79 replies to this topic

[xg4bx]

did the power ever go out as you were just about to get a high score? spiteful sibling turn off the console just as you were about to beat the last boss? share your awful gaming related horror stories.

[Ninjabba]

not really a classic game, but I was playing wipeout pure while waiting for a train. If u know the game then you probably are aware of the difficulty at phantom speed. As I was doing this tournament (for the 100th time, since I cant beat it) I was finally making progress at the one track where I constantly get pwned by the game. Then as I am about to finish the race, this big lady just crashes on the same public bench and the whole bench is shaking.. I slip my fingers and crash my hoverplane into oblivion

[STICH666]

Coming back from my trip to the Bahamas only to find my cousin has erased my 10 year old Pokemon Red save.

[Dauber]

Not many "horror" stories....

- One day, my brother and I were playing NHL Hockey on the Sega Genesis. I was using that little Easter egg/bug that allows you to score a goal effortlessly, and at one point he quietly said, "'Scuse me." He got up, removed his controller from the port, stepped out onto the roof (we lived in a house where there was a door that opened onto the first floor rooftop because the prior owners installed a balcony there), and I heard something that sounded like plastic repeatedly being thrown against a brick wall. He calmly came back inside with his controller shattered into a billion pieces.

- One day when I was playing Ms. Pac-Man at the local Kroger, I lost my last life when I just just three dots away from clearing the screen. A monster was on my tail and got me before I could get them, within inches. As a reflex, I hit my hand on the panel, and my dad got pissed at me and made me give up video games for two weeks. And my folks were SERIOUS -- no video games PERIOD, which meant that I wasn't even allowed to WATCH SOMEONE ELSE play. (Seriously, one time during that two weeks when I was outside, my parents actually made my brother close the curtains when he played Atari so I couldn't watch from outside.)

- And of course, there's been more than one occasion that I was playing Food Fight on the 7800, having a really awesome game, and encountered this.

- And not really gaming, but...for some reason, I had my Commodore 64 plugged into a wall switch. One day I was typing in one of those long-ass machine language programs from COMPUTE!'s Gazette, and my dad came in and decided to, uhh...turn the light on....ARGHH!!!

[STICH666]

Yeah I have that wall switch problem with my TV and Cable Box. It takes my cable box 20 mins to boot up every time someone turns off the switch.

[Sgt.Pepper1983]

I had never beat mario 3 before when this happened. I made it to Bowser and the power went out.

[cimerians]

- Ultima Underworld: When games tried to be too realistic.
I cant remember what quest item I was looking for but what seemed liked 100 hours into the game I realized I needed that quest item to continue.
It took me months to find out who had the item and when I found out, I remember that I had pushed the creature\person into a lava pit, not knowing they carried the item I needed.
They were gone forever.
So....100 hours down the tubes. I never went back to restart the game.

- My 80 hour Final Fantasy VII save gets corrupted on a MADCATZ card. Since then I never bought a MADCATZ product ever again.

Edited by cimerians, Tue May 12, 2009 11:18 AM.

[godslabrat]

On my games, I always keep a save file of the first game I ever played, for comparison purposes. I came back from Florida and found my cousin had erased my LoZ save. Sucks, because today that would be a nearly 20-year-old game save. I think it was even the first cart I had with a battery-backed memory.

Knock on wood, but to this day all my battery games still work fine.

[STICH666]

godslabrat, on Tue May 12, 2009 2:29 PM, said:

I think it was even the first cart I had with a battery-backed memory.

It was the first cart with battery-backed memory.

[Cafeman]

Other than game freeze-ups at inopportune moments (they've happened but I can't remember any specifically horrible one), I guess my worst moments came from save files being deleted.

It happened a lot on the Dreamcast so I bought several VMU's and kept mine separate!

But the one I do remember was on Playstation. We had rented Tarzan, based on the Disney animated film. Well as I recall, that game allows you to save over any other block on the memory card! So I booted up the Playstation and my Wipeout XL had no save file. I checked the card - every single slot was frickin' Tarzan!

[Mark Wolfe]

Not sure if this counts but when I first played the Playstation 1 game "Silent Hill", the first game in the series, I remember distinctly firing it up, going through the intro and then getting killed, each time I would shut the game off in frustration.

This went on for a month, I would pick up the game, try to get through the town and get killed by those damn baby things and I would instantly shut off the PS1. I must have played the game about 6 times, maybe less over that one month period, never checking any cheat hints or anything, each time trying different things, wandering around the town but always with the same result of death.

Finally, I played it one last time and of course died again, this time I did not shut the PS1 off, I just sat there in disbelief... then of course I saw what was going on... you HAVE to die first, because the scene dissolves and your character wakes up from dreaming he died horribly... it was a fucking dream sequence!!!

I'll never forget how stupid I felt and then went on to finish the game over the course of that week, always playing with the sound up and the lights off at night.

[Mike 01Hawk]

My only claim to fame... I don't think I could repeat it if I tried.

So there I am... playing Golgo 13 on the NES. I've made it either near the very end, or the very end w/ the black screen where you're constantly twirling around trying to kill the computer.

Well, I died. I was so unbelievably frustrated that I threw my NES controller. Well the dam controller bounced off the floor, hit the power button on my NES, and then slam dunked itself into a trash can I had next to the console.

I just sat their in disbelief for a few monments

Edited by Mike 01Hawk, Tue May 12, 2009 4:12 PM.

[Herbarius]

Quote

This went on for a month, I would pick up the game, try to get through the town and get killed by those damn baby things and I would instantly shut off the PS1. I must have played the game about 6 times, maybe less over that one month period, never checking any cheat hints or anything, each time trying different things, wandering around the town but always with the same result of death.

Finally, I played it one last time and of course died again, this time I did not shut the PS1 off, I just sat there in disbelief... then of course I saw what was going on... you HAVE to die first, because the scene dissolves and your character wakes up from dreaming he died horribly... it was a fucking dream sequence!!!

I'll never forget how stupid I felt and then went on to finish the game over the course of that week, always playing with the sound up and the lights off at night.

Don't feel stupid, it's not your fault if the game designers are literally tricking the player.

[lushgirl_80]

My older sister broke my Snoopy Tennis game and watch I let her borrow it and she came back from school with the screen broken and LCD liquid leaking out. I was really mad.

Edited by lushgirl_80, Tue May 12, 2009 7:30 PM.

[Mark Wolfe]

lushgirl_80, on Tue May 12, 2009 8:29 PM, said:

My older sister broke my Snoopy Tennis game and watch I let her borrow it and she came back from school with the screen broken and LCD liquid leaking out. I was really mad.

oh my... did you ever get her back? you can tell us, we won't squeal... except possibly in laughter

[8th lutz]

Here are two of them:

1.) My younger brother's friend saved Final Fantasy on my game cartridge back in the 1990's at the house I lived in.

I was very far in Final Fantasy for the Nes.


Final Fantasy 1 only allows you to save 1 game file on the Nes unlike other Nes Rpgs.

I told my younger brother's friend don't save and he did it anyway! I had to start over from the beginning as a result.

2.) Phantasy Star 3 and one of the Shining Force games for the genesis delated the game I saved. I was very far in both them.

Edited by 8th lutz, Tue May 12, 2009 9:31 PM.

[Ninjabba]

Heh I just thought of my brother erasing my Gran Turismo 2 savegame. 100s of self tuned cars LOST. This was actually my most painful gaming experience 'till date. There was more time in that game than in any rpg I ever played (or any other game to think of it)

Edited by Ninjabba, Wed May 13, 2009 3:59 AM.

[Sgt.Pepper1983]

I made it about half way through final fantasy 1 on the nes and then the battery quit saving my games.

[CARTRIDGE STEALER]

ok....back in 1987, my friends and I used to hang out at a local roller rink every friday. there were a ton of arcade games to to occupy our night while we werent skating. we were all into a heavy game of gauntlet (level 70, i think) and some kid was watching another kid play another game. not knowing that he was rocking his skate from side to side, he knocked out our plug! I threatened to kick his ass if he didnt give us back all the money we lost (I felt bad because I actually had the key to the game so we played for free all the time) and he gave us all the money he had on him, something like $7.

[Video]

Back when the Virtual boy first came out I played through Wario Land over a few days and was on the last level. Now anyone that's played the game knows, there are several save slots, and any game that does I save in more than one slot. In this instance I had saved in all three slots so no problem right? Well, one of my friends wanted me to bring it over and see what it was like, well OK, that's cool. I was hopeing that maybe they would get one.

Well, they got a little brother that does jackass shit like "accidentally" erase all your saved games, and they wanted to play. Well, knowing their history I naturally said no, but they pissed and moaned and whined untill their dumbshit daddy told me to let them play with it, and I even told him about their history and they said they wouldn't.

Well, you pretty much know the rest and as the system bothers the eyes, I never have finished that game. What pisses me off the most is the daddy acts all like "well it's not like they meant it" I just told him it was bullshit. Seriously, where do people get the Idea that because your not going to sell something that it has no value?

Wonderfully that kid got his nose broke by some other kid he pulled that stunt with so I just had to laugh my ass off about that. Needless to say Dad was pissed, though there wasn't much he could do about it, and the kid learned a little bit that stuck with him to this day.

[Ryanw]

The worst was when my Gamecube memory card got erased after putting a year worth of gaming into it. The only thing I bothered to do was getting the characters back on Super Smash Bros. Meele.

[BDW]

I remember, when I had Pokemon Red, (I was too old for that, but it was fun anyway) I had collected all 150 pokemon. I also had leveled up 147 of them to level 100. My younger cousin wanted to play, and I said sure, start a new game but DONT SAVE! I made sure to get that through his head.
Later, he decides to go take a shit. He brings the gameboy with him(eww), and drops it in the toilet's pissy, poopy water. Breaks the gameboy and deletes the save.

What happened next, I shall not describe, but the 18 month prison sentence wasnt that bad.

[shadow460]

I've had a lot of them...

- Had a good run on River Raid when my cousin walked by and hit the reset switch.
- Lost quite a few hours of time on Virtual On, Saturn wipEout, and MK3 when my first Saturn memory card died. Later on the system battery died and corrupted my NiGHTS A-Life file on the official card. Crud.
- Saved over a friend's FFX file by accident. Next time I was over, we played GT3.
- My ex wife was playing Majora's Mask one day when the cat decided to walk on my N64. The cat looked at her purposely, then stepped squarely on the reset switch. There went two hours of game time...
- Dunno how many times I've hit the power switch on the PSP by accident. Can't count the number of game hours lost that way...
- Lost my temper at C&C and threw the DAP I was playing with across the room. It shattered the cover on the choke coil, but the controller was fine.
- Lost several hours on Shining Force Gaiden II when the save battery died.
- Lost several hours on Pokemon silver when the clock killed its internal battery. Shoulda checked the battery in a used cart...oops.
- Got stuck in Sa Ga 1 when I couldn't find one of the crystals in the world of ocean. Needless to say, I kept searching and I had one kickin' party when I got to the end. Everyone's level was max.
- I think I've nuked myself when playing C&C a few times. Bone-head!! I've managed to chrono my own tanks into the water and kill my own troops with the iron curtain.

And then there are the minor bonehead things:

- Forget to hire mechanics in Roller Coaster Tycoon, then wonder why your rides crash.
- Delete the footpath to your main gate in RCT, then wonder why all the guests are hacked.
- Run over the stationary swirl in Yars' Revenge.
- Forget to build tanks in C&C.
- Forget to pick up ammo in any FPS.
- Forget to drop bombs in Raiden.
- Forget to shift up during a rolling start in Daytona USA.
- Forget to tune the car in Gran Turismo.

[Almost Rice]

I played arcade Zaxxon to 300,000 and we had to turn off the machine. I averaged 50,000 so I was on that night. My mom turns of the machine everynight because we did not need it to suck power.

[SnapCraft]

shadow460, on Thu May 14, 2009 7:09 PM, said:

- Had a good run on River Raid when my cousin walked by and hit the reset switch.

- My ex wife was playing Majora's Mask one day when the cat decided to walk on my N64. The cat looked at her purposely, then stepped squarely on the reset switch. There went two hours of game time...

Love this post! You gotta pet the cat every once in a while. Pause (paws--eh??) the game for a couple of minutes and give that pet some attention, it's worth it in the long run. That cat ... knew exactly what it was doing.

The cousin did this intentionally? Dude, if it's a guy, tell me this led to a fight. "Unwritten Guy Code" specifically states if you are pissed at someone playing a video game don't reset the game, instead walk in front of the screen a few times. If it's girl, that's low--worthy of a Barbie decapitation.