Another podcast... hmm I wonder what this one will be about?

Posted by PatMan33 at February 15, 2008 7:38 PM

Awesome. Thanks Steve!

Posted by Hiro Protagonist at February 15, 2008 8:26 PM

Red Alert 3 is nearly complete, eh?

Posted by Paroxysm at February 15, 2008 8:30 PM

Oh the bit about Banjo Kazooie 3 got me pretty excited.

Name that Game

Forum Name: Met

Actually went through my old games looking through trying to remember the ones that challenged me the most.

It was hard to decide. Gamecube Games? Nothing too bad. All the GameBoy generations? Spider-Man 2 on the DS was rather annoying... but not too hard.

Then I hit the Nintendo 64 games.

Shadows of the Empire. I was six when it came out and just begged my father to buy it for me. I got it the day after it came out.

Over the years I've played, it, i got to know the Hoth battle very well. First level of the game. I had the hardest time beating the AT-AT while on foot at the end of level 2. I was young, didn't have the greatest problem solving ability. Level 3 was pretty simple. But then I remember level 4 had you on this train going through a junkyard. I simply couldn't handle it. Never beat it.

I'm going to go dig out my Nintendo 64 and see how I do. Of all my Nintendo 64 games, it was the only one I didn't beat. So I'll call it the Hardest Game for me.

Posted by Met at February 15, 2008 8:48 PM

I have never seen a Wii on sale. Never in stock.
Quietly advertised, softly advertised.

But I've never seen one in a store. Ever.

My friend has one. He had some really easy story that went along with it. "Walmart. Walked in, picked one up, payed, and left."
Bleh.
Not that I want one really... I'm still catching up on PS2 games and stuff.

Posted by Gauphastus at February 15, 2008 10:05 PM

The hardest game I ever played was Kaizo Mario, this wasn't a game you could buy at the store it was a rom hack of super Mario World (I own super Mario world so I don't think it was illegal). I was only able to get 1/2 way past the first level after like 2 hours, and this was using save states. Here is a video of the first level in the game http://tinyurl.com/yrm7u4
(This is not my video).

Posted by Gangrel at February 15, 2008 11:05 PM

Hardest Game Contest

Forum Name: Verkinix

Hardest Game For Me: Faxanadu on NES (back in the day)

I had to look up lists of old games to remember which ones I had major issues with. I will put on top of my list the old NES game Faxanadu. I loved the game, but it was insanely difficult in different areas. A close second would be the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES. Following is a list I could think of as far as games I had troubles with when I was younger. I should play them again to see if they are still as hard as I remember.

Faxanadu on NES / Awesome game back in the day. Remake Needed.
Ninja Gaiden on NES / Always a classic, but always difficult
Battletoads on NES / I wish this would be remade on the Wii!
Marble Madness on NES / I remember this being HARD
Omikron on PC / Controls were Horrid
Rise of the Triad on PC / Fun but Difficult

Posted by Verkinix at February 15, 2008 11:24 PM

PatMan33 here!

The hardest game I've played? Tetris.

I don't know if Pajitnov got lazy or what but someone forgot to make an ending and that mother just went on and on forever! Seriously though, crank the speed up to nine and you're in for a battle the likes of which has not been seen in a thousand years. And God forbid you're in a low-light setting, the Game Boy's contrast adjustment only really worked when you were standing next to a low-flying star.

Even when the speed was set to one you were suddenly in an endurance challenge reminiscent of Desert Bus from Pen & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors. But it was a good game and one that everyone has played and fought with over the years. Tetris is a game that a novice can play and excel at and a game that a pro can play and fail miserably at; its staying power and range of difficulty is incredible.

Posted by PatMan33 at February 16, 2008 12:29 AM

Finally, been waiting for awhile... Keep em coming Steve... =)

Posted by Michael at February 16, 2008 1:06 AM

Hey Steve, Troika did not develop Fallout. Troika was founded by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson, three of the developers behind the original Fallout. Fallout was developed by Interplay. Troika was a separate company founded by the three former Interplay employees. They all worked on Fallout. So the question was referring to the 3 other games you mentioned.

Arcanum, didn't play this one. Though, from what I've heard, the story was good, character development was good and there were a lot of choices. Had a branching storyline which is kind of a carryover from Fallout. Was noted for having lotsa bugs and balance problems.

Temple of Elemental Evil, played this one. I liked the engine, the graphics were great for a top down rpg. 3d characters, handpainted backgrounds. Best version of 3.5 ed DND on a computer. The combat was turnbased, but not slow, and actually pretty fun. The story was terrible, not a great module to bring to the PC. The tabletop version was good, but it really just gave ya a bunch a maps and weak story. It made it great for tabletop because it gave a lot of room to create the story, and gave a lot of power to the DM and the players. What made it good as a table top adventure, made it not so good as crpg. Had many bugs and seemed a bit unfinished. Loved the engine, could have been great but the source material was a poor choice.

Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines, their last game. This game was an FPS/RPG hybrid. There was a lot of focus on story and character development. It was more RPG than FPS. Very fun game for the first 3/4, it devolves into a combat fest at the end. Maybe their best effort, though had many bugs and felt unfinished.
A theme with all Troika releases.

Troika developed games very quickly, 18 to 24 months from start to finish, small team, and NO QA department. QA was always done last minute by the publisher. That was their downfall. They had some promising games, but never quite lived up, mainly bugs and poor balance spoiled the product.

Grotnar

Posted by Grotnar at February 16, 2008 3:55 AM

Now THAT is what I'm talking about..

thanks a lot steve,

on to listening :)

kost.

Posted by kost at February 16, 2008 4:02 AM

for the game contest:

guitar hero 3

i mean...damn
when you get to the end of hard it almost becomes imposible and i havent even seen expert yet

the good thing is that no matter how many times i fail its still fun to play it

oh and froum name is celdur

Posted by Celdur at February 16, 2008 5:18 AM

The hardest game I ever played? I Wanna Be The Guy.

It is INSANE. It is designed to be INSANE. It's seriously the hardest thing made by a human being. If you want to play it, you can find it here: http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/ . It also has a ton of referrences to classic video games, and is strangely addictive.
It features such delights as giant cherries that fall up, Mike Tyson, Mecha birdo, and a plethora of insidiously designed traps and devices designed only to infuriate. Check it out.

Anyway, Tonjevic on the forums and all that.

Posted by Tonjevic at February 16, 2008 5:20 AM

Only 90 minutes ? Your podcasts are getting shorter Steve.

Posted by DoggySpew at February 16, 2008 5:43 AM

I haven't gotten far enough to find out the contest yet, so I'll save that for another entry. :) First, I wanted to comment about Mass Effect. Two things.

First, if there was still an exclusivity contract with Microsoft, why would EA be publishing the PC version, and not Microsoft? (Not that I really care, since I'm a pure PC gamer, just curious.)

And, as for nobody being surprised, you should take a look at the official forums. The seething fury of X-Box players who feel cheated because it's also coming out for PC is everywhere. It's really rather shocking. Like you, I fully expected this, (though not quite so soon.)

Posted by Fobok at February 16, 2008 5:45 AM

For Contest!

Forum Name: Fobok

Hardest Game of All Time: Apollo 18

I'm not talking about the bug-prone game from the late 90s, but the original, C64 game from 1987. If I had been an adult in the 80s, this may not even be near the top of the list, but it's the game that taught me how to deal with frustration. Even Zork II didn't frustrate me this much. Nor did (years later) Call of Duty 3 on PS2. (I'm physically disabled, and while I can play most games, that just didn't work for me.)

Anyway, back to why this was so frustrating: Every stage of the simulation had to be perfect to succeed, and there was no real guidance on screen. It took me weeks just to figure out how to get past the launch checklist, (though even at 9 I felt silly when I found out how easy that part was), and years later when I finally got rid of my old C64, at a time when I had actually beaten Zelda: A Link to the Past and many other games, I still had never succeeded at the moon landing stage. Yet I kept at it all those years between, simply because it was the closest I'd ever come to being an astronaut.

Posted by Fobok at February 16, 2008 6:52 AM

Yokto here.

Hardest game ever? Well it's hard to say. I have played so many games and many are hard to impossible to complete simply because of bug, not to mention all those games that are made to be the hardest game ever. So i guess i have to go with a game that actually was sold publish and did not have that many bugs.

I will go for Yolanda for the Amiga. There are probably game hard out there but this one is damn hard without trying to do cheep tricks. It is also a game that claimed to be the hardest platformer when it was sold.

Posted by Yokto at February 16, 2008 9:46 AM

Forum name: kyrieee

The hardest game I've ever played was probably the original Far Cry for PC. I'm an avid PC FPS player and I think quite highly of my aiming skills. With that in mind, having heard that Far Cry was exceptionally difficult, even on the easier difficulty levels, I chose the hardest one.

It started off pretty decent, considering it was the most challenging setting, but a few levels in the tridgens were introduced. Some of them are incredibly fast and they take forever to kill. If they touch you, you're dead. Further adding to the fun, you can't save the game, instead it's checkpoint based. Interestingly enough, the EXTREME difficulty enhanced the game in a way. Without the ability to save, and knowing that you can die in an instant, you get really scared playing the game. It was really atmospheric.

The final bossfight was just painful though. If you don't count the part where you get thrown out of a chopper with 10 bullets into an endless sea of mutants, followed by even more mutants next to an ocean of lava, it was divided into three smaller battles. First, you enter a hallway with two columns of pillars about ten rows deep. Nothing's up. Then you take one step forward, and a guy spawns behind each pillar. They have bullet proof riot shields, helmets and a strong will to live.

You don't even have enough ammo to kill them all without reloading (read: dying) unless you get perfect headshots on every one of them with just the amount of bullets you need (that's if you switch through all your weapons). On top of that, one of the guys furthest away has a rocket launcher so you need to kill him first, but you can't distinguish him from the rest, and his head is but a few pixels wide. Two to three regular bullets kill you anyway.

Once you get past that, you enter a room where the main bad guy is. He's holding your chick captive, so you can't use your most powerful (splash damage) weapons because then she dies. There are a couple of super tough soldiers, plus the main villain who can jump around like crazy and of course takes several hundred shots to kill while you take a handful.

If you get through that, you have to cross a huge crater. Far Cry was an extremely demanding game at the time of its release, and this crater is one big motha of a frame rate killer. At the very far side of it, there are four super sniper mutants who are the same colour as the crater, and they're a few pixels large unless you zoom in (if you know where to look), so you cannot see them. To spot them, you need to turn your thermal goggles which EATS your framerate. As if that weren't enough, those mutants can jump 50 feet into the air making the needed task of insta-headshooting them very hard.

Add to that, eight or so super huge mutants with rocket launchers who rush at you. They take a lifetime to kill, you can't outrun them because of the stamina system, you need to stand still to hit anything, and if you do the second one will have gotten next you to by the time you killed the first one. It is IMPOSSIBLE. After that you get an anti-climactic ending

I spent around 40-50 hours on the game, which is a lot for a single playthrough. I dare anyone to finish it on 'Realistic' =)

Posted by teo at February 16, 2008 12:10 PM

Hello, my forum name is Gungnir.
Hmm..I think the N64 had a bunch of really hard games. I think that there was one Rayman game that was very hard, from what I remember..I believe it was Rayman 2: The great escape. I remember playing one rocket level for very long times before I finally managed to beat it. Then again I was 10 when I played it.

Donkey Kong 64 was also hard. Having to find that last banana before I could get to the next level...grrr..

Posted by Gungnir at February 16, 2008 12:14 PM

Oh, sorry about your Wii, too. That sucks..

Posted by Gungnir at February 16, 2008 12:46 PM

Name that game:

forum name: konscious

the hardest game I played was probably Ninja Rabbit produced by Microvalue in 1991 for DOS.
It is abandomware now so anyone can go and download and play it to see how difficult it is.
To this day, I've never beaten it.
You only have one button for attacking and a direction pad for moving left and right and such. The enemies can take you down quickly and when you're underground falling rocks pummel you. the game is all about timing. when you die, you have to start all over a tthe beginning. go play it! i bet you can't beat it.

Posted by Alex at February 16, 2008 1:45 PM

Forum Name: Newton

Hardest game I've ever played: Either Battletoads or Nethack

I was a youngin' when I got Battletoads, and it was pretty fun, but the trail and error just to get past that speed bike stage was insane, and there was no saving!

Nethack, while endlessly fun, I've never been able to beat, even though I've come close a few times. It's just so crazy, both in difficulty, but in the amount of stuff you need to know to be successful. I think your gamer creed goes up if you are one of the few people to actually beat this game.

Posted by Newton at February 16, 2008 1:51 PM

Forum name Killerboy85
Hardest Gamer- Super mario bros the lost levels

I would have to say that it was the hardest mario game i have ever played. Ive played the first mario since hundreds of times since i was a little kid and i still have trouble with the Lost Levels. Theres just something about it that made it really difficult but fun at the same time.

Btw Thanks Steve for answering my question.

Posted by killerboy85 at February 16, 2008 3:06 PM

About the ESRB story: there are a LOT of casual games out there rated E, yeah, but one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of "kid's games" are repainted versions of existing titles.
Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Snow White, etc are all the same game.

Posted by Chris/Aybraus at February 16, 2008 3:45 PM

Man in Black

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080215.jpg

Posted by jdun at February 16, 2008 4:57 PM

Name That Game

Forum name: Zen

The qualification for this game is that it had to be a game I wanted to complete, but couldn't because it was so hard. The greater the game love, the greater I try to get past hard bits, so for me...

WARHEAD (on the Amiga)

...is my vote for hardest game ever played (but enjoyed the most).

The story was so awesome (and written by the same guy who went on to do I-War), which was about defending the earth against a hive minded group of insescts, but you eventually came to a strange alien that had nothing to do with anything called- The Beserker. He was invincible and would attack by running into you and would instantly destroy you if he came even within 5000ft. You had to reverse at the same speed as him and fire every single missile into him (nukes, normals, even info missiles) without missing once- and I could never do it.

God, I loved this game. God, I wish I could have gotten past this bit. I even wrote to the creator asking what happens, but by that stage he had forgot because it was such a long time ago. Does anyone know?... :(

Great podcast, steve, keep up the great work!

Posted by Mat Brady at February 16, 2008 6:50 PM

Forum Name: Lord Mhoram

Not counting buggy things that make games a problem... I have to go really old school and say Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Infogames. You hade to solve the puzzles by thinking of exactly what the programmers wanted you to think. I never finished it... similar with the Zorks. I also thought about Crossfire for the Apple ][, and Zelda 2 for the NES (although the game was easy, beating that stupid shadow was a big pain in the butt).

Posted by Lord Mhoram at February 16, 2008 6:57 PM

Forum Name: Petreak

Does it matter if my hardest game is the same as someone else's?
I hope not. I was going to say Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. That game took me a long time to beat.
It actually got me to read the book so I could better understand stuff I should do to finish the game.

In case that doesn't count, my other hardest game to beat was the Arcade game "Dragon's Lair", I loved that game,
but could never beat it. My Brother mastered it and could go all the way through without dying. That made me so mad,
since I couldn't beat it. I wonder how I would do now as an Adult? The cartoon graphics to me were so cool! When my
Brother played it, it was just like watching Saturday morning cartoons. :)

Great Podcast by the way!

Posted by Petreak at February 16, 2008 10:18 PM

Username: Deep Lee

Hardest Game: "Top Gun" for NES

I had a tiny little TV when I played that game, and I was like 6 years old. God knows how many times I failed to refuel.

Posted by Deep Lee at February 17, 2008 10:37 AM

The Hardest Game Ever... well some of the ones that stick out in my head now...

Ikaruga
(GC - Bullets Often Fill The Sceen Completly, And It Is HARD)

Contra
(NES - Very Few Lives, Not Enough Saves)

Contra 4
(DS - Even On Easy, I Can't Beat The Game)

Super Stardust HD
(PSN - Still Cant Get Past The Second Planet)

Geometry Wars
(XBLA - There Is To Much Going On At One Time)

PixelJunk Monsters
(PSN - Getting A Perfect Score To Move To Last Area)

PQ
(PSP - After 20 Stages)

Puzzle Quest
(PSP - Final Boss)

Call Of Duty 4
(PS3 - The Constant Spawning Of The Enemies Is HORRID, I Play Games Like This Where I Clear Out The People And Move On... This Game Forces You To Keep Moving... I Played A Level For 45 Minutes With Out Getting Anywhere Before I Realized This... Not Cool)

Fire Pro Wrestleing Returns
(PS2 - Only Because Or It Having Complex Controls, And Know Tutorial, Could Be Fun, But The Fail At Accessability)

GTA Series
(PS2 Versions All Have That One Level 50-60% Though The Game THAT I CANNOT FATHOM HOW THE HELL IT IS POSSIBLE TO COMPLETE, Thus I Have Never Seen The End To A PS2 GTA, But I Have On Both PSP Games)

Devil May Cry Series
(PS2 - Bosses Are A Bitch)

Ninja Gaiden
(XBOX - This Game Is Just MEAN... Thats It... I JUST WANTS YOU TO CRY)

BUT THE HARDEST GAME, FOR ME, THAT COMES TO MIND, IS...
PSYCHONAUTS (XBOX - I Cant To This Day Beat The Bull Level... I Just Cant Do It... So Much I Think The Game Is Broken, Difficulty Wise)

Posted by austintrees at February 17, 2008 11:45 AM

$100 million development cost for GTA IV? Got a source for that figure? We're trying to figure out for the Wikipedia article if that number is correct or not.

Posted by Jaap Vermeulen at February 17, 2008 12:28 PM

Hey Steve, great show as usual.

I was so pleased to see you decide to review Uncharted: Drakes Fortune for the PS3, it was my game of the year last year and I'm sure people think I was just being pernickity and fanboyish when I said that, but it really was a stellar game. You didn't touch upon the replay value of the game, or the fact that it has its own "achievement" system that unlocks lots of cool goodies to enhance the next game you play.
I can't wait to see what they do for the next version, as I'm sure by then they'll really be unlocking the power of the PS3.
With that in mind, how do you think they managed to produce such a brilliant game when other developers seem to be saying the PS3 is too hard to develop for?

Anyway, Name that game:

Forum name: Cruithne

Hardest game?

Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox.
I'm sure like others I could pick dozens of games that were so difficult I just gave up, but with this game something kept me coming back for more punishment, until finally I 'got it' and managed to find the zone.
I still haven't gotten past the helicopter, but I will...

Posted by Cruithne at February 17, 2008 4:41 PM

Karateka, man I loved that game, played that all the time, using a self-centring joystick which kinda made it feel like cheating! The girl wasn't my problem it was the hawks that got me.

Okay my entry

Forum name: npercy

Hardest Game: Prisoner or Prisoner II (fairly similar games)

I played these games when I was a kid (reason why I cant remember whether it was one or two) on an apple II machine and it kinda taught me a fair bit about programming because I got so frustrated with the games I decided to work out how they ran so I could play the game. The random levels used to frustrate me no end because everytime I came back I had to work out the whole game again!

If I had to choose a recent game it would be Contra 4, the screen being so small seems to make it harder to avoid the fire, but then again maybe I've been spoilt playing my console games on the bigger screens.

Its going to be interesting the responses that come up here. I feel that games have been getting less and less "thinking" and puzzle based (except maybe DS games) in recent times and more based on reflexes. Maybe this is because of the games I've been playing but the puzzles in most games just seem to easy. This point seems to have been brought up in an eariler response with the candidate choosing "Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy". I loved those text based adventures, but sometimes it could be so frustrating with the language. A fine example of this was Mystery House which has a bit where it needed "Faucet On", and Faucet is not a term used where I lived!

BTW if Petreak or any other user wants to play Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy its avaliable here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_nolan.shtml

Posted by npercy at February 17, 2008 7:55 PM

Name that game contest.

Forum name: Cobra

Game: Well I want to say Battle toads for the SNES but the fact of the matter is the NES version was even harder but I never played it and it just doesn't seem right to say Battle toads when I haven't even played the harder prequel.

DK 64 comes close but only because of 1 or 2 mini games that were nightmarishy hard but they were only small parts of the game and could be avoidable (the orgional Donkey arcade that you had to beat to finish the game was hard but I could beat it so not counting that).

In the end my Hardest game I have played would be Earth Worm Jim. I never finished that game never could pass the 3rd bungie jump level and thats after spending ages trying to pass down the tubes. Which for me puts it just behind Battletoads for the SNES.

Posted by Cobra at February 17, 2008 10:12 PM

Forum Name: kostiak

Hardest Game I Played: Final Fatasy X - 100%

I mean FFX itself is preaty much easy.. but to complete it truly you need to have all the super weapons and armor.. and you have a lot of very tough mini games, like collecting all the al bed things for example has anyone done that before? (like without a guide) and all the extra eaons and stuff.. I have a friend who allready has like 200 hours on his save and he still has more things to do. Personaly i would say to completly, 100%, finish it -> imposible (at least you can easily finish the "main" game..)

Oh and Ninja Gaiden isn't easy as well :)

kost.

Posted by kost at February 18, 2008 2:59 AM

I'm ilikesanta on the boards and here are my top 4 most hardest games ever.

4) Cliffhanger (SEGA-CD) it was a generic side scroller, run from left to right, shoot the bad guys. But every two or three levels there we're these snowboarding levels and they were so hard. (also I think it was the first game with snowboarding) you needed mad skills to pass them.

3) Legend of Zelda II (NES) I was never good at the game. I thought it was because I never owned an NES (SEGA Master System forever!) Then when I got my GameCube it came with a disk with the 2 NES Zelda games and the 2 N64 Zelda games so I made it a point to play them all. Holy crap II was hard. I didn't like it.

2) Mario Sunshine (GameCube) Oh my. There were those extra super hard levels, the camera controls that were designed by the devil, the parts of the game where you had to get to the top of a level and it took you 20 minutes to get there then you would make one mistake and fall all the way back down only to have to do it all over again! Don't get me started on that water backpack. I hate this game now. I never beat it because I got to a point where all the levels I had open to me I couldn't beat.

1) Night Rider (Atari) White pixels on a black background. This game didn't need color. It was a racer and you would start the game at a normal speed and as the game went on it would slowly speed up. The only thing to outline the road were these white squares. As the game went faster the white squares would appear to go backwards, like wheel on a car appears to go backwards as it speeds up. It would go faster still and you would start to see colors like in the end of the movie 2001: Space Odyssey. I might be exaggerating a little but you couldn't blink or you would crash, you would have to almost predict what would happen next in order to survive.

Posted by ilikesanta at February 18, 2008 5:13 AM

Forum name: Nyctalinth

The hardest game I remember playing was Ninja Gaiden for the NES. The exact timing to navigate some of the levels/bosses was excruciating. The fact that you couldn't save your progress on console shutdown made it even more painful. We ended up keeping the console powered on a few days until we could finally get through it. Makes for a fond memory, but I don't know if I would have the tenacity to make it through a game like that now.

Keep up the great podcast!

Posted by Nyctalinth at February 18, 2008 10:47 AM

Forum name: Raistlin

Hi!

The hardest of games for me was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Discworld 2, which I played on my PSX. It took me 2 good years to finish it! (with no help at all) This game had some of the most absurd puzzles I've ever seen. I truly recommend it though, it's hilarious.

CU!

Posted by Raistlin at February 18, 2008 11:15 AM

The hardest game for me? Well if a game is too hard, like you said, I stop playing it. I've bumped into a few of those games...and being that I stopped playing them shortly after getting them, I don't remember them.

So I'm going to go on the definition of the hardest game that I've completed.
That game would be Donkey Kong Country 2, Diddy Kong's quest. Now that may not seem like the hardest game out there, but I played it to 102% complete. That was hard. Fun though.

Posted by Pinstar at February 18, 2008 1:25 PM

Forum Name: Sagan

The hardest thing I have ever done in a game: Get everything to 100% in Peggle. Getting 100% in the later levels is close to impossible. I am only doing this, because I play Peggle while listening to podcasts. I have still got 3 levels left, but I'm going to beat them eventually.
But Peggle is not going to be my hardest game. That would have to be I wanna be the guy. At first I wanted to choose Guitar Hero 3, but that game starts off easy. I wanna be the guy however is brutal from the beginning. I am not even close to finishing it, but I am playing every now and then, and I finish the game one screen at a time. Yes, I am not ashamed, that I am playing on the easiest difficulty, and that I save on every screen.

Posted by Sagan at February 18, 2008 1:39 PM

Just commenting for pinstars answer I almost put DCK2 myself. Because of getting full completion beating the main quest is easy. (Probably why I didnt pick it) but getting full cimpletion is freaking hard those lost world levels are insane (some not too bad but animal antics the brambles plus wind ah!).

Posted by Cobra at February 18, 2008 7:05 PM

Hardest game? I would say for me that Mario Bros Lost levels was the hardest. I tried and tried to beat that game, but to no avail. It also didn't help that I was a bit young when I first got my Super NES.

Thanks for the great show.

Forum Name: cptrootbeer

Posted by Ben M at February 18, 2008 8:50 PM

Forum Name: Jolo99

Hardest Game : Megaman X3 for SNES. I was trying to beat that thing when i was 6 and my little hands just could not do it. I just purchased the Megaman X collection for my PS2 and the 2nd time around it's going alittle better, but not much.

Posted by Jolo99 at February 18, 2008 8:57 PM

Forum name: Plumpman

Hardest game you say? Well I'll go with...

Vectorman for the Sega Genesis

It is one of the most unforgiving games I have ever played, yet it was extremely fun because of how unique the gameplay was. It was a platformer-type game where you were a guy made of spheres who could transform.

Ah the nostalgia, I think I might have to fire it up again!

Posted by Nicolas Picouet at February 18, 2008 10:30 PM

Forum Username: Wicked

Like many others, the only game I can recall actually enjoying having my ass handed to me over and over again would be Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. The extreme difficulty was a result of the skill required to succeed in the game rather than just being broken in so many other "hard" games. Now that I think of it, I still never finished that damn thing but enjoyed it none the less

Posted by Adam Paquette at February 19, 2008 5:53 AM

Forum username: Lemurbouy

Hardest Game: Don't laugh but it was Mario Teaches Typing. This game brought me to tears as a young lad. Watching mario race away, laughing at you as you constantly failed made me feel like less than nothing. Luckily, I soon got obsessed with MUDs and after months and months of having to type as the text is scrolling past you, I discovered that I had learned to type quickly. Happy ending. -leeman

Posted by lemurbouy at February 19, 2008 12:55 PM

Name That Game

Forum Name: Maj Malfunction

I would have to say the hardest game I have EVER played would be the Williams arcade classic Defender (Inlcude Stargate as well on this one). The game has complex controls, extremely fast pacing, and is brutally unforgiving. Its twitch gaming at its finest and most brutal.

I have to say most of the old school arcade games from my youth are MUCH harder than any modern videogames. They deliver a completely different experience, but, they were designed to devour our coinage and they were very adept at that task.

Posted by Maj Malfunction at February 19, 2008 5:19 PM

Name That Game:

I'm not even going to be poetic about it and it will come as a shock to some:

Super Mario Bros for the NES.

I've a fear of heights and whenever I play this game my feet and palms get sweaty and I think trying to nail a long running jump onto a platrom the size of my pinky finger is about the closest I'll ever come to having a voluntary axiety attack.

I haven't beat this game and from the cold terror that grips me everytime I have to time a jump while dodging hammers... I never will and never want to.

I'll take Ninja Gaiden ANY day of the week.

Posted by Keith at February 19, 2008 5:50 PM

Name that game:

Forum Name:Classeye

The hardest game for me: Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)

This game gets incredibly difficult when you start reaching the advanced viruses, and it's near impossible, without outside help, to even figure out how to solve some of the puzzles.

When you try it on normal mode, it gets even worse as you literally need a surgeon's percision to keep from accidentally poke your patients to death. The problem is that if you hesitate for just a moment, tumors will multiply out of control and then you'll be treated to a pleasant game over screen that basically taunts you to fail at playing god over and over again.

Posted by V at February 19, 2008 10:31 PM

Forumname oteriba.

I have to say the hardest game I've ever played was Ninja Gaiden. Not Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, but Ninja Gaiden for SNES. Respawning enemies with unpredictable patterns, jumping puzzles, difficult enemies, it was just a majorly difficult game. I never even got past the second level.

Posted by MOT at February 20, 2008 3:00 AM

Hardest Game Contest
Board ID: Aeritas

The hardest game I have ever played was Warhammer: Dark Omen. EVEN with all the cheats this games was impossible to beat. You had to play every level perfectly, even the first level, or you wouldn't be strong enough to finish the game.

It was an RTS for the Playstation 1 that punished you permanently for every soldier that died. Further, if the leader of any group of troops died you lost that group forever! You were only given very little money at the end of each level that had to be spent replacing fallen soldiers or improving weapons and armor. Since the game granted SO little money after each level you had to choose either to improve or replace, rarely both. However, the games difficulty assumed you always entered each battle with a full army of troops carrying the best weapons and armor.

Not only that, but every level (yes, even the early levels) pitted your small number of troops against wave after wave of enemy troops coming from multiple directions. The enemy AI also wasn't playing very fair either because the computer was micromanaging all 10-20 of it's units simultaneously while you the player were stuck managing only one unit at time, and you were doing so with a PS1 controller. You learn very quickly that a D-Pad was invented by a man who never played an RTS game.

I thought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES was hard. But Warhammer: Dark Omen educated me on how important Q and A play testing is to balancing a game. Some games you're simply not meant to beat.

Posted by The Great Dane at February 20, 2008 8:39 PM

Thanks for thee infoes Steve, we love having you back btw!

Posted by Spore Galore at February 20, 2008 9:02 PM

Kishmond on the forums.

It's been forever since I played it, but the hardest game I kept coming back to was one of the Megaman games on the NES. I think it was Megaman 2. It was just so frustrating! Yet I kept thinking 'I can beat it this time.' 70 deaths later, I give up, and try again the next month.

Come to think of it, all of the first 5 Megaman games seemed the same to me. All hard.

Posted by Kishmond at February 20, 2008 10:09 PM

Im thorjarle on the forums.

The hardest game I have played must have been back in the days when Police Quest I came and you had to do these very specific things or it would be game over. "You didnt go around your car before you drove off" Game over. "You didnt check your weapon" Game over. You didnt see that person driving on red light. Game over.

Posted by ThorJarle at February 21, 2008 5:28 AM

Since I'm a columnist, I'm certain I don't qualify for the contest, but just for fun:

The hardest game that I love to play has to be Beatmania II DX. The learning curve is steep. You can get really good at it and never be able to beat it entirely. And you have to practice it daily with obsession to become and stay an Expert.

And Bejeweled 2 on the XBLA isn't the hardest game, but it is the hardest game to unlock the extra modes. This is because it causes the system to crash and it loses all progress. Level 181? I'll never get there.

Posted by Robert Gauss at February 21, 2008 12:45 PM

Forum Name: Perna1

For recent generations I'd have to go with Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox. The level of focus required for that game blew me away (though it was good training for Geometry Wars).

For the older generations, let's vote for Battletoads for the NES.

Posted by Another Gaming Steve at February 21, 2008 1:42 PM

Forum name: FatBaby

I think the hardest game I have played is a recent one. The game is Odin Sphere. It wasn't hard in terms of difficulty, it was hard because of the way the combat system, and it just made it feel unfair. You have a problem where your attack button AND your block button is mapped to the same button. It was very hard to defend yourself, and in the long run, it just made the game unfun to play. It was one of the first games I actually stopped playing in a very long time.

But I guess if I had to go with a game difficulty wise, I would go with Devil May Cry 3. Man did that game kick your butt! It was very hard, but man did it feel great when you actually beat it. It felt like I had earned myself a gold medal, or a place in a special "People who beat DMC3" club. :)

Posted by FatBaby at February 22, 2008 12:57 AM

I'm BlueBottle on the forums; since I won a copy of Culdcept Saga in the last name-that-game contest (I got it! Thanks, Steve!), I don't expect to be considered eligible for this one.

Most difficult game that I kept playing anyway: Population Tire, a flash game at http://www.homestarrunner.com/pop_tire.html

I think my high score on that game is about 50. I just can't keep the tire off the ground long enough to get higher scores, yet I keep trying...

Posted by BlueBottle at February 22, 2008 12:46 PM

Forum Name: mkg12

The hardest game I've played is Dungeons and Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun for the Sega Genesis. I played this when I was pretty young and didn't understand the battle system very well, but still thought the game was so cool. I couldn't get anywhere and would be killed by the beastmen pretty fast. That game was pretty rough.

Posted by mkg12 at February 25, 2008 12:59 AM

Forum Name: ARogan

Hardest game I've played and finished: Ninja Gaiden on xbox. This was the original version released (not black with the easier ninja dog mode or sigma on ps3). The early horseback boss almost broke me but then things just started to click after that. I can't wait for the sequel this year!

Posted by ARogan at February 25, 2008 2:28 PM

The hardest game I remember playing was LoTR for the game cube. It was so hard for me that i never got past the battle. There were too many fight combinations with the controller that I gave up and sold the game on Ebay.

LadyM

Posted by LadyM at February 26, 2008 6:31 PM

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