Top 5 frustrating 360 Gaming Moments

We’ve all been there before. Nothing is going right, every time you turn a corner there’s a guy with a rocket launcher waiting for you or a large group of enemies in your way that’s preventing you from reaching the next checkpoint.

Games are definitely a bitter sweet subject because some of them are just so aggravating, you want to stop playing. So I’m here to list my Top 5 frustrating gaming moments on the Xbox 360.

5. Returning to the save point in Dead Rising

Dead Rising is one of the earlier 360 games that had freelance photographer Frank West stuck inside a mall with thousands of zombies. This fun action adventure game had some really great elements such as cool melee combat, awesome weapons, and the use of his camera to gain points. But one of the elements that made the game very tense and yet so unnecessarily frustrating was the way they set up their save system. In Dead Rising there were no checkpoints or multiple save spots. Just one at a designated safe zone. This makes complete sense because there’s zombies literally everywhere, but when you’re on the other side of the mall and you need to save. It becomes a problem. It’s now a matter of life and death because on your way back you not only have zombies to worry about, but you can accidentally activate a boss battle. And the bosses in that game don’t mess around and will take you out so fast you’ll be wondering why you even bothered. So lets say you start the game and you decide for some reason not to save assuming that there’s going to be checkpoints like 99% of the other games out there. You kill two bosses and you’ve saved five people and everything is going good. Then you die. But who cares because you got that checkpoint right!

Wrong.

Welcome back to the beginning of the game.

4. Guitar Hero 3 boss battle “Lou”

Good ol’ Guitar Hero. Unless you’ve been unconscious for the past 3 years you’d know that Guitar Hero and rhythm games in general have been flooding today’s videogame market. Guitar Hero has you hold a cool plastic guitar and live out your Rock Hall of Fame dreams and play like Slash or Bucket Head. In Guitar Hero 3 is known for being the hardest one of the series because of the last set list. This set list has songs by Slayer, Metallica, and Iron Maiden in the same set list. Those are hard enough already but once you finally beat that set list, you get the boss battle. And what a ridiculous, damn near impossible boss battle it is. You fight Lou who’s the devil and an amazing guitar player. And after you beat that set list you feel invincible and ready to take anything on. How naive we all were. This was easy for you if you had eight fingers on one hand and lightning fast reflexes. If this was just a bonus song that you played during the credits (Dragon Force) then it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but you needed this guy defeated to beat the game and that would be the end of the game for some people because they just couldn’t beat it. It took me 19 times to beat him on hard. And Expert!? I never made it past the beginning of the previous set list(Slayer’s “Raining Blood.”) So here’s to you Lou.

3.Left 4 Dead’s “Blood Harvest” campaign on Expert

Shooting zombies should be fun. Not, as enjoyable cancer. Left 4 Dead on expert is already difficult, but add the woods and some thick fog and you’ve got a delicious recipe for disaster, anguish, agony, and anger. And all that will be between two slices of bread and called the “Why bother” sandwich. This level is ridiculous. At the start of the level you’re at a small campfire and you have to run up a dirt path into the woods. Immediately upon entering the woods at least 2 of the players will be attacked by a Smoker, lunged at by a Hunter, or thrown up on by a Boomer. And that’s 10 seconds into the first level. The rest of the campaign is just hell in every sense of the word. Small victories such as making it through one of the levels without using a health pack become legendary victories when playing this level on expert. The end of the campaign is just…just stupid. Waiting for that safety vehicle is a heartbreaker for everyone. You will die. A lot. And you will scream, curse out everything and your own mother. Thanks Valve!

2. Call of Duty 2 American Campaign Restart

This game was basically perfect to me. This still to this day is one of my favorite war games of all time. The game was so intense and you felt bad for every soldier you see die. And I never thought anything with that game could go wrong. You had 3 different campaigns and they were all so different and each had their epic moments that had your mouth hanging. It was a great experience that I plan on revisiting very soon. HOWEVER!!! There is a big, pimply, hairy BUT around the corner and it just happens to take place during the American Campaign. This has happened to me twice. Once because I couldn’t believe it and again because it just did. But not JUST to me, to several of my Xbox Live friends. So this is what happened, I went through the game on Veteran because I just wanted to do it. And the game was difficult, but not too difficult to where you want to throw your 360 out of your window. Nevertheless, I was making some good progression through the American Campaign. And when I arrived at the final mission(you have to destroy two Tiger Is) It took me some time to beat it but I did. And I was ecstatic! I could not believe I beat it and after the credits all of a sudden, I’m back at the screen where you choose the different campaigns to choose from, without my achievement. I sat there staring at the screen waiting for it to pop up. It never did, so I clicked the American Campaign and to my surprise I had to START THE CAMPAIGN OVER.

I have not played that game since.

1.Modern Warfare 2 hacks, glitches, and everything else(Prior to the Update)

Oh M
odern Warfare 2! How you have filled me with so much anger and frustration. What wasn’t wrong with you when you launched? Completely unbalanced dual wieldable weapon that could shoot people from extraordinarily long distances? CHECK! Lose 5 million experience when killing a guy who’s hacking? CHECK! Have a player hold a Killstreak award and run faster than sonic the hedgehog? CHECK! Infinite Killstreak awards dropping from the sky? CHECK! How these were not found I have no idea but there is no doubt in my mind that half of the gamers that bought Infinity Wards Modern Warfare 2 stopped playing for about a week to avoid these. I know I did.  But let me break this down a little bit.

The first point I made involved the Model 1887 shotgun that’s just ok. Nothing that great by its lonesome. But those who were persistent enough to unlock the Akimbo(dual wield) version of that gun discovered that they had a deadly, deadly, DEADLY weapon on their hands. Dual Wielding the shot gun, with the added Stopping Power perk added, made that gun the most feared weapon in the game. If you were down a long hallway a shotgun should not be able to reach you. These guns were compared to the FAL(single shot assault rifle) in terms of the medium range distance battles that occurred in the game. It was ridiculous.

The second point was short lived but still very unfortunate for those who experienced was the loss of experience glitch. This was one of the lowest points of MW2’s multiplayer.When this was discovered, I had stopped playing Modern Warfare for a few days to avoid this. Apparently some bored gamers discovered a hack that cause the player that killed them to lose 5 MILLION experience points. I feel bad for those who received that.

The third point, was one of the most menacing glitches in the game and was forever known as the care package glitche. When the player obtained enough kills for a care package that player would then hold onto that care package canister which allowed them to run at an excessively fast speed. Now combine that glitch with Marathon(unlimited sprint), Lightweight(faster movement), and Commando(knife people at a further distance) and you have a player that pesters you like the rat in the kitchen. The player would move to fast to shoot and players could not react fast enough to knife the player first.

The final glitch, also involving a care package, allowed the player to call in care packages as many times as they wanted. It was one of the worst experiences that I sat through. Just imagine have 3 harries above you, a counter UAV, EMP, and an AC130 all at the same time. Pretty bad right? Now imagine that happening 3 times in the same match.

Just Stupid.

Well there you have it, My Top 5 frustrating moments in videogames. I hope I never relive these again.

Honorable Mentions:

Lost Planet – Killing the giant snow worm.

Mega Man 9 – ALL of it.

Halo 2 – Killed by the Energy Sword.

Modern Warfare 2 – Grenade Launcher kills.