CoDMW:2 Too many enemies and grenades on Veteran. Its not even a challange, its a slaughter

 

[delet]

Speaking of Bayonetta... I'll put it in spoilers, as it contains spoilers.

Spoiler

On hard mode right after you you finish off Jubileas, the final boss, and you have to guide her through the solar system to the sun, the game seemed to continuously force me to run into any of the planets and it gave me absolutely no way of avoiding the collision. Incredibly infuriating after the fifth fail.

 

[The Cheezy One]

harder difficulties just being less health and harder enemies and more of them
cant harder difficulties be interesting? like in brothers in arms hells highway, it was actually interesting on realistic difficulty
enemies with massive weakspots on their backs, ones you can only shoot in the head,
these are all cheap

MOH Airbourne was a really big cheater.

CoDMW:2 Too many enemies and grenades on Veteran. Its not even a challange, its a slaughter

heh heh heh
completed it on veteran, on spec ops as well
the no respawning enemies helps, but that doesnt mean they all spawn at once
surprisingly, i like the juggernauts
usually they have a massive weakness, like the MOH airbornes ones walk slowly, but they run fast, are fairly accurate and basically never need to reload. i enjoyed the challenge, but hate the intervention now
i did get ambushed by a jug, but still managed to bring it down with the wa2000
every shot makes it flinch

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

The last level or two of Mirror's Edge.

Instead of appropriately fiendish obstacle courses to overcome (although, in the game's defense, there are some of those present as well) you are presented with rooms and rooms of armed guards - combat being the one downfall of the game. I ground my teeth into a fine paste after the 70th death at the hand of some tool (of the establishment) with an SMG. Grrr.

Also Medal of Honour: Airbourne. Those armoured Nazis.

I hated those the Armoured Nazis, i remember this one time i was in a room with 3 of them and i only had a pistol, so i ran around these pillars and picked them off one by one, then after i told my friend what happened i found out I DIDNT HAVE TO KILL THEM!!!! >=(

Bu id say alot of fighting game bosses

 

[DoctorNick]

Any game where an enemies attack can stagger you rendering the character defenseless and enemies who can attack faster than the period of time it takes to recover from being staggered.

 

[Xeros]

All of the Mortal Kombats.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I don't find most of the Xbox Ninja Gaiden too bad as there are very few attacks you have no chance of avoiding... the original NG games, however, I hated for their cheapness even if I am generally a fan. No matter how good you were at those games, you'd still get killed repeatedly by birds, etc. appearing right at specific times during jumps and that sort of thing. It was more about simple memorization than about a test of your skill.

Fighting game AI is often terrible for cheapness. It annoys me to no end when playing against the AI and all of sudden it starts pulling moves with totally inhuman timing, or moves you can't use for anything are given unbeatable damage or priority when the AI does them. And that's not even mentioning the uber cheeze bosses found in most fighting games these days (of all the good things that devs could have taken from SNKs fighters, why choose this?)

Another big one for me is racing games. Rubber band AI is the definition of evil. Combine it with things like blue shells in Mario Kart, however, and it somehow gets even worse. I'm sorry, but if I dominate an entire race I should still at least have a chance at winning even if I make a little mistake at the end.

 

[StriderShinryu]

All of the Mortal Kombats.

God yes. As I posted, some fighting game AI can get really bad.. but if you're looking for the worst of it, you don't have to look any farther than the MK series.

 

[Deathkingo]

Ninja Gaiden...

 

[RatRace123]

They are fighting games.

 

[djpsykotiko]

I don't know if this counts as cheap tactics, but on Star Wars: Force Unleashed for X-Box360, Trying to jump across this giant bottomless pit to get to a small walkway to get this one item is nearly impossible. I had to load up the game so many times after each horrible fall. and then I had to attempt to jump to jump BACK across

 

[ultrachicken]

The end of the oilrig spec ops mission in mw2. I had spent the better half of an hour trying to get there, and then I failed at a breach & clear and had to restart. grrr...

 

[Lyri]

You know, I love hard games as long as they're fair, but for instance I try to avoid games with QTE especially when they're used in cheap ways to kill you instantly and the game bogs down to Dragon Lair style step by step trial and error game play.

Either than that recently I've been playing Bayonetta which is a pretty fun game not very hard as long as you avoid some it's own cheap tricks it pulls. Mostly from what I remember in Ninja Gaiden where you can spend the majority of the time dodging every move, but that one mistake a certain enemy pulls a combo and takes you health down to 5% from full, and from what I've seen in Bayonetta it happens a lot....plus on normal mode too....0o

So in this topic, where else have you guys seen cheap tricks being pulled?

Ninja Gaiden 2 it made me cry. The werewolves where prone to throwing their severed limbs at you if you happened to remove any.
This would often break your combo and leave you terribly suseptible to being rolled. It was horrible the amount of times I had to restart, till I ended up rocking their world with a 200 hit mace & chain combo.

 

[brunothepig]

In burnout 3 there's one type of event called the "burning lap" where you have to complete a course in a certain amount of time. To get the gold medal in any of them you essentially have to be boosting nonstop the entire time, and never crash.

I didn't find that too cheap. I find that to be a good strategy in almost any Burnout event. It could get very painful, but it's supposed to be challenging to get gold. I can't actually think of any games that pull the cheap tactics stuff with me... Probably cause I research a game extensively before buying... Actually, I will comlain about the Oblivion auto-leveling thing. I miss being an unstoppable bad-ass. Isn't that the point of RPG's? At least make me feel like I'm getting stronger. Borderlands has constantly better enemies, but I still feel like I'm actually advancing. In Oblivion I stopped noticing a difference after around level 20.

 

[Ramare]

Any game where an enemies attack can stagger you rendering the character defenseless and enemies who can attack faster than the period of time it takes to recover from being staggered.

A reference to Oblivion here....? Well OT I can't really think of any game that's bested me. Then again, I have never played Ninja Gaiden. Whatever. Any level that isn't stealth in a CoD series game I can NOT, no matter HOW hard I try, beat on veteran. Ever. Under any circumstance. and if I start to win, I'll get blown up by a grenade. no matter how it gets there, what I'm doing, or where I am, it gets there. Whether it be a grenade I cooked JUUUUUUST perfectly...but then had a fail throw, a grenade a TEAMMATE threw that the enemy threw BACK with just enough fuse to blow ME up, or a grenade I SWEAR the enemy cooked, I die. Always. No exceptions. Ever! They cheat. And why isn't anybody saying anything about JRPGs and the fact that some of their bosses can not within the life of you be beat? That's why I don't play Final Fantasy.

 

[The Infinite]

Seth in SFIV. I hate you so much. Ok I can beat him proficiently now but in the beginning. argh.