Video Games That Roast You For Being Bad

I wouldn’t know of course, but I’ve heard that it’s tough when you suck at video games. But it’s even tougher when the game rubs salt in the wound! There are a whole host of games that actively mock you for messing up! From insulting achievements to patronizing helping hands, here are some video games that roast you for being bad!

Metal Gear Solid's Chicken Hat

Metal Gear Solid is an iconic franchise known for its tactical espionage action. The name of the game is stealth. Sure, you can go in guns blazing, but it’s not exactly encouraged. And the fifth entry in the series, 2015’s The Phantom Pain, is no exception.

But what if a player is as inconspicuous as an elephant in a cat sanctuary? Well, if you absolutely suck and are killed three times in a row, you eventually get offered a little helping hand, albeit an incredibly humiliating one. Then you will be given the chicken hat in the post below.

That fetching piece of headwear is nothing short of overpowered at the cost of making you look like a total dork. The first 3 times that enemies spot the player, they’re instantly put to sleep, bagging you 3 free mistakes before the hat disappears. The message is clear, any players that need to use the chicken hat are chickens themselves!

That is the closest any developer could come to just sitting their players down and telling them to “get good, scrub.” But what if, even after all the help of the hat, you still continue to suck? Never fear, you’ll then be offered the little chick hat. That is a supercharged version that will make you 100% invisible to every enemy in the game. Yes, screw up enough and the game simply decides you’re a no hoper.

Twisted Metal 2: Easy Mode Ending

In the Twisted Metal series, players must face off against foes in a violent vehicular brawl of epic proportions. Last one standing or driving wins. Given how unforgiving that kind of game can be, it’s not surprising that it has little time for poor performance! Like a lot of games, 1996’s Twisted Metal 2 has difficulty settings. Someone who’s playing for the first time may well choose the easy mode, and understandably so!

However, they’d be making a monumental mistake. After triumphing over the first major boss of the game, players who picked the easy difficulty probably feel like they’re starting to get a hang of things. But just as they’re gearing up for another fight, Twisted Metal 2 promptly shows them this splash screen in the video below.

Twisted Metal 2 World Tour: Easy Mode Ending HD by Stressball13

Needless to say, the developers didn’t think much of those who picked easy mode. And it wasn’t just a friendly troll either, you literally couldn’t progress without upping the difficulty. If I wasn’t so incredible at all games ever made I might’ve shut my console down for good there and then.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Cosmic Guide

We might not usually associate Mario games with hair pulling difficulty, but some of those levels can get pretty tough! The utterly amazing Super Mario Galaxy 2 is no exception. The 2010 release follows the big M as he hops and stomps around various wacky planets in an effort to reach Bowser. But what happens if Mario himself gets stomped too many times? He gets a little visit from the Cosmic Guide.

The Guide will offer the player a hand, and they can watch as it controls Mario and completes the level for them. The catch is, you’re not awarded a gold star afterwards, which is what you need to progress. Instead, you receive a super patronizing bronze star. And it does absolutely nothing.

So what’s the point? Well, the Cosmic Guide is probably supposed to be a helpful way to show struggling players how to finish a stage. But in practice it just feels like Nintendo are having a huge laugh at your expense.

Crash Bandicoot Warped: Tiny Tiger Boss Fight (Lion Cheat Trick)

If you’re as ancient as I am, you may well have played Crash Bandicoot: Warped on the original PlayStation back in 1998. In the game, the first boss battle is against series regular Tiny Tiger, who challenges Crash in a gladiator arena before a cheering crowd.

The battle is simple enough, but the toughest section involves hordes of lions charging across the arena, if they touch Crash once, it’s all over! Although, we had a strategy back then. More like an exploit. By running into one of the corners of the arena, players could actually avoid all of the lions without needing to exhibit any skill whatsoever.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped - Tiny Tiger Boss Fight Exploit by belkitoFUERTE

Fast forward to 2017, and Warped was remade as part of the N. Sane Trilogy. Cheeky players naturally tried to cheat their way through the boss fight all over again. And they could but there was a catch. The moment that players hide away in that corner, the crowd throw a whole load of cheese wedges at Crash!

Crash Bandicoot Warped - Tiny Tiger Boss Fight (Lion Cheat Trick) by Gaming-Plan

Because the player is cheesing their way through the fight? The developers must’ve known about the infamous tactic and, rather than remove it from the game, decided to build in a whole extra animation shaming people for using it! It’d be hilarious too, if it wasn’t actively calling you out for sucking.

Katamari Damacy Game Over

In the totally wacky 2004 release Katamari Damacy, the player takes on the role of a little green alien guy who’s got a roll a load of stuff up to build a star. It’s weird, but it’s also a very fun time! What isn’t so fun is your in-game Dad, the King of All Cosmos. He is the guy who ordered you to roll those balls and you’d better hope you do it properly!

If you find yourself getting a game over, space daddy will have a few choice words to say. First, he’ll lament that he should’ve asked your cousins instead of you. Then, he’ll hit you with the gut punch line of “This is not your fault, but Ours for believing in you.” Aren’t games supposed to be distractions from my many failures?

Game Over: Katamari Damacy by GameOverContinue

Batman Arkham City Game Over

On the Arkham series of Batman games, every time that the player fails and Batsman bites the big one, the game over screen features one of his nemeses mocking him.

Batman: Arkham City - Game Over: The Riddler by PenMaster3000

Depending on where you are in the game and which foe you’re facing, there’s a slew of potential game over taunts, each more scathing than the last. On the one hand, those are seriously cool scenes that add lots to the game’s world and characters. On the other, if you’re thin skinned, being constantly berated for failure is upsetting.

But the Arkham games aren’t the only ones to pull that trick! The classic platforming series Jak and Daxter also tears you a new one at every available opportunity. You play as Jak, with his best pal Daxter by your side and ready to throw you some shade whenever you screw up!

Daxter's Death Commentary From Jak 1 & 3 by Ultimate Gaming Dude

When Batman’s bad guys insult him for failing, it's understandable but Daxter’s supposed to be our best bud! Way to rub salt in the wound!

Splosion Man Tutu

You probably remember 2009’s Splosion Man. It’s a wacky platformer starring a guy that can explode at will. It also happens to be pretty damn challenging, relying on precise jumps and impeccable timing to emerge victorious. Because of that, many a gamer got their bottom handed to them ad nauseum.

But if you accepted the in-game help, things got a lot more annoying. Just imagine, you’ve been at it for what feels like hours. With each attempt you’re getting right near the end of the level but failing at the exact same point. You’re quite close to pulling your hair out in anger. Then, you see a pop up on the screen. “You’ve died a lot. You can now select way of the coward.”

As if you’d choose that. You ignore the option. But after another half hour of failed attempts and with bedtime swiftly approaching you relent. You take the offer and are rewarded with a level skip.

Not very satisfying, but at least you can move forward now. Well, the game doesn’t let you get away with it that easy. For the entire rest of the playthrough, you’ll be stuck wearing a cute little tutu. So you’re constantly reminded of your abject failure.

Bully Mowing Grass Detention

It’s hard to imagine that a game where you play as a kid in a boarding school could be any fun at all, but 2006’s Bully somehow pulled it off! You can take classes, protect nerds, get the girl, break the rules and be a bully. If you do the latter though, you will need to make sure you’re stealthy about it. Get caught, and you’ll be given detention.

What better way to spend an evening than in virtual detention, which means completing menial tasks like shoveling snow or mowing lawns. If you mess up, you have to start the whole long-winded thing again and if you succeed, you get nothing to show for it.

Bully mowing grass by the prep house detention by Dan Simon's YouTube channel

That could be the most insulting punishment for failure we’ve seen yet. It’s basically saying if you aren’t a big enough boy to win, you shouldn’t be playing at all. Of course, that was back in 2006. Nowadays people play lawn mowing simulator for hours.

Anti-Achievements

Not all achievements are created equal. In fact, some developers love to do a little bit of trolling and give out achievements for absolutely sucking.

The 2007 Simpsons video game is filled with tongue in cheek japes at the player’s expense. If you pop your clogs 10 times, you’ll receive the aptly named “Pwned” achievement. As well as a mocking description belittling your clear lack of gaming prowess, it gives you 0 Gamerscore.

The Simpsons Game - Pwnd by VidGamiacUnlocked

There’s a similar roast over in a much less amusing video game 2009’s 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. In that high art masterpiece, you play as Fiddy himself and have to retrieve a diamond encrusted skull from some "punk bustas" in rappers words.

If a player pops the game onto easy mode and still somehow manages to die and turn Fiddy into a quarter, they’ll receive the dubious honor of the “Not Bulletproof” achievement, a reference to the title of the previous game, Bulletproof.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand - 3 Achievments by LetsPlay Community

But, how on Earth have there been two 50 Cent games!? Once again, it’s a 0 Gamerscore reward that does little more than show off your ineptitude. Perhaps even worse, it shows off to all your friends that you’ve been playing 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

But how far can those non-achievements go? What if you played competently and even cleared the entire game? Well, if you opted to do so on the lowest difficulty of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, the game spits in your face in the most obvious way possible. Completing the 2010 game on easy nets players the “Padawan” achievement.

That in and of itself isn’t so bad. What makes it stand out is the image attached to it. Your reward is a patronizing picture of Jar-Jar Binks giving a thumbs up. Jar-Jar one of the most unpopular characters imaginable, known for being the goofball that gave the evil emperor all his power. Probably not the fanfare you were expecting.

Punch Out's Glass Joe

The 2009 Punch Out is the closest I’ll ever come to beating anybody in a fight. But for those who can’t even bring themselves to win a virtual fight, the game has you covered. Any player that winds up losing a whopping 100 matches is rewarded with a unique item, the headgear. That consolation prize can be toggled on before a match to reduce all incoming damage, removing a lot of the challenge from the game.

Punch-Out!!, Glass Joe / Contender and Title Defense Mode (No Damage) by WizReplay

That is pretty embarrassing as it stands, but it gets worse! That headgear is identical to the one worn by the game’s very first opponent, Glass Joe. If you’re too braindead to guess, Glass Joe sucks. And he was given the headgear by a doctor after suffering his own 100 losses. So, not only is the player given training wheels in response to their poor performance, but they’re also compared to the single most pathetic fighter in the entire game!

The Dishwater Pretty Princess

2011’s The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile has a strange name but the game is dynamite. You control a character known only as The Dishwasher and his sister Yuki in a dark and violent side scrolling beat them up.

The entirety of the game looks like the inside of a Hot Topic and I love it. Also like the inside of a Hot Topic, you’re incredibly likely to get beaten down by hordes of stinky zombies. When you do inevitably fail hard enough, you’ll unlock “pretty princess mode” a step down from the basic “easy” difficulty.

While playing on that secret option, your character takes far less damage and deals much more so far, so standard. Less standard are the aesthetic changes that the mode applies. The screen is coated in a vibrant pink hue, and hearts float all over the place.

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile Speedrun (Dishwasher - Pretty Princess) [48:35] WORLD RECORD by SinDarkFatez

It’s obvious what the game is saying there, anybody that stinks to the point they have to play on that setting obviously can’t handle the real game and needs to be babied! Hysterically, unlocking the mode comes with an achievement titled “Game Reviewers Shall Be Pleased”, a jab at the gaming ineptitude of many journalists in the industry.

Ninja Gaiden Black: Ninja Dog Difficulty

Vampire Smile isn’t the only game to pull something like that. 2005’s Ninja Gaiden Black stars ninja Ryu Hayabusa in a challenging hack and slash title that pushes a player’s reflexes and skill to the limit. If a player manages to get themselves killed 3 times within the very first level of the game, they’ll be posed a question “do you chose to abandon the way of the ninja!?”

If they choose yes, and confirm multiple times that they’re ultra mega sure, Ryu’s number 1 fan, Ayane appears. She laments that she’s greatly overestimated her hero and essentially tells him she’s taking over! That unlocks the easiest difficulty ninja dog mode. While active, Ayane constantly supplies the player with helpful items, like the simply fabulous pink bands that increase Ryu’s damage.

Everything About The Ninja Dog Difficulty - Ninja Gaiden Black by The Gobbo

On top of that, enemies do far less damage, and Ayana leaves little supportive messages for our hero all over the place. You abandoned the way of the ninja, so you’re nothing but a lowly dog now. Somebody like that doesn’t deserve their face on the title screen, do they?

Wolfenstein 3D Difficulties

When it comes to video games that mock you for choosing easy mode, it’s impossible not to discuss id Software’s legendary shooters. Both Wolfenstein 3D and Doom let players know exactly what’s up from the moment they boot the game. Doom’s lowest difficulty modes are titled “I’m too young to die,” and “Hey, not too rough.” Wolfenstein 3D took that even further, with its lowest difficulties “Don’t hurt me,” and “Can I play daddy?”

The latter of which comes complete with a little picture of protagonist BJ Blazkowicz with a baby bonnet and pacifier! The two highest difficulties, in comparison, are called “Bring ‘em on” and “I am Death incarnate!” So, the message is clear, choose tough and be venerated, or choose easy and be mocked relentlessly for it. And those difficulties are preserved in many future entries of the franchises.

Middle Earth Nemeses

One of the main selling points of 2014’s Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is its revolutionary nemesis system. It’s also one of the most ingenious ways a dev has come up with an entire in-built game system almost solely meant to roast you. The concept is simple, if the player is ever defeated by one of the many orc enemies of the game, that orc will get a promotion. They’ll become stronger, scarier, and legendary among their peers, they were the one that finally bested you!

But, in Shadow of Mordor, the player character, Talion, has merged with an elven wraith named Celebrimbor. That means you can resurrect after each death and go back and seek revenge against your slayer. It’s a nice contrast to something like 2014’s Dark Souls 2, the notorious poster child of video game difficulty!

In that game, rather than the enemy becoming stronger, the player becomes weaker with each death, with a reduced maximum health pool! It’s not exactly a roast, but still a punishing mechanic that’s integral to the game. Now that orc that bested you in Shadow of Mordor? That’s a different story.

That orc will remember you, just like you remember them. What that translates to is a “nemesis” somebody who beat you and knows it. Your nemesis will often belittle, mock and roast you whenever you come into contact with them, especially if they beat you more than once!

Middle earth: Shadow of Mordor Gameplay Nemesis System Power Struggles by Warner Bros. Games ANZ

That way, you’ll be reminded all the time just how badly you screwed up. Making you want nothing more than to wipe that stupid orc-y grin off its face. Sure, it’s annoying getting badmouthed by one of those guys, but it really adds to the world building. There’s nothing more satisfying than finally getting your hands on the jerk who’s been hassling you and letting them meet the business end of your sword, In-game!

Devil May Cry 3 Easy Mode

You should know by now that some games love roasting you for choosing easy mode. But there’s one game that still manages to roast you for it even though it doesn’t have an easy mode! In the notoriously unforgiving prequel, Devil May Cry 3, players are at first only able to play the game on “normal” difficulty.

However, die 3 times and you’ll be greeted with a little message, easy mode is now selectable. If you give in and choose it, you’re presented with a prompt, asking whether you’d like to choose “automatic” or not.

That setting essentially performs complex button combos for you, so instead of quickly hitting a load of different buttons in a specific order, all you need to do is hit one. But Devil May Cry is literally all about learning to perform stylish combos on enemies! So, having the game get fed up and just offer to do its entire main gameplay mechanic for you is, disheartening at the very least.

Whether you choose automatic mode or not, finishing the game on easy awards players with that bizarre splash screen. “Prequel doesn’t mean you can be a newbie.” The message is clear, the game is intended to be played on a minimum of normal difficulty. If you suck hard enough, it’ll throw you a bone and give you the baby mode, but it won’t let you forget it.

Final Fantasy Hell House Boss Battle

2020’s juggernaut release, Final Fantasy VII Remake, managed to successfully recreate and remix the already iconic original into one of the most popular games on the PS4. But there’s one part of the game many didn’t enjoy, the hell house. For those who do not know, the hell house is probably the hardest boss in the game, a bombastic nightmare of a battle that takes place in a huge arena in front of an adoring crowd.

But the insane difficulty of the boss is only one ingredient in that angst pie. That particular arena fight features announcers who commentate on basically anything that happens. So, every time you screw up and you will screw up, they make sure you know about it.

Final Fantasy VII Remake - Chapter 9 Hell House Boss Battle (Hard Mode) by Michael Singca

It’s hard enough to concentrate on the fight without being made to feel like you have the hand eye coordination of a stroppy infant! Now, it’s worth noting that the announcers aren’t biased, if you play well, they’ll hype you up! But let’s be real, a lot of us are never gonna perform well in a boss battle that tough! So the knowledge they could praise you but you’re just not good enough only serves to infuriate you further.

If you were amazed at these video games that roast you for being bad, you might want to read about video game secrets. Thanks for reading!