Games that you had no idea what to do in as a kid

Evade

Penn wrote: »

Not necessarily a game, but part of a game. Metal Gear Solid. Meryl's Codec frequency on the back of the CD case.

I spent two days looking for a CD case... in the actual game. There was one room that looked like it had a computer in it, and there was a glowing dot on the radar. I spent ages in that room alone pressing every button on the controller. Turned out the dot was a guard in the room below.

Felt like a f*cking moron when I finally cracked and asked my friend (who I'd borrowed the game from) how to do it.

Was I the only one without the case who tried all the frequencies? There's only 200.

Penn

Turned out it wouldn't even have taken that long. Her's was the 15th one (140.15). I was just convinced it was in that computer room, then went looking elsewhere. Didn't realise until I was about halfway through the game that my friend had also written it in the game manual.

CiDeRmAn

I was playing a dodgy copy, in Japanese, with a badly printed cover.
Quite a puzzler that was.
I think I did the same, back and forth with the temperature cd thing to no avail.
I think someone worked it out and by word of mouth I found out.
That said, the game was outstanding but very short.
The delay due to the code probably extended the game by a couple of hours!

Retr0gamer

Evade wrote: »

Was I the only one without the case who tried all the frequencies? There's only 200.

I did that.... But I had the case.

I was over thinking things and looking for the code in the serial numbers and other stuff. Never even thought to look at the screenshot.

krudler

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Kurushi, worth a few bob if you own a copy.
Kula World is another one that stumps people, though I quite liked it, I still own them both.

Love both of those, Kula World is on the vita too I think they really should do a HD version of it, great puzzle game

cloud493

Evade wrote: »

Was I the only one without the case who tried all the frequencies? There's only 200.

Only 200?

Hercule

ionapaul wrote: »

Which KQ is that? I remember absolutely loving King's Quest III, played at a friend's house on his Dad's Wang PC (very popular maker back in the day!) - was a really fun game but got stuck a few hours into it, after escaping from the wizard's house, got down into the local countryside and eventually ran out of places to go and things to do:

!

I am actually a bit freaked out - this was the exact thing I was going to post - King's quest 3 was either broken or so cryptic that I never got a handle on it, I recall playing it while having a somewhat limited grasp of the english language (having only recently learned how to read) - walked around the countryside for an amount of time until the wizard would come back and the game ended - apparently there is a load of stuff in the manual you needed to review/consult to cast spells - beyond a 5-6 year old me

Grimebox

Penn wrote: »

Not necessarily a game, but part of a game. Metal Gear Solid. Meryl's Codec frequency on the back of the CD case.

I spent two days looking for a CD case... in the actual game. There was one room that looked like it had a computer in it, and there was a glowing dot on the radar. I spent ages in that room alone pressing every button on the controller. Turned out the dot was a guard in the room below.

Felt like a f*cking moron when I finally cracked and asked my friend (who I'd borrowed the game from) how to do it.

Ah yes this got me too. Not for one second did I think to check something outside of the game world. Even though the general explicitly stated to do so multiple times.

Skerries

and the whole swapping controllers in Metal Gear for the Psycho Mantis fight

Gandalph

Used to play a game on the sega called Faery Tale Adventure, big open world RPG (at the time!) that just throws you in with nothing to guide you. Would just end up wondering about for hours getting chased by skeletons and witches or something. The odd time I might stumble across a cave or a log cabin in the middle of nowhere and get real excited.

George Hook

The very first video game I ever played was 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' for the ps1. I was pretty young at the time and had never played a video game before. I don't think there was any tutorial, but basically it's a side scroller in a 3d environment. The first area was flat then it dips down into a large pit with a cliff at the far end, I remember getting to the cliff and not seeing a way past and always thought 'is this it?' I had no experience of playing games and just couldn't see what to do.
If you back tracked there were ledges that you were meant to jump onto instead of going into the pit which I did try to get to but having no familiarity with this sort of thing I simply wasn't good enough to get onto the ledges. After a day or two I just used cheat codes to unlock all the levels couldn't believe there was actually so much content lol. Never finished the first level..

And with regard to Psycho Mantis, me and my brother always used to put the controller in the 2nd port as we had read it in a magazine somewhere - we didn't fully understand why though. A few years later I played MGS again and when it came to that bit I had totally forgotten about the controller trick, needless to say I was really shocked when he started using his psycho powers - fantastic game.

Going Strong

Two that utterly baffled me as an adult, let alone as a kid.

Some French-made puzzle game that I got as a demo on CD nearly 20 years ago You were in a museum, various exhibits in different room, African art, Egyptian Pharaohs, Aztec carvings etc. The puzzles were point & click types and completely mental with "Because we say so" illogical answers. Myself and a friend spent sleepless nights trying to figure them out and spent our days in the city library trying to work out the symbolism etc. It was such a rush when we figured out a solitary puzzle but, in the end, had to give up as we were utterly stuck.

The other was The Nomad Soul on Dreamcast. A sort of pre-Morrowind style RPG. It had almost no clues or hints and gave no idea as to whether you were going about it the right way. Despite having the internet at work, I couldn't find anything online to help me. I spent far too long in a weird dreamlike world going up to mute AI characters who wouldn't talk to me at all. I'd know what I was supposed to do but was unable to figure out how to go about getting the answers/hints/clues I needed.

Gandalph

George Hook wrote: »

The very first video game I ever played was 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' for the ps1.

Was that the one where you started off as a Compsognathus, then went from that to a human to velociraptor to T-Rex? Used to love that game if it was. I think I also got stuck at the start just having my little guy chew on dragonflies.

gaynorvader

FF7

After you leave midgar and have to cross the swamp on a chocobo, it shows a cutscene of the monster dead then you appear outside the cave again. You are supposed to turn around and go back in, I didn't know this and made it back across the swamp. Eventually levelled up to the point that I could kill the worm thing and finally figured out you need to go back in after the cutscene

Ecco: I didn't know you could jump out of the water (and over the rock) to get past the very first level. Thought the whole game was just a limited dolphin simulator and didn't play it again until a few years ago.

Other than those two I was usually pretty good at not getting stuck.

JaqenHgarr

when i was about 6 0r 7 playing tony hawks games with my cousin we had no idea there were any kind of missions or anything used to just skate around the first level the whole time

Grimebox

JaqenHgarr wrote: »

when i was about 6 0r 7 playing tony hawks games with my cousin we had no idea there were any kind of missions or anything used to just skate around the first level the whole time

I keep thinking of this throughout this thread

Reekwind

I still probably wouldn't know how to tackle the Lords of Midnight. As a ten year-old I had no chance

irish_stevo815

Penn wrote: »

Not necessarily a game, but part of a game. Metal Gear Solid. Meryl's Codec frequency on the back of the CD case.

I spent two days looking for a CD case... in the actual game. There was one room that looked like it had a computer in it, and there was a glowing dot on the radar. I spent ages in that room alone pressing every button on the controller. Turned out the dot was a guard in the room below.

Felt like a f*cking moron when I finally cracked and asked my friend (who I'd borrowed the game from) how to do it.

Ha ha I remember i rented it from Xtra vision and i got in in an xtra-vision game case. When i found out that the frequency was on the game case (i think Otacon gave a hint) i paused teh game and ran over to my xtra vsion store to look at the back of the case :pac:

Of course, i had no interent back then

Going Strong

irish_stevo815 wrote: »

Ha ha I remember i rented it from Xtra vision and i got in in an xtra-vision game case. When i found out that the frequency was on the game case (i think Otacon gave a hint) i paused teh game and ran over to my xtra vsion store to look at the back of the case :pac:

Of course, i had no interent back then

I had an internet but no printer. I wanted to print off a handy list of Hidden Packages, Wanted Cars and Graffiti Tags in GTA San Andreas (I had the XBox version) so did it at work. Only, I hadn't noticed that I'd selected the entire walkthrough and printed off something like 250 pages in total. I emptied every drawer on the printer and used up a laser printer cartridge as well. There was uproar but, thankfully, nobody bothered to check to see who'd been last at the printer so I got away with it. I can still remember the complete feeling of panic as the printer started up and never seemed to stop. I sneaked the entire lot out the door in a several batches as it was bloody heavy. A few years ago, while clearing out the spare room, I found a ring binder folder with most of it still there.

Somewhere there's a tree looking at a picture of his dead family and swearing revenge.

C14N

Practically everything, I never got past one or two levels in anything on the SNES or Mega Drive. I remember having no idea what to do with Super Metroid as a toddler. After that I got seriously stuck on a lot of early GC games, Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker coming to mind. Went back to them later as a teenager and loved them though.

CiDeRmAn

It's really weird to hear people talk of playing games as a kid that I came to in my 20's
Makes me feel old dammit!
I came to the Spectrum as a teen, never been to far I most games there though it was mostly because I had hundreds of them on cassettes!
C90 FTW!

Aenaes

How about The Getaway on PS2? It was a pretty good game with some good missions but they were pretty hard. I got stuck on the mission where you had to infiltrate the police station. I even read a quick walkthrough but I was always discovered. Gave up on it after countless tries.

CiDeRmAn

Aenaes wrote: »

How about The Getaway on PS2? It was a pretty good game with some good missions but they were pretty hard. I got stuck on the mission where you had to infiltrate the police station. I even read a quick walkthrough but I was always discovered. Gave up on it after countless tries.

The version with the British Telecom van is worth a few bob now.
After release BT got a bit wound up with the GTA hysteria in the papers and told Sony to remove their logos from a van in the game, which the player uses for nefarious reasons.
It was poorly reviewed in the day, but I had a lot of fun with it and finished it, didn't have much fun with the PSP or PS2 follow-ups though.

cloud493

Metroid prime 2. First first person perspective game I ever played properly. Bought on the advice of the guy in the local games shop, which is great cos I love it now, but at the time, I had no idea. I had to go on gamefaqs to see how to use the scan visor.

chrislad

This boss back in the day. He just would not die, no matter how long I spent at him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YxTd46n8GM

Also, Rad Gravity. No idea what I was doing half the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHB3Z8JUnr8

Sgt Hartman

chrislad wrote: »

This boss back in the day. He just would not die, no matter how long I spent at him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YxTd46n8GM

Also, Rad Gravity. No idea what I was doing half the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHB3Z8JUnr8

Aw man Rad Gravity. I hadn't a clue what to do against the last boss

King of Pork

Lords of Midnight on the C64. Apparently there was a paper map that came with the game - my younger brother ate it before I saw it.....

Rory Gallagher

Oh yeah I remember the first game I ever got for me PS2 as a young lad.
It was Manhunt and I could not get past the ****ing mission where your in a crane and have to smash the lads out of it with a fridge magnetically attached to the crane,Also when you have to get inside the mansion to kill Starkweather I spent about five years doing that.

Slim Charles

I got stuck on some star wars game at a tractor beam part, very difficult to recall now but it was two ledges quite far apart and what I assumed to be the tractor beam in the background (I've never seen the movie, not really sure who got me, or why I had the game)

Slim Charles

Also some Olympics 96 game, had no manual so couldn't figure out some of the events like the triple jump and such. Even though there were only two buttons on the damn controller.