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I figured now was as good a time as any to start another thread full of anecdotes, since those usually get conversation flowing. And also I'm pretty pissed off at France. France can suck my dick. Not Real-Life France, mind you, but Total War Medieval 2 France.

My hatred for France started out simply enough: In order to play as the Aztecs and the crusaders in online battles, I would have to win a campaign. In order to do that, I would play as England, because that seemed to be the quickest and easiest. I mean, in TWM2, (at least on easy mode) Scotland is a fucking helpless mess that's been split in half since turn 1 and Ireland and Wales aren't even real places, just random rebel barbarians. France would be the only real problem, and I figured of I just played it cool long enough, everyone else would try to kill them instead.

Turns out, the other factions are shit and they take their sweet time murdering France, so I had to do most of the heavy lifting. I even skipped a perfectly good crusade to send guys into France in order to conquer all the shit. But I guess disobeying the request of the Pope in order to ransack a Catholic nation in front of all its best priests who are just standing around for some reason is a bad idea.

So my relation with the Papal States became really shit, so I had to spend exorbitant amounts of money and time building churches all over the fucking place in order to brown-nose Jesus so they wouldn't declare a Holy War on me.

Well, my relationship with the Papal States is just fine, apparently, but shit, now I can't attack France for 5 fucking turns or else they'll excommunicate me from Christendom and give all my moderately peeved and lovingly neglected neighbors free reign to kick my thin-spread ass off the fucking European peninsula. And my homeboy Milan was REALLY COUNTING ON ME TO ATTACK FRANCE SOMETIME SOON. IN FACT IT WAS IN ONE OF THOSE GOVERNMENT CONTRACT THINGS AND MILAN MIGHT ACTUALLY GET KIND OF FUCKING SALTY WITH ME IF I DON'T ATTACK THEM.

So, I was panicking. I figured I was fucked if I did and fucked if I didn't, but suddenly an idea struck me. You don't have to attack France for Milan if there IS no France! I had already raped and pillaged France down to (what I thought) was two little cities, so all I had to do was let my diplomat saunter over to the nearest remaining city and politely fuck the bastards to death like the world fucked Germany after both world wars.

Now, France was basically bankrupt and in shambles at this point and my guy was really good at convincing people to go fuck themselves, so I figured I could get a pretty good thing going here. And I did. I pulled out all the stops in order to make my request for France to kill itself as generous as possible.

In exchange for owning all of France, (therefore removing the faction from existence?) I offered them a ceasefire, trading rights, map information, all the usual noncommittal stuff. I threatened to attack if they refused because we were already at war anyway, so fuck it. Most importantly, I gave them boatload after boatload of money until the offer was considered generous.

For a moment, I thought I had won. For the slightest moment I thought I had simultaneously fulfilled my campaign win conditions and prevented myself from getting into what would, at the very least, be an uncomfortably bent position in the hateful pegging orgy that is Medieval World Politics.

That was when I learned that France had not committed seppuku through some oversight on behalf of the devs, but rather, it relocated to the middle of bumfuck nowhere across the Mediterranean sea.

My mortal enemy and my win condition is now a massive city-state 10 turns away from all my territories, and it's using all my fucking gift money to turn itself into the second coming of Venice. Fuck you, France, you machiavellian bastard. I hope the Mongols kill you extra-hard when they find a way to get to the Nile Fucking River.

Of course, feel free to share your own experiences of enragement. This is just one I needed to get off my chest.

As a Total War player, that's fucking hilarious! 

On a related note, 

DANCE WATER, DANCE!

There was this one time in CIV IV where I was doing pretty good. The map was a bunch of Islands and I had sort of made my own little territory without actually moving out, trying to have a isolated policy. Kind of a stupid decision as I choose Spain.

Well a few turns after I enter the industrial age, I get Japan and the Mayans finding me.

They both like kissing my ass and want friendly relationships but both hate each other completely.

I don't really mind and try not to do any foreign relationships, trying to win a scientific victory instead.

They both want me to declare war on one another and each time I say no my relationship worsens. Then all contact is cut for a few more turns until eventually the Mayans declare war on me. Naturally I go to the Japanese for a Alliance but by then it's already to late for that.

Fast Forward a good number turns and I've lost 3 out of my 5 Islands heavily in debt from mass producing troops in a frenzy with the Mayans decimated from another unrelated war.

Ended up just raging seeing that as I was too far behind for any other victory.

Yeah, the worst thing about CIV is just how much having a war can set you back in all the other things. I think that's why Civ 6 made War-weariness so obnoxious even if you're winning, so other factions can't force you into really long wars of attrition that derail your victory path.

In Life Is Strange I almost tore my head off due to a certain puzzle that takes 30 minutes to complete and brings the game to a screeching halt. One moment you are actually having fun playing as a stereotypical teenage girl and the next moment you have to use actual intelligence to solve a puzzle! Aaaaaaaaa!!!!!

See, your mistake here was playing Life is Strange.

Had a game where I had a good lead on all the other states, then had 3 states declare war on me for having *one* battalion of soldiers step into their territories while I was chasing down the last remnants of Persia (who declared war on me early on and the other 3 states were also warring with Persia). Before that they were kissing my ass and giving me gifts -.-

Forgot what game it was but I was playing as Korea so I guess I was on thin ice anyways LOL

Also I don't know what the fuck the Pope's problem is for this campaign. The Papal States can't seem to decide whether they want to be the jealous girlfriend or not. Every few turns they'll get really pissed at Milan for whatever reason (probably because they're one of the browner factions and thereforestation not Catholic enough)  and tell me to break off the England-Milan Bromance. I decide to procrastinate until the very end every time, because they also hate France and they have troops closer to the French Nile City than I could ever dream of. Almost always the turn after they ask me to break up with Milan, they stop and say that "Milan and it's people have redeemed themselves to the pope or whatever".

Actually, I think the pope might just be drunk. Makes sense, considering he died maybe 3 turns afterward of liver poisoning and/or being stabbed, and he was allegedly Portugese.

That's not a stereotype thing, Portugal ust has a lot of reasons to start drinking in this campaign. Apparently half the world is pissed at them. I check in on their status every once in a while with my diplomat since apparently one of their princes stranded themselves on Ireland and he won't fucking go away.

Update: The Spaniards, Portugeses, and the Mongols have teamed up and declared war on France, but because I fucking jinxed it, they have also declared war on me. The replacement Pope also died the turn after he was elected. I think there's a Vatican serial killer.

Oh, I have a list for this.

*ahem*

In no particular order:

 

The Riddler trophies in every Batman: Arkham game. They were a real bitch to collect if you wanted that sweet 100%. Especially in Arkham Knight, where you don't even get to see the true ending unless you collect them all.

 

Asura's Wrath, when I thought I finished the game, but really the rest of the game was in separate DLC. Dick move.

 

"All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!"

 

Assassin's Creed 2, when I took the time to find all the feathers in the game, then I get a troll item that makes me instantly notorious upon sight.

 

The Kifflom missions in GTA5. Also the spaceship parts were kinda BS. And that one lady who sent me to dive for parts or some shit, and then paid me like 5 bucks after hours of searching. Just fuck side missions of GTA5 in general.

 

I'm sure there's more, but I'm starting to get flashbacks of Contra, so that's all for now.

Age of Empires: Watching your Axeman walk very slowly towards a Bowman, whilst the Bowman fires arrows at them and walks away at a slightly higher speed, thus giving you absolutely no opportunity to hit them.

Daggerfall: Getting the quest to save a child kidnapped by orcs, going to the requested dungeon, and going through the ENTIRE dungeon only to discover that the quest was trolling you along and you didn't even have to spend those 5 hours wandering in there for no reason. Actually, a lot of Daggerfall is pretty frustrating (though usually the good outweighs but the bad), but this quest was an especially dick move.

Medal of Honour: That one mission where every single enemy can snipe you from a very, very long way away and you have absolutely no chance of seeing any of them unless you've played through the mission before several times, thus memorising their every location. Oh, and they're all camouflaged in the snow by the way. Everyone can see you and you can see no one. You'll run out of cover for a single second and get shot by some dickhead hiding under a cliff. Good fucking luck.

Morrowind: I just wanted to go for a peaceful walk in the wonderful, brown world of Morrowind, but Cliff Racer Jimmy and his 17,000 Cliff Racer friends obviously had other plans to ruin my day. 

Rayman 2: Everytime I replay this game I dread running away from that security monster eyeball thingamajigg. It's awful. You have to dodge everything like a pro, jump over this pitfall, jump over that, and if you accidentally run into a wall for more than 2 nanoseconds then he'll catch up and kill you. And you are required to do this. You are required to go on this extended chase scene where you are given very, very little leverage on how many mistakes you can make.

Dragon Warrior 2: The Cave of Rhone. If you've played Dragon Warrior 2, then you know exactly what I'm talking about and we don't need to discuss this topic further. Also, you're required to fight 5 bosses at the end, in a row. You can't restore your MP, by the way. Not in the original.

Dragon Quest 6: The game thrusts you into a dungeon where you have no way of surviving, unless you happened to work out what one of the random weak items can actually heal you infinitely. You have no way of knowing this in the original. If you happen to make it through this dungeon at a dangerously slow pace, and the one after it, you then reach the boss' castle where you are prevented from saving, teleporting, or doing anything except facing a boss that you cannot hope to win and will therefore lose half your money when you die. Oh, and if you didn't talk to that one party member during a particular cutscene, you'll have to do all the dungeons again because you didn't mark the teleporter right.

Lufia: The bridge to Arus. You have to do the following things: a) talk to the guy who will fix the bridge to the dungeon b) go and look at the bridge c) return to the guy so you can tell him again that the bridge needs to be fixed d) find another character to help him fix the bridge e) take him to the bridge yourself f) go through the entire dungeon so you can stand on a cliff for no reason and watch him fix it g) go back around again h) cross the goddamn fucking bridge and get on with the bloody game. It's so pointless.

Tales of Phantasia: Among with a whole host of problems that plagued the GBA port, there is a particular area where you can be ambushed by enemies which appear on either side of your party (thus preventing you from escaping). Before you can move, every single enemy will unleash a ridiculously powerful attack which will obliterate everyone in your team, no matter how high a level you are, no matter what equipment you have. You're screwed and just have to hope you don't run into them.

There, I'm done.

 

I actually liked that mission in Daggerfall. It gave me an epiphany on how unrealistic the implied importance of all PCs would be in the real world, and how shocking it was that anyone was taking a violent vagrant like me seriously in the first place... Although from a sheer gameplay, non-worldbuilding perspective, that was one of the suckier Quests in the game, and depending on how hard and unrewarding the dungeon is, that includes some of the quests that break the game.

I actually found this segments in Rayman 2 were you had to ride those little missile horses to be much more annoying, although that may just be because I was caught up in the intensity of being chased by an eyeball as a little kid and didn't expect this weird-looking throwaway segment to be so goddamn finicky.

Oh, I remember those missile horses. They were very, very annoying, but at least they were doable. I probably just had a lot of trouble with the eyeball spider guy.

Oh Morrowind. The most frustrating part of that was learning that your blades skill affected your ability to hit things with a metal pointy thing directly in front of you. I died a little inside missing something with a daikatana that I was probably close enough to make out with.

For some reason, Morrowind's early-game combat never really bothered me that much. It was a bit annoying when I first played it, but for the most part it was just temporary.

The last time I played through the game, I picked an Orc monk. He punched everyone he saw, like some kind of boxer. His Hand-to-Hand skill went up the roof before I even left Seyda Neen. It was in the 50s and 60s by the time I was ready to leave the place, and I hadn't even been in many battles. I punched a few more mudcrabs to death and gained 5 more points in that skill. It was just ridiculous.

The biggest problem with Morrorwind was that running depleted stamina meaning that going anywhere was a chore. That game has aged horribly to the point of being unplayable without mods.

Hmm. When the other team just won't freaking surrender when a League game meanders into 50 minutes to an hour. :(

Escort missions.

What about the one in MGS2? Where you gotta escort Otacon's sister, but you gotta do it while swimming?

Playing the PC version of Dark Souls at 1024x768, 23 fps and keyboard controls. True meaning of insanity *shudders*

I was playing Lords of the Realm 2 back in the day and I had allied with the Baron. I bailed him out a couple times, but the real reason I allied with him was because he bordered me and I was at war with the other three nobles on the map. Now I'm not sure what kind of circlejerk was going on, but it appears the bishop (who is a dead ringer for Regis) decided he wasn't going to continue fighting these other nobles and sent the massive wang of the church to make my life difficult. This consisted of teaming up with the knight and sending his armies to raze my fields and eat my villagers' food supplies.

I'm in a very precarious position here. See I took over a bunch of more easy to take counties because people hadn't built huge damn castles on them. My plan was to take them and put my own huge damn castles on them. This would put me in the dominant position. It would also spread me so thin that if I were to lose control of my middle capital, that half my entire empire would revolt against me. I needed to connect the two halves of my empire by more than just one county to maintain rule.

So this is what I was doing when Regis and the Knight were proceeding to eat my capital to starvation. Right as I'm about to finish building the siege engines to take the one county I need to basically take control of the game. Now I have to abandon the siege I spent 8 seasons preparing for. 8 Seasons of work down the crapper plus more work ahead to stop my starving capital from revolting.

My plan is twofold. I buy every weapon I can from the traveling merchant and conscript a peasant army, arming them as much as I can and chucking them into my castle as a garrison. I ask my ally for some help thinking he'll send some money or food. Is that what he does? No. This guy comes in like Gandalf the White with three armies and murders all the enemies in my capital. 

Then just before I launch the siege on the county my army was stationed in, I get a message indicating the alliance is over. Look back and I see my archnemesis has combined all three of his armies into one and is laying siege to my capital the next season. Fuck you a thousand times, baron. I did to one thing before he took over my capital. I sold all the grain and cows so he took over a county with no fields and no food stores. Enjoy your revolt you son of a bitch.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a series of frusterating deaths.

Anytime you have to go underwater and your characters  act like they're in a jar of honey.

Also any time you have to fight the fixed camera angles in a platformer. Especially when the camera faces your front in a chase sequence and it screws up your directionality.

Escort missions. All of them.

Trying to trophy push in Clash Royale and get thrown against people 2 levels ahead with legendaries.

Or playing a Pokemon Nuzlocke and a single pokemon (five levels lower) almost sweeps you with a smokescreen/poison barrage and kills three of your highly trained pokemon in which you are reliant on.