Admit it. Even if you’ve never done it, you’ve wanted to do it. For one reason or another, some video games overwhelm the frustration threshold of their users. And pity the poor, unassuming delivery device of that game when the user loses his or her temper.
Case in point. I finally managed to get my Settlers of Catan fix with the new game for the Nintendo DS. Overall, it’s not a bad game and does a fairly nice job of replicating the fun of playing the game with real people. However, there is one very annoying aspect of the code. In a real game of Catan, when someone rolls a 7, they weigh several factors before determining who should be hit with the robber. Who is in the lead? Who is close to winning? How many resources can one steal from them?
In this game, only factor is considered – which player is the human? The computer always picks on the human, even when it means that they may lose the game to one of the other computer opponents or that they will get zero resources from the action. It’s like playing a game with Bender, the sociopathic robot from Futurama – “Hey baby, wanna kill all humans?”
Well, if they’re going to cheat, I’m going to cheat too. As they say, save early, save often.