What is your most embarrassing and stupid shmup death?

EddyMRA · Post by **EddyMRA** » Mon May 16, 2005 5:49 am

Stupid shmup deaths piss me off, demoralize me, and throw off my groove with any shmup I play.

My general SDS moments:

*Mindlessly running into the ONLY FREAKING BULLET on the entire screen.
*During intense dodging sessions, having my hand slip off the joystick, and dying.
*Running into harmful foreground.
*Crashing into the boss. It is so embarrasing to crash into the largest object on the screen.
*Misjudging the amount of firepower required to kill any enemy with some HP. I've done this so many times and died by colliding with a 98% dead enemy.
*Setting off a whole field of mine enemies which explode into an unavoidable mass of bullet-spam.

Tomtom · Post by **Tomtom** » Mon May 16, 2005 6:10 am

Well, this is more due to my usage of MAME, but when I play DDP, it usually switches to the screensaver somewhere in the middle of the last boss fight. I usually remember to wiggle the mouse beforehand, but I've had some very unfortunate deaths there. Actually, a lot of my stupid deaths come from DDP.

BUHA · Post by **BUHA** » Mon May 16, 2005 6:17 am

Gradius V one time i scratched my head instead of keeping my hand on the D-Pad a bullet got me. made me feel pretty stupid.

black mariah · Post by **black mariah** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:33 am

Tomtom wrote:Well, this is more due to my usage of MAME, but when I play DDP, it usually switches to the screensaver somewhere in the middle of the last boss fight. I usually remember to wiggle the mouse beforehand, but I've had some very unfortunate deaths there. Actually, a lot of my stupid deaths come from DDP.

Then turn off the damn screensaver! Or set it to come on ten minutes later. *POKE*

Okay, I got on this streak in ESPrade where while playing as JB I'd run into the first enemy that appeared onscreen (one of the pink suited flying guys). WHAT THE FUCK? It happened like 10 games in a row.

Random stuff...
* Backing into bullets
* Running into bullets that are destructible (for example, the missile looking things from DDP's second boss)
* When the game slows down, then speeds back up but does so at a rate that makes me run into shit.
* Joystick base slipping.
* Buttons sticking (my Sidewinder must be replaced soon)
* Control pad not responding (see Sidewinder comment above)

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:35 am

My stupid deaths are very similar to yours, Alluro.

Running into a single bullet often happens to me after I just survived dodging a complicated pattern. The relief lets slip my attention, I guess.

Lately I have been playing Trizeal pretty much exclusively and I have noticed a tendency to die stupidly because I'm paying attention to the wrong stuff.

At the stage 3 boss, I KNOW it's not a problem to dodge his first attacks, so once I just sat there watching my missiles hitting a turret at the edge of the screen, totally ignoring the stream of needle bullets aproaching my ship VERY SLOWLY.

And in the passage with the rotating turrets I tend to die not because I get cornered by a nasty bullet pattern, but because I'm actually running into a turret while only paying attention to what my laser hits at the top of the screen.

elbarto · Post by **elbarto** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:12 am

When I got to Gradius Gaiden stage 6 for the first time - put down the pad after the boss' second form, thinking it was dead..

Made funnier by the fact there were quite a few people watching at the time.

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Mon May 16, 2005 1:36 pm

This one is literally stupid.

In Gradius V, I ran into a red ship thinking it was a power-up.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Mon May 16, 2005 3:18 pm

Sneezing during important boss battles

happens all the time this time of year

it290 · Post by **it290** » Mon May 16, 2005 3:38 pm

Last night I was playing Gradius Galaxies on an emulator -- I just ordered the game and I wanted to try it out. I was using a keyboard, as my gamepad wasn't hooked up, and also for some reason the emulator was chugging and doing a lot of frameskipping. The first boss (big core inside an asteroid) must have killed me ten times, as I kept misjuding his pathetically easy-to-dodge laser attack.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:10 pm

i started up DDP for the first time in a few months yesterday. went to the left top to start the chain and ran in the first bullet of the game, not 10 seconds out of the gate.

UnscathedFlyingObject · Mon May 16, 2005 10:17 pm

I crashed into the last boss of Gradius Gaiden

. It was a direct hit: I got into the boss screen and just went straight into it. BAAANNNNGGG!!!!.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Mon May 16, 2005 11:00 pm

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:I crashed into the last boss of Gradius Gaiden . It was a direct hit: I got into the boss screen and just went straight into it. BAAANNNNGGG!!!!.

Shame the boss didn't explode too

Kamikaze bonus

Last boss defeated in style

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:17 am

BUHA wrote:Gradius V one time i scratched my head instead of keeping my hand on the D-Pad a bullet got me. made me feel pretty stupid.

This is one of my biggest reasons for death while playing on something where I can't pause. I get an itch on my head/face/whatever and go to scratch it (stupidly) with my joystick hand. Inevitably I can't get my hand back down to move myself out of the way.

The other one I'm really good at is grabbing bullets thinking they are power ups. Some games are worse than others for this.

black mariah · Post by **black mariah** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:00 am

SheSaidDutch wrote:
UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:I crashed into the last boss of Gradius Gaiden . It was a direct hit: I got into the boss screen and just went straight into it. BAAANNNNGGG!!!!.
Shame the boss didn't explode too

Kamikaze bonus

Last boss defeated in style

Time Pilot style.

Tar-Palantir · Post by **Tar-Palantir** » Tue May 17, 2005 4:29 am

Freezing when bullets come fast at me.

awc · Post by **awc** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:28 pm

I love Gradius V and all but I usually die in the 2nd stage after the part where you and another ship have to destroy an eye. I always die afterwards by hitting a wall, and then loosing my mutliples inside the floor or wall, and then I try to recover them but end up dying again when invinciblity runs out!

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Wed May 18, 2005 3:50 pm

- trying to dodge around a bullet by flying a circle, but misjudging the speed and returning to the original position in time to catch the bullet
- standing straight below a boss, firing a straight laser at him and overlooking the tiny bullet he fires at me alongside the laser.
- trying to cut back along the bottom screen border, but misjudging angle, speed or hitzone

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Wed May 18, 2005 4:19 pm

Total black-outs are a must, though...sometimes easy sections are the worst, as you really tend to overlook them and wonder what was going on before the death animation. Other eternal classic: the freak-out attack, when you suddenly jump up when seeing the usual stuff and simply getting hit out of a pointless bewilderment

IlMrm · Post by **IlMrm** » Wed May 18, 2005 7:54 pm

In Psikyo games, sometimes I get confused and treat a first round situation as a second round situation(mostly moving away expecting return bullets). Doesn't necessarily result in a loss of life, but it leaves me out of position and a couple seconds of panic/disorientation.

FRO · Post by **FRO** » Wed May 18, 2005 10:35 pm

freddiebamboo wrote:Sneezing during important boss battles

happens all the time this time of year

I feel you on that one - it sucks.

I also have MAME woes for many a manic shmup. My wife will be sitting in the desk across from me playing some RTS or Mahjongg game and I'm shmupping along and she'll hear me cynically cry "I just walked into that one!" as I die a painful shmup death in some game.

Post by **Icarus** » Thu May 19, 2005 12:30 am

Anyone else suffer from "concentration shock"?

You're in the zone, deep concentration, the credit is going great, no problems so far. And then you make a tiny mistake, either mistiming a kill which wrecks your chain, or dying stupidly, and you're "shocked" out of your zen-like state. And then you die several times in quick succession trying to recover

.

Seems to happen a lot to me right now, playing Espgaluda...

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Thu May 19, 2005 3:16 pm

Icarus wrote:Anyone else suffer from "concentration shock"?

You're in the zone, deep concentration, the credit is going great, no problems so far. And then you make a tiny mistake, either mistiming a kill which wrecks your chain, or dying stupidly, and you're "shocked" out of your zen-like state. And then you die several times in quick succession trying to recover .

Seems to happen a lot to me right now, playing Espgaluda...

Still buying the myth of the zone?

But that's normal, if you're concentrated but too nervous, the slightest mistake will make the domino effect.

Ah, another favourite of mine: getting distracted by trivial issues like someone calling me at the phone, i think i should completely isolate myself when playing...

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Thu May 19, 2005 3:54 pm

I've lost count of the number of times I've sat in the very middle of the screen while some hugh boss starts to beam up his middle-of-the-screen three-inch thick super-laser, and there I am concentrating so hard that I sit perfectly still while it shoots the crap out of me (see Aero Fighters, R-Type Delta/Final, Axelay etc...)

jp · Post by jp » Thu May 19, 2005 4:13 pm

The main one I can think of is the time I 1CC'd Radiant Silvergun. I was at the final boss, dodging the little crystal shards, and my alarm clock went off.

Paused the game. Turned off alarm clock. Unpaused game. Died.

*sigh*

At least I still had 3 lives left.

TVG · Post by **TVG** » Thu May 19, 2005 5:37 pm

psykyo games = the "what the hell just killed me?" effect. i cant judge hitboxes worth shit in psikyo games, making me running into stupid deaths all the time where i cant possibly understand what happened.
and strikers II, a very stupid movee and way to die: picking the shinden -_-

other stupid death, DOJ mainly: playing flawlessly, breezing trough and dodging stuff, then running into ONE bullet that was like totally obvious, but i failed to see anyway. my eyessight is super garbage.
doj again, hypering a boss, then choking...

raiden II: the ninja tank of doom.
having a fine run and being at max power, weaving back and forth, then finding myself JUST being wheree the little tank comes out and shoots immediately.
the helicopter bitch of doom: same as above, but instead of a tank, a helicopter comes at the bottom of the screen, shoots me from there, i try to get past it instead of bombing, i die, next.

gigawing: playing well and being confident, running into a blob of bullets to reflect it, mistiming shield, dying, i cant help but laugh in those instances.

EddyMRA · Post by **EddyMRA** » Sat May 28, 2005 2:07 pm

Many of my stupid deaths lately have come from Sexy Parodius.

I died several times against the Capsule Monster in the Boss Rush stage. It kills me with the random spikey balls in place of the power-up capsules it shoots out.

I play as Vic Viper. With four Options, Alex, and Lasers, I easily lose track of my ship. I usually end up slamming into a wall.

My most embarrasing death in any game occured in Sexy Parodius. I actually died by crashing into the stupid Yie Ar Kung Fu guy, just before the Underwater Geisha stage 4 Boss, in an attempt to shoot him down! This is just as embarrasing as crashing into the POW Armor in R-Type, which was mentioned on a Stupid Deaths Syndrome thread on the older boards.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Sat May 28, 2005 2:29 pm

My most embarassing death was at the very end of Sexy Parodius.

After a lot of hard work I destroyed the last laser wall in time, happily set down the controller, leaned back ...and watched my sprite getting hit by the knee of the huge naked woman, which I hadn't expected her to raise.

SPACE HARRIER · Post by **SPACE HARRIER** » Sat May 28, 2005 5:58 pm

Flying agains a wall (yes I know,that's very stupid)

WarpZone · Post by **WarpZone** » Sat May 28, 2005 7:16 pm

In Gradius V, I had reached the end of stage 7 and was waiting for the cinema scene to initiate, so I set the controller down. WHAM. Crashed right into the metal hull of Bacterion's ship, as I hadn't moved far enough back on the screen. For a second I was totally bewildered. Than my heart sank, as that was my last life and may have otherwise been a 1CC.

Other stupid deaths are in manic shmups when I die with a full bomb stock, then after I respawn I feel overly confident and die immediately with another full bomb stock

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Sat May 28, 2005 7:21 pm

not embarrassing per se, but most recent.

Gradius III on SNES today, i got the speed level on 1 life, and then took a wrong fork and ended up in a dead end.

also, in level 8 with the boss-rush. the first boss, i tried playing it like in 5 where you can clear the missiles with ease by just going through them. apparently, they give you around a 1/3 of that space in III.