That Time the Power Went Out

Gamers have unlimited ways to play the games they love, but it requires a source that is not always so reliable; Electricity.

Be it standard maintenance, thunderstorms, or a charge cord left behind; one way or another you have found yourself in this situation. You want to play or finish playing a game to a certain checkpoint and you see the battery light flash or the power suddenly cut out. All that hard work, all that effort, gone in an instant. It can be devastating, and a commonly shared experience; but every person has one event that is very personal to them as the ultimate culmination of frustration.

My most memorable occurrence was during a game of Dead Rising.

There was a specific achievement in the game to kill the population of the town.

Keep in mind, I was not going after this achievement for the measly 20 Gamerscore, I was after the prize of it all; the Mega Man X-Buster in New Game+. Shooting zombies with Mega Man's weapon of choice? You better believe I would put in some effort for that!

Mind you, this game has a sort of "timer". You have three days game time to complete the specified events, that includes killing the 53,594 zombies in one go. When the timer ran out, it was game over. Needless to say there was only one real way to do it, using the truck in the tunnels to continuously run over infinitely spawning zombies.

It was tedious, it was repetitive, and it was dragging. This roughly took a day and a half of  Dead Rising's game world time (which equates to roughly two and half to three hours real world time) just running over zombies until you get close to the amount needed. I set out for this task with time to spare and clear weather, no chance of a power outage.

 "This would be easier if you would all just hold still"

I was at roughly the 45,000 mark, and had spent most of the afternoon just hopping into vehicle after vehicle running through hoards of undead. Victory was getting closer, just a few more laps and I would never have to do this again. My trigger finger was tired of holding down the accelerator, my eyes needed a break, but I was determined to see this through.

Then it happened.

In a blink, the lights went out, the air conditioner cut off, and the screen where my goal was once in sight, slunk into the black abyss of nothing.

I just sat there...staring blankly at the screen. All the effort, all the work, all the time plugged into that achievement. Gone. When the power returned some five minutes later, I took Dead Rising out and shelved it immediately, moving onto another game.

I would eventually sit down with it again and get the achievement, and I had fun using that item I worked so hard for; yet it felt tarnished by the horrible memory of all the time put into getting to that point. That was the first time a power outage had robbed me of so much effort. Graciously placed checkpoints and autosave have limited that problem recently, but this will always be the one moment where a power outage ruined so much time and effort.

I am interested to hear, what drained battery or blackout ruined a streak you had, tarnished a perfect run, or wiped your raid?