Bouncing bus - legitimate to blame, or lame excuse?

[NoahsMyBro]

When I was a kid my brother and I used to often blame in-game mistakes or defeats on the controllers. Spekaing for myself, as I recall I always sincerely believed the controller had not registered correctly whenever I would claim such a thing, but I always thought he was full of it. I assume he felt the same way. Naturally, we never really gave any legitimacy to such excuses, and taunted each other for losses regardless.

Now, earlier this week I commuted a couple of times on the bus, driving through dark tunnels, over bumps, etc... I tried to whip out the trusty Pocket Gameboy and get in some quality Tetris time during the ride. Repeatedly the bus would stop short, go through a dark spot, or hit a bump, negatively impacting my game-play.

Does this environment strike you guys as something that simply should be legitimately overcome, in which case balming lousy scores on the situation is as lame as saying the controller sucks? Or would you say it's perfectly reasonable to expect worse results in such a setting?

Hell, have any of you gamed on a bus routinely, and become used to it? If so, I definitely think it's a lame excuse.

[TRM]

I think it is a fine excuse. Different environments yield different results. For instance, when I play Nintendo games on my Game Theory Admiral, I can always expect to do worse then I do on my actual NES...why? The screen is so much smaller, making the gameplay more difficult. The same can be used for the bus ride...

[Funkenstein]

Personally I think bumps are no excuse. Hell, I can play most handheld games and smoke a butt at the same time. It depends with darkness. If it's more than a couple of seconds and you're in some of the higher levels, I can understand blaming it for mistakes. Really, though, that's what the pause button is for.

My mother loves Tetris on the GB, and when she used to bring it in the car on trips she would tell my father to take the long way with no tunnels because if he did anything to "screw her up" she would "rip his head off and shove it up [his] ass."

[punkoffgirl]

My mother loves Tetris on the GB, and when she used to bring it in the car on trips she would tell my father to take the long way with no tunnels because if he did anything to "screw her up" she would "rip his head off and shove it up [his] ass."

Ooh, good line.

[klausien]

The bouncing from the train wreaks havoc on Super Monkey Ball Jr. on GBA. Infuriating.