Stupidity Is the Only Option: Difference between revisions

 

=== [[Fighting Game]] ===

 

 

* ''[[Half-Life 2]]'' gives the player no choice but to climb into a Stalker pod in the Combine Citadel. And after being (of course) captured, stripped of your weapons, and escaping due to a [[Deus Ex Machina]], you are required to step into another, identical, pod. And be captured ''again''. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the [[Big Bad]], who congratulates you for delivering yourself to him so conveniently.

** What makes this a particularly ghoulish example is that there are two pods you can climb into. One leads to the plot, [[Press X to Die|and the other leads to your brain being cooked out of your skull by lasers.]] Gordon can clearly see the brain-cooking path, but he has no possible way of knowing that the other track doesn't have a lobotomy center right around the corner. The second instance in which you put yourself into a the pod is just as bad: by that point, the Combine are fully aware of your presence within the Citadel, and are almost certainly aware of how you infiltrated the heart of the facility in the first place.

** The ''MoH'' series gets special mention here, seeing as how your character always sets 10-second timers on bombs that he plants during stealth missions (and sets off remote-detonated bombs barely out of blast range), making it impossible to get far enough from the explosion to avoid immediate implication.

** On one stealth mission in ''Red Faction'', it's actually possible, if goddamn hard, to get into the Deputy Administrator's office without being identified. Of course, you still have to shoot your way ''out''. Part of the reason for this is that while you only came here to steal a key, the only way to do so is to kill the (heavily guarded) guy that has it.

* In the [[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]-[[Captain Ersatz|esque]] MMORPG ''[[Wizard 101]]'', if you play the Myth school, eventually your Snape expy teacher tells you to go get a book from the library without talking to the librarian. When you get to the library, there's no way to get a book for yourself (or if there is one, it's far from obvious); however, the librarian has the question mark over his head that denotes that you're supposed to talk to him. And he says the book doesn't exist. Then you go back and talk to your teacher again:

{{quote|'''Drake:''' You ''talked'' to the librarian? Didn't I instruct you not to? ...(sigh) You disappoint me.}}

** A particularly egregious (the word 'egregious' seems to crop up a lot on this page) example is the Priest in Peril quest, where your character is trying to find the missing priest Drezel in the temple of Paterdomus. The temple, as it turns out, has been taken over by a band of Zamorak monks who have imprisoned Drezel. When your character finds the front door locked, you are given the option to knock. The dialogue from the Zamorak monks is so jokey that it's hard to believe that the protagonist doesn't at least suspect that there's something up and it's not really Drezel telling him/her to kill the temple's guard dog. But you've got no choice but to do it anyway, and then be subjected to King Roald berating you for your stupidity. Otherwise, you'll never finish the quest, and never have access to Morytania and all its related places, mini-games, and quests.

** Other examples aren't quite as bad. A player who hasn't read storyline spoilers might believe that a certain character in In Search of the Myreque is an ally of the Myreque {{spoiler|and therefore be legitimately caught off guard when Venkstrom Krause is revealed as their enemy}}. Still, one would think the protagonist would become a bit more skeptical about certain things certain shady characters ask him/her to do, especially if the shady characters in question don't give a really good reason for doing those things.

* ''[[Command & Conquer]] [[Red Alert]] 3: Uprising'' is so chock-full of this that it makes the Allies a [[Game Breaker]]. The VERY FIRST MISSION of the game involves using a tiny Soviet force to infiltrate a massive Allied base and rescue three scientists, then try to get them out of the base, presumably using some kind of stealth or strategy, and escape via boats. The ONLY option is to have the scientists run as fast as they can RIGHT THROUGH THE ALLIED BASE while under HEAVY ENEMY FIRE from artillery that, although sluggish in targeting, can kill ANYTHING YOU HAVE with one hit. The final moments of the mission are less Real-Time Strategy and more "Frantically double click the exit and scream at the scientists to run faster". It's possible to do this mission without succumbing to this trope, though it takes some micromanaging. The artillery tanks have a slow refire rate, take a moment to fire and for their missiles to land, and you can see what they're shooting at. Crucially, they also hate switching targets. Run a Conscript around near its maximum range - It's not going to hit the little guy, he's too fast at that distance - while a Tesla trooper waddles up next to it. Activate his EMP field and shut the tank down, then blow it up. With this strategy, it's possible to clear every gun on the field, as they're only rarely positioned to cover each other and when they do there's only two of them.

* In ''[[Command & Conquer]] 3'' during the GDI Sarajevo mission, you are ordered to fire your Ion Cannon on Kane's fortress. The fortress that's standing right next to a chunk of [[Made of Explodium|tiberium]] the size of an iceberg. Even if you have the fortress itself surrounded by your forces and could just sit it out. The result: [[Earthshattering Kaboom|BOOM]]. The purpose of forcing the player to do so was to set up the climatic choice at the end of the game, {{spoiler|when you have to choose whether to use the Liquid Tiberium Bomb, thereby killing millions of people, or do things the hard way and save those lives.}}

* The same but worse happens in ''[[Perimeter]]''. You start a mission with an objective to destroy the enemy base and half-way through you are suddenly ordered to withdraw from the area. Worse part is that you actually can ignore the false order and carry on with trashing the enemy...which will count as defeat.

 

 

* Near the beginning of ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', Genis wishes to visit a friend of his at the human ranch. Mere minutes before, the townsfolk informed him that doing so is against the rules. No matter how hard you (as Lloyd) try, you have no choice but to accompany him. The result of your actions? His friend dies, [[Doomed Hometown|your hometown is destroyed]], you are banished from the town, you become a wanted criminal, and Lloyd will angst about his failure at many opportunities in the future. Even worse, this event has little positive effect on the plot. It gives Lloyd a reason to follow Colette's group, but [[Jumped At the Call|he was planning on doing so anyway]]. It seems that the only benefit to this railroad session is that Genis gets an Exsphere.

* In ''[[Breath of Fire]] II'', the heroes must pose as thieves and enter a thief base. At one point, there is a closed gate guarded by a single guy on the other side, who informs you that the switch to open the gate is located in a hole on the right wall. When you reach into the hole, a poisonous spider bites you and the thief tells you that a real thief would have known that it was a trap. Oddly, even if you know the trick beforehand, you will never be able to pass the gate without falling for it.

** Look back as far as the original ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'': early in the Moleville mines, you reach a circular dead end. There's a trampoline in one of the rooms, and the only way to get deeper into the mines is to jump on the trampoline, hit your head on the ceiling, and pass out. When you come to, all your money and items have been stolen.

** After a [[Meaningful Name|Midbus]] fight in ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]'', [[Big Bad]] Fawful treats [[Anti-Hero]] Bowser to a large buffet of unhealthy food to celebrate. Even though it is entirely plausible and even likely, given the incidents that started the whole plot, that the food is drugged, you are still forced to approach and eat six of the dishes yourself. Naturally, it's a trap, though not necessarily in the way anyone expected.

* ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldurs Gate]] II: Throne of Bhaal'':

** The game features a painfully obvious [[Evil Plan]] user as its final villain, who you are able to interact with peacefully on multiple occasions. At no point can you point out her oh-so-obvious villainy to her or try to do anything about it, [[Just Eat Gilligan|even as she just stands right in front of you]].

* The entire sequence of events leading up to and after the boss battle at Jupiter Lighthouse in ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age''. There are about a hundred things the hero could have done that would have been more intelligent than simply walking up to the bad guys with only half his party and bearing the [[MacGuffin]] they're after.

* A lampshaded moment from ''[[Ultima VII]]'' here ([http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/SerpentIsle/Update%2022/index.html linky].)

** While handing them the Tear Drop was indeed a very bad idea, this isn't as bad as the usual [[MacGuffin]] trade. The demons were doing a darn good job of slaughtering townsfolk, and the fight you have with the demon boss makes it likely that they would have eventually destroyed the whole town, and the castle and gotten the Tear Drop anyway, Cecilia may have just prevented unnecessary loss of life. Of course, you spend half the game trying to get it back before it is used to restore the [[Big Bad]] to life.

* Probably every ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' has at least one stupid trap the player must fall into.

 

=== [[Sports Game]] ===

 

 

** And then there's the series of seemingly bottomless pits that you have to jump into in order to progress through a later area of the game. And this is ''after'' James has found a note addressed specifically to him, warning him that very bad things will happen if he keeps up his search.

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'' has a house with a growling, unruly thing locked behind a door in an upstairs room. Everyone tells you not to free it. The game is extremely [[Rail Roaded]], so guess what you have to do.

* In ''[[The Suffering]]: Ties That Bind'', in order to get to the Big Bad, you must {{spoiler|leap into a pit that just manifested not one, but two horrific demonic adversaries. Not to mention it being similar to other pits which have spewed deadly horrors. Belly-flopping into a three-foot deep pool of toxic sewage is just a goofy bonus}}.

* In the 2004 flash horror game ''Exmortis'', the protagonist reads ''two separate journal accounts'' of people who read the English translation of the Exmortis and were subsequently plagued by unspeakable horrors, their lives taken and ruined by supernatural forces. So naturally when you finally come across the book, the only option to move the game forward is to read it yourself.