Topic: When was the last time you threw your pad in anger

@BAMozzy that's sound advice but unfortunately people can be very stubborn and just not want to play something else because they don't want the game to beat them (myself included if i'm honest)

@FullbringIchigo I never said that walking away is always conceding defeat. It can help to take a break, do something else to calm down and/or have some fun. That may help when you do return and certainly going to help more than breaking a controller in anger...

Some things are not worth the anger, the frustration etc. Whether that's getting through a 'game' that's causing you that much anger and/or frustration, then you have to decide if the reward is worth it. At the end of the day its just a game and there are 'hundreds' of other games that can give you joy, make you feel happy etc. There is nothing stopping you returning in the future and retrying what ever it was that was causing you anger. In my case, if I wasn't really enjoying the game up until the point that was causing me anger, then chances are I won't bother returning. Its not worth my time when I could be doing something enjoyable instead. If its not important, like obtaining some trophy, I will move on - I don't care if I don't get the platinum, I am NOT going to waste my time on something I am not enjoying - doesn't mean that I haven't beaten the game, experienced all the story etc - just not speed ran through the game on ultra-hard difficulty in under an hour with no deaths just to get a trophy.

I was about 17 last time I tossed a pad. After badly losing a game on Tekken Tag 2, I just nonchalantly tossed my controller behind me and it hit a wall. Didn't break, thankfully, but that was the last time I abused a controller. Before that, some salty Halo sessions would have me slap an end table with the 360 pad. Those controllers can take a beating, but it was still inevitable that I eventually split the outer shell.

Should the title be: When was the last time you played a FromSoftware game?
Same difference.
😉

Actually I do throw my controller down in anger sometimes, but it's at a bean bag I have that I rest my feet on. Usually when I've lost in pes or made a stupid mistake.
Never broken anything though, apart from my pride.

@LieutenantFatman @themcnoisy Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Mega Drive - for some reason I still remember the cheat code "teacup" - it was printed in the Basic Instinct VHS box with an official advert for the Mega Drive for some reason!

@BowTiesAreCool
Haha, that is pretty random. I guess people were a bit more excited by cheat codes in those days.

@BAMozzy yeah after that time i threw the disc out the window i have learnt to just walk away and calm down then go back later because that was embarrassing

have you ever had to go to a neighbour and ask to hunt round their garden for a video game you threw out of you bedroom window?

on the plus side i found out game discs make really good frisbees

@FullbringIchigo Never done that either. I am one of those that keeps everything in the box/case regardless. I do know how well CD's fly though from some of those junk CD's you used to get for Compuserve, AOL, Netscape etc in magazines. Any 'game' on a disc I didn't like, had angered or frustrated, still went back on the shelf in its case and stayed there - whether it got played again or not...

@BAMozzy i only did it the once, never again

game still worked afterwards though

I've documented this here before, but whilst I've never thrown a controller, I have crushed one in my hands out of sheer frustration... and boy howdy, did it hurt.

@BAMozzy Hurrah for disc preservation! The handful of rare occasions where I've traded in games, either at CEX or GAME, the shop assistant has always commented on how pristine my discs are (now that I'm reading that back, it sounds like a euphemism... ahem).

@RogerRoger It wasn't just discs either - I used to do the same with cartridges, tapes or any 'media' that came in a box/case - after finishing with it, it always went back in the correct case/box too. It wasn't just games either - I am the same with music for example - whether that was CD's, Tapes or Vinyl. I still have my very first CD purchases and they are still 'perfect' after more than 30yrs. I would even take 'dust jackets' off of books (yes I am old enough to remember these... LOL) I was reading to ensure they didn't get damaged whilst reading and would never use these as book marks.

I have not done that 'trading' thing with CEX, Game etc. When I moved into my 'small' house with basically no storage and having to move very quickly, I had to dump so much stuff at the local tip - boxes and boxes of video games - all in their cases/boxes, all pristine going back to the early 80's - games I had bought or typed out and saved to a tape on the Vic 20 and BBC model B, most of my paperback books, all my music on tapes etc so a lot of my stuff has gone now but I still have some things that I have had for more than 30 years, still looking almost new...

@BAMozzy Same, same and same. I'm a walking poster boy for the old "treat it nicely and it'll last longer" adage (helps to have OCD as well).

It's why I quickly stopped trading in at CEX or GAME, because you got better value by asking for store credit instead of cash, but then you were stuck buying from their second-hand stock and... well, let's just say it's a miracle some of those discs still worked. Most of them looked as though they'd been attacked by a Spirograph. It was one of my first reality checks, that other people don't always look after their belongings.

But having to chuck away all that stuff... blimey, I'm real sorry to hear that! Must've been one heck of a wrench to do that. I always tried to keep my belongings limited (out of career necessity at first) but I'm starting to build up collections now and I'd hate to have to make such a decision.

@RogerRoger I certainly have a bit of OCD. All my CD albums are arranged alphabetically and then chronologically - for example, all my Metallica Albums are grouped together under 'M' for Metallica but then all the Albums are arranged from first to last.

It was gutting to lose a LOT of stuff but the majority of it was stuff that was in the attic and hadn't seen the light of day since I moved into that house. It wasn't too hard at the time because I adopted an approach that I haven't looked at any of those for over a decade and some of the items for much, much longer. I found my Competition Pro Joystick which had a 9pin plug and replaced a lot of joysticks - like the thrustmaster (if my memory gets the name right) which wasn't up to the task - as well as my Vic20, my Amstrad CPC 464 etc etc. I even kept boxes of video game magazines too as well as lots of other things too. Apart from CD's and Hardback books, a small collection of paperbacks I couldn't part with, virtually everything pre Xbox (the OG - I moved before the XB1/PS4 released so it was technically the last gen at the time) era was scrapped or donated.

The circumstances at the time were not great for me and it was relatively easy to be 'harsh' on what ended up being scrapped. It was month's later, once I had got my new house into relative comfort that enabled a time of reflection. When I moved, I had no bed, no washing machine, cooker, wardrobe etc. Splitting from my Ex meant that the only things I could realistically take was the things that were categorically mine, not the things that were hers or ours. As such it took me a while to get my house up together so I wasn't really able to reflect on what I had to get rid of, literally the majority of material items I had accumulated over ~30yrs of my life and a lot of memories too. Realistically, I couldn't have kept them and even today I struggle with storage but its still a big chunk of my life in essence that I gave up. I am a hoarder by nature so there was a LOT of stuff although there was some things I couldn't part with - like my Acoustic guitar for example and some of my artwork but there wasn't any point in keeping boxes and boxes of games when I couldn't test to see what worked after being in storage for so long.

I have no intention of moving again but will have to decide what I can keep as newer things come into the house. I still have my OG Xbox and a box of games, my PS3 and XB360 with 'boxes' of games and my XB1, XB1s, XB1X, PS4 and PS4 Pro and another box (or two) of games for these. With another Gen around the corner, some of these consoles will have to join my OG Xbox in storage some how...

@BAMozzy Same, but different; all my games are arranged chronologically by console, and then alphabetically within each section (so PS4 A-to-Z, PS Vita A-to-Z, PS3 A-to-Z, etc.) and no matter how much shelf space I'm rapidly running out of, I couldn't imagine it any other way.

But I can also have that same mentality you mentioned, namely the "well, haven't used / watched / read / played this in over five years, so I won't miss it when it's gone" thinking that serves me well whenever I come to have a periodic clean-out (and which also served me well when I had to keep my belongings limited). Sometimes it's lovely to take a trip down memory lane, pulling stuff out of boxes and getting lost in nostalgia, but you have to balance that with storage space and circumstance and more often than not, it's just not viable / realistic to be able to retain that option. There's always eBay and Google to poke around and find stuff from your childhood; sometimes I've spent the odd tenner on a toy I always wanted, but was never allowed. Then it goes into storage and five years later, the cycle repeats itself.

But many people's lives happen in sections. The older I get, the more I wanna retain, but I still find it quite easy to say "this was childhood, then this was college, then this was university, etc." and compartmentalise everything (got quite brutal with that attitude, too; made some incredible friends that, once I'd moved on, just got blanked because they were part of "the previous chapter"). Sorry to hear you went through a rough break-up. I'm not surprised it took a while for the dust to settle and for you to realise what you'd done in throwing all that stuff away. At least now, you're back in control of your own decisions; you'll store and / or dispose of things on your own terms, rather than be dictated to by circumstance.

Although it's much easier just being a Sony gamer, as I don't have half the consoles to worry about that you do! Three spaces beside my television, that's all I need; PS2, PS3 and PS4. If all this amazing backwards compatibility news is to be believed about PS5, then it'll just replace the PS4. As much as I adore my current console, that'll make it easier to dispose of.

Never I just punch air if I get frustrated.