Old Grandma Hardcore

This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

'Goddammit, Josh': A reflection on the loss of Grandma's Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction save files

There is a certain phenomenon in the gaming world in which one's save files on a memory card, hard-drive, or cartridge are deleted by another, whether it be a friend, enemy or relative. The phenomenon is typically the product of accident or negligence, but on certain, rare occasions it is performed deliberately out of malice. Either way, it is unique to a certain classification of instances that transcend the personal relationship between a gamer and a single-player game, forming a new, multiplayer element to the experience above and beyond the intentions of its creators.

Most instances within this classification focus on distraction, for instance- a roommate yelling on the telephone in the chair across the room; a parent of a younger gamer scolding them for some infraction; a child of a gamer attempting to gain attention, or the common "HA, MOTHERFUCKER- YOU CAN'T SEE THE TELEVISION!" gag performed daily by persons waving their arms in front of the eyes of Guitar Hero players world-wide.

The file deletion phenomenon, however, is unique in that the damage can be easily and effectively measured with precision; the time one had invested advancing within a single-player game up to the moment of deletion is lost forever.

In our house this phenomenon is called the "Goddammit, Josh."

Our house hosted Thanksgiving again this year. When I woke up and came upstairs, I found that my brother had already arrived. He was sitting in Grandma's chair in the gameroom playing something on the PS3.

"Josh, what are you doing?"
-"I'm playing Ratchet & Clank!"
"Does Grandma know?"
-"Yeah, but-"
"Who are you signed in as?"
-"I'm playing on Grandma's profile."
"JESUS GOD, DON'T DO THAT DUDE!"
-"No, it's cool, I started a new save, I'm not messing with anything...."
"Create your own profile if you have to, but don't play on hers."
-"I'm not, I'm just on a new save! It's fine!
"......"

There's a few very good reasons we don't play on Grandma's profile. It's all networked so when people see Grandma's gamertag or PSN ID pop up and say "OGHC is online," it better ass be Grandma holding the controller. She has friends online who message her and talk sometimes and the last thing she needs is for one of the kid's friends to pop on her account and start mouthing off to people who then think it's her. It hasn't ever happened, but it's possible. Also, her achievement points are all fairly earned on XBL. She's not overly noble about it or anything, but if one were to casually compare gamerscores with Grandma one day and find that she had just obtained the "Right Hand of God" achievement on Guitar Hero III, they might think that she's capable of that kind of thing, then rumors start, things are posted on certain forums, charges of fraud are made and we get more hate-mail than Charles Guiteau on President's Day. She likes her settings a certain way. She likes subtitles to be the default. She likes her controller sensitivity turned just right. She doesn't like people fucking around with that.

All good enough reasons, but none more important than the fact that GAMES AUTOSAVE NOW.

Grandma hadn't had much time to play Ratchet & Clank this week because of all the cooking and baking in preparation for Thanksgiving. She was cooking pumpkin pies from scratch, which involves torturing a lot of rather tiny pumpkins. She had stuffing to make, which for her takes forever because she does things just her way. All of her save files were dated for Monday, the 19th. That's how busy she was. It wasn't until yesterday evening when she finally sat down with a full glass of Diet Coke and a few printed pages from GameFAQs to guide her towards the location of the last Gold Bolts when she discovered that every save in her profile was dated for Thanksgiving morning.

There exists a hierarchy of frustration for the Goddammit Josh phenomenon.

Level 1: 5% or less of the game complete at time of deletion.

Expected result upon discovery: "Man, now I have to go through all the opening cut-scenes and tutorials again... Goddammit.... This cut-scene really is cool though, look at this..."

Level 2: 6-15% of the game complete at time of deletion.

Expected result upon discovery: "Aw, this is BULLSHIT. I had JUST GOT the one weapon and things were getting good. God DAMMIT!"

Level 3: 16-40% of game completed OR the save immediately after the defeat of a particularly difficult boss.

Expected result upon discovery: "WHAT THE FUCK?! Aw.. you have to be kidding- aww.... no fucking way, no FUCKING way he deleted that. God DAMMIT, JOSH..... He's going to create his OWN goddamn profile if he wants to play, I can't believe he did that."

Level 4: 41-96% of game completed at time of deletion.

Expected result upon discovery: "You. Are. SHITTING ME?! Look at this shit. It's gone! Completely gone. You know how many hours I put into this?! How CLOSE I was?! That was the whole game!! I have to start ALL OVER. FROM THE BEGINNING. Look... Look at this shit... ALL the way back, and I do mean ALL THE WAY. That's it. He's not touching anything in here. NOTHING. How fucking CARELESS do you have to be?! GOD.. DAMMIT!!! Jesus... so many hours in- THIS FAR IN and I have to do it all over again. I don't even REMEMBER where I found half this shit. All the BOOTS. All the WEAPONS. All the ARENAS. I have to do that robot thing again, all that swinging/timing shit.... I'll fucking......YiiiieeeeeEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

Level 5: 97-99% of game completed at time of deletion, i.e., just before final boss battle / final item collection

Expected result upon discovery.....

Well...

This WAS a Level 5 Goddammit Josh.

I had never seen one before. Not a Level 5. I remember witnessing a Level 4 once, a long time ago. If I remember correctly it was an accidental Memory Card format on her PSOne, right around the time she was finishing up FFVIII. I remember her being so hurt, so frustrated, that I honestly didn't think she would even start the game over.

You think you can prepare yourself for a Level 5, but you can't. Not to go through one yourself, and not even to watch someone else make the discovery on their own game.

So, although I'm sure most of you can imagine it; most of us have gone through it at some point, I'll give you a recent game example to provide a little emotional context:

Imagine you have been spending the past week or so, a little bit at a time after work, trying to get that "Little Rocket Man" achievement in Half Life 2: Episode 2. You have been schlepping around a tiny little garden gnome on what would be your second playthrough of the game. Every time you face an enemy, you put the gnome somewhere you can find it, change weapons, attack the living shit out of whatever is attacking you, then go back, pick up the gnome, and trudge on. It's not the most difficult task, perhaps, but it's certainly tedious, and worth arguably more than that 30 points that's coming to you once you reach White Forest Base. You've saved responsibly. Every time you get past some tricky part, you save. You just have a little more ways to go; that was your last save. You're SOOO close.

So you come home from work, pour yourself a drink, fire up your 360 in anticipation of completing this thing when suddenly YOUR FUCKING HARDDRIVE CATCHES FIRE--SOME CAPACITOR INSIDE THE 360 EXPLODES SENDING YOUR CONSOLE FLYING THROUGH YOUR FRONT WINDOW AS THE GLASS SHARDS FROM YOUR AV RACK RIP LIKE SHRAPNEL INTO YOUR 60" SAMSUNG LCD HDTV SCREEN AND CUTTING INTO YOUR CHILDREN'S SKIN AS THEY RUN IN CIRCLES, SCREAMING IN PAIN, BLOOD STREAMING FROM THEIR EYEBALLS.

It's a lot like that.

Grandma:

".......Josh, if you-... .....I swear to god if he deleted my-...... IF HE FUCKING DELETED...... oh god! It's gone!"
-"What?"
"These aren't my saves- THESE AREN'T MY SAVES! I didn't... look..... these are all at the beginning..... I just... two more... gold bolts..... where are the saves?"
-"Are you signed into your profile?"
"Yes! OGHC! He didn't... oh jesus.... EVERY. FUCKING. FILE........They're just....gone......everything is..........Goddammit, Josh..."

And then she was quiet for a real long time just staring at the save list. I didn't expect that. Strange things occur during a Level 5. She was probably thinking. She was thinking about every difficult part of that game she would now have to repeat. She was thinking about how when she replayed it all of the plot up until the final boss would be something she already knew, how there was nothing more to discover or new weapons with which to play. She was thinking about what she could have done differently Thursday morning; maybe had been more assertive or just paid better attention to what Josh was doing when he walked into her game room to try some stuff.

Or maybe she was just plotting different ways to kill my brother. Maybe she was considering places to dump the body and how to clean up the mess from the hardwood floors. Maybe she was thinking about how to properly respond to the flurry of articles that would no doubt be written in vindication of those who said that gamers are a violent people, and maybe she thought her good buddy and best friend in the whole wide world Jack Thompson would offer his legal services in the murder trial that would be forever known as the "Ratchet & Clank Killing."

But I doubt it.

She was just pissed-off and hurt.

And sometimes when you're pissed, there's nothing to say.

But we gamers are a hardy people. She'll start a new save on that beautiful game and she might even catch some glimpse of something to which she hadn't quite paid attention before the same way we find new hints of the identity of Kaiser Soze every time we watch Finding Nemo. It was obviously an accident but... god DAMMIT, Josh...

Anyway: One way I think you can help Grandma is by sharing your own Goddammit Josh stories. This phenomenon is more common than any of us really think. It might help her to ease back into R&C.

Game on!

62 Comments:

  • At 8:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh no! Poor Grandma! And poor Josh! (You know the poor guy didn't mean it. Yikes!) Actually I just bought my PS3 yesterday, and I'm totally confused by how things save. I mean, I keep reading in booklets that there is also an autosave function, but I have no clue how or when it works.

    Has Grandma thought about playing Folklore or Assassin's Creed? Those are the two games I bought. I started Folklore, and it's kind of weird but interesting.

     
  • At 9:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    O man, That is horrible. I remebering this happeneing to me with Kingdom Hearts 1, and i was so pissed that I didn't pick up the game till a year later. Then everything you already did seems to piss you off cause you know you shouldn't have to be doing it. Your not alone Grandma. And good luck.

    Still waiting for Grandma to play Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy.

     
  • At 10:35 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I still play old school a lot, and a couple of years ago, my husband bought me Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES. LOVED the game. Got to the final boss battle and saved, planning to come to it later. As SNES games are prone, when I turned the system on at a later time, the screen wouldn't load. So, I do what I always do--blow in the cartridge. It worked, of course, but it also erased my save file.

    I think I cried. I don't remember much other than laying on my bedroom floor and staring at the SNES as if it had killed my entire family or something equally horrible. And it was my fault for not thinking that the dust-removing blow could have destroyed my save file.

     
  • At 10:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I hate it when people do that kind of stuff. I can't quite remember anything like that happening to me recently. But there was one time when I took out my old PSone memory card and put it in my pocket which then sadly got in the wash. I had lots of stuff on that. FFVIII, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tekken, medieval any some more, but I even had FFVII on there, and I wasn't finished. I almost killed myself having to start over that game, I was pretty far into it too... I don't remember what part. And also, one my friends also lost FFVII, which I hate even more...now I have to buy it one ebay for fucking $40.

     
  • At 11:45 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    My husband is an electronics technician. As is the habit of many people in that field, anything electronic that comes our way, from castoff diodes, old wires, and entire used computers, winds up in a box somewhere "just in case." His old Sega Genesis and all of its games were no exception.

    One day, about six years ago, I found myself at loose ends. No books or magazines lying unread for me to pick up, none of my friends online to IM with, no housework left to do, all the console games on our newer consoles holding nothing but disinterest for me. I found myself eyeing his old Sega in the bedroom. I chose a cartridge at random and popped it in: Shining Force II.

    Instantly, I was hooked. I played the -hell- out of that game, got all of the alternate party members, everything. I spent hours, days, weeks, playing that game. My last save was around two or three battles away from the last one - and if any of you remember that game, battles were turn-based tactical affairs, much like Final Fantasy Tactics, and they could last anywhere from ten to forty-five minutes. Having to re-do even -one- long battle 'cos you lost towards the end of one was agony.

    Well, one fine afternoon, I sat down to play, all geared up to finish the game that day. I popped in the cartridge, and it wouldn't load. I tried again and again, and still, nothing. After many attempts, I finally got the startup screen...and the old witch at the intro screen couldn't find a save. Nothing. My save was gone, disappeared off into the ether. I can still remember the horrible blank feeling of shock and horror that spread through me...but I can't remember much of my reaction afterwards.

    Six years later, I still can't bring myself to plug in the old Sega and try again.

     
  • At 1:42 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Aww man! That's no good in the LEAST! My Goddammit Josh story would have to be when my bro and I were playing Soulcalibur II a long time ago and we were done playing and he turned off the PS2 when the autosave was happening. I pretty much said "What the hell?!' and he just said, "It'll be fine." But no, it wasn't fine. I eventually got almost all of the characters back. Didn't have enough will power to get Lizardman back though. Don't worry Grandma, you'll get through it.

     
  • At 4:01 PM, Blogger Jamie said…

    Same sort of thing happend to me on pokemon sapphire I finish off the story got almost all my pokemon to level 90 and done the battle tower which took me days to do.Finally after doing the battle tower I took a couple of days off the game to return to find out that my brother had made a new save file and got rid of all my data so I feel for you.

    Anyway I really suggest that you try out assasins creed it has good gameplay and game length(if you got it for the 360 becasue of the achivments)and the graphics are just amazing plus the story(but it isnt the type of story you would expect)I cant wait intill the next post! Take care from

    Jamie.

     
  • At 7:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh man, if that ever happened to me, I'd either be sitting there in shock or I would kill someone! *lol*
    I have one story like that; I was playing Gears Of War and only had the last boss left. I turned on my X360, put on the game, and....the save files were gone!! And I don't know how THAT happened since noone touches my console. So that was weird and really annoying, to say the least!

    Tried chatting with Granny a couple of nights ago, but I forgot to plug in the headset. Hopefully I'll get it right next time. :P

    GAME ON!

     
  • At 8:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I guess it's a bloody small one, but since I can't remember bigger GJ's, well.. I was playing through Sonic 2 the other day on a SG emulator, and though I'm usually very strict about how I use/if I use statesaves at all, but I really wanted to kill the final boss. So I'd had saved right before him, and I only used one save slot. After dying, I immediatly hit F5. Which is not F8.

    I think my reaction to that is, in varying levels of severity, representative of how I always react to it. I have a small moment where my bowels turn to ice, and then a sort of floaty sadness thingy.

    Then I square my back and start over again and never look back. In theory. It may or may not involve punching my little brother on the shoulder if he's the culprit.

     
  • At 8:55 PM, Blogger Sarah said…

    I come bearing two "Goddammit Josh" stories. One is mine and one happened to a best friend of mine. First I need to say that I've never had the problem of save files going away or being deleted over except this one time:

    I was playing Goldeneye on the N64 back in the day (I was in middle school, my dad and step mom didn't believe in the ratings system really). I got pretty near the end of the game, on the satellite level. I didn't play it for awhile cause the bitch kept dying and I couldn't defend her well enough. So after awhile I decide to give the game a try again and I find out my step brother (he's like 3 years younger than me) played my save file, beat it, then started playing the next level of difficulty which I couldn't even play! I was annoyed. Goddammit Cory! Never played single player again, but still lots of multiplayer for a bit longer. Also a funny addition, I now have that game in my collection cause my dad gave me all the games at his house since us kids are all over 18 now.

    My best friend's Goddammit Josh story is a lot shorter than mine since she only told it to me. She had gotten a PS1 for Christmas one year (high school years now). She also got Tomb Raider and was playing it for quite awhile. One weekend she had a former classmate of ours come over and have a sleepover. While my best friend was sleeping, the overnight guest went on her PS1 and was playing Tomb Raider and saved all over my best friend's goddamn files. Safe to say, we didn't remain friends with that chick afterwards. Not really because of the Goddammit Josh moment, but because she was a crazy. I have no idea if my best friend ever played Tomb Raider again. Goddammit Trisha.

    It's always fun to share gaming horror stories and laugh over them. You'll be alright, Grandma! And if all else fails, you can always play another game!

     
  • At 10:09 PM, Blogger april said…

    My "goddamnit Josh" story is particularly sad because I didn't just lose my save file - I lost my whole console.

    After college, I bought myself a PSX and FFVII, and proceeded to play through the whole thing right up to the final boss battle. At that point in the game/my life, I was preparing to move from Providence, RI to NYC, and had packed everything up for the movers to take away in a few days.

    The night before the move, I came home to discover that someone had broken into my apartment and taken my PSX, along with the memory card that had my game saves on it. I still had the games, because they were packed in a different box, but the saves and the console were gone.

    I never did start FFVII back up again - I moved to a new city and was busy with a new job, and by the time I was able to buy another console the PS2 had come out. But I'm still pissed that I can't ever say I beat what many call the greatest FF game ever.

     
  • At 11:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    So does OGHC have a 360 chatpad yet? I see her online frequently but I keep hesitating to send messages. If I remember correctly, voice messages are difficult to listen to so text messages are preferred.

    But I'd hate to think, if my 360 chatpad and my speedy fingers type out a really long message, OGHC will feel like she has to type out a long reply the hard way, pointing to letters and selecting them with A. I don't want to do that to her.

    (Also, I know it's many many months off, but have you considered coming to PAX 08?)

    --Michael Spencer

     
  • At 11:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    All of the Ratchet and Clank-y goodness gone? All? ALL? A Level 5 "Goddammit, Josh" moment, no less? Oh sweet merciful angels, say it aint so! I'm fortunate because my consoles are all mine mine mine, which means that mostly any "GJ" moments are actually "Goddammit, Jenny" moments since I'm the only one who touches them and barring a freak incident (console freeze-ups or the like) then I have only myself to blame - which is even bitterer in a way.
    I do, however, have a couple of "GJ" stories that do not involve me or the consoles as the guilty party.

    Story the First: Fatal Frame 1, right near the end. A Level 5 no less. I had just achieved a spectacular shot worth several thousand points, when my sister chose that moment to come up behind me, cover my eyes with her hands and say "Guess who?"
    Result A - I howled (having been playing FATAL FRAME, dammit) and jumped six feet in the air, scaring my poor sister (who, being mentally handicapped, didn't realise that it was a Bad Time to be doing that).
    Result B - Character, being ignored by me, was mauled to death by vengeful ghosts. RIGHT BEFORE I HIT THE FINAL BOSS. Had to start from last save (quite a way back) and lost fantastic shot. Bitterness ensued. Goddammit, Nicole.

    Story the Second: I allowed a friend of mine to play Trauma Center on my DS. I reminded her several times NOT to save over my save files, since I'd worked really hard and was pretty close to the end, and she was starting from the beginning. Yup, you guessed it. Not that she meant to, but she did it. Goddammit, Samantha.

    Do not despair! Re-enter the world of the Lombax and the sentient robotic backpack! They will not let you down!
    Oh, and hint for Challenge mode - make sure you've collected enough Raritanium to max out all your weapons to full upgrades during your first playthrough. ALL of them. It may seem expensive and a waste of time, but the truth is that
    a) The final boss is nasty, and
    b) The challenge mode has a Golden Groovitron (a device which gives you an infinite supply of Groovitrons) and it costs 2 million raritanium. Yeah.

     
  • At 12:37 AM, Blogger Ambience-Studios said…

    ppl like josh is the reason no one touches our systems without us being there.
    Good Luck with the restart if it is as good as ppl say it is im sure itll be fun the 2nd time through.

     
  • At 12:46 AM, Blogger lilith42 said…

    This happened to me when I was in high school, but I am STILL trying to make up for it...

    I was playing FFIII on the SNES. I had played for weeks after school and work and had finally gotten to the floating planet, the halfway point from what I am told, when my mother comes in to my room for some reason and trips over the controller cord, not only resetting my game, but erasing it completely. I quit playing for a month out of frustration, but start playing again. I play for a few more weeks to get back to where I was, get JUST past the floating island when lo and behold "the Destructor" decides to walk in and trip over the cord AGAIN and erase my game AGAIN! I cried and stopped gave up playing the game until it came out for the GBA. I still haven't finished it because I can only play that when I am not playing other games or going to work, but I intend to finish this %^*$*() game.

     
  • At 1:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh man that really sucks.
    I have ever only encountered a Level 3. It was when a couple of cousins of mine came over around 6 months ago. i went with my elder cousin for a film. And apparently the younger one got so bored he started a new game of resistance. When I came home and I saw him struggling with the first level(He can't play video games to even save his own ass) and I knew what happened. I felt like murdering the guy. My entire game save was gone. All the hours I put into it. All the goddamned Stalkers I had to go through and all of it gone. But as you said gamers are hardy people. Once I got over the shock I played it again. But the thing that really hurt me was that, me and my friend had an ongoing bet on who would finish resistance off first and he won because of my idiotic little cousin and I had to fork over 25 bucks to him.

     
  • At 5:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    That *really* sucks... I feel sorry for her...

    I have had one fairly large moment as such... Definately a level 5 reaction. I had bought a gamecube at about middle of it's life. Also bought Animal Crossing with it. Came with it's own memory card so I had everything I needed at the time. Soon, other games followed, so I went out and bought the largest memory card available at the time. 1000 blocks of memory from Interact (this was before nintendo released it's own huge memory card... To this day I still say if it had of been official this never would have happened).

    As time went on, more games came and more saves occured on this memory card. One day, it just up and stopped. The gamecube only asked if I would like to format the memory card. No, I wouldn't! Everything I tried failed, so I did as the only option I was given...

    So many saves lost... Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Starfox Adventures, Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Sphynx and the Cursed Mummy, and numerous others... all complete or nearly complete... but the ones that hurt the most... my Animal Crossing town (I had almost payed off my final house expansion!) and my Metroid Prime save (completed normal... 100% hard mode with scans and all the upgrades...) It was a sad day indeed...

     
  • At 9:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Don't feel too bad!

    My room mate unlocked everything in Soul Caliber III (Ps2 version) one day, and the next day he got a data read error on the memory card.
    So he sat there the next day, and cleared all the content again. That lasted for about a week. So he cleared everything again. That lasted through the summer.

    He comes back and asked us if we wanted to fool around in Soul Caliber, (he'd teach us to play) and we joke that his save file probably corrupted.

    So he loads it up, and bam! -Error-
    We still laugh at him since he still hasn't bought a new memory card.

    Sucks that it happened. Hope you enjoy the game more the second time around!

     
  • At 10:22 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    My GJ moment happened a few years back with my PS1. I was towards the end of Tomb Raider and playing through FF7. I was 50 hours into FF7 cause I play extra to level and find all the secrets I can. I was loving it. Then BOOM! Memory Card goes and dies on me. Talk about frustrating.

    A few months later I give it another shot with a new memory card. I'm rushing a bit more through FF7. Well, guess what? Memory Card goes on the fritz. I was so disgusted. I figured maybe it was just bad luck. Well, I tried using the same card. Worked for a while. Played through FF7 again but didn't get too far before it died.

    Its a game I always wanted to finish and never did. I started playing it a year ago, but just can't bring myself to play it for too long. The damage was done.

     
  • At 5:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    omg I'm so sorry for you Grandma! But you gotta keep playing Ratchet & Clank, it's such a beautiful and fun game, you'll see plenty of stuff you haven't seen the first time around, I'm sure of it. I just finished the game yesterday and am now in Challenge Mode. Forgive Josh and enjoy your game :-)

    Speaking of a "Godammit, Josh-Situation", a friend of mine once had his Gran Tourismo 2 save erased by somebody - he actually forced the poor guy to replay everything and get him every goddamn unlocked car back.

    Game on!

    Cheers
    Ines

     
  • At 7:57 AM, Blogger Doyle said…

    About 6 months ago I was pounding my way through Oblivion on the PC. I had logged between 150-170 hours, was the head of both the mages and fighters guild, and owned and furnished completely every house in the game. I had a ton of side quests done, along with 5 of the Daedrics, and I had closed close to 10 Oblivion Gates. One day I went to save and the game acted funny. No big deal, right? No, wrong. I went to boot it up the next day to get some more done on it, and all 4 of my save files were corrupted. Not one, all 4, including the Autosave. I don't know how it happened, but I uninstalled that game and haven't played again since. Don't worry g-ma, it can all be gotten again. Just think of it as something to do instead of watching the snow fall.

     
  • At 8:41 AM, Blogger Klopzi said…

    When GTA: Vice City first came out for the PS2, I put a lot of hours into it.

    A friend of mine came over wanting to give the game a try. I saved my game and handed over the controller. I told him to be careful when saving his game and reminded him that Save Game #1 was mine.

    So he watched the game's intro, made his way back to the hotel, and immediately overwrote my saved game with his.

    It only my friend 5 minutes to undo 25 hours of my time...

    Since then, I've played GTA: VC to completion about five times, but I'll never forget the frustration I felt that day.

     
  • At 9:14 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I know exactly how she feels, I've had a few "GD it Josh!" moments myself. A good example is with Jade Empire, but for that particular incident it was all my fault.

    I was about 70%-80% through the game, on hard mode to boot. I was really enjoying it, having a great time. But as I was sorting through my saved files, I mistook my main JE saved game for something else and deleted it. :( At least it taught me to always have a back up...

    Anyway, I wish Grandma luck in playing through Ratchet again. Take your time in replaying it, no rush. Maybe play something else for a while, then come back to it refreshed and less stressed.

     
  • At 3:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Freshmen year of college, our PS2 got stolen with my friends memory card and over 300 hours of FFVII saves on it. He cried and didn't leave his room for 3 days.

    As for the mentioning of Assassin's Creed. I just finished it, and it's a little slow, but if Grandma is all about the achievements, there's some serious fun to be had there. I'm thinking Mass Effect might be a little more up her alley.

     
  • At 5:47 PM, Blogger The Frog said…

    Yes! And I bet Grandma can relate to this...

    I remember countless 'saves' being lost in the old NES password days from my crappy handwriting. Is that an 0 or an O haha.

     
  • At 8:34 PM, Blogger Eric Leamen said…

    This isn't really a game related story, but it has to do with my website template.

    I had been working for 2 full days, changing font colour, changing images, moving things. getting stuff down to that last perfect pixel. And then, I overwrote it. By accident, of course, but it was all gone. The whole 2 days of HARD work, gone.

    So sorry Grandma. Hopefully you'll have even more fun playing the game through a second time. Maybe pretend that the most annoying motherfucker boss is Josh. Might help. :)

     
  • At 1:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh damn! I remember playing the last Wipeout that was on PS2. It was known to be buggy as hell, meaning frequently the game would crash while saving.... thus corrupting data. I love me some Wipeout so even after finding out about the glitching I kept on playing. I got to like the last circuit, had all upgrades/unlockables possible for where I was, and BLAMMO!..... Crashed during save... no biggie... Looooooove me some Wipeout so just started over.... rinse repeat... like 3 or four times... Curse wiords that don't even fit together spewed from my mouth... but I wasn't even speaking them.... I was thinking them so loudly that sounds formed in the air around my head. I wanted to break EVERYTHING! Never touched that sonofabitch again..... until the PSP game came out. :0)

     
  • At 3:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh man I have a tragic "dammit me!!" momment. I had gotten through Tales of Symphonia after seventy long hours . I had almost everything. I had to get a few more items and wrap up the side quests. Thats when I decided to try playing a new game with a friend of mine. We played for about an hour then decided to call it quits for the day. I went to save and I double tapped A like i had been for the past seventy hours. But wouldnt ya know it, my poor poor precious save file was selected when I did. Poof, all my work gone in a flash. I still cant bring myself to pick it up to this day.

     
  • At 8:30 PM, Blogger Senchaholic said…

    This is exactly why I backup all my game saves on a regular basis!

    On Xbox 360: with a memory card

    On my PS3: with a Secure Digital card.

    I suggest grandma do the same! It's very simple to do. I'd recommend getting a USB memory stick for her PS3, as they are really cheap these days and easy to operate.

     
  • At 1:37 PM, Blogger Mr. Fuzzypaws said…

    I hosed my Wind Waker save file before. I had everything I could get without hooking up a GBA. Many, many hours of sailing around taking pictures, and then some of them not being good enough so I'd have to go back.

    I have 2 memory cards, a big one and a small one, I needed room on the small one and I had thought that I had backed up my save on the larger one. It was backed up but it was an old save. I barely had any statues and I wasn't even though the game once.

    And then there's the Metroid Prime 2 fiasco. I started the game on a rental and did a couple sequence breaks. When I bought the game those had been taken out but I didn't find this out until near the end and I couldn't finish the game because my save was *corrupted*. Not the same thing but I was still out of 35 hours of playtime.

    Anyway, tell Grandma to put a password on her profile so it doesn't happen again.

     
  • At 4:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    wait i have a question for grandma..... what is her live gamertag name on live on xbox360?

     
  • At 5:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    oghc yo

     
  • At 10:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    (In case it's not clear, the previous poster was answering your question. OGHC's gamertag is OGHC, just four letters.)

     
  • At 8:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Ouch. Yeah. I have a few stories of my own.
    A loooong time ago, when the hot nintendo console was the N64, I let my older sister borrow my N64 and a few games to take to some party she was going to. When she returned, I got the console back, but she forgot the games. Yoshi's story, Mario 64.... and I forget what else. I never saw those games again....
    Another story was when I got FFX for the first time. I had been playing alot of Dark Cloud before getting FFX. When I got to the part where Tidus was abandoned in that cold temple place at the beginning of the game... my PS2 broke down and had to ship it in for repairs. This was around christmas time as well. It was bad. 0_0

     
  • At 12:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Well.... once I was playing Animal Crossing Wild World and I played for alot of time untill i saw every folder used from my stupid sister....I barley play that game now......

     
  • At 2:16 PM, Blogger xx xxx said…

    My "Godammit, _____!" Story

    It was back in the 11th grade, I think. My best friend Jason had invited me over to his place, told me to bring my memory card for Tekken 3. I had already unlocked everything in the game. Everything. Even Dr. Boskonovitch who to unlock you had to complete that damn horrible Forces minigame, all five levels, without dying.

    So I arrive and there was Jason with his other friend, whose name I forget.
    That's why this is a "Godammit ____!" story. The two of them barely looked at me, engrossed in their game. I dropped my stuff and headed to the bathroom.

    Once I was finished, I tried to open the door. It was locked. I tried with much ferocity to open it. It was, apparently, stuck. After a few minutes of banging the hell out of the door, the two of them came to my rescue. That is, they tried to open it for about thirty seconds, shrugged, and went back to their game.

    A few minutes later, Jason's younger brother, Steve, let me out through the bathroom window.

    After crawling through the 3' x 3' square hole in the wall, I went back into the house, picking up a baseball bat along the way. I was going to jokingly menace them with it.

    When I got to the living room, _____ was on the Memory Card screen, apparently trying to load my save file. You know the next part.

    He overwrote it.

    Imagine what was going through my head at this turn of events while I actually had a large, blunt instrument.

    I did not enjoy the rest of the day or any thereafter.

    As pitiful as _____'s save file was, I did not have to start at the beginning, but
    I never did get Dr. Boskonovitch again.

     
  • At 4:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Back in the ol' SNES days, my stepbrother (who visited twice a year from California) begged and pleaded to be allowed a save on my brother's copy of "Final Fantasy II" (alias Final Fantasy IV for you purists out there). Grudgingly, at the behest of our folks, my brother and I relented.

    Needless to say, it was only a few days later that he "accidentally" saved over *MY* progress in said game. I was easily seven or eight hours into Cecil's quest for redemption, which - back in the "Dark Ages" - was a LOT. I definitely empathize with Grandma's tragic situation...

     
  • At 3:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I wanna buy an OGHC t-shirt for Christmas! Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaase put them back up for sale again? *looks with sad, big eyes*

     
  • At 5:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm almost finished with R&C:TOD.. very very good game.

     
  • At 3:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I have been in the same predicament a few times now. My 6 year old son has accidentaly deleted or overwrited my saves at very crucial parts and it is very frustrating, but my son is 6, not an older person who should have enough common sense to use their own profile. What Josh did was selfish, irresponsible and just down right shitty. accidental or not. I suggest banning him from the game room until he has proven himself not to be such a dumbass.

     
  • At 4:24 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Oh jeeze... I am familiar with that particular phenomenon. Except i call it Goddammit Neil. I had to redo Final Fantasy X like... five times? (from the half way point, every time.)

    Eventually I got smart and just made him stop playing my game.

    So yeah, I can identify. I hope that Grandma doesn't have to hard of a time redoing Ratchet, and I hope that Josh has found a good place to hide. ;)

     
  • At 4:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Да, бабулька дает !!! Ф такой-то вофстраст и так играть не падеццки!!!!
    Жжжжжжжот одним словом. Да... жжет мое любопытство и мою душу !!!
    Я сдесь оказался паскольку на уроке англицкого препод сказала про этот сцайт, и я решил зайцти

    Убицца халадильником ап сцену !!!

     
  • At 1:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Wow, No frequent updates. Hope all is ok. GAME ON!

     
  • At 9:55 AM, Blogger Dann Ryan said…

    Yeah, donde esta Grandma?

    They need to make her a special XBL account so she can have more than 100 friends.

     
  • At 6:22 PM, Blogger Allen said…

    I tried to leave you a comment a couple days ago with a three paragraph god dammit josh story but it didn't work so there was too much time wasted for too much irony. Any way i sent you a email asking for some blogging tips and what not but you haven't responded me. I don't know if i am breaking some golden rule by asking you this but please check my blog out and C&C

    http://howtogamewomoney.blogspot.com/

    THANKS!

     
  • At 6:08 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I used to have to share the computer (yeah I was primarily a computer gamer) and all my games with two little brothers - and when I say had to, I do mean *had* to, by order of parents pretty much - so I've had my share of "goddammit ..." moments, ranging from "oops I overwrote the default save" to "hmm I want to play yana's save while she's not looking". So I've had to adapt by learning to save obsessively, to several non-default and possibly hidden spots. Of course now this habit makes me rather nervous about non-pc-style saving where your *exact* spot and condition is never saved...

    Honestly I think I would care about a level 4 GJ more than a level 5, because I tend to play the games for the "experience" not the completion, sometimes even getting bored right before the final boss for no good reason... So I would just try to tell myself that hey, I dutifully experienced this game and know what it's all about, and if I feel like replaying it in the future then good but if not then oh well.

    The most frustrating situation for me though is when I overwrite my own save, purposefully, due to my obsessive saving, but later it turns out that it was a really bad spot to do so - like an "about to get killed with no way out" spot. I think I actually had to start over a couple of games because of that. The uncertainty is the worst: do I really have to start over or can I possibly get out of this situation with just one - or 5 - more tries?

     
  • At 11:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I know this comment is REALLY late, but it's a rare case of purposeful, vengence-fueled "Dammit, Josh."

    My friend James had been playing FF9 for a long time, and he was really enjoying it. And at one point, you find out that Princess Garnet's name ISN'T Princess Garnet. You have to do some long side quest involving trekking your party back and forth all over the place for a long time. He was about 5 minutes away from finishing the quest and finding out the princess's real name. As he was playing, he was on the phone with our friend Sam. Sam has played every FF game inside and out. Just before James could finish the quest, he was telling Sam what he was up to. Sam says, "Oh yeah, turns out her name's *****". . . James put down the controller, put down the phone, and walked 2 miles to Sams house. He walked straight into the house without knocking, into Sam's room. "Hi, James, what's up?" Sam was playing some FF game, on the ONE memory card that he stored ALL his end-of-game, lvl 100 parties for EVERY FF game he's played. "Sam, save your game." "Okay!" As soon as the screen prompted, "Please do not turn off the console or remove the memory card" James reached over and ripped the memory card out of the console, then tossed it into Sam's lap. Then he walked back home.

    Sam and James didn't speak to each other for a couple months.

     
  • At 3:32 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I feel your pain gram, for I too, had a rat bastard of a relative get rid of a saved game, it was my cousin.

    4 years ago, the kid stayed the whole summer at our place. He was cool, nice in all, and as a reward I allowed him to borrow my copy of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

    I stared that kid dead in the eye, telling him "Do NOT delete the first saved game. Any others it's fine, but do NOT delete the saved game." Well whaddya know, the little crapper deleted it. I had everything too, all souls and even that infinite magic ring you have to get from getting all the souls.

    To this day I have yet to play it again, but I did learn a valuable lesson. Don't let family members play your shit.

    On an unrelated note, I have to include the typical "wonderful blog" mention, but I do like to add that I have a grandma like you, though a little more into RPGs, platformers (expecially R&C), and action/adventure games than others. Me an' her have plenty o' fun with the games, thats for sure.

    And just because I feel a need to be acquainted with an "internet star", I'm gonna slide in my xbox live username as well. Could go for a round of fragging one of these days. ;3

    XBL Name: Chronoteeth

     
  • At 9:12 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I'm 32 years old. I pwn everyones face in the house when it comes to games. A few years ago I was pwning my teenage son's face in NBA Jam on a daily basis. I had created my own player and made it as close to possible to my likeness. This is the character I used to dunk on his ass constantly. So I sit down for some more face melting and I go to pick my characters....gone....my whole profile....gone. Oddly enough, nothing else was gone from the memory card....just my stuff. After my game fueled rage I questioned my boy, and he denied all knowledge of this incident.

    It wasnt until months later that I finally tricked him into admitting that he did it.

    You would be surprised how long gamesave rage lasts....I still never let him live it down.

     
  • At 2:18 PM, Blogger Pierre said…

    Mine is short and simple:
    on the morning of the 1rst january 2008, i've put my computer on and nothing happened except "brrr": my hard drive was down, definitely. I lost my games files and far more than this...
    Fortunately, I only lost 2 week of non-essential work, but I lost 1 year or personal data, games, etc etc...

     
  • At 2:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh I know this feeling, when you're so angry that you just can't do anything, only fighting to get a grip of yourself and not lose control. For me that was around 10-12 years ago, when Red Alert went out. I bought it and played all the Allied campaign, and I was stucked on the last mission, a hell of a mission. Actually I wasn't a good player I needed to build a strong base before attacking. So It took me a lot of trials, a lot of time to come to hold a base against the soviets. The last time I tried I was playing for 5 hours straight, and I was finally about to get advantage over the enemy.

    Then my father rushed in, screaming "YOU ! Again playing all the time your computer, thats' ENOUGH !!!" ... and he switched off the computer. I was so hooked up I hadn't save... That was my last trial on this campaign and I'm still angry at my father...

     
  • At 11:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I have two:
    First was on my old GB with pokemon. I'd been sneaking off at work for ages to play in the loo and was finish and trying to collect all the pokemon and my girlfriend said can I have a go and I said yeah just don't save. That ok she says I started a new game.. Of course back then the carts could only hold one game at a time so .. it was gone...
    The other was playing fallout tactics I'd with care saved every time I was doing something major. I was used to using the save hot key. I'd got so good I wasn't even backing up my save files anymore so I'm in the last but one big fight and I get distracted turn back and noticed my lead is in a stupid place and about to die and for some reason hit quick save... he dies.. I reload.. he dies I try everything and every time he dies.. at least this time I still had one save game from about 2/3 in but damn I was pissed off.. the same girlfriend sent me a commiseration on the death of your lead character card.. I still have it :D

     
  • At 1:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh, God, this dredged up painful memories. See, I had Harvest Moon 64. Still do, and it still plays. My kid brother decided to play one day.

    On my save file.

    He saved.

    I was married to Maria, (gotta love the cute librarian)had all the house improvements, a crapton of the extras, a baby, a barn full of fully-grown cows, the whole nine. Life was good. I come back to my save file, and my wife has left me, taken the baby, my animals are all but dead, my crops are gone, and it was all saved.

    God DAMN it, Jon.

     
  • At 1:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh, god. My kid sister and I share a PS2. She's deleted my games more times than I can count-- we've established the 'Separate Memory Cards' rule to try and eliminate this problem, but no such luck-- she still manages. I've started taking my card with me when I leave the room, just to be sure.

    Anyway. Shortly after the Memory Card Rule came into effect, I got God of War. Played like a mad fiend, laughing maniacally the entire time. Small children were frightened. The cats refused to enter the room. It was good times. So I get to the end of the game, save, and do my usual-- take a break. I tend to play games straight through from opening sequence to the save directly prior to the final boss battle, my main goal being to complete the game in as little time as possible, since my free time is limited and there are a lot of games out there. If I liked it, I'll go back and replay for the pleasure during the summer. I get to the final save, and then give myself a day's rest from the marathon so that I can be fighting fit, and actually have the patience to get through it, no matter how many times it takes me to fully understand the boss mechanics and adapt my play-style.

    So I take a break and let my sister have the PS2 for the first time in a little over a week. I come back the next day expecting to beat the shit out of the last battle and watch my ending credits with smug satisfaction. What do I find when I boot up the game? My file... is back at the Hydra.

    "Wait. No. Wait. What?"

    There was a little chaos after that, which I do not remember in its entirety. I think I saw red. I may have channeled Kratos. My sister burst into tears. It was bad.

    I haven't touched the game since starting a new game and watching the opening sequence, and have lent it to a friend who has been holding on to it for a few months now. I haven't bothered to get it back from her yet. I don't think I would have the willpower to play through it all again.

     
  • At 8:15 PM, Blogger zhuchka said…

    When I was playing Kingdom Hearts 1, my PS2 was a bit old, and would act up every once in a great while.
    My uncle cracked the thing open and fixed it.

    Then it started happening again.
    I was almost finished with the game, and the PS2 was doing fine, just would read discs on the first try.

    So I come home one day, set the TV to the right settings, grab the wireless controller... and the PS2 is gone.
    FUCKING GONE.
    My dad wanted to fix it, so he tried to do what my uncle had done.
    He broke the PS2, AND lost the fucking memory card. I didn't even have a system to restart the game on.

    Then, karma favored me, and I bought a PS2 at a yard sale for ten bucks.
    And he can't touch it.

     
  • At 1:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Final Fantasy IX. I was towards the end, that point at which all Final Fantasy games descend into an acid-tripping hellish nightmare world with lots of red and purple.
    I had all the ultimate weapons. I have every summon. I had almost everyone above level ninety. Even did the optional difficult sidequest shit with chocobo heaven and hades and whatever.
    Save file. Gone.
    Mind you that Final Fantasy IX is an extremely linear FOUR-DISC game. That would be like getting to the end of Return of the King, and then a crazy time vortex opens and you have to start over reading the first sentence of the goddamn HOBBIT.

     
  • At 2:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Mine wasn't so much myself, but a friend of mine. He had spent months building an exact replica of San Francisco using Sim City. We were getting ready go to a movie, but his folks needed him to do something first and I asked if I could play his game. I promised I wouldn't save it. Unfortunately I find most Sim style games boring so I opened up the disasters menu and had a lot of fun. It only took me 15 minutes to destroy what it took him months to build. When he was done with what his folks needed him to do he came back in and saw my handy work. He just shook his head and shut the game down, but when the option to save came up he clicked yes. Goddammit Neil.

     
  • At 12:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    This is a crazy blog. I wish more older people would try out the games and bridge the gap. What does she think of the classics like Max Payne?

     
  • At 11:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Grandma, I feel your pain. I remember something similar happening to me with KH2. I had already beaten it on the easiest difficulty so I was trying it on the medium difficulty so I could unlock the secret KH3 video. I had just gotten past the first battle with Xemnas and all that was left to do was finish up Jiminy's Journal, Leve up, and beat Sephiroth. I decided to take a break and play my already beaten save file. Well when I decided to save(I was playing on the beaten save file) I was in a hurry and wasn't paying attention. So it still had my new save file highlighted. Well stupid me accidently saved over it and I was pissed. I almost gave up and didn't do it again but I finnaly did. But still I was so mad at myself.

     
  • At 10:52 AM, Anonymous gih said…

    Haha, that's cool..

     
  • At 4:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I virtuallyBuy rs gold wiped out personally the need to start again that game, I was rather much with it way too... I can't bear in mind just what portion. And also, a single my girlfriends also missing FFVII, that we dislike even more...today I've got to purchase it Cheapest wow goldone ebay with regard to fucking $40.

     
  • At 10:47 PM, Blogger ASK CARZ said…

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