Ever had that happen to you?
Whether you'd be playing a FPS, Puzzle, RPG or Adventure game where you walk into a room and get stuck for countless hours trying to figure out what to do?

Or perhaps even just getting a game glitch which gets you stuck inbetween walls and you'd have to reset your console?

I'm sure this has happened to a few people. I know I've had my fair share as I've become stuck in alot of games. Runaway: A road adventure (click & point PC game), Broken Sword series, Monkey Island series, even Final Fantasy 8 (I decided to go back and play this game but I can't remember what I was supposed to be doing, doesn't help when you've got a whole world map to explore either).

Basically, my question is this. How many hours have you ever been stuck on a particular mission/objective within a game and what did you have to do to solve it?

I've got zero tolerance for getting stuck. Within half an hour I'm on gamefaqs.com trying to find the solution.

The worst part is reading it and going "Oh... duh!", then hating myself for not looking for another 5 minutes ><

I did that with Grim Fandango, then ended up being so weak, I just basically played the game while reading through the walkthrough. I was so bored at the end of it, and I can't even remember what bloody happened.

When I get stuck (it happens from time to time), I'll force myself 'not' to go onto GameFAQs, at least for a while and I'll try various different things to get through, sometimes I will figure it out (the solution is always so obvious once worked out) and when I'm in a situation where I turn the console off, come back later and STILL can't figure out what to do, and have tried every possible solution I can think of, I'll then go onto GameFAQs and then hate myself for not working out, because it's so obvious 2 seconds later..

Most of the time, I'm glad to say that I do figure out, but there are times where I have to check a guide.

It happened to me all the time in Splinter Cell, I was forever getting stuck in an area and not knowing where to go, or in one extreme case I was put in a situation where my respawn point was in the position so that I would immediately die when I returned to the game in a never-ending vicious cycle.

Getting stuck was what drove the final nail into the coffin that is Prince of Persia 2. I would get to an area not realising I am 200 years too late, but when I attempt to return during the right time period, reaching my destination was impossible. Not to mention all the times I had been forced to fight off hordes of enemies with only a sliver of health left, now that is frustrating.

I gave up on Escape From Monkey Island a long time ago cos I got stuck and haven't played for atleast 2 years now so its impossible to pick up from there again. Other than that, I do occasionaly get stuck but usually solve the problem myself on that sitting. I never give up. Experiment is what I do.

I usually give puzzles a try, but if things get really bad I hit gamefaqs as I can't stand doing the same shit over and over. The only recent game that comes to mind is Paper Mario on GameCube, as it had some puzzles that really had me scratchin' me noggin'.

Gah! NOBODY BUY THIS GAME! In fact, Don't buy the next sequel out of protest =P

This is some of the worst game design I have ever come across. You usually have access to 2 different time periods, and you are only meant to be in 1. Rather than have a friendly warning such as "I don't think I'm supposed to be in this time period" you can keep going in the wrong time period and new cut scenes will load :S Then you'll get to an area where the path behind you will disappear (for example, a bridge that falls apart as you cross it) and then the game will save, which means you can't go back to where you are supposed to be.

So you'll be in the wrong time period, with no way back, and you're forced to restart the game. And you know what sometimes happens when you're going the right way? Crutial cutscenes will not load. Like say a demon appears, and destroys a wall creating a path that you are meant to head down, if that cutscene doesn't load, then you can't bloody progress///

If any of you insist on buying this game (StompBro, why the hell did you buy this game after I told you all this? :S) then play the ENTIRE thing with a playguide. For sanity's sake.

As for other games, I'd prefer to restart a game from the beginning than use a playguide (which I'm doing now for fire emblem, after getting to the final battle and just not having enough HP -_-). I have used them occassionally if I'm convinced theres a bug, or the game has failed at telling you the right way to go, forcing you to explore heaps of areas.

A tip for games that make you respawn with very little health - always keep multiple saves. I don't think that really counts as poor design, as they want you to be good enough to learn enemy patterns most of the time.

My sister got me Monkey Island 2 for my birthday, but I was having trouble and used a cheat guide. Once I started I couldn't stop. I finished the game that very day, then felt like a complete bastard for wasting my sister's cash. :(

I never did that again.

I only let myself cheat (using codes or a guide for extra stuff) once I finish the main story mode.
I think I'm a pretty good problem solver. Who cares if it takes me ages, when I finally get through it would have been all worth it. Like Vice City, I had to complete the main story missions and kill Lance etc first. Once the credit rolled and I was back in town, I went mad with all those fun flying cars cheats and used a guide to find the remaining Hidden Packages. I would never use a cheat/guide to solve my problems.

The point at which I didn't know which part I had to backtrack to was when I couldn't be bothered playing any more.

Usually for most games when I get stuck, I just wander around aimlessly until I find what I'm meant to do, or just reload and see if there was soemthing I missed. OTherwise I just hop on Gamefaqs.

There was once in Resident Evil I needed a guide, and that's because the solution was complete bull shit and I have no idea how the hell anybody figured it out (I can't even remember what puzzle it was now). Other than that, I'm pretty much the greatest video game player ever.

Sometimes when I check a guide, the solution is actually something I thought of, only I didnt execute it properly, in this situation it feels good because it's something I did think of, and it was only a game issue that caused it not to work, for example:

SPOILER ... ALERT - ETERNAL DARKNESS


There's a situation in Eternal Darkness on GCN, where you have to get through a door, but you can't open it because there is a dead body blocking it from the inside. There is a small gap by the door that says "it looks small enough for a dog to go through" (or something like that), when playing this the first time I thought, of course Summon the Trapper (little monster guy that transports stuff to another dimension).

So I summoned the trapper, sent him inside the room, and then attempted to take the body to the other dimension, I pressed the A Button the spell was performed, the beams clearly hit the body but it didnt work. I then spent time trying to work out if there was anything else in the room (as the trapper) finally I gave up and checked a guide, once I checked I was amazed because the solution was something I tried already!! Only I didnt 'target' the dead body by holding the R Button, :lol: such a silly situation there, where it was more the game's fault than mine. Dont know why I never attempted to target it in the first place, just one of those things..

That reminds me of Majora's Mask where I basically use the walkthrough for the whole game since there was no way in hell I'd actually be able to figure out quite a lot of the things (I think I may have started using a guid at around Goron Mountain)

I'm playing majora's mask at the moment. Its a lot tougher than OoT and WW.

I finally got enough territory in Santos the other day and finally finished the main story missions. The last mission was shit easy.

Time to go enjoy some cheat codes now!! :dance:

That happens to me all the time. It's so irritating. It happened a few times in games like Metroid Prime 1 and 2 and the Zelda games.

Yeah, the worst part is that you dont try that attempt anymore because you think that it wont work since you already tried it and end up trying all these silly solutions, only to when you finally check a guide you realise that it confirms what you orignally thought :lol: .

I remember I had to find some key or something in some jail cell in Paper Mario 2. I was pissed off for ages, then I went on gamefaqs.com. I think it was in a castle, where at the top I had to kill a massive bowser who ate my friends dad.

That wouldn't be the "cr.....icket" clue would it? :P

I just got stuck in farcry. Basically I had to blow something up, I had the bomb and I knew exactly where I had to go but the door wouldn't open. So after searching everywhere, downloading patches and reading a gameguide (which simply said "enter the building") I finally resorted to restarting the level and it worked fine. Moral of the story: bugs shit me.

I remember I got myself into quite a situation in Splinter Cell. I had to kill these Special Ops guys who were attacking me with a grand total of 4 bullets in my pistol, 1 frag grenade and 2 sticky shockers. I worked out I could *just* do it if I did everything absolutely perfectly, which was actually quite an entertaining challenge.

I've gotten stuck in games like Escape from Monkey Island, all the Legend of Zelda games I've ever played :P and Metroid Prime, to name a few, I usually either keep trying until I figure it out, stop playing for a while and try again later, or stop playing and never play that game again. That last one is often the eventual outcome :P