I 've played this game twice through and only used cheats for fun (then stopped and reloaded) and to show others ‘what’s possible’. The second time through I finished the Firefighter missions so the Final mission was easier to complete.
I think it’s likely that you may be confusing your inability to play this game with the game ‘cheating’. Just because it’s not as easy as you’d like it to be does not equal the game taking advantage of you.
That’s funny. I never played any fire truck missions and beat the final mission on my second try.
What’s that got to do with there being cars everywhere until you jump out of your car and then every car in town disappears? What kind of game physics is that?
I used to get really pissed at games, to the point where I’d be slamming my hand on the keyboard or punching the monitor. Then one time, I was playing Wing Commander, and I got so frustrated I kicked apart a chair. That really made me step back and think, “If I’m playing a game right now, why aren’t I having fun?” Since then, I’ve been much more laid back about it, although I do get frustrated sometimes, and will occasionally let out a good string of profanities at the screen when three different empires simultaneously declare war on me in Civ IV. I don’t hit stuff any more, though, I just stop playing.
(Also, “Oh shit, what am I going to tell my mom?” That was definitly a major factor.)
(I think I told her I tripped and fell on it.)
Well A) That wouldn’t be physics, that would be more like AI.
B) Are you talking about free play or a specific ‘mission’? Sorry, I just don’t get your “The game is cheating” problem, with regards to this game. PS2 version, correct? If not, then what the hell do I know? 
I only really play one game (well, two if you think of Halo I&II as truly separate games). I don’t really get mad at it. But there are certainly times when I think I’m kicking serious Covenant butt, and suddenly a Hunter comes outta nowhere and whomps me lethally upside th’ haid, I’ll let a few F bombs drop.
The Madden games cheat like crazy. If you’ve got a lead in the 4th quarter the game always makes you fumble or the AI makes impossible interceptions or you get called for some bullshit penalty.
Also, if the AI has the ball in a two minute drill, the quarterback suddenly starts throwing laser beam passed 50 yards down field even if you’re playing your safest prevent defense. :mad:
Black and White. Never before or since have I engaged in such egregious acts of animal abuse.
But damn, that monkey was stupid. Stop eating villagers, dammit!
Actually, it’s neither. It’s a balance issue. The designers wanted a certain level of difficulty in the missions, so they altered the spawn rate of other vehicles under different circumstances in order to achieve that difficulty. That’s not cheating, that’s just making a difficult game. Personally, I don’t think its possible for a video game to cheat. Cheating means breaking the rules, and in a video game, the game is the rules. That’s what computer code is, basically. Whatever the game does is within the rules by definition. The other side of that, of course, is that short of using third-party hacks, it’s also impossible for the player to cheat. If there’s a jet pack code in GTA, it’s because you’re suposed to use it.
'Course, there’s cheat, and then there’s cheap. That boss fight in Final Fantasy VIII mentioned earlier isn’t cheating, but it sure as fuck is cheap.
I don’t know if it’s called physics or AI, but I still think it’s cheating. A game creates an environment and sets some ground rules you’re forced to work within. No prob. But the game can’t then just grossly violate its own rules.
I often talk smack to my computer or television screen as I’m playing, or provide a running commentary on the action (which is usually me saying “no, nonoonononononono! Nooooo! Oh! YES! NONO!” over and over again). However, I never really get angry at the game, and usually go up in flames and a fit of giggles. Even in EQ2 - dying is funny. As long as I’m not taking everyone else with me, if I do something stupid enough to get myself killed, I laugh. I don’t, however, like jerk players. I don’t usually get angry, but my husband tends to notice that I’m scowling, and I move on to some other place. I’m not very confrontational, and I won’t deal with jerks. However, MMORPGs are different in that you have to deal with live people. Any other games? Nah. They can get tedious, but even at their most frustrating, I’m usually just thinking of new ways to get the job done, be it a boss, a puzzle, a race, or a damn good computer opponent.
Admittedly, my “running commentary” can sometimes sound as though I am angry. I swear like a sailor, much to my sainted mother’s dismay. My husband, on the other hand, finds it endearing.
Last night I got super mad at Kingdom Hearts II. It was midnight. I had breezed through the game, and was fighting the last boss. No problem right? Maybe he’ll take thirty or forty minutes to kill with the traditional end-boss shapeshifting fight, then I can get some sleep.
Fifteen form changes later, it’s 3:00 in the morning, I haven’t ended the battle yet, and there hasn’t been a save point. I was so mad at the developers. It was cheap as hell for the last boss fight to take many hours to finish.
I finally shut the game off and went to bed. I don’t know if I’ll care to finish it. That’s pretty sad, I would have given the game an “A” rating until this point.
I’m quite a trash talker in Halo 2. 
Yeah, I know it’s immature, but it has to be done to compensate for all of those times these kids call me n00b or something after they kill me. There’s nothing worse than getting beat down and then overhearing some douchebag tell his teammates how he “totally pwn3d that guy!!!11.” I generally try to personalize my insults. They take it pretty personally when you insult their gamertag or something along those lines.
What about the ending of Halo II? Never before have I been so annoyed at a game;
General Guy: Master Chief, what are you doing??
Master Chief: Finishing this fight!
Me: Hell yeah! grips controller ready
Game: ends
Me:…! You bastard.
I hated the total lack of cars in some parts of GTA: Vice City. As levdrakon says, you can’t have every car in the city trying to run you off the road, and when you bail out, leave you with naught but tumbleweeds and MISSION FAILED displayed on screen. That’s the game cheating, IMO.
I used to play both Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War a lot. A lot.
And I used to get royally pissed when, after my Empire was suitably huge, one of two things would happen:
Every other Clan/Faction’s Daimyo/King would die with no heirs, leaving me to constantly scrap against the Ronin/Rebels (Not as much of an issue in M:TW because the Rebels put up a decent fight, but in S:TW even a pathetic army of peasants and maybe a couple of arquebusiers/archers could pwn huge Ronin armies with few casualties, removing most of the challenge from the game), or
Clans/Factions I’d been allied with for CENTURIES, and whom I had bailed out of the shit more times than I could remember (lifting sieges on their castles, returning provinces to them, generally watching their backs), would suddenly declare war on me and attack! Worse, the bigger your Empire, the more likely this was to happen, meaning that you’d just get to the point where your Empire was doing well, everyone was happy, and you’d built some high-level buildings in some of your more productive provinces, and BAM! You’ve got the Sicilians blockading your trade, the Italians levelling all your crops, and the Pope excommunicating you for trying to lift the siege on the Citadel that your King happened to be in when the Holy Roman Empire decided to give themselves some Lebensraum.
Otherwise, a fun game, and great for taking all your time and teaching you the intricacies of Medieval Warfare… 
Of course, who can forget that old chestnut in the original Civilisation: A Phalanx taking out Battleships. :eek:
Overlooking the logical impossibility of this , it happened all the time- Phalanx units wiping out my Panzer Legions (How??? The tanks wouldn’t even have to stop moving, much less fire their guns!), Guys with clubs and pointy sticks beating Infantrymen with rifles (Yes, OK, it happened at Isandhlwana and a few other places in RL, but other Civ players know what I mean here), Ironclads beating modern Destroyers (I didn’t know the Victorians possessed the ability to counter laser-guided Surface to Surface Missiles!), and many, many other WTF moments. Still, the Civ series of games (In which I include SMAC and Colonisation) are, to me, the very epitome of Why PC Games Rock On Every Possible Level.
Oh, and finally, in some of the old Point 'n Click adventure games… anyone else feel like a spot of “Hunt The Pixel”?
That sometimes happens to me in games where they let you spend as much time as you want getting stronger. For instance, X-Men Legends II. I spent too much time goofing off and building my powers & skills and the final boss fight ended up being a disappointing snoozer.
OTOH, the two games that have made me the most childishly, furiously need-a-time-out were Metroid Prime & MP Echoes. Geez, the game makes you get pretty good, and by the time of the final boss battle you’re all decked out with weapons, armor etc and you think you’re ready to kick some ass. Then the final boss is like, 100 times harder than you’re ready for. Those games made me almost want to start crying, I was so frustrated.
Well, I’ve had a level 60 toon for a few months now in WoW. I’m also an alt-o-holic, so I’ve re-rolled numerous times already. Eventually I get tired and roll a horde druid which I level to 60 in a couple months to join the other half of my guild in MC.
Once that’s done, back to my human warrior.
It is at this point that I realise just how ridiculous the Alliance lands are for levelling. Virtually every mob you meet from levels 10-30 live in groups. Gnolls, murlocs, orcs, you name it. And I don’t mean just that they’re all in the same area. I mean they’re usually too close together to pull seperately, so you’ll almost always get two or more. Which is great fun when you’re after mobs 2 levels above you for a quest (IOW, stuff you’d be able to take solo no problem, but have no chance against if you’re fighting more than one). And with all of these types of enemies being humanoid, damned near every single one of them starts to run away at low health too, almost invariably drawing more enemies. GAH!
Don’t even get me started on that witch Tabitha who lives in the middle of a freaking swamp, who I have to visit every 5 levels as a mage. Or the artisan enchanter trainer, who lives IN THE MIDDLE OF A TROGG-INFESTED EXCAVATION SITE.
While I agree that Madden still cheats like crazy, you sure that bit is not just because you’re playing a prevent defense? Remember what they say about the prevent.
Every once in a while I think about picking up Kingdom Hearts but haven’t. I also keep hoping the game will be more like this.
I laughed for a good five minutes at that. Awesome.
I’m currently playing though it right now and let me tell you, you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve seen Ariel slap the crap out of Ursula with her fin or smacked Wakka in the face with his own blitzball. Its’ one of the best games I’ve ever played.