Your "Happy Gilmore Clown" Moments in Gaming.

[RJ 17]

Spoiler: First, this is what I mean by a Happy Gilmore Clown Moment:

That is to say, you're playing a tough game and failing repeatedly. You try, and try, and try again but the game is proving to be quite the challenge. But then finally, you do it (whatever it was you were trying to accomplish)! Only to have the game spit your hard-fought efforts back in your face and laugh at you because you're a loser!

I had one such moment earlier tonight. After watching Game Grumps play FTL - and having recently joined the PC master race - I decided to hop on steam and see how much it cost. Coincidentally it was actually the daily deal and was on sale for $4. I picked it up and started playing, only to find that the game is actually pretty damn tough. It's an incredibly fun challenge, though, so I keep at it. I managed to unlock the 2nd ship simply by making it to my 5th sector, and I've been using that one ever since because I like it's drone-based combat. Still, numerous attempts at making it all the way to the final star system ended in failure. But finally, earlier tonight, I make it all the way to the end! I've got full shields, 2 combat drones, one ship-boarding drone, a full crew all well-trained in their stations, a glaive beam cannon, a pegasus missile launcher, and a lvl 2 ion cannon. Time to engage the flagship!

I go and fight the big bastard and feel really good about my set-up. My boarding drone manages to land in one of the weapon rooms and takes out the gunner then the weapons system. My other combat drones are continually harassing the ship while my ion cannon is keeping its shields offline so my beam cannon can rip it to shreds. Sure enough, I beat the crap out of it! Or at least so I thought...

Turns out I just blew a chunk off the ship and had to fight it again. Well...alright, my hull took no damage in the first fight, so lets go finish that bastard off! I move to engage the ship again and immediately get swarmed by drones while getting hammered by the ship's three remaining weapons. It's a brutal battle, but I manage to overcome the odds and destroy......the right side of the ship. Now I've got 6 hits till I'm dead and I have to fight this bastard AGAIN?!

So yeah, seeing as how each stage in the final fight is greatly more difficult - despite the fact that I had utterly destroyed 2/3rds of the ship - than the one before it, I got massacred in a couple seconds. Yup, the game just spit in my face and laughed at me after I though I had finally beaten it.

So that's my (most recent) story, what are some of your Happy Gilmore Clown Moments?

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Those fatasses at the entrance to Blighttown in Dark Souls.

So I make it through the sewer, through the maze, past the rats, past the basilisks, past the blob things, through the door and down the ladder, then boom there's 3 fatass dudes in my way who gank me and I die.


It sucks because if you die you have to do it aaaaall again.


Then I found out about the shortcut, hooray!

 

[ccggenius12]

League of Legends ranked play. Making it to promos is hard enough. But then you need to hope the matchmaker doesn't give you a bunch of idiots. (spoiler: it probably won't) Then, if you were on a Tier promotion, odds are if you fail it will keep piling on the idiots until you've fallen a full rank or 2.
I've played over 200 games. I just want to make it to Gold and be done damn it! The difference between Silver V and I is non-existent as far as rewards are concerned.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

Every play Call of Duty 4? Great game. Ever play it on Veteran difficulty? Great way to make yourself very, very angry.

Two particular moments in the game are especially rage-inducing for me. One is a mission in Chernobyl where you and the world's most Scottish man need to hold off about a thousand angry Russians while waiting for a chopper. It takes about twenty minutes or so for the chopper to arrive, but you only get one save point in there, there's no cover, and the enemies come from everywhere. So you'll die horribly a lot, but eventually the chopper finally comes and touches down. A bunch of friendly soldiers pop out to help you, you pick up the Scotsman, get five steps away from blissful freedom...

And then someone you never saw hiding behind a bumper car or something shoots you two times in the back and you die. A foot away from safety. And you have to respawn to where you were twenty minutes ago again. Teeth were gnashed.

The mission that most people will tell you about, however, is Mile High Club, and I'll be damned if it doesn't deserve some kind of award for the sheer strength of will required to clear that God-forsaken plane. It's a devil's garden of baddies hiding around every corner, and if you don't time every single shot and movement perfectly then there is no way to win. That's not an exaggeration, you seriously need to memorize every shot or you'll just be stuck. Plus there's a time limit - I may be mistaken, but I believe that on Veteran you need to beat it within a minute and a half to succeed. So tough, all around.

But the proverbial "Happy Gilmore Clown Moment" that the OP was asking for comes with the last part, when you need to save a hostage being held prisoner by the last baddie. On any other difficulty, you can shoot the terrorist in the leg, then take the final shot once he's incapacitated, thus saving the hostage without putting him at an undue risk and accidentally shooting him in the head or something. Try to pull that on Veteran, and you get an instant Game Over with the words, "Veterans only take headshots". At the very moment you thought you finally beat it, after trying to clear the same few yards of plane over and over and over again.

People. Go. Ballistic.

 

[Malbourne]

Before I got swept up in the refined mechanics of Rayman: Legends, I played through a great majority of its predecessor, Rayman: Origins. Now, the normal levels are pretty well paced and reward you for your patience or skill. Then there's the chase level in each zone, the harder level that requires great timing and speed. You have to keep up with the chest you're chasing, or else just get swallowed up by the edge of the screen. What's more, there are numerous pitfalls, multiple obstacles, loops, wall-jumps, and enemies that can impede your progress. Oftentimes it's easier just to memorize the level through repeated playthroughs, but I imagine it's possible to complete them on rote skill (not me, though!).

The later chases can be brutal, throwing a sequence of new obstacles with a split second for reacting. Funny thing is, the level that fits the criteria of the discussion happened earlier in the pirate-themed level. Normal platforming is fine, because it's pretty much all you do for the game (even an ice level is easy to get used to). But this chase level was half water, meaning you had to get your swimming skills down pat if you wanted to be any kind of competent. So I chased this chest through hell and high waters, past swordfish, spikes (with suspiciously wide hitboxes), and dodging cannonballs. The whole level could take about forty seconds in a perfect runthrough.

It took me over twenty tries. Needless to say, I was kind of excited to see the ending stretch, and after some quick wall-jumping...I hit some fire. Apparently it slipped my mind that fire was an obstacle that can kill you. Well, I tried again, avoiding the fire this time, but one last wall-jump the chest catapulted itself towards the finish line. The screen snapped to the right like a rubber band and killed me.

Okay. Maybe I just needed to be quicker on the wall-jumps. I try again. Screen zips over, and I explode again. Great. Great great great.

I love you, too, Origins.

Turns out that was a finicky part of the game. Some people have videos on Youtube explaining the problem, and it worked out for me later. I beat that level only after building up the courage that comes with completing nearly the entire game, and now I've finished the Land of the Livid Dead world. All is well.

 

[EvilMaggot]

Payday 2's stealth mechanics. Many.. Many times.. there has been the 'YOU'RE GONNA FREAKING DIE CLOWN' moments. ^^

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Payday 2's stealth mechanics. Many.. Many times.. there has been the 'YOU'RE GONNA FREAKING DIE CLOWN' moments. ^^

Nothing inspires more horror and dread than someone saying "Okay, let's try to stealth it" in a public Payday 2 heist.

 

[RJ 17]

League of Legends ranked play. Making it to promos is hard enough. But then you need to hope the matchmaker doesn't give you a bunch of idiots. (spoiler: it probably won't) Then, if you were on a Tier promotion, odds are if you fail it will keep piling on the idiots until you've fallen a full rank or 2.
I've played over 200 games. I just want to make it to Gold and be done damn it! The difference between Silver V and I is non-existent as far as rewards are concerned.

You sound like a coworker of mine. Literally every day he comes to work with horror stories about moron teammates. "No, it's cool guys, I'm Nasus but I'm not going to do anything to build my Q", "No really, I've got this 1v5 turret dive, just watch! LEEEEEEROYYYYY JENKINS!!!" "I'm going to rage-quit because you didn't ban Blitzcrank!!!" (that one was probably the funniest )

 

[D YellowMadness]

Dragon's Dogma gave me one. I was using really crappy equipment that looks good but doing fine until I got to the griffin at the bluemoon tower. He kept killing me in one hit with lightning at the part where you have to wait for him to break a gate. I eventually finally made it but then my pawns died in the chase because they were walking super slowly. Commence the screams.

 

[Flammablezeus]

I Wanna be the Guy. Basically, every screen in that game is like that.

 

[James Rednok]

Probably the time in Super Mario Sunshine, that one level where you have to collect 8 sentient red coins that speed away if you don't come at them from behind. The thing is, you're underwater, and drown if you don't refill your air meter by collecting a golden coin every, say, 30 seconds.

In-FURIATING.

One of two times I've actually thrown a controller...

Other than that, probably the mad bomber city challenges in Spider-Man 3. I fully believe that they are impossible to achieve hold rank on.

 

[William Fleming]

A recent is in Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn during the second last mission. You are basically forced into 8 star difficulty hard mode; and on this mode, getting caught in an ace's combo (or if you have the shittiest of luck, their musou) means death. And how does the enemy aces start the mission, by rushing at the one area that you must not let them take (if the take it; then its game over) so that means you have to hold your ground against something like 5 enemy aces who can easily kill you if they all decide to attack at once when you try to get a hit on one of them.

Granted, when you defeat that first wave of enemy aces, it isn't too bad provided you don't screw up, of course. I did manage to beat it with a bit of patience and a more or less perfect setup. But the rage trying to do it...

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Getting all the way to the end of Abes Oddworld and getting the shit ending because I missed 3 guys! The next time I play that game, I am fucking going to kill everyone...EEEEEVEEEERYOOOONE!!!!

 

[Ihateregistering1]

More instances in Demon's Souls, and Dark Souls 1 and 2 than I can possibly count...

This is why one piece of advice I give people when playing those games is "when you start to get angry, TAKE A BREAK". Otherwise you just rush in there all pissed off determined to kill whatever it is that's driving you nuts, and then you just make even more mistakes.

 

[Javarock]

Those fatasses at the entrance to Blighttown in Dark Souls.

So I make it through the sewer, through the maze, past the rats, past the basilisks, past the blob things, through the door and down the ladder, then boom there's 3 fatass dudes in my way who gank me and I die.


It sucks because if you die you have to do it aaaaall again.


Then I found out about the shortcut, hooray!

Wait, there was a shortcut? Really? I died about ten to fifteen times due to those fatass guys, until I figured out how to abuse their AI and make them jump into the abyss.

Aww man, all that time wasted...

Out of all the enemies in that game, to this day infested barbarians are my most hated. And right behind them is the second boss, the minotaur

 

[sXeth]

Dragon's Dogma gave me one. I was using really crappy equipment that looks good but doing fine until I got to the griffin at the bluemoon tower. He kept killing me in one hit with lightning at the part where you have to wait for him to break a gate. I eventually finally made it but then my pawns died in the chase because they were walking super slowly. Commence the screams.

Oh yeah, that mission. I've beat that game 3 times and still don't think I've managed to keep all the pawns to the top.

More recently, both parts of the mission to rescue your sister in Watch_Dogs. I gave up and just went in guns blazing on the first one, and the second one a)doesn't tell you getting detected is an instant loss, and prettymuch relies on absolute fluke luck to not hit a cop's sight.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Those fatasses at the entrance to Blighttown in Dark Souls.

So I make it through the sewer, through the maze, past the rats, past the basilisks, past the blob things, through the door and down the ladder, then boom there's 3 fatass dudes in my way who gank me and I die.


It sucks because if you die you have to do it aaaaall again.


Then I found out about the shortcut, hooray!

Wait, there was a shortcut? Really? I died about ten to fifteen times due to those fatass guys, until I figured out how to abuse their AI and make them jump into the abyss.

Aww man, all that time wasted...

Out of all the enemies in that game, to this day infested barbarians are my most hated. And right behind them is the second boss, the minotaur

Yeah if you have the Master Key, if you go all the way down the bottom at Firelink Shrine to New Londo, there's a passage to Valley of Drakes, then a tunnel leading into Blighttown Swamp!

 

[evoxpisces]

Battletoads level 3. I'm convinced the game is impossible.

Basically every boss level in Catherine.

 

[MysticSlayer]

For starters, there's CoD4's Mile High Club. On Veteran, the level is one of the hardest 1-2 minutes of gameplay that I've ever faced. Players have maybe a few seconds worth of errors they can make, and the low health makes it very hard to avoid missing those few seconds without getting killed. In short, it took me days of practice before I finally got to the end when you have to shoot the guy using the hostage as a human shield. Of course, not wanting to risk hitting the hostage, I went for the easy leg shot, but no, Veteran difficulty only allows you to get a headshot. Getting that message was one of the worst feelings I've ever had in a game that I immensely enjoyed. Unsurprisingly, getting that headshot a couple hours later was one of the best feelings I've had in a game ever.

I also know I had plenty of times in F-Zero GX when I was playing a story mission on the hardest difficulty and was just about to reach the finish line when some AI managed to boost past me at the last second. Eventually my goal just became to knock ever AI opponent out as I could. I think on the third and seventh chapter, I just knocked every AI that could potentially pose a threat out of the race. It took a lot of practice, but I eventually managed to pull it off.