10 Video Games That Want You To Hate Them
These developers knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
Generally, games are supposed to be fun, but they certainly don’t have to be.
Like any other form of media they can also make you sad, or frightened, or sometimes they fill you with a seething hatred. Whether they meant to or not.
This list features a bunch of games that really wanted to make you rage, whether through unbelievable difficulty levels, maddening controls, or handing the game design reins to your fellow sadistic players.
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10. Marble Madness (1984)
Some games are hard in ways that propel you towards a desire to master them and some games are hard in ways that make you want to put your head through a wall. 1984 arcade game Marble Madness is the latter.
You play as a humble marble making your way downtown, rolling fast, there’s ramps to surpass, and you’re goal-bound. I remember playing a variation of this mechanic back in my high school IT class which consisted of far more gaming than IT-learning, and I’m not sure there’s a game design mechanic more infuriating.
Just like Super Monkey Ball you’re just rolling a ball from one end of the level to the other and I think part of what makes this game so infuriating is how brain-numbingly simple that seems like it should be.
Somehow every dragon in Elder Scrolls combined doesn’t compare to the challenge of getting this stupid ball to the end of these stupid obstacle courses. I refuse to believe this game doesn’t genuinely want to make you cry. It was a very quick way to turn an otherwise chill trip to your local grocery store or whatever random place had a machine into a ragefest of a day.
They certainly don’t make these games like they used to, but for ones like Marble Madness, I’m not convinced that’s always a bad thing.