I’m still playing through Skyward Sword (that game is way longer than it should be) and I’ve actually been stuck a handful of times. At one point I was stuck for a good hour. Which is quite shameful. It got me thinking about all those times in video games when I was just completely puzzled for hours, sometimes days.
In hindsight old school adventure games are easily the worst. Monkey Island 2 was probably the biggest offender. The spitting contest puzzle, using an actual monkey as a monkey wrench. Half those puzzles just don’t make any bloody sense at all!
What about you guys? What puzzles in games had you absolutely, pulling your nostril hairs out in frustration, stuck?
Let us know below!
Cephalxn
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:11 AMIt’s not really in the same category, but Catherine on hard was rediculous.
Mind you, when I was very young, got stuck on Monkey Island 1 for ages, that and from memory, Full Throttle (which I played recently and didn’t have an issue at all).
Rod
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 10:33 PMMonkey Island for me too… specifically how to blow up the small dam on MI itself in order to flood the dry river bed. That puzzle literally had two families working on it for weeks.
NotheMama
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:13 AMThe game D on ps1, all of it!
ediblebird
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:18 AMIn Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars on gba, i got stuck and had absolutely no idea what to do. turns out it was a bug that prevented you from travelling to a new destination if you went to locations in a certain order. had to restart. I love that series though, so no big problem
Femto
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:35 AMYou just need the right comb of spit to build up phlem!
The most stupid puzzle in an adventure game has to be in RUNAWAY where you need to get a key out of a horse trough filled with mud. Your character needs the key but he doesn’t want to get mud on his hands. The answer go to the second floor of the building and drop a pot plant into the trough making the mud splash out giving you the key. I got stuck on that for so long.
Femto
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:41 AMI also came across a game breaking bug in the GBA version of broken sword where the stupid priest won’t stop cleaning the challis making it impossible to continue. I also restarted the game!
Nick
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:45 AMStarship Titanic was worse. One of the puzzles required you to find a specific room on the ship that had a bowl of pistachio nuts, where a piece of the ship’s computer was hidden. Rather than just sift through the bowl, you had to summon a talking parrot via the inter-room transport system (called a Suc-U-Bus from memory). The parrot was crazy for pistachio nuts and would eat the bowl, thus revealing the computer component you were searching for.
Only Douglass Adams would think of something so wacky and outright bizarre.
thyco1
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:42 AMi was like 14 at the time, but it was Indiana Jones and fate of Atlantis i could not for the life of me get past the balloon flight.
lambogirl99
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:44 AMI got Need for Speed Most Wanted the year after it came out. Didn’t take me long to get close to the end. I sorta got stuck with trying to get enough bounty to race the last guy. I kept getting busted in pursuits, and I got frustrated with it and gave up…
Then, last year (or was it the year before?) I went back, found my old save game and decided to try it again. I got all the bounty I needed and evaded the police on my first try… ಠ_ಠ
Stephen
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:59 AMRunescape – The Elemental Workshop 3 puzzle, wasted 3 hours of my life on that unforgiving puzzle.
D.C.
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:04 PMAny one play Gabriel Knight 3? The Le Serpent Rouge puzzle was insanely awesome, but defeinitely head scratchingly hard at times. The feeling of satisfaction when you worked it out was great.
D.C.
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:13 PMJust remembered a glyph puzzle in Assassin’s Creed 2 that made me feel like a simpleton.
Stevorooni
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:14 PMSam and Max Hit the Road. I can’t quite remember the details but I think I had neglected to search the mouse hole in their office which stopped me from continuing because I needed to search it to find money to buy some pecan flavoured candy for some guy so I could so something else…
Also Day of the Tentacle, it took me a while to figure out how to get Laverne out of the tree in the future.
D.C.
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:16 PMI loved those crazy DOTT puzzles, getting your head around the cause-and-effect puzzles was half the fun. :D
Jubs
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 1:08 PMSam & Max Hit the Road, ask the psychic to bend the screwdriver with this mind… shamefully needed walkthough…
Trjn
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:36 PMThe water temple in Majora’s Mask.
I don’t know what the hell I was doing wrong, but after many afternoons of struggling, I just abandoned that game. Strangely, I never had any issues with the OoT water temple but Majora’s just kicked my ass.
Glenn
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:51 PMI got stuck in Ocarina of Time in the Fire Temple… All I had to do was run forward and I’d automatically jump the gap and catch the ledge. I didn’t realise this because the first time I attempted it I missed and fell in so I figured that was incorrect.
This stumped me for hours of gameplay, and eventually months later I went back and discovered how to do it… I must have just had my angle off my a fraction :(
Andrew
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 1:26 PMPolice Quest 3 where you had to clog a toilet on day one so you could get a plumbers tool on day 2 to use on day 3
NotheMama
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 1:38 PMGotta say I agree about Skyward Sword being waaaaay too long!!!
Crazyguy1990
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 1:55 PMChips challenge from level 9 onwards.
First eight levels are easy enough, then the other 136 levels get hectic.
Martin
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 2:00 PMHitchikers guide to the galaxy. F U Infocom.
Martin
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 2:02 PMAnd the first room in Scott Adams HULK. Though once solved – awesome puzzle.
Lazarus
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 3:49 PMI’ve been working through Monkey Island 2 SE recently and remember why I never completed it the first time around; the puzzles are ludicrous, that spitting contest one in particular. Unlike every other Lucasarts adventure game I played (except maybe Fate Of Atlantis), LeChuck’s Revenge has been the one I’ve used the most walkthroughs on.
NovaCascade
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 5:19 PMI grabbed psychonauts during the recent steam sale. Every time I get to a new area with people that I’m supposed to be helping I forget that I have the brain portal thing to get into their heads. Every Single Freaking Time
Marbledbeef
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 6:27 PMIf you miss this jbhifi sale you will regret it!
Prices have been chunched….?
http://www.jbhifi.com.au/games/sony/play-station/ps3/
Simon
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 7:19 PMhaha,also got stuck on Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis, when you’re in the sewers or something? Not sure how old I was, pretty young. The first two games I ever got stuck on I think was a Batman game for the C64 which was really puzzly, and Labyrinth for the C64, which was a REAL pain in the ass as you had 24 real hours I think to complete the game and no save…I tried multiple times and always got stuck towards the end where you have to toss rocks at some buttons on a gate to change them from red to green or something and I could never get beyond there – I still dunno how to do it, I should look it up haha. Also on the Amiga I got stuck dead in Another World in the maybe fourth level? where you’re separated from your companion and you have to go into these catacomb bits and release some water and run back quickly…I dunno I could never figure out what to do right after that – again, I still don’t know – however I used a cheat to jump to the next level and then completed the rest of the game
Joshy206
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 7:59 PMA puzzle in a Professor Layton game. It took days to get it; I was so ashamed of myself.
The puzzle in question:
“There was once a knight bold and brave. He felled countless
opponents and was said to be peerless on the battlefield.
However, legend has it that there was one foe that set the knight quaking in his armored boots. The knight feared this monster because of the rumor that surrounded it. It was said that anyone who slew the beast was destined to spill his own blood in the process.
Can you guess the identity of this terrifying foe?”
Ynefel
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 2:15 PMThat exact point in Monkey Island 2. I could NOT for the life of me figure that thing out. No matter what combination of swish, hork, etc I chose, I just couldn’t get that spit to go far enough. Spent hours on it. When I finally figured it out, I almost screamed and cheered at the same time. Those Lucasarts point and click games could be pretty brutal.
Huw Jenkins
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 1:03 AMTrying to complete any Gen IV Pokemon game without a DS Lite.