Have You Hit a Gaming Wall?

[Aryn]

I would not say it is so much frustration that causes me to stop playing a game but lack of plot and repetitiveness.

All that aside, the only thing that stops me from trying to finish a game is finding the game rather easy or just slightly difficult and then being owned by a game end boss that is ten times harder than any other enemy in the game. I mean, I do not intend to level up for the next 2 hours just to see what happens when I kill the last boss character. Another thing that would cause me to postphone playing a game for awhile is being stuck after loading a saved game due to a glitch or the lack of an important item that I can no longer retrieve.

[dhraad]

The best thing I do to get over a gaming wall is to leave the game alone for at least a couple weeks and then come back to it. It's usually not a problem with leveling or strengthening my character, its tactics. When you come back to a game at a later point in time, you approach it differently.

The longest standing wall that I have hit gaming would be 10 years, and that is getting through the final hallway in TMNT for NES without off-screening the jetpack enemies. I'm talking the cart, not save-stating on an emulator. Also the Clinger-Winger stage in the original Battletoads on NES.

Recent walls include Jordan from GH2 on Expert, and I just recently beat Six.

Six was a complete gaming Zen experience. I knew that I was in the zone and that success was imminent before I picked up the controller. I was a zombie of uncontrolled gaming excellence. Those are the best times when gaming!

[Veskgar]

I would not say it is so much frustration that causes me to stop playing a game but lack of plot and repetitiveness.

Actually, that statement is actually very true. Perhaps the "gaming wall" lately is bland boring games.

Its not fair to say this about all games but a large percentage of games just don't have that magic that a lot of classic games have. Games don't seem like they are made like they used to be.

I'd much prefer a good story, character depth, deep customization and strategy with cartoony graphics or sprites. All the games lately that just have you blowing up everything and killing everybody just don't really appeal to me.

[AuroEdge]

I've hit several gaming walls in my day. You had the jump at the exact moments like in Ninja Gaiden or Megaman, the dodge and shoot moments in Ikaruga, and the times in tons of games where you've inspected every nook and cranny and have no idea what's next. But like somebody else said, set the game down for a couple games and come back. If that doesn't work you can always consult GameFAQs.

[paladinja]

First a conquered hurdle story, then an electrified acid spitting brick wall on fire never to be felled...

Go back 40+ Megaman games ago (yes really) to the history altering event that was MEGAMAN 1. Long story only slightly less long: The de&reconstructing orange blobman that was the {unbeknownst 1st} boss of the Dr. Wily level{s} had me stumped. So much so that I decided that it wasn't worth the frustration of trying to beat him just to see the ending of the game... Looking back on my 32 years of life, I've only once been more wrong (never date a Swedish lingerie model, just trust me). After a week, a friend (we'll call him "Jeff Paris") convinced me to let him borrow the game, and a few days later I got the call-- not only had he beaten the blobman, but there were more levels to the game. Awesome levels. Capcom boss levels. I must've sworn 100 times that he was lying, that this was some cruel joke that I wouldn't give in to... so he put the phone up to his basement tv, and that's when I heard it: NEW MEGAMAN MUSIC! It's vibrato casio riffs -- unmistakable... it's melody -- unknown. (at this point I'll admit that in a particular social low, my friends and I played a game where someone whistles/hums a megaman level's music, and the first person who guesses it's boss gets to go next...huh, I just realized what a great drinking game that would be.) So I ordered him on pain of loosing my friendship (remember when that meant something?) to leave the game on pause until after school the next day so we could both see it through to the end, which we did. That poor little NES must've been 1000 degrees by the time we got there, but it held stout, we completed our mission, and the wicked Wily fell... for the first of 40 some-odd times. *FIN*

That being said: HAS ANYONE EVER BEATEN ATHENA ON THE NES?!!?!? If you have, PM me. I seriously think I have a daemon copy of that game! Not only is it the cheapest most inexplicably malevolent game ever (oh really? The BACK of that ricocheting arrow just grazed my HELMETED head, and somehow I lost 17 bars of life and am doing the "black screen breakdance of death"? REALLY?!?), But eventually I hit the "blue-spider-sperm-boss" thing and I can't even damage it no matter WHAT weapon I have (read: even when I DON'T get screwed with a blue sword or red club at the last second)! He's just a level boss, mind you, NOT the final boss. I know that because a few times I found some doodad that let me SKIP that level... ONLY TO WIND UP IN SOME NEVER ENDING BUT TIME LIMITED MAZE LEVEL THAT EVEN REVISITING IN MY 20'S I COULDN'T FIND MY WAY OUT OF!!! I WANT to give it a go on NesterJ, but every time I try.. I black out and wake up in Las Vegas 13 days later... and I live in New York, so it's a mother of a commute back.
That is all.
CAPITAL thread btw, I hope this gets hundreds of posts!

[Psyberjock]

Very Hard on Ninja Gaiden (xbox) was my wall. I finished it in normal after over a hundred hours and many many many many...... many controller throws... and curse words. (my roommates kept asking why I didn't stop playing) But on very hard, I got as far as the long stairway that spirals down a cylindrical hole in the ground of what I think were catacombs, fighting the undead dino-men skeletons just as I got my kick-ass nunchucks and then realized I didn't have enough life to get to the next area. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't survive the long road back up. Damn... I think I'm going to go play that game again.

Later.

[Psyberjock]

Ninja gaiden for the x-box. The boss alma.

She's an evil devil woman that's way harder then any boss in any "game" deserves to be!. I did finely sc$#@! by. But still that's the most difficult thing i've ever done in any video game ever.

Oh yesh, I remember her. She was pretty damn hard. I tried at her for probably close to 5 hours. She was slightly harder than the dragon. The (memory fails me in my slightly inebriated state) octopus dude(? some city level boss where you get shut into some street/court yard) seems to be memorable enough that it must have been pretty damn hard too.

The puzzles in that game were sometimes pretty hard too. Especially when you had to collect all those parts in the end... what were those, portal keys or something. It's been too long. I can't remember. I do remember Alma though... she was hot and hard. :thumbup:

[SpooForBrains]

The Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. Hours ... days ... WEEKS of my life were wasted on that damned water temple! I never did get past it. I think I'd missed a key right down at the bottom, or something. I've since tried to get back to that point but I just don't have the time I used to.

The other one I remember was the truck level in T2 for the Megadrive. SO. DAMNED. HARD. Of course I've long since lost the Menacer so I can't have at that one now either, not that I think I could do any better. My gaming skills seems to have nosedived as I got older.

[Vangar]

I'd have to say the first gaming wall was in Alex Kidd In Miracle World. How freaking hard was that game?! It was hard enough getting up to Janking's henchmen and beating them trying to beat Janking himself was a nightmare. Even if you get the item to read his mind, he changes from rock to paper to scissors so damn quickly it would make your eyes bleed I NEVER finished Alex Kidd even to this day. I still have nightmares where I'm playing Janken to with my life on the line

Exactly the same mate. Only thing is i really wanted to see the ending so i used save states. Its better you didn't finish the game - the ending is depressingly bad.

[Khorney]

GTA games, not so much hard, my interest just dissolves rapidly from the repitive nature of the games as a series and the archaic controls. Most games i see through to completion though. except BGII, that never reall grabbed my interest, throne of baal, on the other hand, was great