As much as love Wind Waker, whenever I had to sail somewhere I'd just set myself on the right path, flick AV channels and watch TV for a few minutes. If my controller rumbled, hit Start and switch back.
Warping would have been more useful but noooo the one that goes to the top left corner is pretty much useful only once, and you can't even go to other places from there.. you have to warp back out.
Always wonder why they didn't make it so you could at least leave via an awesome waterfall or something
FyreWulff on
0
DomhnallMinty D. Vision!ScotlandRegistered Userregular
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Domhnall on
Xbox Live - Minty D Vision Steam - Minty D. Vision! Origin/BF3 - MintyDVision
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Yeah, the game is actually harder the more you level (there are some exceptions at various level breakpoints, but as a general rule). Drawing is the "true" leveling in that game.
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Yeah, the game is actually harder the more you level (there are some exceptions at various level breakpoints, but as a general rule). Drawing is the "true" leveling in that game.
...I think you meant VIII originally.
BlitzAce1981 on
PSN ID - BlitzAce1981 FFXIV - Raiden Solitaire (Sargatanas)
0
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
So I think my Gaming White Whale might actually be getting the Recon armor in Halo 3. Namely because I have the other 6 achievements needed but I can never get 3 other people together for the necessary Firefight achievement.
For me, it's the Super Mario Lost Levels. They weren't released in the U.S. because they were too hard. And goddamnit, they were. I was stuck for like 4 months on world 7-4, but after I beat that I got the rest of the worlds, bonus worlds included, in one weekend or something. I don't know if the satisfaction came from it actually being a good game or from just finally beating the damned thing, but I am pretty proud of that.
Spoom182 on
0
HalibutPassion FishSwimming in obscurity.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Mine was Vagrant Story. Took me about 5 years to beat it. Now, it's one of my favorite games.
Halibut on
0
joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
So I think my Gaming White Whale might actually be getting the Recon armor in Halo 3. Namely because I have the other 6 achievements needed but I can never get 3 other people together for the necessary Firefight achievement.
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Yeah, the game is actually harder the more you level (there are some exceptions at various level breakpoints, but as a general rule). Drawing is the "true" leveling in that game.
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Yeah, the game is actually harder the more you level (there are some exceptions at various level breakpoints, but as a general rule). Drawing is the "true" leveling in that game.
...I think you meant VIII originally.
Damn you X. Yes, I did.
Betrayed by the Romans. Et tu, Brute?
As a twelve year old playing through FFVIII for the first time, I was finding
THAT STUPID BITCH ADEL URGHHH
pretty hard (read: impossible) to beat because I couldn't just spam GFs and had no idea about the real potential of the drawing mechanic.
My solution was to level up to fucking 99. Because I didn't realize the game level scaled, I figured I was just terrible at Final Fantasy when I still couldn't beat her. Ugh.
Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door. I can't beat the final boss. I might have been able to with enough tries, but I could only ever get just far enough to have to sit through an extremely long, unskippable, and painfully encouraging cutscene after which I am supposed to overcome the impossible odds before I die.
Pardon the Schadenfreude, but you all make me realize that I'm actually a decent gamer.
Hell I beat FF8 with my "second team" underleveled.
There was a post in here on like page 7 about not playing TF2 because of fear of online play. I did the same thing. I only very recently (like last week) started to play and found it ridiculously fun. I have this odd terror of playing multiplayer FPSes. EQ, WoW, Eve, or any MMO I've never had a problem with.
This is odd because I played the shit out of TFC and Counter Strike back in the VERY early 1.5 days.
What would it be now though?
Off the top of my head: Penumbra Overture. I forget how far I got. I seem to remember being outside in the snow...somewhere just past that point. I think I might have cheated at one point too, but I never finished playing. Any game that makes me run scared that much from the freaky ass things in that game is just...ick. Black Plague was really good as I recall as far as atmosphere, and the spiders pissed me off more than scared me.
I've never finished A Link to the Past, even though I always had a soft spot for that game for some reason. Fairly certain I've never completed any of the SMB games either. I've got a lot of retro to catch up on. Makes me wish I had a PS3 controller, I'd install the windows driver and go to town on them just because I'm bored out of my mind and replaying all my games is getting old fast.
Oh man: FF TACTICS. That game is hard, wtf. I usually never have trouble adjusting to a game, but that one.....I got War of the Lions on my PSP and started making progress and then I reached a boiling point on it in one of the story line fights and finally just turned it off and never went back.
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
Why not? Level scaling?
Yeah, the game is actually harder the more you level (there are some exceptions at various level breakpoints, but as a general rule). Drawing is the "true" leveling in that game.
the only final fantasy games I ever failed to complete were X-2, for the obvious reasons
and 12. I got obsessed with the LP grind, and got the License board for every character maxed out about half way through the game and just drifted away afterwards.
Second whale I just remembered - Vectorman. I'm pretty sure no one else knows what the fuck this game is, but I couldn't beat the third level, I swear to God.
Third: Contras. Like, the old one. And Gunstar Heroes 2 (Whale #4). Couldn't beat any of these.
One day - one day - I will stop sucking at Homeworld 2. I'll actually figure out which ship beats which, and I'll be able to anticipate it when the game randomly decides to go into Fuck You Mode and spawn six missile frigates, a carrier, and two dozen fighters, and have them make a beeline for the mothership. I'll somehow manage to stop this from easily plowing through the half-dozen units I left behind to protect it because I needed every other unit to take out one of the objectives.
Second whale I just remembered - Vectorman. I'm pretty sure no one else knows what the fuck this game is, but I couldn't beat the third level, I swear to God.
I'll bet you a lot of people here know what Vectorman is, and at least some of us played that bastard too. Like many games I tried in my youth, it was hard, so I lost interest in it quickly.
I still haven't beat Final Fantasy X. I get to the point where you're fighting whatever the hell the guy with girl hair's name is, and he's got this like robot body, and then I throw the controller down in frustration. I tried to do it for a couple years, and then I just never went back to it. The entire game was like nails on a chalkboard up to that point, so I can't imagine it gets any better. I haven't touched the Final Fantasy franchise since then.
Hah! You think (BIG SPOILZ, LOL)
Seymour was bad, it just gets like ten fucking times worse once you fight Yunalesca, who's more than capable of killing you in a single turn.
I quit after I got stuck on Jecht. Stupid regenerating asshat.
Actually, the entire Final Fantasy series is my humongous white whale. I have, to my eternal shame, never beaten a single one. I get up to the last couple of boss fights, get my ass whooped, and then leave them alone.
This has happened, to date, TWELVE TIMES.
Grrrrr.
Get to level 99 and whoop their asses
Protip: Don't do this in FFXIII.
You should play FFVIII its crazy easy to break and pretty fun.
This is gonna sound really stupid, but Diddy Kong Racing.
I got stuck on the first Wizpig race for years cause I didn't know about the game-breaking zipper glitch.
Now that I DO know about it, everything is way too easy. I even managed to get that stopwatch character as a playable character.
T.T. (the stopwatch's name, not me crying, although that game did make me cry). But what's the zipper glitch? I liked playing DKR in co-op mode with one of my friends, but it always pissed us off that the bosses forced you to alternate.
Technically not a "glitch" per se, but once you discover it the game becomes embarrassingly easy.
Right before you hit a zipper, let go of the acceleration completely. Do not just power through it like normal, just let go; don't hit the gas until you're completely out of the boost. Instead of a pink/purple boost behind the cart, you'll get this weird green one that leaves behind a rainbow smoke trail when finished.
You'll move twice as fast and go twice as far, and I mean it. You will haul ass with this, and every challenge in the game almost becomes a chore.
This method is also the only way to beat all the T.T. time trial races.
Well, fuck. Now I'm pissed because I actually beat that game "legitimately" (as in not knowing of/using this technique). It took a hell of a lot of swearing though.
So does that work only for the carts or does it work for the plane as well? I only remember there being like 3 or so hovercraft levels, so it probably doesn't matter much if it works for them.
Works for everything. Car, hover-thingy, plane.
I am still stumped how anyone could beat the first Wizpig race without that knowledge. That fucker was a nightmare to deal with.
You had to hit every zipper perfectly AND have him "kick" you most of the way up there or you couldn't beat him period.
Okay seriously though it's FF7. I have never finished it and I'm not sure that I ever will. It's just... the graphics are so terrible! I missed it the first time around and now I don't think it's possible for me to get into it. :<
Didgeridoo on
0
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
One day - one day - I will stop sucking at Homeworld 2. I'll actually figure out which ship beats which, and I'll be able to anticipate it when the game randomly decides to go into Fuck You Mode and spawn six missile frigates, a carrier, and two dozen fighters, and have them make a beeline for the mothership. I'll somehow manage to stop this from easily plowing through the half-dozen units I left behind to protect it because I needed every other unit to take out one of the objectives.
I think I'm just not cut out for space strategy.
I've been told the secret is selling/scuttling your entire fleet at the end of each mission. The game spawns enemies at the start of a mission scaled to match your fleet. By going into a mission with nothing and a lot of spare credits, you can easily outdo them since they start with nothing and need to gather resources.
I haven't actually tried it though.
-Loki- on
0
Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
For me it is an entire genre. RTS...they always look so enticing and I try to play them and I inevitably suck balls and quit.
I don't think I'll ever overcome it.
I am double-lime-ing this. Because I love the genre to death, but goddamned if I don't suck immeasurable amounts of ass at every one I attempt.
Also this motherfucker was my white whale for years.
Still is, kinda. I just wish I could've beaten him on the original NES game back when I was a kid and still owned an NES. I still feel like I owe him an ass-whooping since I couldn't beat him when I was young, and only ended up beating his face in after a 20-year hiatus.
Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
See, a lot of people say that. I'm not trying to sound like I'm boasting, but something about Super Machoman always just made sense to me, in the way that you're supposed to fight him. Like, when to dodge, when to hit, etc. Tyson was just...I don't know. Maybe it's something in my brain that makes easy things difficult and difficult things easy. Tyson felt like a whole different ballgame. He was always *way* too fast for me.
Actually, the second Don Flemenco and Soda Popinski were pretty tough for me because their timing felt weird. I think everytime Don throws a snap jab it bucks me in the face. Popinski just kinda stalls a lot, so I get antsy and dodge too early, then come back just in time to eat a lunchbox in the grill.
I've still beaten the game on a quarter before though! Well, not exactly a quarter, but beginning to end without dying.
For some content, I never beat Ninja Gaiden. That game was impossibly tough for me. I'm actually OK with never beating it because I never want to play it again. I can't remember the exact stage where I couldn't get any farther, but I do remember it involving a jump where a bird flies right into you mid-jump.
Coffey on
0
Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Oh man, fuck Don Flamenco v2. I had a harder time with him than Soda Popinksi or Super Machoman, by far.
Edit: Also, fuck the second time you fight Bald Bull. Can't knock him down with anything but a superpunch. Fuck that guy.
Edit2: Just thought of another white whale. Zelda: Twilight Princess. I don't know why. I just...stopped playing. And then sold my Wii.
I've only ever actually gotten to SMM twice. I'm pretty sure I could beat him with just a little practice, but it's hard to get that practice when I've gotta get through Soda Popinski, Don Flamenco 2, and Bald Bull 2 to take a crack at him.
I had two gaming white whales but for different reasons than difficulty, mostly.
I bought Final Fantasy VII back in the day and I got to the part in the desert prison right after that casino in the sky and got stuck. Def was dumb but I could not figure out what to do so I seriously grinded until all my characters were in the 60's and 70's before figuring out how to get out of there. But then we moved and I lost my memory card. Then I got the game spoiled for me. I finally tried going through it again last fall, but I just can't do it. 'O' is a horrible button to confirm a menu selection with.
When I was young I also played a whole lot of Crash Bandicoot and when the Third one came out I pretty much ran through that thing in a couple days except when I went to play the final level the game kept freezing. Took me 11 Years before I ever played it again. I had mentioned to my now ex-girlfriend last year that I never beat it. One day when I was sick she brought me chicken noodle soup, her old Playstation, and a copy of Crash 3. One of my most satisfying days of gaming ever.
Second whale I just remembered - Vectorman. I'm pretty sure no one else knows what the fuck this game is, but I couldn't beat the third level, I swear to God.
I'll bet you a lot of people here know what Vectorman is, and at least some of us played that bastard too. Like many games I tried in my youth, it was hard, so I lost interest in it quickly.
Vectorman is one of the easiest action games on the Genesis, at least out of the more high profile ones. I beat it on a rental, and I sucked at games back then.
Vectorman 2, on the other hand, seemed to be a different case. Never played much of that one though.
I will beat Ninja Gaiden Black, but i've got to start over AGAIN because I've moved to a new xbox and it won't recognise my saved games. Before that though i was stuck at a certain point. It was fucking ridiculous.
Ninja Gaiden 2 on 360 can suck my balls. I will never play that game ever again and I'm fine with that. I'll adamit I did think I was a bad ass and cranked the difficulty on the higher than normal setting, so in a way I was asking for it. But seriously, there's no logic to that game. The enemies are all frustrating, but the worst part is the boss fights are devoid of all sensible logic. If you beat them, your just lucky. I'm on the final boss in the game and I can see after the 100 or so times that I have lost to him that winning is all about luck. Sometimes I can hang with him for a while, other times it's over in 10 seconds. I may as well go play a slot machine. It could be that I'm doing something wrong, but from what I've seen it's impossible.
The Grey GOAT on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." -HST
Posts
Always wonder why they didn't make it so you could at least leave via an awesome waterfall or something
Why not? Level scaling?
Steam - Minty D. Vision!
Origin/BF3 - MintyDVision
Man did it feel good.
...I think you meant VIII originally.
Killing Frenzy. Forever it will be locked.
Betrayed by the Romans. Et tu, Brute?
As a twelve year old playing through FFVIII for the first time, I was finding
My solution was to level up to fucking 99. Because I didn't realize the game level scaled, I figured I was just terrible at Final Fantasy when I still couldn't beat her. Ugh.
Hell I beat FF8 with my "second team" underleveled.
There was a post in here on like page 7 about not playing TF2 because of fear of online play. I did the same thing. I only very recently (like last week) started to play and found it ridiculously fun. I have this odd terror of playing multiplayer FPSes. EQ, WoW, Eve, or any MMO I've never had a problem with.
This is odd because I played the shit out of TFC and Counter Strike back in the VERY early 1.5 days.
What would it be now though?
Off the top of my head: Penumbra Overture. I forget how far I got. I seem to remember being outside in the snow...somewhere just past that point. I think I might have cheated at one point too, but I never finished playing. Any game that makes me run scared that much from the freaky ass things in that game is just...ick. Black Plague was really good as I recall as far as atmosphere, and the spiders pissed me off more than scared me.
I've never finished A Link to the Past, even though I always had a soft spot for that game for some reason. Fairly certain I've never completed any of the SMB games either. I've got a lot of retro to catch up on. Makes me wish I had a PS3 controller, I'd install the windows driver and go to town on them just because I'm bored out of my mind and replaying all my games is getting old fast.
Oh man: FF TACTICS. That game is hard, wtf. I usually never have trouble adjusting to a game, but that one.....I got War of the Lions on my PSP and started making progress and then I reached a boiling point on it in one of the story line fights and finally just turned it off and never went back.
the only final fantasy games I ever failed to complete were X-2, for the obvious reasons
and 12. I got obsessed with the LP grind, and got the License board for every character maxed out about half way through the game and just drifted away afterwards.
Third: Contras. Like, the old one. And Gunstar Heroes 2 (Whale #4). Couldn't beat any of these.
Shit I just sucked at games as a kid
I think I'm just not cut out for space strategy.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
I don't think I'll ever overcome it.
I've got the Maverick Hunter X version now; I've decided it's not leaving my PSP until I beat it.
You should play FFVIII its crazy easy to break and pretty fun.
Works for everything. Car, hover-thingy, plane.
I am still stumped how anyone could beat the first Wizpig race without that knowledge. That fucker was a nightmare to deal with.
You had to hit every zipper perfectly AND have him "kick" you most of the way up there or you couldn't beat him period.
Okay seriously though it's FF7. I have never finished it and I'm not sure that I ever will. It's just... the graphics are so terrible! I missed it the first time around and now I don't think it's possible for me to get into it. :<
I've been told the secret is selling/scuttling your entire fleet at the end of each mission. The game spawns enemies at the start of a mission scaled to match your fleet. By going into a mission with nothing and a lot of spare credits, you can easily outdo them since they start with nothing and need to gather resources.
I haven't actually tried it though.
I am double-lime-ing this. Because I love the genre to death, but goddamned if I don't suck immeasurable amounts of ass at every one I attempt.
Also this motherfucker was my white whale for years.
Still is, kinda. I just wish I could've beaten him on the original NES game back when I was a kid and still owned an NES. I still feel like I owe him an ass-whooping since I couldn't beat him when I was young, and only ended up beating his face in after a 20-year hiatus.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I've still beaten the game on a quarter before though! Well, not exactly a quarter, but beginning to end without dying.
For some content, I never beat Ninja Gaiden. That game was impossibly tough for me. I'm actually OK with never beating it because I never want to play it again. I can't remember the exact stage where I couldn't get any farther, but I do remember it involving a jump where a bird flies right into you mid-jump.
Edit: Also, fuck the second time you fight Bald Bull. Can't knock him down with anything but a superpunch. Fuck that guy.
Edit2: Just thought of another white whale. Zelda: Twilight Princess. I don't know why. I just...stopped playing. And then sold my Wii.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I bought Final Fantasy VII back in the day and I got to the part in the desert prison right after that casino in the sky and got stuck. Def was dumb but I could not figure out what to do so I seriously grinded until all my characters were in the 60's and 70's before figuring out how to get out of there. But then we moved and I lost my memory card. Then I got the game spoiled for me. I finally tried going through it again last fall, but I just can't do it. 'O' is a horrible button to confirm a menu selection with.
When I was young I also played a whole lot of Crash Bandicoot and when the Third one came out I pretty much ran through that thing in a couple days except when I went to play the final level the game kept freezing. Took me 11 Years before I ever played it again. I had mentioned to my now ex-girlfriend last year that I never beat it. One day when I was sick she brought me chicken noodle soup, her old Playstation, and a copy of Crash 3. One of my most satisfying days of gaming ever.
Vectorman 2, on the other hand, seemed to be a different case. Never played much of that one though.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KingdomCarts#p/u/9/UJ_p6he5s44
He never finished the series though which sucks, but it takes you through really awesome quick strategies for most fights.
i had to fight a tank. Then another tank.
Then a helicopter gunship.
Jesus wept.
"Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." -HST