So last night I broke out Gears of War for the first time in 8 months or so since I stopped playing it due to school/work/boredom or whatever the reason was back then. I jumped back in not remembering any of the story leading up to where I was but I decided I should beat this game someday so I can trade it in towards another game.
I had no idea 8 months ago that I was literally 15 minutes away from beating the game when I quit back then! I quit playing while I was on the train at the end before and it turns out it was right before the final boss battle! Lol! If I would have known I was that close I would have just played thru back then instead of shelving it to go on to other games or whatever.
So basically I boot up Gears to beat it and ended up beating it in 15 minutes.
I’m notorious for playing games to the halfway point and then stopping for no reason other than I want to play the latest newest game and then forget about them. This has me wondering how many other times I’ve shelved a game when I’m right near the end and just didn’t know it.
Anyone else ever had this happen? Any other game beating stories?
When I was six I got the original Nintendo Zelda. I played it for weeks, months, perhaps. It came with a paper map of the world, and I had written all over it with where the secrets were. I seem to recall that I spent a great many hours entering a screen, burning a tree with the one-shot candle, leaving the screen, then reentering and burning the next tree. I eventually put it down for other games, and never beat the thing.
One summer, home from college, I decided to fire up the old Nintendo and relive some of that childhood nostalgia. I put Zelda in and started wandering around. I beat the game in about 30 minutes. All I had to do was play the last dungeon. Since then I’ve done speed runs to beat the game from the start in a little over an hour, and I’m amazed at how much easier it is than I remember it.
Once thwacked a malfunctioning Nintendo console and beat one of the original Mario games. The underwhelming ‘you won’ screen came up and my friend and I didn’t even have to beat a boss.
When I first played Day of the Tentacle I got seriously stuck. This was before I knew about internet walkthroughs.
I knew I needed to use a squeaky mattress to lure away a cat so I could swipe its squeaky mouse toy to send to Laverne so she could get a cat off the roof, but I couldn’t figure out how. It was in an attic room with two beds and a cat, and when you bumped the nearby mattress the cat would come over (it didn’t work on the far bed). I’d try to get the mouse toy, but the cat went back to it too quickly. I thought I was just too slow.
Months passed and I still hadn’t solved it.
One night the answer came to me in a dream. In my dream, the far bed was the one with the squeaky mattress, and having the cat go to that one gave me time to get the mouse toy.
The next day, I tried dragging the squeaky mattress to the far bed and it worked.
Anyone play the Zork series? I always sucked at text adventures, but the graphics-based ones were much easier. A friend and I sat down to beat Zork Nemesis, and when we would get stuck I would suggest something totally ridiculous and it would work. Like when I played Fur Elise on a piano, and the last key dropped out a clue. Turned out you only needed to hit the final note (an A, perhaps?), but it still worked. Or when we couldn’t figure out what to do with the gunpowder and the dog statue, so I suggested putting it in the dog’s butt. Turns out that’s exactly what was needed.
Can’t say my rainman logic has helped me recently, though.