- 2 weeks ago
Dark Souls ain't got nothin' on Crash Bandicoot.
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00:00Unlike in previous generations, most video games now are made to be as accessible and
00:05player friendly as possible.
00:06But even though contemporary releases have moved away from design philosophies like limited
00:10lives, time restrictions and manual save areas, and just let you kick back, relax and switch
00:15your brain off for 10 hours or so, developers still seem obliged to include moments that
00:20make you want to throw the whole console out the window.
00:23These player hating moments aren't just reserved for your Dark Souls or Super Meat Boys either.
00:27Even in the most kid friendly games you still find moments where it feels like you're
00:31doing nothing more than repeatedly running into a wall for hours trying to make some progress.
00:36Whether that's because of a difficulty spike out of nowhere, or plain old terrible design
00:40that decides to introduce you to new mechanics that don't fit at all with the rest of the
00:45game.
00:46Moments like these can completely ruin an otherwise excellent gaming session, and if they're
00:50really bad, an otherwise good controller.
00:52I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Annoying Video Game Moments that made you
00:57turn the console.
00:59Number 10.
01:00Stealth suicide bombers in Rainbow Six Siege.
01:03Providing a genuinely difficult challenge either alone or with friends, Siege's terrorist
01:08hunt tasks you with using the environment to your advantage to clear out a map full of enemies.
01:13It all sounds simple enough, but the low health high damage gameplay the series is known for
01:17is in full effect in this mode, meaning even one enemy is deadly enough to take you down.
01:22Which would be fine if ridiculously tough suicide bombers weren't roaming the hallways.
01:27Storming at you as soon as you're in their line of sight, it takes sometimes as much as
01:30a full clip or a well timed headshot to take these guys down before they blow you completely
01:36to smithereens.
01:37Not only that, but they're equipped with regular weapons too, so they can chip away at
01:40your health even if they don't get close enough to strike a crippling blow.
01:44Also if you crank the difficulty up to realistic, then you might as well just wave your sanity goodbye.
01:49Getting bombarded by these heavy breathing horrors is annoying enough on lower difficulties,
01:53but here a single one can easily force you to restart the session all over again.
01:59Number 9.
02:00Battling Fontaine in Bioshock.
02:02The original Bioshock isn't really remembered for the quality of its first person shooting,
02:06so it's no surprise that the game's final boss fight, which revolves around simply hitting
02:10Fontaine with as much firepower as you can get your hands on, is barely ever brought up
02:15as a series high point.
02:16In fact, it probably would have been forgotten about entirely if not for how horribly frustrating
02:21it proved to be for most players.
02:23Not only does the level bank on you already having plenty of upgraded weapons and a huge
02:27stash of ammo going into the fight, and only reduces your ability to acquire these resources
02:32as you continue to lose money from dying, but Fontaine himself is much faster and much
02:37more aggressive than any other enemy encounter in the game.
02:40Bioshock was so good at playing with expectations and delivering a subversive plot, so it's
02:45such a shame that it had to end on such a sour, trite note.
02:49Number 8.
02:50Getting killed off screen by an enemy in Hotline Miami.
02:54Hotline Miami is a purposefully infuriating game at times.
02:57While a top-down shooter gives you the opportunity to pull off ridiculously brutal kills in a brilliantly
03:0280's inspired world, it makes achieving these feats of ultra-violence feel earned by constantly
03:08killing you over and over again until you have enemy placement and the map layout completely
03:12memorised.
03:13But the top-down presentation of the game can lead to some pretty cheap deaths, especially
03:18if you let your guard down.
03:19Getting shot by someone you didn't even know was lurking off screen can be horrible, and
03:23if you think you've mastered a level only to be clipped by one remaining guy you didn't
03:27even see, well, it could be enough to make you quit out entirely.
03:31You can inflict some outrageous amounts of pain in Hotline Miami, but the game always has
03:35a habit of pushing just as much of it back onto you.
03:39Number 7.
03:40Being forced back to an old save in Dead Rising.
03:43The structure of the original Dead Rising's campaign was pretty unique, giving you a 72-hour
03:48window where you had to balance story missions with free-roaming zombie-smashing fun.
03:52Get too distracted and let the clock run down and you could miss out on entire quests or even
03:56the game's ending.
03:58But jump into them unprepared, without the right weapons or skills at your disposal and
04:02you could suffer the exact same fate.
04:04To make matters worse, you could only save at bathrooms located around the game's virtual
04:08mall, and you only had a small number of slots to utilise tactically throughout.
04:13There were no checkpoints, and if you died, you'd be kicked back to your latest save, meaning
04:17you could royally mess up hours of progress with one measly mistake.
04:21Consequently, if you used your saves wrong and didn't leave yourself with enough time to
04:25get to the next objective, you could literally ruin the whole game for yourself, forcing
04:29you to restart the whole thing over from scratch.
04:32So whether you lost only 40 minutes of progress or whole hours though, it always ensured that
04:37you wouldn't be touching the game for at least a few days afterwards.
04:40Number 6.
04:41Following the blood in Max Payne.
04:44Notoriously considered one of the most frustrating video game levels of all time, the uniquely
04:49nightmarish aesthetic of this creative combat-free sequence from the original Max Payne wasn't
04:54enough to save it from being a complete misery to play.
04:58Taking place within Max's subconscious as he remembers the night his family was killed,
05:02the player is made to follow a series of blood trails in an otherwise pitch black environment.
05:07Not only is it confusing to understand where the hell you're even going, as you try to
05:11get from one end of the level to another without doubling back on yourself, but taking a wrong
05:16turn and following the wrong trail could lead to you falling to your death thanks to some
05:20insidiously placed traps.
05:22The scene is unnerving for sure, but after the 20th death it becomes horrifying for all
05:27the wrong reasons.
05:29Number 5.
05:30Being discovered during tailing missions in Assassin's Creed.
05:33Any game with an insta-fail stealth sequence, whereby being seen by an NPC results in a game
05:38over, needs to be thrown into the f***ing sea.
05:41Prevalent in multiple blockbuster releases over the years, we can thank the Assassin's Creed series
05:46for the rising popularity of this horrible mission type.
05:49Repeating quests that force you to patiently tail potential targets and enemies without
05:53being seen, the franchise is full of different variations on this same gimmick.
05:58But the one constant is that every time one of these missions pops up, you'll want nothing
06:02more than to switch your console off entirely.
06:05Being caught and having to restart a section of a level is one thing, but when that restart
06:09comes after you've had to follow an agonizingly slow character over a huge section of a map,
06:14it feels like a personal slap in the face.
06:16Just walk faster, goddammit!
06:19Number 4.
06:20Every second of the high road in Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.
06:24If you're booting up the N. Sane Trilogy for the first time since your childhood, you're
06:27probably going to wonder how you ever got through these challenging platforming games as a kid.
06:32The original Crash Bandicoot in particular is ridiculously demanding, and a good chunk of
06:37its later levels could have easily taken up half the slots on this list.
06:41But it's the infuriating high road section that had players up in arms when the game
06:45released.
06:46Forcing you to traverse a narrow, unreliable wooden bridge, with pitfalls, trap planks and
06:51wild hogs all out to get you, the high road shows the true masochistic colours that hide
06:56behind Crash Bandicoot's seemingly loveable exterior.
06:59It's a level that was admittedly always hard, but with this remastered developer, Vicarious
07:03Visions opted to use one jumping system across all three games.
07:07And unfortunately, it's not the one that this challenging area was made for.
07:12That doesn't really soothe the pain when you continue to fall, fall, fall, fall, fall
07:16to your death after being certain you should have nailed a jump though, and it makes the
07:20high road one of the most infuriating levels ever created.
07:24Number 3.
07:25Shao Kahn's never-ending combos in Mortal Kombat.
07:28Even now, the scars earned during Mortal Kombat 9's final boss still haven't healed.
07:34Being able to hit you with the same overpowered combos over and over again, MK9's Shao Kahn
07:39could absolutely ruin an otherwise promising attempt at beating him with one single move.
07:44Every tactic was useless.
07:45Get too cocky and he'd punish you as soon as you overreached, but try to goad him out
07:49and chip away at his health and he could take you apart just as easily.
07:53Even worse is that there wasn't much you could do to cheese a victory either, except
07:57for a couple of unreliable trial and error techniques.
08:00And unless you were really lucky or really good, and let's face it, it was probably the former,
08:04you almost certainly had to resort to one of these cheap tactics to avoid being pounded
08:09into oblivion.
08:10If you can't beat him, you might as well join him, I guess.
08:13Number 2.
08:14Escorting Emma in Metal Gear Solid 2.
08:17About two thirds of the way through Metal Gear Solid 2, the whole game crashes to a halt.
08:21Sent on a mission to save Emma Emmerich, a vital asset and also your ally Otacon's sister,
08:26the title forces you to literally hold the character's hand as you escort her around
08:30the mostly destroyed and submerged sections of the game's offshore plant.
08:35Because she's stricken with a condition that leaves her barely able to walk, you have to
08:39very slowly help Emma around enemy infested levels until you can get her to safety.
08:45Leave her alone to clear out an area first and you risk her being noticed by a guard
08:49you missed.
08:50But take Emma along with you and you might end up getting her killed in an unintended
08:53fire fight if you're not careful.
08:55It's all boring and plodding stuff on its own.
08:57But because it comes in between some of the most challenging and labyrinthian underwater
09:01sections in gaming history, it's enough to make you loathe the character completely.
09:06But then, and then after all of this, in the end she ends up being killed anyway, making
09:10the whole section feel like even more of a waste of time.
09:14Thanks for that Kojima.
09:15Number 1.
09:16Getting Flattened by Ornstein and Smao in Dark Souls.
09:19Look, no matter how much of a Dark Souls pro you might claim to be, there's no way that
09:23the fight against Ornstein and Smao in the original game didn't completely break your soul.
09:28Dark Souls is at its worst when it forces you to face off against multiple enemies at a time,
09:33often leading to cheap deaths that feel particularly frustrating because of the game's otherwise
09:37tough but fair approach to difficulty.
09:40But these encounters are bad enough when it's just regular enemies you're fighting, never
09:43mind two bosses who did a PhD in kicking your ass.
09:47Because it's such an intense game of trial and error, a good chunk of players probably
09:51only completed this section through sheer luck and perseverance, and honestly, I don't
09:55know if I could actually replicate another successful victory if my life depended on it.
10:00It's even worse when you come close to getting that victory only to be denied it at the last
10:04moment, as the hope is crushed and you feel your own will to live being sucked out just
10:09like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
10:12All of the bosses in Dark Souls are difficult, sure, but battling Ornstein and Smao is like
10:16throwing yourself at a brick wall made of death and misery until your mangled body somehow
10:20slips through the cracks and onto the other side, and can completely and utterly go f**k itself.
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