Video game lessons learned the hard way

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit: It is not the case that spike strips and EMPs just slow you down. Your car will die.

Forza Motorsport 3: Just because that Lotus Elise handled well stock, does not mean you don't upgrade the brakes when you make it go faster.

Halo: Reach: Learn to headshot or GTFO.

Red Faction: Guerrilla::: Take heed of the word Guerilla'' in the title

• Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded: Always equip something that prevents "Shoe-Glue", "Silence", and "Defense Lv 1" status effects (or Silence-prevention and Esuna equipped) when venturing into new sectors. Especially have Shoe-Glue prevention, if nothing else. You never know when an Eliminator will pop up on the way to the exit point and wreck your shit challenge, if not outright kill you.
  • In addition, Haste is a godsend.

edited 29th Jan '11 1:30:03 PM by Customer

Banjo Kazooie: When the game says it is going to erase your save if you do that again, and you do that again, it is in fact going to delete your save.

You see those floating eyes off in the distance? RUN! FUCKING RUN! I DON'T CARE THAT YOU'LL PROBABLY CAREEN INTO AN ANOMALY, FUCKING CHEESE IT!

You see that man in the black cloak? He will kick your ass. No exceptions.

Heavy Charging into a group of enemies should be a last resort, unless you're extremely skilled when it comes to blasting them as they float away.

Go for the superweapon control centre or the Epic Unit. If your opponent can use them effectively, they'll completely wipe you out. Especially if it's a MARV.

You see those guards on the rooftop? Unless you're on the clock or can't kill anyone, kill them before they make everything unnecessarily difficult for you.

Your nanosuit has a Cloak mode for a reason. Use it as often as possible.

Echo Bazaar:

• You will need 1000+ of every minor and none minor thing in the game, keep a store of them just in case
• The correspondance is important, but not important enough to go looking for Mr Eaten.
• Painters will leave you if you force them to take apart the Gold framed portrait.
• Courting the Masters favour is always good.
• The university is a great place to grind materials.
• Always make sure that you have the duchesses favour

Empire Total War:

• Your armies will get itself killed. Don't bother using cannons if you can't stomach that.

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines:

• Everyone and everything you encounter is going to try to kill you and send you to hell.
• Trust only the wolf and the pirate, listen to the girl on the beach.

Alpha Protocol:

• Mash charm button if you want to get the drop on Marburg.
• Albatross will help you in most situations and can give you cyborgs.

Deus Ex 2:

• You can dick over pretty much everyone in this game, have fun with that.

Etrian Odyssey: Bring atleast 2 warp wire with you at all times....focking squirrels.

Knights Of The Old Republic:

• Blaster rifles are teh suck. Even if you build the main character as a rifle-user, switching to a lightsaber three-quarters into the game will still go better for you.
• If you're playing darkside, don't put Zaalbar in your party for the Star Forge.
• Don't kill Juhani.
• If Calo Nord isn't already trying to kill you, leave him alone.
• If a computer terminal gives you the option to overload it, DON'T.

Never abandon a game of Zelda halfway through. You will forget what you were doing when you get back to it, making the game more-or-less impossible to complete when you return a year later. This has happened to me with all the Zelda games I've played so far...

Kingdom Hearts 1: Aero/ra/ga is worthwhile.
Dwarf Fortress: A magma fall right in front of the entrance is badass, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
- The top layers of a magma pipe drain much faster than you thought they did.

edited 30th Jan '11 3:29:18 PM by InsanityPrelude

Pokemon: Train at least 4 pokemon for a permanent party. I didn't try this until HGSS.

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, Sergeant "Deadeye" Unther: "In a real combat situation speed is life. If you go slow, you die."

A game I played and beat as an 8 year old, words I have carried with me my entire life.

@mmysqueeant YEEESSS! This goes for almost every RPG that doesn't have a convenient journal of events or exposition character to catch up on. I remember I must have restarted Star Ocean 2 like 8 times before finishing it.

Super Robot Taisen Original Generation 2: Save before battling mooks. They WILL shoot you down early and often until you've gotten some levels. Also, use Alert with Supers, they cannot tank.

Pokemon:

• Gen I- Psychics are gods and have no weakness.
  • After Gen I- Forget about the above rule.
• Emerald- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, using Rayquaza to beat the last gym and the Elite Four is just evening the odds.
• The 2nd Gym exists solely to punish you for picking the wrong starter (except in Gen III, where that role is filled by the 4th gym... and the 6th gym).
  • The 1st gym almost always exists solely to punish you for thinking that cute salamander/chick/awesome flaming monkey was a good choice.
    • Exception: Falkner exists to punish people who like Grass starters.

Forza 2- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard. Ramming the shit out of them is just evening the odds.

Starcraft- They have the cheat codes in the back of the little guide book that comes with the game. Theres a good reason for that.

edited 28th May '11 11:45:22 PM by Malph

Pokemon Nuzlocke Challenge: If you do not grind before a Gym Battle, YOU WILL DIE YOUNG.

You WILL suffer if you do not face Skeith with a GameShark.

Don't EVER play Mercenaries while listening to music.

Guns SUCK!

No matter how 'cute' or 'funny' you might think it'll be, DO NOT hit a Big Daddy with your wrench and then run off (giggling like a school girl).

edited 31st Jan '11 6:50:55 PM by NULLcHiLD27

In times of danger, if you're fast enough, sometimes it's a very good idea to RUN LIKE HELL.

edited 31st Jan '11 6:55:14 PM by ColorPrinter

• Resident Evil: Code Veronica: You have to be very frugal with your ammo in this game. Not doing so will bite you in the ass even more so than in previous games.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations: Do NOT attempt to save scum immediately if you're wrong on presenting the last piece of evidence. You WILL waste your time.

Steel Battalion (Line of Contact specifically):

• Just because you're good at the original singleplayer game doesn't mean you're good at Line of Contact. Lots of changes, big and small, have been made, and you're fighting human players this time.
• Scan the horizon with your reticle ALL THE TIME. You just might pick up an enemy.
• You'll get a "WARN" icon in the HUD if you're locked-on. Better prepare for a fight and let your teammates know they're on to you.
• Smoothbore cannons are damn near useless because of the double whammy of Painfully Slow Projectiles and slow fire rates. Take a twin rifle, rapid-fire rifle (three shots before reload cycle), or assault rifle (five shots before reload cycle). Even the machine gun might be more viable-ten shots before a reload cycle, and the reload cycle is very short. Lots of ammo, too.
• If enemies are using railguns, you'd better master the art of slidestepping just before they fire, or you're cold meat. Time it so that you slidestep right about when the circle starts converging, or better yet, learn to time it by the distinctive sound. (But if two enemies have railguns, and BOTH are aimed at YOU, you're just screwed if they time their shots right.)
• Speaking of slidestepping, OVERRIDE IS YOUR FRIEND (assuming you're piloting a 2nd-or-3rd-gen VT). The last thing you need is to run out of battery power right before eating a projectile or three.
• Just because you've chaffed a homing missile (AS-mis or PZ-mis) doesn't mean it won't hit you if you don't slidestep.
• Never, EVER let someone get on your six. Even if you're piloting the Earthshaker and they're piloting cheap 1st-gen VTs, they can ruin your day surprisingly quickly, and even the light VTs feel a bit sluggish to turn-especially if you don't want to push the balancer too hard and tip over.
• On maps with water, you'll notice that the maps have two different levels of water. AVOID THE DEEP WATER AT ALL COSTS. If you accidentally slip in, you're not getting out with your VT intact.
• You might want to try capturing control points by intentionally running into them in wheel mode (5th gear) to fall over, and then immediately shut down (flip all the toggle switches back) so that the reticle sweep won't pick you up. Once you have the point, immediately start up again (unless you want to be KIA by asphyxiation) and get on your feet, because a half-decent enemy team is probably on to you by now.
• More than anything else, the key to victory in Steel Battalion is not so much about hitting the enemy as much as NOT getting hit by the enemy-especially since everyone has aimbots with lock-on, but Painfully Slow Projectiles. To do this, you'll have to be good at outmanuevering that enemy and using that slidestep pedal.

edited 31st Jan '11 10:15:52 PM by NamelessFragger

Pokemon

• Grass types do NOT counter Gyarados.
• The Elite Four movesets actually have thought behind them these days. No matter what you do to Lance in SS he will always have a Plan B.
• It doesn't matter if Dragonite has a 4x Ice weakness if he one-hit-kills you before you can land a hit.
• If an attack's base power is over 100 it probably has a horrible crippling drawback.
• Lucario might hit hard but he goes down like a little bitch.
• The Power of Friendship is worthless, traded Pokemon only respect badges.
• If you switch in a Steel type, your opponent probably knows Earthquake, no matter what type it is.
• Beldum and Gible are the only pseudo-legendaries worth training in the campaign (assuming you trade Beldum to a new game).
• Pitiful base stats or no, a Luvdisc can still kill Charizard with The Power of Love.
• IVs can make or break a Pokemon.

Racing sim games

• Tires are the most important upgrade to have, period.
• Once HP climbs above 500, the 4WD car will always win.
• Those cool funky '90s cars from Japan like the Lantis and Piazza are all worthless.
• Often fast sweepers are more difficult to get the best line on than hairpins.
• The Venturi Atlantique may look like a Ferrari, but it is not the equal of a Ferrari.
• The Cizeta Moroder V 16 T is good for looking at and little else.
• Real life tracks are always more boring than the fictional ones, except for Spa and the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
• Formula cars and the Nurburgring Nordschleife do not get along.

Doom

• A lot of Doom maps were not designed with hitscan enemy mods in mind.
• If it looks like a trap, it is a trap.
• Don't use the rocket launcher against the Cyberdemon unless you have to.

FreeSpace

• The fluff's description of a ship or weapon is a lie unless proven otherwise.
• Don't fly the Boanerges. Ever.
• When you're confident that you've accounted for every way your mission can break, someone will find another way to break it.
• SF Dragons are almost never worth fighting.
• If the mission sounds simple, it isn't.
• If they tell you the mission is easy, it isn't.
• If they tell you enemy resistance is light, expect a full battle group.
• The above three go double for Blue Planet missions.
• If a weapon does something other than direct damage it's usually worthless.

edited 31st Jan '11 11:33:36 PM by WoolieWool

Fighting games in general:

Stop jumping in.

The 2nd Gym exists solely to punish you for picking the wrong starter (except in Gen III, where that role is filled by the 4th gym).

Gen 1: Sure. I picked Charmander. Still grabbed a Pikachu though.
Gen 2: Nope. I picked Cyndaquil.
Gen 3: Nope; all the starters are terrible and should be dropped like a roll of toilet paper when the neighbors notice what you're doing to the old guy's house.
Gen 4: Nope. I picked Chimchar.

edited 31st Jan '11 11:49:34 PM by Sabbo

Fighting Games: If you're not willing to take up "cheap tactics" to counter your opponent's own, you shouldn't be playing.

Legend Of Zelda: Slashing your sword gungho in a bossfight will only get you slaughtered: I.E. Queen Gohma.

Resident Evil classic: Never, EVER overwrite saves.

Bushido Blade: Fucking sidestep you dumbass!

Beat 'em Up: Visual and Audio cues, people, learn them.

NetHack: Do NOT "yo dawg" two Bags of Holding.

Kirby:

Do not fuck with King Dedede.

Or Lololo and Lalala's Revenge.

Or Mecha Kracko.

Or Daroach.

Or Dark Daroach.

Or any boss with the words "Cannon" and "Core" in it.

Or Fatty Whale.

Or regular Kracko.

Or Meta Knight.

edited 4th Feb '11 4:27:23 AM by Altoid