Anyone who plays videogames knows what I'm talking about; when you hit that stage of the game where skill doesn't matter because the game design is so poor. Wonky camera angles (or worse, a camera that you suddenly have no control over), inconsistent environmental behaviours (surfaces cause damage that didn't before), unresponsive controls that previously worked fine, introduction of a new vehicle or weapon that performs in a way that is inconsistent with the 'feel' of the rest of the game, and so on. You've invested many hours, perhaps days or even weeks (months?) of time to get to this point, and now the game designers have screwed it up for you. The frustration is enormous.
Anyhow, this is where I detail some of my pet hates, most recent first.
1. Prince of Persia Rival Swords [PSP]. The second stage of the final boss battle is a mess. It suffers from virtually all of the faults above. All of a sudden you can't control the camera independently, so you are being hit by moving objects coming from off screen that you have no way of seeing in advance. You can't line up your jumps correctly either; you run along walls instead of up them. Pressing the attack button if you do manage to run up the wall to jump towards the boss doesn't trigger the attack sequence, and when you land it is usually in the path of one of the moving objects you can't avoid. Now a boss fight at the end of any game should be a challenge, and you don't expect to win at the first attempt. But when you've had a couple of dozen attempts and you still can't manage it, the problem is clearly not you but the game. After all, if you can make it all the way to the end, you should really have enough skill to finish the game. But this is a disgraceful mess, made worse by the fact that if you die you have to complete the first stage of the fight again (which I can do no problem, taking virtually no damage, but it's utterly tiresome to be forced to repeat myself). I don't know if I'll bother to finish this now as it's getting so annoying. Caning across the bare buttocks is too good for the developers who coded this crappy sequence.
2. Marvel Ultimate Alliance [PSP]. The sequence in Murderworld where you have to play an emulated 8-bit videogame to escape. I was playing this on the plane and the controls were so poor that I actually bit my PSP in frustration. The tooth marks are still on the screen protector. Normally I'd scream and swear but I didn't want to alarm the other 200 people in economy with my gaming rage. I did manage to complete the game but I still have nightmares about trying to jump over crocodiles and repeatedly falling into the pool and drowing. Whoever programmed this sequence should be made to play it all day, every day for a year.
3. Drake's Fortune [PS3]. The sequence where you have to drive a jetski upstream through rocks while being shot at. Being shot at I can cope with; trying to drive a jetski with controls so leaden that a hibernating squirrel would be more responsive was harder. I wanted to throw the controller at the screen, and only the fact that I'd spent a four-figure sum on the TV restrained me. My wife was appalled at the howls of frustration that this produced and it was only the thought of divorce that made me reign in my anger. I did complete the game in the end but this part lingers in my memory as an utterly terrible effort. Once again, the developers should be made to eat their own dog food for at least 12 months.
4. Mafia [PC]. The racing sequence where you drive an old-fashioned racing car. I had to get through it on easy level in the end. Other than that, this is one of the best PC games ever, and I finished the whole thing, but I still remember the misery this inflicted.
5. GTA III: San Andreas [PC]. The wretched remote control planes. These were so hard to fly that I more or less lost interest in the game after that point despite being around 2/3 of the way through it.
I'm sure others will spring to mind, so do feel free to contribute your own suggestions. And if you think I'm exaggerating about any of the ones I've mentioned, have a look on the net; you'll find I'm only one of many who have suffered the irritations described above. Gaming is meant to be fun and a challenge; it isn't meant to be a frustrating and repetitive chore that means you give up trying to finish the story.
