When I think about it there seems to be very few games that don't have one aspect or another that infuriates somebody!

Out of the games mentioned that I have played I would agree with most of the 'annoyances'! - the troll cave & the twins in Dreamfall (I didn't mind so much the stealth & combat); timed & stealth sequences,crate puzzles in BS3; monkey combat in MI4 (but I did like the insults in MI3 ): the chores in White Wolf - also for me the skating pond puzzle, the snowmobile chase & the repetitive snowball fights but I did really like the fox & geese game! & the game overall. I didn't mind the wolf sequence in GK2 too much but hated the swinging axe ending to GK3.

I don't mind sliders & the only thing that stopped me loving The Awakened was the control system that made me feel nauseous.

There was a little too much wandering back & forth in Limbo of the Lost but to get back to the game that started this - Evil Under the Sun - for me the worst is wondering what you have to do or where to go to next to progress the game & having to keep going back & forth to different locations in the hope that you bump into the right person (or object):) The double-clicking to exit quickly from a scene does help!!

I hate it in an adventure, when I get really, really stuck because of some extremely small hotspot or a hotspot that was inactive at the time that I passed it, but got active when I do something in the game. Especially the last one I hate.

East Side Story for example. There is one hotspot which is not available when I first passed it. When I triggered an action, then there was a hotspot. I spend a few hours walking around, talking to people but I couldn't find it. As a last resort, I looked into a walkthrough. I hate walkthroughs, it is a way of cheating I don't like. Especially since it is not my lack of adventure skill.

The same goes for Time Stand Still. You can work on a puzzle, but until you do something else, it is impossible to solve it. I spend hours working on that puzzle. Again I used a walkthrough and I found out that I spend all those hours on a puzzle, I shouldn't even have access too.

But I love all four Carol Reed Mystery adventures. It is terrible that those things make me use a walkthrough.

Another example of a game I love with something I hate. The recent Wii adventure Zack & Wiki. I loved it, until the very last level. You have to use the Wii Remote to swing something around like a lasso and release it when it is at top speed. However, the controls to release it are very very broken. I just didn't work. It felt really random well it wasn't. Normally, to release a lasso, you throw it in the direction you want to throw it. Not in this level. You have point to left. Totally illogical and very difficult and frustrating to pull off. You can also do something wrong in the game, without it giving any feedback that you actually did messed up. Thankfully the levels are small. But there are a few levels that I forgot one thing in the beginning of the game, which resulted in me, spending a decent amount of time, wondering what I did wrong, well I was actually really stuck from the very beginning. Very bad. But I still love the game.

I probably have a lot more examples of games I love, but elements I hate.

You swing the Remote like a lasso? Really? Hmmm. It sounds wild!

My example of frustration in a game I otherwise enjoyed -- the timed maze with changing camera angles in Odyssey: The Search for Ulysses.

It should be great, but it just didn't work. And that's a shame in a otherwise great end fight.

The game that I loved in spite of frustration was Grim Fandango. It was the first keyboard controlled game that I played, and it was a shame that the controls were so hard to use. Poor Manny spent most of his time either turning around in circles or smashing into walls and doors!!

But the game was so good that I endured the frustration of trying to move Manny around--and by the end of the game I was moving a little better, I'll admit...

I think the absolute worst timed puzzle was the finale of Shivers II. You started the puzzle on one disc, then had to change discs to complete an imposssibly short timed mechanical puzzle. Of course, when you failed and it was "Game Over", you had to go back to the previous disc to load your saved game, then switch discs to try again. Needless to say I never finished
this puzzle.

Lady Kestral, how well I remember "Shoot straight as the wind blows". I was ready to kill that Indian, if only I could have turned around and found him.

SuMac -- you actually had to switch disks in the middle of a timed puzzle? Folks, I think we may have a winner here.

SuMac, that is an absolute winner for frustration, and here I was going to throw in the floating island puzzle in Journey to the center of the earth. I love that game though and keep a save on a floppy.

Was that actually timed while you were switching the discs? Or did the timer stop during the disc swap time? I remember Shivers 2 had a lot of timed puzzles.

At first in Dreamfall my desire to have more of the old game made me frustrated with the fighting sequences. (I have played shooters, but not hand to hand fighting games). Once I learned the keystrokes for DF I really got into it. My Vista liked it so much that I had to redo it on the XP. I'm currently replaying it on the XP and totally enjoying it. I sorta bad mouthed it at first, I think. In fact, it's up there with the original for me now. To me the first one was hurt by the talking trees, giants and mole-people. I won't discuss Abnathus, or whatever/whenever his name was.

Abnaxus. That guy could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

The final puzzle in Shivers II was activated on the first disc, and the actual solving of it took place on the second disc. You could not save your game once you changed discs and the timer started with the first click.

It was a puzzle where you had to set many little mirrors to the correct angle to reflect a light beam across a board to a final hot spot that triggered the "good" ending to the game. You had to move fast to set those mirrors ahead of the light beam. I never made it all the way through.

BTW, I loved the rest of the game. It was loaded with fun puzzles, and if they ever reissue it on one CD or DVD, I'd buy it again.

Two games that I really liked but got so frustrated with that I didn't finish them...

Atlantis Evolution - trying to escape from the Guardians in the forest had me tearing my hair out and hearing "Halt Deviant!" in my dreams! I just couldn't master that one even with a walkthrough.

Mysterious Journer 2 - the fog maze puzzle, could never get the hang of that one either.

I had so much FUN (said sarcastically) with that fog puzzle, I just wanted to disappear. THEN I got to that bridge puzzle. I'm beginning to think they (the lovely people who brought us Schizm and MJ2) don't feel a game is done until they have at least 2 baffling and agonizing puzzle. And I can hear them say, "but they're not sliders or mazes."


I agree, Becky. I liked the water\windy head puzzle a lot. I also love sliders.

I loved Mysterious Journey II -- didn't have any trouble with the fog puzzle, but I remember struggling with that water garden and the windy heads -- I guess I'm not much of a sailor.

Personally, I think it all depends on how each person's mind works.