52 Games Challenge 2020

[bikingjahuty]

28. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4)

It's been a long term gaming goal of mine to try out the Uncharted series, which seems to be regarded in the same acclaim as many other modern classics like the Tomb Raider reboot, The Last of Us, and Mass Effect. Because of this, my expectations were fairly high going into this game. Sadly, I don't think it would have mattered if my expectations were through the roof or very low, I'd still have found this game the same poorly designed, frustrating mess it was. My fiancee is a huge fan of these games, and while she admits the first game is the weakest, she seemed to disagree with my experience while playing the first Uncharted game. You might agree with her or me, but this is my experience with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.


I wish Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was a movie that I could sit back, relax and enjoy because I genuinely really liked the story and characters. Being a big Indiana Jones fan, this game's story heavily reminded me of it, but also felt fresh, like a new adventure franchise for a new generation. I really enjoyed the plot of him hunting for the lost city of Eldorado and all the mishaps, dangers, and obstacles he must face in his pursuit of his treasure. The characters were all likable, the villeins were all well done, and overall i really enjoyed their interactions. There were several things in the story that felt overly convenient or made me go wtf from a writing standpoint, but it did little to distract from what was definitely a well written story.


Visually Uncharted is a great looking games. While the character models and animations are above average, the locations, tombs, and vistas you find yourself exploring are absolutely stunning and almost so pretty you'd like to stop and take them in for a bit. It's odd for me still going back and playing 7th gen games and noticing how dated the graphics can look, but for its time Uncharted was probably one of the best looking games and for that I need to give credit where it's due.


The audio in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is also pretty good. The voice acting is very well done, and each character interaction feels authentic and straight out of a big budget Hollywood film. The soundtrack is also appropriate, having a very adventure-like quality. It reminded me of a budget John Williams score, which even a step or two below Williams is a complement in of itself. Gun sounds were unique depending on the gun, the enemies banter and talk and you're in combat with them, and there are sounds you'd expect to hear in a jungle or tropical setting.


Up until now I've had mostly very positive things to say about Uncharted. So you're probably wondering what I didn't like about it. Well, if you've been keeping track I haven't mentioned maybe the most important part of a game like this; the gameplay.


The gameplay in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is pretty bad, bordering terrible. It baffles me that this game was given the praise and acclaim it was back in 2008 to where it could spawn one of the most successful modern video game franchises. I feel like the gameplay can be broken up into two categories; exploration and combat. The exploration portion of the gameplay, while not perfect, is mostly fine. I found myself wondering for ledges occasionally and falling to my death more times than I'd like, but overall it was mostly fine. The movement controls during these exploration sections was also mostly fine, but could feel clunky on occasion. The absolutely worst part of the gameplay was the combat. Uncharted is a cover shooter that relies heavily on you taking cover behind walls, crates, and other objects to avoid the heavy rain of gunfire pointed at you. The cover system in this game is bad, like real bad. I found myself getting hit despite being adequately covered, and well as getting frequently flanked by enemies that seemed to materialize out of thin air. Combine that from getting cheap shot frequently, dropping into rooms and less than a second later taking damage, and being unable to take cover fast enough before being attacked relentlessly to death. I literally dreaded anytime the area I was in hinted an upcoming combat section by having plentiful places to take cover or having deposits of ammo available. I can't count how many times I considered turning the game off during many of the game's combat sections, but at the insistence from my fiancee I continue and to see how the story concluded I persisted despite my best wishes to quit.


Having beat Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, I am glad I can finally say I've played this so-called classic, but sadly I am very reluctant to ever want to play another game in the franchise. I've been told they just get better and better up through Uncharted 4, but even if Uncharted 2 is even half as frustrating, that's still way more frustration than I'm willing to go through again, at least this soon after beating the first game. I really thought I'd like this series of games, and maybe I will like the others when I eventually play them, but as far as the first Uncharted game goes, I absolutely will never play it again, even for the otherwise great story. (5/5/20)


Presentation: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Fun: 8/20
Overall: 29/50

[kamikazekeeg]

Uncharted does not nail the combat in their games until Uncharted 4.  I know people really dug the multiplayer they offered in 3 (and maybe 2? I forget), but Naughty Dog didn't really nail that aspect of their gameplay till then as Last of Us also sorta suffered with that (I'm not sure if the remastered version was improved at all).  It just comes off clunky and it was weird how poor they were about it, since other games were doing TPS gameplay much better and this was such a big series.

You could probably just jump to Uncharted 4 and see how that goes, because that's one I'd certainly recommend playing.  The games do get better combat wise after the first, but it took them a long ass time to get it right.

[telly]

Game 13 – Psychonauts (PS4) – 14 Hours

+

Found I could download this game off of PSN for basically nothing so I thought I would give it a go. This game felt very nostalgic for me because I grew up on this era of games. The gameplay reminds me of other 3rd person collectathons like SpongeBob BFBB, Jak and Daxter, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, with humor that reminded me of the Ratchet & Clank series.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy Broken Age that much, this offering from Tim Schafer was far more entertaining. The game has some incredibly original and smart ideas regarding the exploration of mind, and creates some incredibly well-conceptualized environments that tackle many interesting and dark themes, like the psychology of war, self-esteem and fear, paranoid schizophrenia, and many others. The smart design carries over into the collectables like the figments, mental cobwebs, and emotional baggage you have to sort through. It’s brilliant.

I found this game to be laugh out loud funny with some really funny dialogue and memorable characters. While the story wasn’t anything special, the main treat comes from the story and characters you interact within the individual minds.

I thought the controls (for the most part) were relatively solid. You also get some really cool powers that match nicely with the theme of psychic powers. Lastly, I really liked the overworld, it was very fun to explore, and you have many different collectables to gather that incentives you to explore more.

-   

Overall I’m not the biggest fan of the art design. The disproportionate faces and the beady eyes really don’t do it for me. It reminds me a little of Tim Burton style animations, which I’m not averse to, but in this game, it just didn’t sit right.

While the music is definitely a product of this era, most of it was pretty unremarkable. There were some good tracks, but nothing that particularly stood out to me.

I’m really glad I decided to hold of on buying a physical version from LRG, because I had heard that the PS2 port of this game was of particularly poor quality. And boy, is it ever. Not just buggy, this may be one of the most poorly optimized games I’ve played in a long while. Numerous framerate issues, collision issues when hanging and jumping on to things, and many lighting and shadow issues (especially on Raz’s face). In fact, the first level of the game is like mudtown with how dark it is, and there are other levels that suffer from poor lighting as well. The sound design is awful, music cutting in and restarting at random, sound glitches, voices getting louder and softer for no reason. The game also crashed to the PS4 menu twice while I was playing, and I got stuck in the walls or floor three times, once while I was just walking down a ramp. Thank goodness for autosave.

[bikingjahuty]

29. Truxton (Genesis)

While there are other SHMUPs on the Genesis I haven't played, or at least have never played enough to provide a review for, I felt like towards the top of that still need to play list was Truxton, a game that many go on about as being one of the best SHMUPs of the 16-bit era. Sadly in recent years I've become a little bit pessimistic towards pre-mid 90s SHMUPs as I've found most of them to contain many of the annoyances of later release SHMUPs with few of the benefits. Mainly, they seem to often suffer from imbalanced gameplay, annoying gameplay mechanics, huge or inconsistent hit boxes, and various other issues that seem to plague the vast majority of shooters releases before 1994. Sadly, Truxton is absolutely no exception to this.


Playing through Truxton is a bit like falling into a hole, climbing out of it, falling back in several times, finally climbing out again, walking a few more steps, then falling into a new hole. Rinse and Repeat. Truxton uses one of the most annoying gameplay mechanics i've ever encountered in shooters which are checkpoints. If you die before reaching a specific part of a level, you must go back, replay that undefined section over and over again until you finally reach the next section. This forces you to play some of the more difficult sections of Truxton a dozen times or more, which really wares you down from wanting to play more. The only forgiveness I can give Truxton for incorporating this system is that many other shooters of the type like R-Type were doing the same thing so I guess you could say it's a bit of a product of its time. Unfortunately I'm not finished with the gameplay woes of this game.


Truxton is a pretty imbalanced game. You will often get blindsided by enemies from behind, requiring that you pretty much stick in the middle of the screen, which unfortunately limits the amount of response time you have to enemies in front of you that quickly appear and fire as soon as their sprite enters. You then have a ridiculous amount of projectiles thrown at you, especially during the last couple stages, meaning you're constantly between a rock and hard place throughout almost the whole game. And then there is the power up system, which while not as bad as other shooters I've played from around this time, maroons you if you die since you lose all your previous power ups, and there are few to prepare you for the road ahead. In other words you are always playing at a handicap whenever you die, making the game that much harder even though you dying was an indication that it got a little too hard for you already. The power ups themselves are pretty cool. Beyond making your shots stronger, you have three types of shots; a weaker scatter shot, a slightly stronger, but more focused homing laser shot. And then finally a very focused lock on shot that is also the most powerful. You also have your standard, screen clearing bomb as well for when you are in a tight spot or what to try and make short work of the game's bosses.


And then there is Truxton's final annoying gameplay mechanic, the loop. Many shooters of the late 80s and early 90s used a loop system to artificially increase the length of the game. Essentially you beat the game and then are encouraged to beat it again, albeit with more power ups and a higher difficulty. Some shooters reward you for beating all the games loops, but honestly after loop one I feel like I'd seen all I could and quit after that. While not the most annoying thing about Truxton's gameplay, it certainly didn't help with my enjoyment of it either.


Graphically Truxton looks fine for a shooter of this time. The backgrounds are a bit dull, but the cool art style and diverse group of ships and bosses certainly helps with the visuals. Also, there is very limited damage effects to the sprites of stronger enemies, giving you some indication that you are getting closer to defeating them. Also, when terrestrial enemies die, there is a smoldering spot on the ground where they met their demise. Obviously this is nothing groundbreaking or even noteworthy by modern standards, or even the standards of 20-years ago, but for a game from 1989 it's not bad.


Sound is also decent in Truxton. Sound effects pretty much consist of shots being fired from you and the enemies, as well as explosions from when one of you gets destroyed. The soundtrack is fairly catchy, but nothing to write home about. For what it is though, it's fine and certainly fits the game and action going on.


I was hoping Truxton would be another Thunder Force IV where I'd actually be able to hold a pre mid-90s SHMUP in the same regard with some of the more modern greats like Ikaruga or Dodonpachi, but unfortunately the technology or game design just wasn't evolved enough yet by the late 80s to even come close to competing. The amount of improvements to the shooter genre from the late 80s to the late 90s is almost unreal. Toaplan who developed Truxton would later reform to create Cave, who is responsible for some of the very best shooters ever made. Seeing this game certainly shows the early stages of their ability to create shooter, while what they accomplished in the late 90s and early 2000s highlights their mastery of it. I can't completely tear apart Truxton given it's similarity to other shooters of the time, but what I can fault it for is making me wish I'd just believed this game was awesome from word of mouth rather than experiencing this game for myself and finding it to be annoying, frustrating, and a total waste of time for the most part. (5/10/20)

Presentation: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Fun: 7/20
Overall: 25/50

[telly]

Game 14 - Mega Man Zero 2 (PS4) - 6 Hours

+ Definitely enjoyed this game more than the first Zero game, but there were still a couple things I didn't enjoy that much.

For the most part, this game has all the elements that made the first Mega Man Zero fun. Great gameplay, music and challenging bosses and levels. They fixed two problems I had with the first game; a continue option that replenishes lives, and scaling back the crystals needed to power up your Cyber Elves. Generally the game has some more polish in the menus, cutscenes, and gameplay. They also added a wider variety of Cyber Elves which are still fun to collect and use. Lastly, while I didn't enjoy the story as much in the first game, it was still entertaining.

-

I really don't like the ranking system in these games. I F ranked literally every stage in this game because again, it's really hard to play through these levels without dying, or taking damage, or taking a lot of time trying to figure out bosses, enemies and stage hazards. If you want to get a good ranking you have to play the same stage over and over again, which I didn't want to do. There are also secrets and collectables which goes against the notion of speeding through the level. Second, the game is so brutally hard that you pretty much need to exploit as much as possible. Once I got the Cyber Elf that doubles your items, I could grind lives, crystals and health easily, and used the crystals on a ton Cyber Elves that improved my max health and let me cross spikes safely, etc. So the game turned from a really difficult experience to a relatively easy one at the end. The final boss was far easier than the first game, for example.

[kamikazekeeg]

15 - Fallout 76 (PC 2018) - BEAT - Definitely not a game I would've initially expected to say I beat (Main story quest line that leads to you using a nuke, not counting the new Wastelanders stuff), but I did.  I picked this up last year initially, having gotten it for super cheap to the point of thinking I could get SOMETHING out of the game for that price, but after putting time in, the servers and issues were still so bad, so I dropped it.  I knew going in I would likely drop it, but because I got it for like 10 bucks, I figured I would try, and I failed.  Cue nearly a year later and I will say that they have improved the game to the point of it being playable.  Not that this means its good.

While the servers are more stable, the performance improved, this game is still a big mess of bugs and all sorts of other issues.  I played this game entirely solo outside of a few moments strewn about, or buying plans from player vendors, because I really wanted to explore this world as I am a big Fallout fan.  It kills me that they did all of this for a terribly made multi-player game, rather than just do the easy thing and make this something like New Vegas, because there's great story ideas here.  The story has such potential, but it's wasted here.  And to note, Wastelanders doesn't fix the story, it's new, extra, story on top of the old one, so if you are going through the games original missions, they are still the same shitty ones, there's just better, more interesting, ones with characters off to the side.  I didn't play a ton of them, they are better, but it's the bare minimum that should've been there at launch.  It's like they've reached the "beta" state for this early access release.

So no, I can't recommend the game.  It's objectively a bad game that is more playable now and die hard fans of Fallout will find things to like, but the game is still so buggy and annoying, that it will try your patience a lot.  If you can get it for 10 bucks or less, and you are an absolute fanboy of Fallout, then maybe I'd say it would be okay, but not for anything more and even then, there's stuff you probably won't like.

[Cartagia]

28. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4) [...]
I really thought I'd like this series of games, and maybe I will like the others when I eventually play them, but as far as the first Uncharted game goes, I absolutely will never play it again, even for the otherwise great story. (5/5/20)

The first game is easily, and I mean easily, the worst game in the series, so don't let it put you off too much.  I was someone who was very skeptical of them coming back for UC4, and walked away thinking it was far and away the best in the series.  It's one of those franchises that built great things from rocky beginnings.

Persona 4 Golden
The first real JRPG I've played in a long time.  Great design, atmosphere, and (mostly) characters.  However, I put just over 70 hours into this, and can't help put find myself thinking about the how long it took to get going (it was close to 3-4 hours before I played for more than 5-10 minutes at a time) and just how overlong it stayed its welcome.  I was ready for the game to end 15 hours before it did.  I never found it overly difficult except for a couple of early encounters and when I ran up against a boss or miniboss that was just anti-my party composition.  I'm still looking forward to playing P5, but I'll definitely need a break first.

[telly]

Game 15 - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4) - 7 Hours

The best way I can describe this game is bland and cliche. It wasn't an awful experience, but was incredibly unengaging as a game. For one, this game doesn't have a single original bone in its body. Everything regarding the story, characters, environments, and gameplay feels ripped straight out of Tomb Raider and the Indiana Jones movies. The gameplay felt incredibly repetitive and boring, mostly consisting of exhausting gunfight after gunfight with enemies that can shoot you with pinpoint accuracy while you're behind cover at 100 yards away. The climbing and platforming felt linear and brainless and sometimes you don't jump to where you want to, which is frustrating. Nathan Drake is such a stock, typical handsome white dude and it was boring to play as him. The villains are so forgettable and underdeveloped, partially because half of them die before the game even ends, which doesn't help with the final boss fight being one of the worst I've played in a while.

I do have a couple positive thoughts. Visually the game is very nice, although like I said earlier, the environments are about as cliche as you can get. The vehicle sections did add some nice variety and were relatively fun. My favorite level was the bunker which changed up the enemies you fight and added a little horror to the experience, which I wasn't expecting. Lastly, the music is pretty well done, with some nice production behind it. The voice acting was also top-notch, and I enjoyed the side characters a little more than Nate. That's about all I can say though. Will definitely continue with the series, but it was pretty disappointing.

[Cartagia]

I'll just paste what I just said to biking :

The first game is easily, and I mean easily, the worst game in the series, so don't let it put you off too much.  I was someone who was very skeptical of them coming back for UC4, and walked away thinking it was far and away the best in the series.  It's one of those franchises that built great things from rocky beginnings.

I've been alternating between Super Mario Maker 2 and Cities: Skylines, two uncompletable games, so that's not helping my numbers this year.

[telly]

Oh wow, didn't even see that post xD That's good to hear though. Definitely planning on giving the other two games a shot.

[bikingjahuty]

30. Thunder Dragon 2 (Arcade)

This was a SHMUP that came highly recommended within the online SHMUP community for a long time, and remained one of those few supposed "must play" shooters. Being in somewhat of a SHMUP mood I decided to see what all the fuss was about on this classic shooter from 1993, and after playing through it several times I've created my own opinion on it, which doesn't necessarily match that of many others who sing this game's praises.


I want to start off by saying, no, I didn't hate this game, and for what it was when it was released back in the early 90s it's a pretty impressive game. It's very well made, balanced, and the controls are precise and smooth. Your hit box is appropriately sized and the game is very fair and balanced when it comes to supplying power ups throughout your time with this game. There are a few sections of the game that are relatively cheap, but definitely not the worst I've seen in this genre. The gameplay is pretty solid overall and is hard to fault for the most part.


Visually Thunder Dragon 2 looks great for the time it was released. The graphics are crisp and polished, especially those of the ships in this game. The game has a very steam punk inspired look, and in terms of the overall design it does a very good job portraying this. The backgrounds are also very well done and look very cool, albeit very generic. In fact, the main issue I have with Thunder Dragon 2's presentation is mostly the way the game looks; it's that all too familiar WW2 look, similar to 1943 and many other shooters. I just felt like I had played this game before many times before, but I'll get to that more in a minute.


The audio in Thunder Dragon 2 is a mixed bag. On one hand the soundtrack is excellent, like really good. While limited in terms of how many tracks there were, all the songs were very catchy and fun to listen to while i blasted through the game's 7 or 8 stages. Unfortunately there's another set of noises that stick with you throughout the game and that's your very vocal pilot in the ship you control. He will say something when you die, when you continue, before you continue, after blowing up a series of ships, after defeating a boss, and probably every other instance in between. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't saying the same 10 or so so things all the time, all in the same Japanese person trying to sound American or British in semi-broken english. This gets real old, real fast, and was enough by the end of my 2nd playthrough to consider muting the game entirely.


As I had mentioned earlier, this game felt very, very familiar. Before I started playing Thunder Dragon 2 I had forgot to check if I actually had played it before given the plethora of other SHMUPs I've played that look and play very similar to this game. I was constantly second guessing myself while playing through Thunder Dragon 2, before finally getting to check and finding out I hadn't played it before. But that was the problem; the game felt so generic and similar to the other WW2, Steampunk style shooters I'd played I didn't know if I'd played it already or not. This was reflected in my overall enjoyment of the game as well; Thunder Dragon 2 is a well balanced, well crafted, and good looking shooter, but I felt mostly bored with the game while playing it. In other words the game is definitely above average, and I can even see why some people might really, really like it, but it wasn't for me. I guess for what it's worth, I can now scratch another "must play" shooter off my list. (5/16/20)

Presentation: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Fun: 10/20
Overall: 33/50

[telly]

Game 16 - Mega Man Zero 3 (PS4) - 9 Hours

+

I'd have to say that this was my favorite Zero game yet. There were a couple tweaks to the game play that I appreciated. You can adjust your cyber-elves in the field now, which is super convenient. The game has an great selection of body, head and boot chips, and an expanded variety of cyber elves that you can use, which increase your possibilities for customization. You can also equip certain elves rather than consuming them so you don't have to decrease your score as a tradeoff. The secret discs were fun to collect, especially because they can give you helpful bonuses and e-crystals. Other than that, the game is just as good and sounds great just like the other games.

On the topic of ranking, this time around I actually tried to get a high ranking on every mission, in contrast to how I played the previous two games. I A-ranked all of them except the final mission, and while it was nice to get those additional EX skills, I really only used two of them. My play time was longer compared to Zero and Zero 2 because I had to replay stages that I had already beat just to increase my ranking. I didn't even bother trying to S-rank all the stages, and I found out later that they just unlock a bunch of mini games, so I'm glad I didn't waste my time with that.

-

I really didn't enjoy the story this time around. There were some elements that I liked, like fighting the original Zero at the end, but overall it felt kind of silly with the Dr. Weil's quest to destroy the world and yadda yadda yadda. To be honest, I didn't really pay attention to the story that much.

[kamikazekeeg]

17 - Maneater (PC 2020) - BEAT - Underwater games for me are always somewhat unsettling, and sharks creep me out, but it's like how easily scared people watch horror movies, it's the same with games like Maneater.  The deep water is unsettling, sharks are creepy, but I have fun with these games and movies.  Maneater itself is a fun time, just an arcadey, somewhat ridiculous, shark adventure where you roam around, grow/mutate, and eat lots of things.  The game is rather simple, the gameplay loop doesn't really differ just chomping a lot of stuff and the missions are pretty uncreative, but the whole package works well enough together.  You got the kinda "serious" story done in a Discovery Channel reality tv show setup, with Chris Parnell narrating everything with lots of wacky dialogue related to the city and all the easter eggs you find.  It's also open world, but it doesn't overstay its welcome, this isn't a massive open world epic that you'll dump 50+ hours into, I 100% the game short of fully upgrading some parts I had in about 11 to 12 hours.

It's one of those games where if the concept of "You play as a shark, devouring animal and people alike, while growing bigger, and mutating to gain a few new abilities" sounds fun, you'll like it.  I'm hoping they add new content eventually like challenges, new missions and enemies, and new mutations, because I'd love to go back eventually.

[justin8301]

Forgot to update this again.

15. Journey (PS4) - 4/11
16. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - 5/3
      - I know this one doesn't really end, but I got credits so I'm calling it beat for this at least lol
17. Dragon's Lair (Switch) - 5/15
18. Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) - 5/23
      - Like a lot of you, I’ve been waiting for this game for 23 years. I distinctly remember finishing the original back in eighth grade and being totally blown away; I had never experienced anything like it and I immediately started the game over again, I couldn’t get enough of it. As each new console came out, I always though about how cool it would be if they just remade it on the new platform with upgraded visuals; 23 years and 3 console generations later it finally happened. After FFXV, I was really nervous going into this, I specifically avoided any reviews or articles on the game and didn’t even play the demo, I didn’t want anyone else’s opinions swaying mine. After 23 years, I got to experience Final Fantasy VII for the first time again, and let me just say… it was perfect! This game was everything I could ever imagine a remake being and so much more. Square did such an awesome job expanding on an already amazing story and really made you connect with characters that had only a minor role in the original. I can’t wait to see what they do with the next part!

[telly]

Game 17 - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS4) - 11 hours

+ Overall I would definitely say that this game was an improvement over the first installment. The gameplay and controls are a little more refined, and the environments are more varied and setpieces are a lot better. While the story felt very similar to the first game, the villains were a lot better, which definitely improved my enjoyment. I thought the characters outside of the villains were also better developed and human-like, and there are some great dialogue and funny moments sprinkled throughout the game. Everything that was great about the first game was present here; gorgeous visuals, amazing music, and top-notch voice work. Altogether I finished this game feeling much more entertained than the first iteration.

- Frankly, I'm still not sure why these games are so highly regarded. For all the 10/10s and "Game of the Year"s that Uncharted 2 earned, this series so far has felt very much like "style over substance". All of the combat and climbing is set up to feel treacherous and kinetic, but it's usually very straightforward and brainless to get through. The same issues crop up with the puzzles, which can be solved simply by reading your notebook, and usually don't require much thought or critical thinking. Perhaps the issue is me playing this game so long after it's release, but all the same, I'm now wondering why I enjoyed similar games like The Last of Us but haven't been digging this series so far. Lastly, progressing through the game requires a lot of trial and error, especially with the climbing, as there are lots of ledges in the game that can't be climbed on, which leads you to falling to your death a lot of the time. It can be very frustrating.