Be Excellent To Each Other

Right, I don't profess to be very good at Pinball FX. I don't play on real pinball tables, and my only other experience of it is playing Pinball Dreams on the Amiga when I was a nipper. On each table I'm down near the bottom of the scoreboards, and each game generally lasts for about 5 minutes. It's basically a fun game I can play in short bursts.

However, something strange happened earlier. To give you some sense of how crap I am, my best ever score on Nightmare Mansion is 13 million; This evening I played one warm up game and got 4m. The next game was a bit of a blur, but after I'd lost my 8th ball(!) I had ended up with 54,580,200.

Now, up until today I've only ever managed to get one extra ball - in this one game I managed to get five. The best (and slightly ironic) thing of all, though, is that I was only playing it as I had a spare 20 minutes to kill while waiting for Ange to get ready to go out (I was giving her a lift to her friend's house). This game lasted for over half an hour, and she was starting to get into a huff as I was going to make her late. I daren't have paused it, however, as I know I'd have left the zone forever.

I don't even pretend to think that I'll be able to do it again. This was a genuine, bonafide once-off. I know this because on that table's scoreboard I'm now only second to Trousers, having beaten such pinball wizards as MalcSeventyFour and (Linda Barker - Ed).

So, enough of my mixture of smugness and incredulity; has anyone else had a similar gaming experience - a never repeated and never to be repeated amazingly perfect game, where everything came together in the most awesome way possible? I want to hear your story.

I had a game on the Street Fighter table where the ball got stuck and no amount of nudging would shift it... annoying.

It's the year 1989, The global political scene was changing, but uppermost in my mind was the fact that I would have to do the cross country run soon. Now don't get me wrong, I loved games, and athletics, but I was always a sprinter, 100m, 200m, and 400m were my forte, I hated anything other that and was once almost lapped in a 1500m race (good job it wasn't 4 full laps or I would have been).

Any way, the usual course of events was that my friends and I would just take it easy, spend our time talking and end up finishing in something like 60th to 70th place (out of about 150 in the year). One year after about 10 minutes of the usual stuff, someone ran past our group, I can't remember who, but it was someone I didn't like and something went "click" in my brain. "There is no way I am finishing behind that guy" I thought to myself, I mentioned as much to my friends, and off I went after him, they just stayed together as usual. So off I go, charging past people left right and center, and pretty soon I'd caught up and overtaken the person I so wanted to beat, a few minutes later he reovertook me and we had a race on, we pretty much went flat out for the rest of the run. We overtook people as we went, but that didn't matter to either us.

Eventually, the finishing line was in sight, and I knew I had enough left in me to sprint for the finish, so I kicked off, and overtook a few more people, the other guy couldn't match my pace, and finished about 4 places behind me. And me? Well, I finished 2nd, The guy who won, won by about 5 minutes, but he regularly represented Westminster and was used to coming in the top 5 of the London Championships (or whatever it was called), but there was me, a sprinter, coming 2nd in the CC race. Go me.

I don't know where I found the energy, or endurance to do what I did, and I've never had the ability to do it again since then. The only other comparable feat was when I sprinted the full 400m the year previously to win the District Scout title at that distance by over 60m. (I tried it again the week after at school and ran out of steam at about 330m and ended finishing 3rd and therefore missing out on the chance to represent my school at the London Schools champion thingy previously mentioned)

Malc

Rode into college this morning. All the way in through heavy traffic, lots of filtering, didn't put my feet down once. I was dead pleased.

I got 403 million on Rocky and Bullwinkle the other day, so maybe it wasn't a fluke, after all.

how much is pinball fx?

I think it's 800. That's for four* tables. The other three tables are 200 points each.

* - Buccaneer is free DLC.

Not really the same I spose but I think most people who have played it can agree that when playing frequent counter strike, sometimes you enter this zone, and literally just cant miss, with any gun, from anywhere on the map.

I had some fun times when CS:S first came out with a Mac10 from 100 yards.

Also a few times playing SKATE on the 360. Some lines you will NEVER be able to do again.
Other times can barely land a kickflip.

Man, noone cares about my nearly 20 year anecdote about REAL LIFE ZONENESS

Malc

I was assuming you'd just copy+pasted the plot to 'Run, Fatboy, Run 2'.

When I was 14 I wasn't even remotely fat.

Malc

Did you have a sense of humour back then, though?

A year later (you can tell as I'm holding a gameboy)

Malc

I have more of one now than I did then!

Malc

Sometimes on Guitar Hero, your conscious mind can go for a wander whilst your fingers take over. Yesterday to unwind after work I had a blast at Mr Brightside on medium. Things about the day were still rattling in my head so I wasn't really paying attention, thinking about stuff that I needed to do for xmas or whatever. When the song finished I tuned back in and realised that I'd hit 554/555 notes. Initial amazement at the power of the not-paying-attention mind quickly turned into "Fuck! One fucking note missed!? Bastard"

ZOMG! CHILD PORN!

It's ok, the IWF will be blocking this site soon.

In which case, I'd like to say that Mr Dave's armpits smell like marmite.

All I can think of is FFX when the final battle started (the final FINAL battle-not the ones that looked final but in fact weren't)

So I cained Jechts face in-buh bye daddy ^.^* then I had to kill all me Aeons and I was very sad as I really wanted to keep the pony 'uuuuh' and then there's the anit-climax of that shitty boss....I mean wtf was that!? But it has LOADS of HP and I was crapping myself!! IANY attack I did just wasn't doing ANY damage to it. I pressed pause because I had to go to the shops and I couldn't save it.

I came back about 20mins later and the game was playing!! I completely had a break down because I thought I was dead.....turns out that the thing saving me was 'Jinx,' one of the most meaningless spells (well-it's not really a spell but-y'know) and I had cast it just before leaving in a fit of 'omfg-what the hell do I have left?!?!!?'

So I sat there and ate doritos whilst jinx worked its magic and reflected magically blow after blow and slowly wound down the boss's HP to nothing

And that ladies and gents was my ace gaming thing

Less insulting - FEEX

Don't tell me, you had loads of friends when you were 14.

On my first play through of Final Fantasy VII, I just ripped through the game as quickly as I could. I avoided all side quests and just tried to finish the thing.

I got the final incarnation of Sephiroth, and got caned. Completely. Didn't even get close to killing him.

Tried again. Dead. Tried again. Dead. ETC.

I resigned myself to playing through the whole thing again (which I did later anyway, getting every single thing in the game), but one night came home at about 3am, steaming drunk, and loaded it anyway, whilst grumbling about killing Sephritoh.

Despite one my characters spending most of the time dead, and another spending the entire fight as a frog, I somehow beat him. I have absolutely no idea how I managed this, as when I tried this again when sober he obliterated me again.

Of course, on the second play through he barely even scratched my PARTY O' DOOM!

Loads isn't perhaps correct, but I did have friends, as I mentioned in the anecdote in the first place!

Malc

Fending off a chinese guy's mega skills for 3 credits on SVC chaos when he challenged me in the arcade. He won in the end but it cost him £1.50.

Chariots of Fire 2 then. I give up.

On an actual real pinball table when I was about 13 during my lunch hour at the school Youth Club I managed to get about 12 replays on this Fighter Pilot themed table where every time the ball came near the flippers it would just fly wherever I willed it. It was one of those machines where an enormous "CLACK" would spout forth when you got a replay so by the 5th there were a small crowd of people huddled round the table watching in amazement.

I'd like to say that was my legacy at the youth club but it was more for getting twatted in the face by a pool cue and not grassing for which I became more well known.

Guitar hero and rock band are the main ones I can think of now - sometimes my fingers seem to interact with the music without any input from my brain at all.

That would be about being a missionary and/or business man (in his suit and tie)

Malc

On the downside, you're deaf, dumb and blind.

Playing 5 a side. I used to play at a decent level but our team was fairly rubbish and I was only interested in keeping fit and playing with my mates. Anyway, we're up against this other side who are dead competitive. I get kicked a few times because they know I'm the only good player and after about ten minutes, I get a bit pissed off.

By the end, I was pretty much taking them on single handed. Not being greedy, just blocking shots in rapid succession and passing the ball around to the rest of the team before covering for them if they messed up. We won 11-9, I scored 6, set up the other five.

i remember reaching the level 5 of dodonpachi without even blinking my eayes or thinking just once.

The other day something similar happened during a really tricky solo on GH (don't remember the song).

I was once in the zone doing archery. I won a little trophy like that one in the Ludo championship in Father Ted. *Thunk* Gold. *Thunk* Gold. *Thunk* Gold. Four out of six arrows hit gold at eighty yards, I felt mighty. That was a long time ago mind, in a different place. But I was certainly in the zone that day. Hurrah!

Shame I had to give it all up when I was hit by the anti-zone. One day I started shooting and found that I loosed the arrow the moment I looked at the target, I just couldn't hold the string drawn. If I looked away and pulled the bow-string, I could hold it for ages, the moment I looked at the target, *thwang!* Consequently overnight I became terrible at it. That was twelve years ago, I haven't played since that awful summer.

Hmm. Actually, now I have internet and now remember that horrible thing, I can go look it up and find out if I was just a mental. *Goes off to look*

Jesus! It really is a condition! 'Target Panic'. Wow, I actually had no idea. Some website or other says:



Grrr. Lousy target panic! I coulda been a contender!

EDIT:

(Awaits 'premature release' jokes.)

Would we? I've heard it improves with age.

I almost always 'zone' while doing endurance races in stuff like Gran Turismo or Forza. I also sometimes start having wandering thoughts while playing certain games or parts of certain games, to the point where I immediately remember those thoughts every time I play that level again, so strongly do I associate the two (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is I always thought about Irish stereotypes while in the ice level of Battletoads).

I did 'zone' once and only once in Space Giraffe - I had an absolutely astonishing run where I cleared about a dozen levels, had several visits to the bonus level and got a lot of the achievements to boot.

I soon as I think to myself that I'm in some zone I promptly fuck up.

Well quite - the zone is like The Game. Oops.

This generally happens to me on the M5.

Trousers IS the zone.


raggy twat

ahah. And i always thought about i guy i used to fight with a lot during the 5th grade, in the water levels of Alex Kid in the Miracle World.

By "fight" you mean "mud westle"?

I also did this. Except I reached level 45 from the start.

Then they reset the scoreboard.

Welease woderwick!

Unreal Tournament. 4-way capture the flag. I captured three flags and ran, alone, sidestepping, jumping, whirling and firing blindly back the way I'd came before whirling back in about 0.2 seconds per shot, all the way back to my base. Bullets, laser blasts and shrapnel from flak cannons sprayed all around me, always from behind, flying through the air where I would have been had I not flipped out of the way 0.01 seconds earlier. Captured all three flags at once, losing literally not one point of health.

A friend playing Crackdown. Fell off one of the tallest buildings in the game and hit the pavement, hard. Lived. The commentator said "That was close!", and he started walking forwards across the road, only to be instantly killed as an enormous tanker ploughed into him at 50mph.

Unreal Tournament mod, Infiltration (one of the older versions, before it went into an all-out Counterstrike clone and became utterly shit and pointless). Killing people with a single shot from the hip (no crosshairs in this game, and the stil criminally unused elsewhere 'vector aiming' meant that the gun's aiming point wasn't even static) when they were distant enough to be barely seven pixels high. When you got into that game, you'd feel superhuman - a single bullet from the weakest gun in the game could kill you instantly.

I got the F1 cars in Lotus Challenge on the Xbox (and won races with them). What a bastard of a hard driving game. If you ever played it you'll understand.

Also there was some sort of ultra achievement thing in Vanishing Point but I can't really remember, licence tests or something, DrG will undoubtedly remember. That was a bastard too as I remember and not even a good game, unlike Lotus Challenge.

*makes game called Target Panic*

I remember you playing it, and am still scared of your RAGE driving that incredibly narrow-tired 1950s GT car.



That is the Great Stunt Mode Debacle, which shall not be spoken of here again.

Speaking of driving games you guys played, Apex is the one that clearly needs a sequel on the 360.