Gamer Shame

[glasfen]

(Hmm... it's a rainy Thursday... time to shake things up!)

Most of us, at one time or another, have violated the unwritten commandments of gaming. You know, "Thou shalt not cheat", "Thou shalt not play for someone who is taking a bathroom break", "Thou shalt not fling thy controller across the room, no matter how frustratingly difficult thy game might be" (Bayou Billy and The Cheetahmen excluded from that last one, of course).

So what do we do to relieve our guilt? Those dark secrets have burdened our souls for too long, I say!

It's time for some group therapy. I'll start this off.

Hi, my name's glasfen, and I got to the Northern Crater in Final Fantasy VII but didn't finish the game.

(Gasp!)

How about the rest of you?

[SoloGamer]

I got to the Northern Crater in Final Fantasy VII but didn't finish the game.

I made it to Ultimecia in FF VIII but never finished the game. I was underpowered and kept losing to Griever.

Also FF related, X is the first and only FF I ever completed, despite owning legit copies of all the other ones.

[Overflow]

Hmm... To refresh our memories, I think you should list all the unwritten commandments of gaming so we can make our own lists.

[FR]

X is the first and only FF I ever completed.

Never beaten Mario 1, 2 and 3.

[Tex]

I never played any FF game. Who cares? I know I don't!

[MkVaff]

sometimes in SF4, I'll play as Akuma, and if things aren't going my way and I'm in a really bad mood - I'll do his fatality where he turns the lights off and hits you 27 times.

I know, I'm a horrible person...

[Geeky Stoner]

never beaten einhander

[Overflow]

I've never beaten a sonic game (1 + 2 are haaard), nor played any street fighter games.

[FR]

sometimes in SF4, I'll play as Akuma, and if things aren't going my way and I'm in a really bad mood - I'll do his fatality where he turns the lights off and hits you 27 times.

I know, I'm a horrible person...

Holy shit a McVaffe post.

[glasfen]

Hmm... To refresh our memories, I think you should list all the unwritten commandments of gaming so we can make our own lists.

Um... I wasn't quite expecting this request, but

I. Thou shalt not cheat.

II. Thou shalt not use player's guides or walkthroughs except as a last resort.

III. Thou shalt not disrespect the system of another while secretly desiring it.

IV. Thou shalt not play for someone who is taking a bathroom break.

V. Thou shalt not steal lives or items in a two-player game.

VI. Thou shalt finish each game that thee starteth.

VII. Thou shalt not fling thy controller across the room, no matter how frustratingly difficult thy game might be.

VIII. Thou shalt watch quietly as others attempt the most simple and mundane levels, battles, or puzzles and not shout out the obvious method of completing them.

As I recall, these were first promulgated during the 8-bit era, yielding one for each bit. Of course, there are slight differences among users of different systems, but, for the most part, they tend to agree.

(thanks, Overflow. But now they are not unwritten commandments! What have I done?!)

Here's another of mine: I had to use a Game Genie to beat Zelda II

[Tex]

I don't feel guilty for not playing no crud! I am a free man!

[glasfen]

I don't feel guilty for not playing no crud! I am a free man!

And spirited, I see.

[Xenon Odyssey]

I used a Gameshark to [insert verb for 'beat'] Star Fox 64.

Also there are a million games I haven't played (including but not limited to any Street Fighter game, Secret of Mana, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 1-3, 5&6, and 8-13, etc.)

[SoloGamer]

Um... I wasn't quite expecting this request, but

i'm not deserving of having the moniker gamer in my screen name ;_;

I. Thou shalt not cheat.

• Used GameShark to get all gold medals in Star Fox 64
  
• Used GS/glitch for inifinte gold in Ogre Battle 64
  
• Used Action Replay to finish Contra: Shattered Soldier
  
• Chronically abused save states in emus.
  

II. Thou shalt not use player's guides or walkthroughs except as a last resort.

• I used guides all the time during my N64 days. Most notably, in Majora's Mask so I could get all the masks in my first playthrough.
  

IV. Thou shalt not play for someone who is taking a bathroom break.

• It's their break, not mine. Why hold up the game just for one person
  

V. Thou shalt not steal lives or items in a two-player game.

• I bummed lives off of my cousin when we played Contra: SS, but he had infinite lives, so it's all good.
  

VI. Thou shalt finish each game that thee starteth.

• Only finished like 30% of my game collection
  

VIII. Thou shalt watch quietly as others attempt the most simple and mundane levels, battles, or puzzles and not shout out the obvious method of completing them.

• The main reason I hate watching other people play.
  

[DrumUltimA]

(Hmm... it's a rainy Thursday... time to shake things up!)

Most of us, at one time or another, have violated the unwritten commandments of gaming. You know, "Thou shalt not cheat", "Thou shalt not play for someone who is taking a bathroom break", "Thou shalt not fling thy controller across the room, no matter how frustratingly difficult thy game might be" (Bayou Billy and The Cheetahmen excluded from that last one, of course).

So what do we do to relieve our guilt? Those dark secrets have burdened our souls for too long, I say!

It's time for some group therapy. I'll start this off.

Hi, my name's glasfen, and I got to the Northern Crater in Final Fantasy VII but didn't finish the game.

(Gasp!)

How about the rest of you?

you too, eh? I mean, i saw my friends beat sephiroth and I saw the ending, so i was just like "well, what's the point?"

Anyway as a kid I lived off Game Genie. I've never played a castlevania, megaman, or starfox game (smash bros excluded), and I am on gamefaqs much more often than i care to admit to. I know there are a good few games that I started and haven't finished, and when i was a kid i was throwing that controller all OVER the place.

[Nekofrog]

I made it to Ultimecia in FF VIII but never finished the game. I was underpowered and kept losing to Griever.

Also FF related, X is the first and only FF I ever completed, despite owning legit copies of all the other ones.

I got to Ultimecia herself back when the game came out and just... turned it off mid-battle. I wasn't losing or anything, I just... didn't care. I had put up with the game for so long, hoping it would suddenly get better, and it never did.

So I just turned it off at Ultimecia and never even bothered trying to beat it.

Such an awful, terrible game.

[glasfen]

VIII. Thou shalt watch quietly as others attempt the most simple and mundane levels, battles, or puzzles and not shout out the obvious method of completing them.

• The main reason I hate watching other people play.
  

Amen to that.

you too, eh? I mean, i saw my friends beat sephiroth and I saw the ending, so i was just like "well, what's the point?"

Sadly, I have to say it was much the same for me.

Oh, and I've only beaten two MegaMan bosses, once. No, not the games, just the bosses.

[Darklink42]

I don't even know where to start on breaking game commandments. I'll try to summarize the best ones

1. I'll admit that I've rarely used cheat codes before beating the game. There were a couple games, like Ages of Empires 2, where I couldn't resist myself though. Free resources beats the hell out of having to sit and mine them for an hour.

2. Actually, I've never used a walkthrough unless I was inescapably stuck. Some of the older generation games have moments where they leave you hanging, and Majora's Mask especially was notorious for those.

4. Used to do that all the time to my friends when they walked out, and then I'd try to get them back into the same spot and pause it where they were so they wouldn't notice. As an extension of that, there were a lot of FPS games where I'd unpause the game and then try to find where they were hiding. Goldeneye was great, because you could throw a bunch of remote mines around them and kill them as soon as they got back and unpaused.

6. I don't think anyone is not guilty of this at some point in their gaming careers. For some reason or another, you'll walk away from a game and not pick it up for years, or your save data will get corrupted, or you'll lose your memory card. All those have happened to me, and there are a couple games I still haven't finished. One particular instance was Illusion of Gaia. I didn't pick that game up and finish it for ten years because I rented it back for the SNES and never saw it again until it was on an emulator.

7. If tossing a GBA counts, I'm guilty of at least three counts of this. A PS2 controller was sacrificed for the third one. Stupid Soul Calibur...

8. I can't keep my mouth shut. It's just so damned painful to watch people struggle with the most foolishly easy puzzles. Things that we as veteran gamers take for granted as being natural gameplay, other people seem to require massive amounts of concentration to apply for five minutes. Isn't it obvious the box goes on the switch? Why do you not see the door you've passed five times and never gone in? If someone's playing a game, I usually go and find something that will absorb my attention so I can't point out their horrible flaws to them

[Gollgagh]

I made it to Ultimecia in FF VIII but never finished the game. I was underpowered and kept losing to Griever.

This is what happened to me when I first played the game.

I've been replaying it during spring break though, and I've been DESTROYING the game this time.

So far the only challenging boss has been Bahamut and that's because Squall and one other party member were already critical. Ultima Weapon was a joke though for some reason. (I just beat the shit out of Adel in five turns tonight, just to tell you where I am)

[HideousBeing]

It always bugged me (for those of you that played and beat Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, with the Black Knight, Ike, etc etc...) that I completed the game without getting all of the characters.

Since after the game has been completed once, y'know, you unlock a gallery of concept art of each playable character...

[The Derrit]

I never played FFVII.

I started Earthbound and never got past Threed..

I SOLD MY N64 FOR MONEY TO BUY A GAMECUBE.

I'm gonna stop there.

owait one more I've never played a mega man game. how did i even get here.

[FR]

Go play MMX now.

[Yera]

Forgive me, OCR, for I have cheated.

I still own a Prima's guidebook to the original Super Smash Bros.

[SpanishFly]

I used a Gameshark to max out all my allies' likeness in Vanguard Bandits so I've seen every ending except bad ending, that's ironically easiest to get. I also stumbled across spoilers for Star Ocean: TTEOT when I started it and had no desire to finish, the same thing happened when I had the last bit of FFVIII shown to me when I was on disc 4, AND in FFX after I'd gotten to Zanarkand (which pissed me off, since I'd been really liking the game before that and just got turned kinda 'urgh' on it for something that wasn't even a result of getting sick of it or anything (since I hadn't/haven't).Oh, and hard as it is to believe, I just can not find Super Metroid that good, really, liked Castlevania Circle of the Moon or Aria of Sorrow better.

But yeah...I haven't beaten Super Mario Bros 1-3. Really, only one of those platformer Mario games I've beaten is Super Mario World. Sad, I know.

[Millipede]

When I was younger I sold my NES at a yardsale for $10. I had a lightzapper, powerpad, and a pile of games (Super Mario Bros. 3 and Monster Party!!). When I got home I realized what I had done, and I was horrified.