I've become a bit of a game hopper as of late. What I mean is that I jump from game to game playing a little bit here and a little bit there as time allows. Some games are just good to tackle in short bursts, so it's my way of diving into the backlog and fishing for some gaming gems that I might be missing out on. There are some games that I don't come back to for a good while, where entire months may pass before I get around to it again. I try not to do this with heavy narrative-focused games, but rather ones where I feel like I can pick it up at anytime. It's not ideal to have to try and remember key plot points, retrace steps to remember where I've explored, or just in general try figure out what the hell I was doing before I stopped.
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| Uh, what was I doing before I stopped? Oh god, why is he naked!? |
When I pick up a game again, I usually mash all the buttons or press all the hotkeys to try and get a feel for the game again. What I should really do is look at the controller settings to refresh my brain, but that would be too easy eh? Though, sometimes you just forget a mechanic exists, like when I played Deathspank on XBLA. It wasn't until the last hour or so of gameplay that I remembered there was a map... Oh man, would that have saved me some frustration. Maps are handy, especially when they show you the location of a quest giver, so you don't run around the world aimlessly, trying to find out where the hell the person was, who sent you on this or that trivial quest in the first place!
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| Where's the Thogolith Researcher!? Here's a thought, look at the map! |
The most recent game where I forgot a pretty important mechanic was in Shatter. It's a pretty great little indie breakout style game with some fantastic music. The later levels get pretty intense, with the blocks collapsing and flying towards you and pretty much all hell breaking lose. Then there are the boss fights, where sometimes where it's just impossible to avoid getting hit, since you are trying to keep the "ball" in play, in order to prevent a lost life and reset your score multiplier. So, what did I forget that would've saved me so much frustration and stress... the frakking shield mechanic!
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| Yup, now's a good time to use that shield. |
Destroyed blocks spawn shards that you can collect to fill up an energy bar for a badass power shot that slows time and blasts the blocks to oblivion. Well, you can also use the meter for activating a shield to absorb hits to avoid the .5-1 second or something knockout effect, which means that ball you were trying to keep in play goes out of bounds as you are hit by the block floating right next to it. It didn't help that I already suck at breakout style games, but forgetting the shield until I completed the main mode, that gave me some frowny face.
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| Pew pew pew! |
If there's a bright side to this whole story, it's that I got to pew pew more since I never wasted any energy on shielding. So, I might've been no good at
shielding, but boy could I
suck,
blow, and
pew pew with the best of them. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!? /winkyface. PS: Play the game to know what i mean. It's good!
Are there any important mechanics you've forgotten in any game? I can't be the only one that sucks at videogames. =(
Almost every time I restart a game after a long period of time (MASS EFFECT 2, I'M LOOKING AT YOU) I always have to relearn everything.
ReplyDeleteA decent example would be the first time I played through Dragon Quest IX after a short hiatus. I was fighting liquid metal slimes and I completely spaced that I had an ability that could consistently deal critical damage allowing for quicker leveling and I wasted about 3 hours not using it... xD
Yes, this applies to me as well. >_> though I have no good excuses, such as a hiatus, and sometimes just not using a mechanic often enough is enough to make me forget it exists... well, that and not having the patience for the tutorials. It leaves me enraged going "why is this so F@#KING hard?!" then I'll discuss it with someone, "I found it was easy when I used my shield/block/power attack/whatever" and I'm like "oh yeah. o.o that was a thing that exists specifically so this doesn't feel cheap and ridiculous".
ReplyDeleteI have the same trouble with just not paying attention in general, then feeling kind of retarded when I do figure it out. I was so frustrated with the final battle in Dragon Age: Origins the first few times until I finally googled strategies. Pretty much all of them said the same thing- "if you're having trouble despite using the ballistas scattered around" ... ballistas? Oh yeah. First time I used them, killed the archdemon with no troubles.
I never forget anything because I am perfect. ;)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, games don't remember everything perfectly like I do. For example, every other game in the world should remember that the (clearly ultimate) Xbox Oblivion/Fallout menu is the B button so that I quit hitting B in other games with unintended consequences.
I had an extremely slow start with the original God of War and forgot that I had the Medusa's gaze ability - which you get early on in the game. There was a room which you are trapped in with a couple of Minotaurs (which spawn infinitely I might add) and the object is to use your Medusa's Gaze to freeze one of them on a button to open the gate out of the room. I probably spent an hour in that room, fought and killed like 100 of those damn Minotaurs, and died a billion times before I was so frustrated that I used an online guide. When I saw the solution to the problem it was a definite *face palm* moment :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I had that same issue in God of War actually... Though, I just, in general, forget entire move sets and abilities in the God of War series, that a lot of the battles were made far more difficult than they needed to be.
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd add that I frequently forget to use shouts in Skyrim. There have been many a battle where little bit of extra damage from a Fire Shout, for example, would have made a particular fight go much smoother.
Oh, and it's the worst when you hop from one game to another and you fumble around pressing the wrong buttons thinking they do something else that was a thing in another game. Oh, videogames, you so crazy.
Oh, and thanks for sharing your own gaming woes in forgetting mechanics, everyone!
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