What do you do when a game gets ridiculously difficult on a level?

[Scorpus Veteran]

I look up the names of the developers and shout abuse at them for making it too hard.

[techbeck]

Games are easier these days. Unlimited lives, self regeneration health, and the ability to change the difficulty level in the middle of a game.

[Doli]

I might get a bit frustrated but then I enjoy getting my a** kicked because most games today are too damn easy and its nice to see some developers who are not scared from "Nintendo hard" games.

[Twisp]

There are difficult games nowadays? Lies.

[Soulsiphon]

Usually, one can:

- Temporarily change game difficulty (may incur a trophy/achieve penalty)

- As many others have pointed out; web walkthroughs or YouTube walkthroughs

- console ~ commands where available

- Figure it out on your own - this is what makes a game, a GAME

- Ask on Neowin :)

[Knife Party]

Give up. Kiss my family goodbye as I have shamed them and leave home. After mulling around in the bush of Australia for 18 months on a walkabout I return to the city and start a new family and eventually make peace with my lack of gaming skill. It has only happened 3 times so far. I like my current family.

made me lol. But seriously, usually I just get ticked off, then quit the game, thinking I'll come back to you later!

Now that i've matured a bit over the years, i'm not having rage fits smashing my pc mouse, keyboard and wall anymore! :D Also I resist the temptation of looking at guides and walkthroughs, no spoilers dammit! :p

[Paul Ferson Veteran]

There are two games that I can think of here, that were just too difficult for me to enjoy. They were the 2009 remake of Wolfenstein, and Battlefield 3 on Hard. I decided to play Wolfenstein on Uber difficulty and it was easy enough except for the final two 'bosses'. Technically the first of them, who spawned some near invincible zombies wasn't a boss but it was stupidly difficult. It took me a few hours to get past that one point, but when I did I was feeling pretty good. Then I had the stupid idea of not buying ammo for weapons before going off to fight the final boss guy. Trying to beat him with the few shots I had was ridiculous. Since I had rented the game, I never managed to finish it before having to return it. I'd actually buy the game for myself just for the satisfaction of finishing it on Uber difficulty, even though it would mean having to do everything over again.

As for Battlefield 3 I was at the same point as Intrinsica. While it isn't hard it's horrible level design. Eventually I grew bored more than anything else, dropped the difficulty to Easy and had fun with the story. I didn't give the story enough credit - it was actually quite good! There was no fun in getting to the right position repeatedly, so I didn't bother having to try.

I'd also give a nod to Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4 for being excessively difficult , but letting me feel like I was progressing on Veteran, before I eventually finished them. I managed to make it through both and I am glad I did.

[sparkyewu]

Give up. Kiss my family goodbye as I have shamed them and leave home. After mulling around in the bush of Australia for 18 months on a walkabout I return to the city and start a new family and eventually make peace with my lack of gaming skill.

It has only happened 3 times so far. I like my current family.

This is the greatest thing on the internet.. ;)

[ILikeTobacco]

I change the way I look at the game to make it easier to beat.

I am fairly good at games. BF3 on the hardest setting wasn't much of a challenge for me. For most games, I can just play through them and enjoy them as a game. On the rare occasion that I get stuck somewhere, I stop looking at the game as entertainment, and start looking at it as just another program. All programs are designed to act a certain way giving expected user inputs. Even in games like BF3, there are actions that you can take that the programmers and designers didn't plan for or were just to lazy to prevent. If you put yourself into the mindset of a programmer, it is easy to find ways to "cheat" the game.

An example of this comes from Skyrim. I was maybe level 3 or 4 when I ran into a random mountain troll. Being low level, there really was no chance of beating it as all it had to do was hit me once. As it was running at me, I noticed that instead of walking or jumping over a log between us, it ran around it. As it ran around it and came up to me, I jumped over the log. Sure enough, the troll ran all the way around it again. It took just long enough that I could fire one arrow for every jump. A few minutes later, dead troll.

Another example from FPS games is that feet are perfectly acceptable hit boxes. Enemies in most FPS games only shoot you if they can see your waist or higher in many cases. Games with vehicles have this issue where you can just crawl around, shoot under vehicles at the enemies feet and they will never get a shot off.

In MW3, there is a level where you are heading to the top of a building to take out a radio jamming tower. Onone part of it, the game wants you to go down some stairs from a balcony to a shopping floor. The second you go down the stairs, the event starts. A couple dozen mobs run in with smoke and on hard, it is fairly difficult due to the lack of visibility. After dying on that part twice, I said screw it, ran down the stairs to start the event, and immediately ran back up them. From that point, I could see everything going on below making it incredibly easy to beat.

[neoadorable]

this is annoying when it happens and devs don't allow you to dial down the difficulty. i hate difficulty spikes, but they're part of gaming so take them in context. worst case is you have to let the game go or start over in a lower difficulty, i can think of many examples for both scenarios. otherwise sometimes it helps to just stay away from that game for a few days or even weeks, then just go back to it and suddenly it's all easier.

[qdave]

Will do the same as most of you..see walkthrough or check video playthrough. Haven't used cheats for ages now. Changing difficulty helps sometimes too.

The last time i seriously got stuck was on Dragon age game, but rage quiting and restarting the next day helped me :) After 1 hour of fails though :p

[Glassed Silver]

People actually think games these days are hard?

If they are buggy as heck and make succeeding a matter of casino betting, then heck yes, you bet they are.

Well, SP/Story mode: I google the level/scene and get what's presented, mostly in form of text.

In online MP: Let the game sit there for a while or try harder, depending on my mood! :D

In offline MP: GAME ON, don't be a bad friend by dropping out! (Y)

(Or change the game if both agree! :p)

Glassed Silver:mac

[Japlabot]

I just keep trying. I will check FAQs or walkthroughs when I have given it a fair number of goes. I will play the same level all day if I have to. I never use cheat codes or trainers, I always play the game how the developer intended it to be played.

[firey]

I usually sit and cry for a couple hours, before indulging in a nice tub of ice cream, while my girlfriends try to console me... That usually only happens with really hard games, normally I watch video walkthroughs on youtube.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Normally I just perservere. I'll try different combinations of things, and when possible I'll pause the game to get a better view of my surroundings. Normally when I'm stuck it's because I've missed something totally obvious.

I actually agree that a lot of games these days seem to be easier, I've finished most of the games I've started (and enjoyed) in the past few years, but I didn't complete Sonic the Hedgehog (the original for the Megadrive/Genesis) until last year. No lies. I find that the big budget games tend to be easier (I assume because they've got a bigger market to entertain), and the truly hard games tend to come from the Indie studios. The most challenging game I've played this year has been Super Meat Boy. That game is solid, and I think I'm only about a third of the way in!

[Alladaskill17]

When frustrated I take a break and go back to it later, if I am still stuck I will do a quick google search, maybe a partial yotube video view (incase it ends up being really cool I do not want to ruin it for myself). The only game I've ever preemptively "researched" were bosses in WoW back when I played, of course that was a requirement for anyone who was "serious" about raiding new content.

[damindor]

what they should do is gave diffint difficulty level.Like easy,meduim and hard.If hard is too hard players have the option of going easy and then going hard after they get past the piont.Some devopers just have no idea what they are doing

[ichi]

For me a game is either fun enough to keep trying, or not worth wasting more time on it.

I usually play all games on hard, and the only game I haven't finished is Dead Space 2. It's not that it gets too hard, but rather that after dying a few times near the end of the game I found the constant swarming of enemies tedious and boring.

[medium_pimpin]

Walkthru or Help from Gamespot.

[drotaru]

1. I read all the guides and watch all the videos I can. I try to find other things to do in the game. But obviously this is not helping, since it's not just difficult, it's "ridiculously" difficult. You're stuck on that level. There's no other way around it. It's a bottleneck, a choke point.

2. I use cheatcodes or trainers to get through the part and remove the cheating effects afterwards. Have done this on GTA Vice City (the ambulence mission).

3. But some games don't have cheatcodes that get you past the level. This is when I start to give up. I stay away from the game for maybe three months.

4. Three months later, depending on my mood, I will uninstall it, or give it another try. Most likely I'll just uninstall it. I don't care if the game has been finished 5% or 99%. I uninstall it.

What I really don't understand is why developers allowed this to happen. They do realize we are just mortal human beings, right? Why spend time making a 5-hour game when no one can make it past the second hour?

Alt+F4 ragequit , thats what i would do :D

Did that last night while playing Need for speed the run :D

[Lingwo]

Depends...

• If i game over in the same spot lots and never seem to progress further.
  
• Game over constantly at the start of a section.
  
• cheap deaths due to buggy controls, falling through the ground, etc. (Sonic The Hedgehog "next gen") was prone to this.
  

In these cases i will usually just give up on the game as it isn't worth it.

Anything else i usually stick at it and get past it. Sometimes a rage quit and trying again later works also.

I believe Jak 2 was the first game that caused me to rage quit (not bad considering i've been gaming since the 80s). I got so angry, the PS2 controller took the full brunt of it.

I try not to rage quit now as everything is wireless.

[giantpotato]

I've never had any problems with games from big developers, the only times I've been unable to finish a game is with indie games. Never finished the later levels of Osmos. Played some games developed by Edmund Mcmillen recently (Gish, The Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy). Those are not my idea of games. These are torture. The only reason I bought them is because they were part of the Humble Indie Bundle, and I will never buy a game developed by him again. I have never felt to much rage at trying to complete a level.

[soniqstylz]

I hurry up and get a bunch more quarters, cuz, well, we're gonna be here a while....

[Azusa]

People actually think games these days are hard?

This.

[Mamoun]

Out of the recent games I have played I found the first Augmented reality training (advanced level) in Batman Arkham city to be a complete pain, I absolutely hate listening to "augmented reality training failed" for the 20000 times after failing to complete it each time, luckily I found a tip in the comments of a youtube walkthrough that helped me passing it.

My statement wasn't meant to insult anyone. It was more like game developers these days make their games assuming everyone who plays them are idiots.

The last game that I remember that was actually challenging to play *and* kept it's fun factor for me was Devil May Cry 3. The second mission end boss will destroy you in seconds and a lot of people complained that the learning curve for that game was shaped similar to a cliff face. But it was still fun and perseverance pays off.

On the other hand, BF3 as you mentioned. I played the entire single player campaign on hard but I did not find it hard or even challenging. Yes, I died a lot, but only until I learned where the enemies come from and where I need to position myself to kill them easily. After that it was a joke, there was no challenge and it wasn't fun, nor was it hard. It felt more tedious than anything else.

Games like Battlefield 3 try to trick people into thinking the game is hard with cheap instant deaths. But they aren't hard and all it takes is a slow irritating process of dieing over and over to learn the pre defined pattern to make it through. The difference between BF3 and DMC3 though is that no amount of learning a pattern will get you through the game, it forces you to improve your gameplay to make it through. Which is all BF3's single player was to me, learning a pattern, and one that cheats, too.

I see where you are coming from, I think modern games too sometimes give a lot of hints unnecessarily rather than letting the player try to figure out how to beat a certain boss for example, Older games used to let the player figure out on his own how to do that (an example that I can remember right now is the final "boss" in max payne 2, you have to figure out on your own where you should shoot AFAIR, I may be mistaken though as I can't really remember).