This week marks two years I’ve been on Respawning! My very first article was titled Five Fits of Fury in which I detailed moments in gaming where I’ve let a game get to me and blown my top (not a euphemism) which I felt were entertaining enough to expose myself for. Last year on the one year anniversary I detailed four more with my Fits of Fury: 2020 Edition, and (if you haven’t read the title of this article) you’ll be pleased to hear I have some more stories to tell! Welcome to Alexx’s Fits of Fury: 2021 Edition!
Ace Combat 7
I touched on this experience a couple of weeks ago, now allow me to regale you with the full story. As you might expect my growing frustrations blossomed into unhinged rage with that most unhelpful of gaming companions: Alcohol.
There I was, having burnt through the first three missions with ease because I’m such a great Goddamn pilot, when suddenly I’m checkpoint saved into the tail end of a mission which felt like it was hours long. ‘Defend the helicopter’ was the only instruction though it was delivered through the games habit of a simple instruction taking minutes of gibberish dialogue to communicate. It transpired the only way to defend said helicopter was by destroying an entire fleet of enemy fighter jets within a tight three minute timer. At the end of the three minutes a voice would come over the radio to say ‘times up, return to base’ and the mission would fail. Even if I had just blown the final jet out of the sky by the skin of my teeth, unless the game had officially counted it as defeated I’d get the same fucking message.
After several tries I felt my vice-like grip would crush my controller, so instead I launched it into the nearest bin and went to bed angry, drunk and with a new-found hatred of jet planes that still sustains me to this day.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
This wasn’t a rage at the game so much as it was resentment toward the developer; the ever-so cuddly and player friendly Ubisoft. I bought Valhalla on PS4 as at the time of release the PS5 wasn’t out yet, leaving aside the fact I still can’t get one nearly six months later. I mostly enjoyed the five hours I spent on it, but the constant bugs wore me down to the point I was forced to abandon my progress.
I am constantly reminded that the game was developed with the PS5 in mind, with the PS4 version serving as more of an afterthought than the intended experience. I truly despise the fact that even though Origins and Odyssey look and play sublimely on Xbox One and PS4, Valhalla just couldn’t continue the trend and had to be a prick seemingly out of spite. If you take anything away from this article then let it be this message: Fuck you Ubisoft. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Fall Guys is the new record holder for a game making me throw my controller in anger within the shortest period while playing it for the first time. The new record: eight minutes.
I re-subscribed to PlayStation Plus last summer just to see what all the fuss over Fall Guys was about, but despite my new three month sub the game only lasted on my console for the afore mentioned eight minutes. I get that it’s meant to be a party game and not taken seriously, but the jumping controls are truly awful and the sound design wasted no time at all in getting on my fucking nerves.
I’m glad Among Us took away all the media attention from you Fall Guys. Crawl back into the sewer from whence you came!
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered
I talked for years about how much I wanted this game to PlayStation 4. After several false rumours circulated to get my hopes up and dash them in an instant, eventually in November 2020 it finally released in the form of Hot Pursuit Remastered. A highly competitive game thanks to its leaderboards which pit you against your friends who have completed the same events, I lost hours in the PS3 era through constantly retrying events to beat better times.
I remember that I was pretty good at the online component of Hot Pursuit on PS3 but unfortunately the experience was rife with hackers when I tried on PS4, meaning that no sooner had a race begun that some of my opponents would suddenly be entire miles ahead of me in seconds. If you’re guilty of this I hope you step on Lego.
The straw that broke the back of my time with the remaster came in the form of a Hot Pursuit event where I was playing as a cop, and every racer vehicle seemed to be equipped with around a hundred million spike strips each, so every time I got close to ram them (as the game provided no EMP’s for this run) I’d immediately find myself spinning off the road. I had several attempts at this before the spinning off transitioned from my car in-game to the controller in my hands colliding with a wall. It still works though, just rattles occasionally..
I uninstalled Hot Pursuit Remastered to save my blood pressure if nothing else.
That’ll do it for this year. Let me know which of these I should be most ashamed of (not that I can feel shame) and I’ll be back next week to talk about other things in gaming which don’t make want to eat my own hands in frustration. If you find yourself getting frequently angry with games I can recommend throwing your controller into a bin, provided there’s already some things in there, as it feels quite gratifying and is much less likely to damage your controller than a wall or the floor. Thanks for reading!
