Most difficult game you played

[TinCow]

NES Rygar

Rygar was a kind of RPG/Action hybrid like Zelda and Metroid, but there was no saving of any kind. You had to finish the entire game in a single sitting. I don't care how hard a modern game is, it cannot compare with the difficulty of old-school games that had no save feature.

[caravel]

Yes, Another World... I seem to remember playing that on the Amiga for a short time before giving up. IMHO the original Prince of Persia (1989/1990) was one of the hardest games there is. You had to finish the whole game in an hour and you could only save at the start of each level... it was also one of those slidy inertia type, collapsing platforms and spike pits games - very frustrating... I'm pretty sure I didn't get past the first level...

The Alien section of the Alien versus Predator Gold

I read somewhere that very few people ever completed the whole game and to this day I still have only completed the Predator and Marine sections, it was just way too confusing and disorienting running up walls etc.

I had the normal version of the game (AvP 1999), not the gold version, but completed the whole game with all three characters on the "Director's Cut" difficulty. The alien is hard to master yes, but if you're conservative with your limited save points and master wall walking (and patience) it's very doable. The trick is to use the xenomorph's speed to your advantage, i.e. wait and strike multiple targets before they can fire their weapons - something which wasn't really possible with the clumsy slowed down xenomorph in AvP2.

[Fisherking]

For me this was the beast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_%28video_game%29

Elite

You could save the but only in a base.

If the pirates didn’t get you on the way into a system the space station rotated and you had to make it through a little door to land.

Which meant you had to steer the ship and rotate to keep a flat angle with the opening. There was no auto landing.

Needless to say I don’t think I ever completed a game.

[gaelic cowboy]

I had the normal version of the game (AvP 1999), not the gold version, but completed the whole game with all three characters on the "Director's Cut" difficulty. The alien is hard to master yes, but if you're conservative with your limited save points and master wall walking (and patience) it's very doable. The trick is to use the xenomorph's speed to your advantage, i.e. wait and strike multiple targets before they can fire their weapons - something which wasn't really possible with the clumsy slowed down xenomorph in AvP2.

I might reload it see if I can better it this time.

[Kekvit Irae]

well, if you insist. but which version should I get? slo mo? or frame skip?
i have no idea what this game is about, i barely read the info on the link, so no spoilers at all please. :P

Frame skip to start, slo-mo if you're having problems.
There isn't really any story in the game. You're The Kid, and you wanna be The Guy. That's it. Oh, and there are cherries of death.

[Prussian to the Iron]

guys, obviously.

QWOP

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

[johnhughthom]

guys, obviously.

QWOP

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

That game's easy.



The aim is to make the guy fall backwards on to his head, right?

[Motep]

guys, obviously.

QWOP

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

Oh yes. This one is a bit of a pain no? I've only been able to get him to go the whole way once...I usually fail at 20

[Centurion1]

guys, obviously.

QWOP

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

touche

[Whacker]

I'd have to say it's a toss-up between Quake 3 Arena on nightmare or Starcraft.

Q3A vs the bots on hardest, or really good players was a face-melting, sanity-destroying frustration fest. It did however get me very, VERY good at shooters for a period of time.

Starcraft was one of the most humbling gaming experiences I've ever had. Hardest AI would destroy me over and over again. My friends and people on the internet who were VERY good would repeatedly remind me that I was not that good. I've never been very good at RTS's in general, but damn. Of course I was a huge idiot and also bought Starcraft 2, which has been fun but a great reminder that I am NOT very good at RTS's. Did I mention I'm not very good at RTS's?

Edit - For posterity's sake. I couldn't beat 1943 on the NES without cheating and using slo-mo with my NES Advantage. Even then it was a challenge.

[Ichon]

Close Combat series on the highest settings... some of the campaigns were very unforgiving but always makes you think its possible to win and so try again. Losing a single tank on some maps meant no tanks for several battles.

Otherwise most of the old screen scroll games had certain frustrating moments when trying to learn the level as it required a perfect sequence of moves.

[A Nerd]

I remember the old Dragons Lair games. In the arcades of old. Those were hard if you didn't know how to play them, as was my case the first time I played. Even when you did know what you were doing they could be frustratingly difficult.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Close Combat series on the highest settings... some of the campaigns were very unforgiving but always makes you think its possible to win and so try again. Losing a single tank on some maps meant no tanks for several battles.

Bridge Too Far as Allies was a nightmare (and in the game!) but I was also a noob. Usually I took forever to secure the first few maps in an operation, then got rolled back by German armor until Allied armor moved up.

The Germans of course had the anti-armor easy button - the panzerfaust. :P

[Raz]

I'm changing my hardest game to I Wanna Be The Guy.

I got up to here and humbly came to the conclusion: I CAN'T WIN!
https://img849.imageshack.us/img849/7927/iwtbtg2.jpg

[Forward Observer]

For me it was a futuristic flight sim called Echelon. It was a beautiful game and the ships were fun to fly, but like most fight sims, one could only save between missions. Some of the missions were multiphase and quite involved. Your aircraft (sort of a combo airplane and helo) was pretty fragile, so if you took too much damage before the end of the mission, you might as well quit and start over. I must have played some of most difficult missions like 25 or more times before I was able to chalk up a win and progress in the game. It became a quest for me to finish the thing.

They released a sequel called "Echelon: Windwarriors", but it had even less of a story line and was just as hard as the original--if not harder. I think I finished about 10 of its 30 missions before I said---enough is enough--at that point I'd had about all the seemingly endless re-play of the same almost impossible mission that I could enjoy.

Cheers

[Kekvit Irae]

I'm changing my hardest game to I Wanna Be The Guy.

I got up to here and humbly came to the conclusion: I CAN'T WIN!
https://img849.imageshack.us/img849/7927/iwtbtg2.jpg

https://i55.tinypic.com/pp2x5.jpg

[Mailman653]

Six Types of Video Game Enemies Now Sadly Unemployed
An amusing article which could be related to this thread. Afterall, without enemies, would most of the games in this thread be as hard?

[Skullheadhq]

Victoria: An Empire under the Sun. Steep learning curve and lots of micromanagement.

[PanzerJaeger]

Red Orchestra had a pretty steep learning curve, and of course every Paradox game I've ever played.

[Brendan]

NES Rygar

Rygar was a kind of RPG/Action hybrid like Zelda and Metroid, but there was no saving of any kind. You had to finish the entire game in a single sitting. I don't care how hard a modern game is, it cannot compare with the difficulty of old-school games that had no save feature.

Hahaha. I remember Rygar. And Zelda and Metroid. That old Metroid was really hard to beat due to the amazingly large complex of maze-like areas and high degree of gameplay difficulty. I would like to play it one time and beat it, but I wonder if I'd have the patience and skill.


The following isn't actually that difficult per se, but perhaps very much... annoying: http://www.addictinggames.com/theworldshardestgame.html

[Kocmoc]

For me this was the beast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_%28video_game%29

Elite

You could save the but only in a base.

If the pirates didn’t get you on the way into a system the space station rotated and you had to make it through a little door to land.

Which meant you had to steer the ship and rotate to keep a flat angle with the opening. There was no auto landing.

Needless to say I don’t think I ever completed a game.

Me as ELITE pro can ensure you, that there was an "autopilot" which you could buy and install. This tool did get you into the stations automatically.
There were 2 ways to land save:

1. rotate with the station and slowly get in - that did people with some experience
2. the full speed version, get close, stop the ship and than in with fullspeed once the station was in position. It did work, simply as you did was "in" the game did save and you did enter the station.

The game was pretty hard at its time.



I want to point out Prince of Persia. You had 60 mins time to finish all lvl´s. Some of the fights was hard, the biggest problem I had with the mirror. I stand there and wasted endless games to figure it out at some point. No internet, no one to ask....

[Brendan]

Prince of Persia. Now that was a game.

[A Nerd]

I remember playing thru Prince of Persia many times before I finished it. Master a level and move on the the next one until time ran out. Slowly getting thru every level until completion of the game. As I recall, the mirror guy at the end was pretty tough. I tried to jump over him after killing myself many times and found you had to meld with him, as I remember it anyway. Old school games are the best. I used to be pretty good at Spy Hunter back in the day as well!

[Rahwana]

QWOP
http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

13 m at most... ouch

[Reenk Roink]

Battletoads... I played a ton of those old console games that gave me trouble as a kid and could beat most of them, but Battletoads was as hard as it was when I was 5.

[Fragony]

Battletoads... I played a ton of those old console games that gave me trouble as a kid and could beat most of them, but Battletoads was as hard as it was when I was 5.

Heh forgot all about that one, no shame in being terrible at that Battletoads gawd

[Crazed Rabbit]

The most difficult game I've spent a bit of time on would probably be Lemmings. There's some others, like QWOP, but those seem more like gimmicks than games.

Trivia; it was developed by the studio that would become Rockstar (of GTA fame).

CR