Most Stressful Gaming Experiences

[Formalhaut]

Gaming is often fun no? I mean, we game to relax, unwind, have fun, but gaming can raise our blood pressure too.

There's been numerous times where I've become stressed because of some unfair gaming mechanic, some annoying mission I can't get past.

Perhaps the worst of all is frustrating A.I, and no more so than the GTA games. In several missions, you have to clear out this area of thugs, and you have your friend/love interest inexplicably with you, either helping very slightly, or flat out walking in front of danger. How frustrating. You have to not only protect yourself from dying, but this companion of yours. Escort missions are a variation of the same idea, only this time they pretty much can NEVER help you. Fans of Resident Evil 4 no doubt share this.

And then there's things that aren't the game's fault but are just part of gaming. Being severely low on health for example. That's nerve-wracking, particularly for someone like me who flat out refuses to die in a game (I reset the system if I know I'm pretty much going to die). This pervades throughout most genres: fighting, RPG, action, etc.

Timed missions! How could I forget them. You can see that clock ticking down and you have to rush. Mistakes happen. Clock runs down further. Even worse is when games combine Timed Missions with having to escort someone.

In this thread, rant about stressful gaming experiences, mechanics, parts, whatever, stress here being the operative word.

[qwertysaur]

Sonic '06

[KentaRawr!]

MMOs in general tend to be pretty stressful to me, sadly. I really enjoyed exploring the world and story of Vana'diel for the time that I was playing FFXI, but I'd get stressed out by all of the things I needed to do to be an adequate player. :laughing:

Besides that, I've heard that Pikmin 1 is pretty stressful. Trying to get through MGS1 without being seen was pretty stressful too. And trying to keep my pikmin from dying in Pikmin 2.

[Karifean]

Via Infinito, Levels 81-99!

Oh god. This is stressfulness at its core. At any point there could be an encounter with an enemy formation you really don't want right now, they could ambush you, they could attack and KO your healer... urgh. The battles themselves are like that as well. It's always a struggle to survive. A lot of the battles I just barely pull through and come out on top... at other times, I don't.

Still, it gives you such an adrenaline rush that it's really awesome. It's so intense, you have to be completely focused and one mistake can cost you your life. A good kind of stressfulness, and it feels so good when you finally beat it.

[Hollycat]

I swear the stress from taking on Minerva in Crisis Core without Costly Punch cost me a few years of my life.

[Rantz]

[NeoCracker]

My initial experience with Nocturne.

My first random battle.

Round 1: Enemy critical hits, knocks me down and takes a second turn. Critical hits me. Game over.

Okay, reload and try again, I enter a random encounter.


Round 1: Enemy critical hits, knocks me down and takes a second turn. Critical hits me. Game over.

...Okay, this is a fluke, lets try again.


Round 1: Enemy critical hits, knocks me down and takes a second turn. Critical hits me. Game over.

[Formalhaut]

Funniest thing I've seen ALL DAY.

EDIT:

I remember seeing this Cracked video that mocks Escort missions as well. Hang on, I'll link to it... here.

Pretty funny.

[Shauna]

Mirror's Edge, at times.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Sonic '06

I never thought Sonic '06 was streessful. I actually thought it was relatively easy and fun, and the glitches I thought were mostly funny. That's what I was expecting though. The Crisis City section where you are running away from the tornado relatively stressful, though.

The timed Rouge section in Sonic Adventure 2 was extremely stressful for me, however. This isn't the case as I'm playing it now, but Majora's Mask was the most stressful game I ever played as a kid due to the time limit. I never understood what to do and just freaked out anytime I tried to play it.

[Elite Lord Sigma]

Playing through Call of Duty: World at War's campaign on Veteran nearly made me break my controller and blow out my vocal cords. The ridiculous grenade spamming, awful allied AI, and numerous luck-based sections where you died over and over again for an hour straight made me frustrated to a point I haven't been since.

Second place goes to when I'm playing a competitive multiplayer game and get teammates who are terrible at the game and don't understand how to play as a team, forcing me to have to do nearly everything if I want to have any chance to win.

[Jinx]

Despite being my favourite game of all time, my first playthrough of Ocarina of Time was brutal.

[Shorty]

The Dead Money DLC in Fallout. I am prone to motion sickness and gaming sickness as it is, and running around the villas outside Sierra madre did me no favors. It took me a couple of weeks to be able to complete the quest. Minutes in, I'd get struck with sickness from the low light and camera angles and running around and there was nothing I could do to move further on. Between that and having to dodge smurfing radios and slink around to avoid ghost people while trying not to vomit or pass out, it was incredibly stressful. Thinking about it now is making me feel sick.

Also, timed quests definitely stress me out.

[Jowy]

twelve smurfing hours spread out over three days of losing to this boss over and over

[escobert]

My most recent frustration towards a game wasn't caused by the game but, by my oh so cute kitty stepping on the power strip and shutting my PC down after 6 solid hours of Civ 5 without saving


Or playing Oceanic time GW2 WvW and getting raped by the servers who have super Aussies while my server has very few.