Do Video games make you angry?

[ChipTune]

After just losing my rag on game room and hurling my Hori arcade stick at the wall at great speed I wondered if anyone else here gets angry playing games or is it just me?

Im a bad tempted person to be fair, but games make me angrier than anything else.. I love them and am addicted to them but they have always made me furiously angry.. I remember smaching up my c64 tape loader when I was 10, throwing a gameboy at a wall when I was about 11 etc etc.. over the years I must have broken and detroyed over a grands worth of equipment.

I find old games the most annoying though, I try not to let it get to me, thinking about how poor programming, sadistic programmers, or the fact it is designed for arcade (thus coin guzzling) use so is deliberately too hard, but it doesnt help. Soon I find my temples pulsating and the red mist appearing.. sometimes I have the will power to stop immediately and turn it off which leaves me feeling beaten by the game and in a bad mood, but more often then not it ends with something being smashed to pieces and my brain feeling like it will explode.

Newer games get stick for being too easy or made too accessible, but I often find myself having more fun, and only occationally getting irritated.. L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3 I played through recently and I loved them, with minimal anger.. Ridge Racer Unbounded on the other hand resulted in a broken right thumbstick on my 360 controller.

I very very nearly came close to punching the screen of my HDTV as hard as I could the other day and realised I have a problem. Just this morning I was playing Wonderboy in Monster World and after the tenth time of being bounced off enemies all over the place with no control over proceedings I could feel the rage happening again..

So does anyone else find they get really p1ssed off while playing games?

[Antiriad2097]

Its not so much anger as frustration. I do get that, I've had many joystick throwing moments, but mostly I just swear at the screen since kit isn't cheap to replace and pads don't tend to be as sturdy as the old Comp Pros.

[The Laird]

I wouldn't say angry, annoyed yes. A bit of swearing always makes me feel better.

[DPrinny]

Only when I feel the game has cheated me.
Stuff like final bosses in some SNK games (whats his name in 2001 is a cheating fecker)

[Negative Creep]

I must admit that I've done it a few times, mainly out of frustration. It's been several months now, but The Force Unleashed did cause me to throw my controller rather violently into the floor. For those who've played it, it was during the Darth Vader fight where he blocks everything then destroys your health bar in seconds

[DreamcastRIP]

After just losing my rag...

Again?

[The Beans]

I get mad at players in online games a lot more than I get mad at the games themselves. Some people are just utter pratts.

With old games I expect unfairness, cheapness, bad design etc. All the things that can frustrate. I don't tend to rage at the old stuff.
I really don't like seeing such things in modern games unless the game has set its stall out beforehand and stated that's what you're going to get.

Whatever the game, whenever it was made, when the fun stops the game stops as far as I'm concerned. There's too much out there to play and enjoy for me to be staying on a game that's giving me no joy enough to make me throw a controller.

[ChipTune]

After just losing my rag...

Again?

always

[simes]

Yeah, I'd say frustration more than anger. Mario Kart on the DS is probably the worst at the moment. I'm having a lot of multiplayer games with my wife on this and the imbalance with the power-ups between what the players and AI seem to get is ridiculous. AI characters seem to be able to stick to the tracks like glue a lot of the time, are able to drive faster (unless you choose them yourselves and are then true to their stats) and it's not uncommon to be hit with several blue shells in a row when you're close to winning a race or to be in the lead, knocked off the track and suddenly find yourself dropped back into 8th place...

[The Angry Jock]

Yes.

[Dave300]

It's only a handful of games with which I get angry - beat-em-ups normally work me up when I keep losing. I remember playing the original SF4 and even on the easiest difficulty I couldn't beat Seth. Some of the tougher set pieces in the likes of CoD on the hardest difficulty also start me off - especially when for no apparent reason it's: whump of bullet, whump of bullet, whump of bullet, screen tilts sideways in death, restart, whump of bullet, whump of bullet, whump of bullet, screen tilts sideways, restart,... x 50 or so.

I normally start by getting sarcastic, then sweary, then blaming the developers for not testing the game properly and it being bugged, then comes the throwing of the gamepad on the bed where it won't break. Then I work out how to do it and carry on as if nothing had happened.

[rocky1980]

Yep all the time

[Pixiu]

I rarely get angry while playing games... provided I don't feel like the game is wasting my time.

What I mean is that if I lose a life to some end of level boss but can just carry on attacking him cos I have more lives, then great, i should be more careful. No problem.

If I lose a life to some end of level boss and it's game over, then OK fine, it's a challenging game and I like that.

BUT, if I lose a life and get sent way back in the level and have to plod through several minutes of not particularly challenging stuff just to get back to the thing that killed me (and most likely will kill me again), then yeah, by the third or fourth time I'll be getting annoyed.

By the seventh or eighth time I'll be FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU...!

[stvd]

It's not the games but it seems more to do with you as a person.
Maybe counselling would help you.
Or, if necessary, medication might be the answer.

Speak to your GP about your anger issues. It may be a simple fix.

[Rayne]

Yeah, I'd say frustration more than anger. Mario Kart on the DS is probably the worst at the moment. I'm having a lot of multiplayer games with my wife on this and the imbalance with the power-ups between what the players and AI seem to get is ridiculous. AI characters seem to be able to stick to the tracks like glue a lot of the time, are able to drive faster (unless you choose them yourselves and are then true to their stats) and it's not uncommon to be hit with several blue shells in a row when you're close to winning a race or to be in the lead, knocked off the track and suddenly find yourself dropped back into 8th place...

This, this, this, a million times this. The only game that really frustrates me is Mario Kart, for all of the reasons above.

Also agree with whoever said online players (for fighters in my experience). When you see someone plainly exploiting a game's mechanics to win it's both frustrating and saddening.