Hardest Game/Level you've ever played(not necessarily beaten...)

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Ah, Monkey island, what a classic series.

The thought of trapping Stan in the coffin still brings a smile to my face.

That was a classic, and I still smile about it too.

I also about died laughing when you open a coffin in Curse of... and Stan pops out!

[DrSpike]

Hehe, I think this deserves a thread of its own.

[chronocrator]

Originally posted by Father Beast


That part was pretty bad, but I think the spitting cotest was worse. I mean, I had the walkthrough, did everything right, and still missed it about 25 times before finally getting it.

I mean, LeChuck keeping torturing you to death was annoying, but grabbing his underwear and getting his beard were easier than the spitting contest.

IIRC there were only two requirements to win the spitting contest:
- You had to drink the "green drink" before (there is even a book in the library that tells you that you can spitt further with it)
- You had to use the wind (look at the spectators' clothes)

[Skanky Burns]

3 - You had to blow the horn, and then move the winning spots back a bit.

[Bosh]

I'd probably have to go with the last few missions of Goldeneye on 007 difficulty, now those are nasty...

[FlameFlash]

Standup said this...
I could never master defender despite spending most Saturdays of my teenage years trying to. Centipede i mastered but it was Defender that attracted all the attention.

Defender was cool... what was it about Centipede that just allowed for that mastering but the same player couldn't get Defender?

Father Beast reminded me of something...
My vote goes for the last mission in Star Trek 25th Anniversary. the part where you have to defeat an evil duplicate Enterprise twice as strong and fast as yours.

Last mission!? I couldn't figure out the second! And then there's the fact that I lost the booklet so now the game is useless to me... happen to still have the booklet and a scanner so I could play that game again? Just need the page with the starmap.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I still believe today that Cradle level in Goldeneye 007 is one of the finest end-of-game big boss confrontations ever done. The music is real hi-octane manic stuff, and the end boss is very difficult, whilst not being a tedious case of "find out his routine, exploit his weak spot, repeat".

No other FPS endgame boss has come close, because so many FPS endgame bosses are like "okay, dudes, let's fit as many polygons as we can onscreen!". Alec Trevelyan was so hard because he's the same as you - small, nimble, heavily armed, and difficult to hit.

We need more big bosses like this.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by FlameFlash




Last mission!? I couldn't figure out the second! And then there's the fact that I lost the booklet so now the game is useless to me... happen to still have the booklet and a scanner so I could play that game again? Just need the page with the starmap.

I was about to post the files, which were included on the CD as graphics files for the manual, but I seem to have misplaced the CD....

[Mr. President]

I'm stuck, possibly forever, on the last level of Perfect Dark. It's the ruins of an alien temple on a distant world, crawling with gigantic reptilian aliens with cloaking devices who jump out from right behind me and smack me upside the head.

Did I mention that one punch from these beasts deals as much damage as ten gunshots?

[DarthVeda]

Originally posted by Tis I
My vote is for Homeworld. That last mission is horrid. Still haven't beaten it in fact.

The trick is stealing every ion array frigate you can get your hands on in the sphere of death level. They can't touch you if you get them all. I had something like 100 of the little buggers and I smashed the last two levels without a problem.

[August Borms]

Captain Silver, on the Sega Master System

I never could get past the boss of the level with the little boat (or raft) and the jumping piranhas

[FlameFlash]

Father Beast... (just lost my original response thanks to a mess-up with a 'poly database.)

What was the image on the CD named? I have the Mac version, but I'll check and see if it's on there. Many thanks.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Father Beast... (just lost my original response thanks to a mess-up with a 'poly database.)

What was the image on the CD named? I have the Mac version, but I'll check and see if it's on there. Many thanks.

I forget what it was named, but they were in a directory called "manual" and there were 31 images, one for each page. I think they were named something like 001.gif through 031.gif.

or it might have been some other picture format.

I printed them out a while back, I'll see if I can find that and scan it in for you

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by Father Beast

Good gosh, sounds like a place for a lot of SCSI spells. unless they were no magic areas, too? of course, it will always spin you again if you're standing on a spin square and you cast SCSI - AFTER the spell gives you orientation....

Oh, you're right all squares were non-magic too.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by Standup
I could never master defender despite spending most Saturdays of my teenage years trying to. Centipede i mastered but it was Defender that attracted all the attention.

Depends on how it was set-up. There was a programmable difficulty level that could be set by the operator. The hardest difficulty level would pretty much start kicking A$$ on the 3rd or 4th wave. I remember going into a Bar a few years after my defender affliction and it must have been on the lowest dif setting cuz I played for almost two hours on one quarter and was well over a million points. I basically just got tired of playing and left.

R:PM

[FlameFlash]

Father Beast... many thanks on your efforts, but I was able to run a search on the Net and somebody has already beaten you to scanning off the map and posting it.

I've been able to since print it and restarted playing

RPMisCOOL:
*nods* There are switches, etc. to turn on and off for difficulty... generally in the arcades they set it higher so that you have to pump more quarters into them.

*cough* ripoff *cough*

Excuse me...

[Spaced Cowboy]

It was actually worse than that. There was a setting screen that could be triggered by the arcade operator that would tell how many quarters per hour, playing time, etc and then recommend a difficulty level to maximize profits. That set a standard unfortunately.

[FlameFlash]

Worse!? *shudders*

*sighs* Glad I'm more into console and computer gaming.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Sure, who isn't, but in '77 there weren't no computers or consoles. Once I had my first computer, I rarely went to the arcade/bar/pool hall.

But I started equating comp game prices to how many quarters of fun .

R:PM

[FlameFlash]

*nods* I remember doing that... though you've most certainly gotten me on the age factor... I just remember pinball machines at different pizza places.

Personally, I don't know how arcades make any money these days.

Primal Rage is another hard one that comes to mind... though I had trouble with all the street fighter-type games except for TMNT: Tournament Fighters.

[Standup]

The few arcades left in my home town are all fruit machines (are they called that in the states ? ) and no video games. I guess there's no demand with consoles so common.

It would be nice to blame my defender scores on the difficulty setting but i think basically i was no good

[Father Beast]

Speaking of that awful spitting contest in Monkey Island 2, I am reminded of the worst puzzle ever encountered in an adventure game.

getting the babel fish in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. ("at this point, grown men have been known to break down and cry" - from the hints on getting the babel fish)

[DrSpike]

The spitting contest was a great puzzle though; each piece was capable of being figured out logically.

My nomination for worse puzzle in an adventure game would have to be one at the end of "claws of despair", an old text based John Wilson advernture game on the Spectrum. When foxed by a hallucination you had to come up with the command "disbeleive illusion". Suffice to say noone got that.

[SnowFire]

Hehe. I remember getting the Babel Fish. Or rather not getting it, and therefore being able to happily sit there not understanding the Vogon poetry, but still dying later due to vaccum.

I saw my roommate solving the spitting bit in Monkey Island II. A really annoying puzzle, yes, but I do like the bit with Elaine when you screw up.
"So, you mean to tell me that you fell into the acid pit and died?"
"Then, how exactly are you here? Stop lying to me."

[Andemagne]

must be Gettysburg on most difficult. those yankee b@st@rds just kept comin, but held the line. some regiments that had nearly 1000 troops before the battle, had only few dozens left after. man, talkin about hell on earth.

or some Heroes3-scenarios on imposible.

Great Northern War is propably the hardest scenario I have played on Civ2.

[JohnT]

Defender came out in 1980, not '77. And, yes, we did actually have both consoles and computers way back then - I myself owned both an Atari 2600 (VCS) and an Apple II (and an Atari 800, but I think those came out in 1981).

Young whippersnappers!

[Kassiopeia]

The few arcades left in my home town are all fruit machines (are they called that in the states ? )

One-handed... one-handed... rogue? Thief? Robber? A criminal of sorts. Blech.

getting the babel fish in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. ("at this point, grown men have been known to break down and cry" - from the hints on getting the babel fish)

Gaaahh! I had *major* problems even getting to the village without Arthur getting killed by a flying brick.

[Skanky Burns]

"One-armed bandit" is the version I've heard.

[Kassiopeia]

Bandit! DUH!

[FlameFlash]

I've heard of them being called "one-armed bandits" though I still prefer my grandfather's name for them: "separaters".

"Because they separate me from my money."