• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Did you own games as a kid you could never figure out?

M

MrPressStart

Member
Thinking back on gaming when I was younger.. 43 now and started with the Atari 2600 back in the day. There were several games that I can honestly recall having no idea what to do or how to play it.

Ghostbusters on the sega master system - don't recall anything other than driving the ecto around a grid.

Magic carpet on the PlayStation - was it really just flying around?

Go joe on the Atari 2600 .... I can't even begin

I think now games require so much you can't get away with just throwing some bull shit in, but back in the day.......

Just wondering if anybody else owned games they could never figure out.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Back when I was 10-11 years old, I got stuck for a while in Elinee's Castle on Secret of Mana and later it took a while before I figured out PEARLS for Mario RPG.
 
T

teflontactics

Member
Absolutely. I know I had some SNES games that I couldn't even get past the first area in.

Games held your hand a lot less back then, and odd design choices meant you were often going around trying things until something worked.
 
J

Javier23

Banned
The original Driver as a really young kid. Had plenty of fun with the free roaming mode.

I replayed and finished the original MGS dozens of times as a 5/6 years old kid. I never saw much of the story mode of the original Driver. Fricking garage.
 
L

luulubuu

Junior Member
MystCover.png

confused-kid.jpg
Click to expand...

How I jump?
 
G

Glowsquid

Member
batman forever snes. How do i the grapple hook

my parents got me deep fighter before I could speak a world of english and I had absolutelyn o idea what to do so I'd just swim around the map and kill miners
 
N

NeoZeedeater

Member
The Dolphin's Rune for C64. It just seemed like just swimming around mindlessly. If I had the manual, I would have realized it was an action-puzzle game instead of a tech demo.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
Yep.

Jaws on NES. What's the end game here lol?

TMNT NES. The first game. I got the turtle van, hit the sewers, and then just got lost. Before the Internet and didn't have Nintendo Power yet.

Pitfall Atari 2600. I guess just keep going left lol. But I was confused.
 
S

sn00zer

Member
I have no idea how i got my hands on it, but i rented a ps1 game as a kid and all I remeber was that it had 2d oixelly characters, everything was very brown, it had a shit ton of menus, it played like some sort of super chess game and i think it was in japanese. If anyone knows what this game moght be let me know.
 
J

J3ffro

Member
I rented Maniac Mansion, and it didn't come with the instruction book. I kept it a few days, trying to brute force my way through it, and returned it with the 8-9 year old mindset that it was broken.

It was not, but there were subtle nuances that a little kid, not really sure what was supposed to happen, that were never going to be caught.
 
C

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
earliest memory is Kentilla. I was definitely too young for that shit, so i wtfed constantly at what was supposed to happen. It had a quite amazing soundtrack though, by Rob Hubbard the Legend himself
 
L

Lumpy Onion

Member
Destination Earthstar for the NES is a space sim I could never get the hang of as a kid.

Might and Magic 2 for Genesis. Even with the 200 page guide it came with I still didn't know what the heck I was doing half the time. Still explored some pretty out of the way places, even though they were often one way trips.

Also rented one of the Nobunaga's Ambition games. LOL what do I do?!
 
BibiMaghoo

BibiMaghoo

Member
I own games as an adult I can't figure out. I've tried three times to play Elite : Dangerous, and failed to understand how to even get to one of my missions. The game seems to give me no explanation and fails to plot a route.
 
Shifty

Shifty

Member
Link's Awakening. I vividly remember hitting a brick wall at the face shrine and having only "the space where the eyes have walls" to go on as a hint.

I replayed it a few years ago and couldn't even pinpoint the part that stumped me. Breezed on through, and to this day I still can't figure out that hint.
 
B

Baron von Loathsome

Member
My parents had an SNES and a bunch of classic games that I loved, like Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, the first two Donkey Kong Country games, Mario All-Stars, and The Lion King.

But they had the first Uncharted Waters game as well, and suffice it to say I had no idea what you were supposed to do in the game.
 
M

Marjorine

Member
Whatever the hell was going on in ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark on the 2600 went right over my 7 year old head. I never understood those games whatsoever. I wasn't alone with ET. I get the impression Raiders might have just been me being young and dumb.

Either way, I'd plug in the cart, run around for 15 minutes, and then go back to Defender or Ms Pac Man.
 
Z

Zertez

Member
Yes, Top Gun. I had no problem with the missions, but I crashed trying to land almost every time. I even called a tip line and it still didn't help.
 
O

OrangeGrayBlue

Member
Three Vikings (or was it Lost Vikings?). I had that game on the Genesis and the concept just never really clicked as a young kid. I found the game really confusing and unreasonably hard.


Edit- it was The Lost Vikings.

flat,550x550,075,f.u3.jpg
 
Necron

Necron

Member
Never did succeed at Vagrant Story. It was just too difficult and complex at the time.

Even with the strategy guide I didn't quite get it. If ever Square-Enix wanted to offer something similar to Souls/Bloodborne they should go back to Vagrant Story.

I only managed to play through it and experience the story with a cheat device.
 
J

JSub11

Member
Could never beat 'down the tubes' in Earthworm Jim, never figured out that there was a hidden air refill along the track. Always had to rush and ended up shattering my sub every time!
 
T

tirkaroKujo

Member
siganddaxter said:
I did not understand blast corps
Click to expand...

I was gonna post this exact thing. I played a ton of blast corps when i was a stupid little kid but i never found out what the point of the game was, I just found it fun to go around in vehicles and robots wrecking shit lmao.

I also played majora's mask back then, it being my first zelda game, and i just could never figure out what the hell you were supposed to do upon reaching clock town, but I beat it later on in life pretty easily.

I think those kinds of 3D games are just hard to get a grasp on when you're a kid, or just new to video games in general, since they just sorta throw concepts at us that we take for granted nowadays.
 
S

Spman2099

Member
I was so very, very lost in Castlevania 2...

I always assumed it was my fault, little did I know that the English translation had screwed me.

It is, to this day, the only traditional Castlevania game I haven't beaten.
 
woopWOOP

woopWOOP

Member
Lord of the Rings for SNES
A text heavy RPG in English when I couldn't read English.
I went outside the village and ran around the tall grass until wolves killed me.
Sometimes I could get one or two party members to join, but they'd just get killed by the wolves too.
Had my dad trade it in for something else after 2 days

Police Quest on PC was another. It was a huge obstacle for me to even leave the police station without getting a game over. When I could finally drive around I'd just aimlessly drive and park at random places because I had no idea what to do.
entremet said:
TMNT NES. The first game. I got the turtle van, hit the sewers, and then just got lost. Before the Internet and didn't have Nintendo Power yet.
Click to expand...
This too. My brother and me thought it was a near impossible maze and eventually were convinced it WAS impossible* and a trick by the game makers and that the real exit was somewhere else! Cue us trying to jump over walls at edges of the screen and other weird solutions.

*We played the NES version so it was possible, lol
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
When we got our first computer, my older brother just got Starcraft, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on on the screen. Then he had me try a few days later and I was even more lost. Keep in mind, this was early in the first game's story mode.

I think that attributed to my terrible lack of skill in strategy games.
 
H

Huntersknoll

Member
When I was 12 or 13 I got my hands on Icewind Dale 2. I never had played an CRPG and I fell in love. I had no idea what I was doing for the longest time and the goblins at the beginning would destroy me. I wasn't even making a full party at first. I ended up getting the Strategy guide.. life changing
 
dickroach

dickroach

Member
I rented Pac Man 2 multiple times. never could figure out wtf I was doing. I'd be surprised if I ever actually saw more than 10 screens in that game.

Rocko's Modern Life on SNES was another game I rented once or twice and never got past the first level.
 
B

belmonkey

Member
Home-Alone-2-Lost-in-New-York-12.png


Home Alone 2. Got stuck at the elevator and didn't know what I was supposed to do. Turns out you're supposed to mash the elevator button instead of clicking it only once.
 
M

Macleoid

Member
FliXFantatier said:
I knew it was a game for me, but I had no idea what I was doing...
Mind you I got it many years after its initial release.

xqCLnipl.jpg
Click to expand...

Oh I loved that game so much. It had a live clock for earning in game money and I would leave my pic on all night to effectively earn instant unlockables.

I had a harrier sim for my school spectrum that had you flying between waypoints and stuff that I never understood at all.
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
This is a problem with many Atari 2600 games even as an adult.

I finally decided to watch a youtube video about Yar's Revenge and now that i understand it i see it's indeed a pretty good game. I could never figure it out.
 
R

RenegadeXV8

Banned
When I was about 6 or 7 I rented Populous for the SNES.

I had no idea what the point of the game was or what I was supposed to be doing. Took it back the next day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

What games will you never play before you die?
2 3
101
3K
Salmon replied
At what point will you give up pc builds? A Cloud gaming discussion
2 3
128
3K
LavitzSlambert replied
What game/s did you change your mind on? (for the better or worse)
20
799
gtabro replied
What if you could have an AI buddy to help you out or play co-op with you across any game?
2
53
2K
SmokedMeat replied
People you know who have unique gaming habits.
2
59
2K
gaming_again replied
Top Bottom