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There’s a fine line between a satisfyingly difficult game and a game that’s so annoying that you want to hurl your controller through your television. Some titles have tough sections that adequately reward your Herculean efforts. Others are just difficult for the sake of being difficult. In my mind it’s the difference between something like Ninja Gaiden
Today I’d love to learn about your favorite “hard” games. What are some titles that really challenged you and pushed you to the limits in a satisfying way? While you’re at it, what are some games that were so hard that you had no choice but to quit? Sound off (please)!!!
Definitely Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, hardest, most frustrating and rewarding game of recent memory. I've never completely quit a game out of frustration (always come back a few weeks or days later) but I have been pushed to my limits racing in Split/Second. The have a game mode where you beat the best track time all while things like explosion are being triggered and route changers and homing missles. I was off by .03 seconds over 20times and I almost punched the shit out of my tv, but that isn't smart.
Tetris, since it never ends, or does it?
I'd have to go with Fester's Quest on my NES. It took me nearly a decade to revisit it and beat it on an emulator. After i got the best gun early on in the game I saved it and saved it every 20 seconds or so until I beat it. F that game on the NES.
NG and NG2 were hard but very fun. The original Starcraft was painful on hard and insane difficulties.
The Bionic Commando for the NES.
We actually had a discussion about my favorite hard game the other day, without a doubt its The TMNT game for NES. For anyone who has ever played the dam, they know what hard is. Either that or Vegas 2, I hate the excuse the computer cheats but in this game it is a valid argument.
The last favorite hard game that I can remember playing is Halo 2 on Legendary (especially the very first level). I played through it again last year, so it's still pretty fresh in my mind.
In completely unrelated news…
Am I the only one here who knows about the official Bioshock 3 announcement?
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunte…
-M
@bioshock
Thanks Iceman, that just made my day
No problem, Arguello. I'm actually looking forward to this one as it seems to take the series in a different direction with the same creator instead of just "more of the same" with Bioshock 2. Granted, I have yet to play Bioshock 2, but there are other games in my queue right now.
Fighting in the sky while "the world is literally falling apart" seems like an awesome setting. I'm thinking a "heavenly" version of Rapture, only in the sky. How freaking awesome would that be?
-M
Well besides Ninja Gaiden I think Maniac Mansion and Solstice for NES. At least those were when I was a kid. I wish I could find them to try again.
Oh, and Total Recall for the NES. >_>
@All
The wireless internet should finally be up and running for me now! Now all I need is an Xbox S so I can play online again without having to move my xbox out to the living room anytime I wanna get online (which I will be doing here in a little while).
@favorite hard game
Mirror's Edge without using any weapons while going for the Test of Faith achievement on the hard difficulty. I really liked playing through that game, and it is considerably easier to beat while being able to use guns.
I have enjoyed playing the CoD games on Veteran difficulty the first time through. Other than that I would say there a couple somewhat difficult achievements that I have enjoyed getting more than whole games that I can think of at the moment. Beating Tetris in under 25 minutes will be one of those achievements someday.
The combat challenge rooms in Batman: AA.
I could not get the combo strings right for the life of me… but it was hella fun. The stealth challenges, I crushed them. The combat challenges… no f'n way.
@Scrabble fans:
Check out the headline. Looks like Mr. Padilla has some competition in the "verbal entertainer" category from CNN of all places. I'm surprised I saw it there instead of at The Onion.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/12/scrabble.cha…
-M
John Carmack is the best in the business.
http://m.kotaku.com/5611608/id-unleashes-rage-on-…
I say all of the Castlevania games <_<
Most hard games are annoying as hell to me, so I can't play or finish them. I had to turn the difficulty down on Dragon Age so that I could enjoy it and thanks to whats his nutz I still haven't gone back to finish FFXIII. There are rare occasions where I want a challenging game, but I mostly play for fun. So far, Castlevania is the only hard game series I enjoy. It feels more rewarding to actually beet the hard modes and what not in that series.
(Halo doesn't count as hard to me any more)
@Thundercracker
My grandparents had Top Gun at their house and I would play it whenever I was there but I could never get the landing down consistently. To me that was always the hardest part.
@arguello
i feel you on the TMNT, i almost beat that game…got right before shredder and could never quite get to him, i was so proud to even be able to do that, no one else i knew could even GET to the technodrome, or even past the giant mouser
@nightshade
i beat bionic commando on the NES, that game was/is awesome
my most difficult game? Top gun for the NES sucked, i dont know anyone who could beat that..operation wolf on regular speed also sucked
hardest game of all time though
SPY HUNTER…could anyone beat that god damn game? i couldnt get like 2 minutes into that game, i dont even know if that game has actual levels…id get to the helicopter part and just eat it every time
I’d like to add the Terminator side scroller for Genesis. I got to the 2nd level…the one where all the Arnolds pop out from behind pillars. Damn that games was hard.
I got to that level only once because defending the truck before that was so damn hard.
@bsu
if you could get to level 5, the final boss was impossible…i only got there through emulator software, the landings were hard to get down, only because even if you did what they said, oft-times youd still be way off
@ Thundercracker
Sorry for coming back so late.
I'm almost positive that there was no end to Spy Hunter. I got past the chopper 12 times ans even got the boat… no end in sight. It seemed to just repeat over and over and was more about score than anything else.