Hardest/Most Frustrating Game?

[KageReneko]

Adventure Island 1 for NES...
Everything has been said

[felineki]

Gradius III... the original arcade game, not the SNES port. PS2 version counts, I guess, as it is a fairly accurate port of the arcade game, but it has a difficulty setting and cheats, so you can make it go easier on you... no such thing in the arcade, the game's always at its cruelest.

This game gave me a phobia of ice cubes that I'm still struggling with to this day.

[Matt]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

Only 4 of the game's testers managed to beat it on the hardest difficulty setting.

[ApacheMan2K]

the hardest i've ever played are:

Othello (NES): the computer player tends to be a cheapskate, even when you play in the easiest difficulty level.

Battletoads (NES): in addition to the Turbo Tunnel, there's also the stage that goes before the fight against the Dark Queen. you're holding these handle bars and you're following a track that goes up, down, left, and right. at the same time, you're being chased by what looks like a vortex, and it is nearly impossible to outrun it, no matter how long you're holding in the direction you're going.

Bart vs. The Space Mutants (NES): yep, will, it's pretty hard alright. how am i supposed to make every single purple thing ? of course, it is a low-budget game by Imagineering, infamous for making crappy licensed games, yet they did much better with more original titles (like "A Boy and His Blob" and "Ghoul School").

Virtual Bart (SNES): most of the games within this game are tough, namely the baby and pig ones.

Adventure Island 1: that, too, gets pretty tough as you're getting closer and closer to the last "area". but, if you found the Hudson bee at the end of the first stage, you should be able to continue as many times as you need to.

[necron9dee9]

Ghosts and Goblins on the original NES.

Me and a friend of mine picked up and old refurbished NES system about 7 or 8 years ago and grabbed this game with it. I had owned it before and remembered not beating it, so I slapped down a whopping 2 dollars for it at the game store. :p The combination of the god-awful difficulty of that game with only 3 lives and the fact that it was being played on an old NES (breathe too loud and the system has a seizure...) made it the most miserable gaming exprerience ever, hehe. After trying to beat it for a week straight we cut our losses and tossed the game off of the cliff in back of his apartment...

Honorable mention would go to trying to beat the original Final Fantasy using only warriors. That was actually fun though (apart from the occasional NES seizure as stated above :p).

[adam808]

Please don't ever play the NES games of Back to the Future.

[Takila]

 Home Improvement for the SNES, a horribly campy version of the TV show.  Apart from the sonic rip-offs, it's poor controls and lack of purpose left me giving up at the first level.

I had a 25 game CD of games like these.  The only one that comes to mind is Star Goose, a poorly made "dodge-em" kind of game with no FPS limits.  You'd start, and then die milliseconds later.

and anything Barbie-esque *shudders*.  Those things really tax me.

[SteC]

There was 'Batman' for the NES where I really can't remember who the second boss was anymore because I never got that far into the level.

'Contra' (NES) is still hard as nails after all these years of trying not to get hit. There were loads cheap ways to lose your one and only energy bar. ¬_¬; But the game was censored in Europe and changed the title to 'Probotector'; all the soldiers turned into robots.

In 'Sonic Riders', there were a couple of stages that I had several runs through that wasn't even necessary. And WHO had to get the PS2 version? 

Out of these three though, I'd say 'Batman' was most hardest, with 'Contra' being very frustrating.

[TGLucario475]

not really sure

its between:

Crash Nitro Kart - PS2 - Velo is very hard the 2nd time around
Crash Bash - PS1 - N.Oxide is very hard to keep up with at 1st, after that its easy
The Lion King - SNES - cant get past the ostrich bit
Crash Of The Titans - PS2 - couldnt really do it at 1st, but since i unlocked all things needed, its quite easy now

[Guido64380]

Wii sports boxing for frustration. It rarely punches where I want....

So much for my fun exercise....

[sans soul]

Wii sports boxing for frustration. It rarely punches where I want....

So much for my fun exercise....

Burkey was saying the same thing when he was playing it.

[SCerviche]

Call of Duty 4 on veteran difficulty.

[Crow]

Wii sports boxing for frustration. It rarely punches where I want....

So much for my fun exercise....

Burkey was saying the same thing when he was playing it.

Gah, yeah, it's so true. Ah well, bowling is still kickass fun.

I can't beat One by Metallica on Expert Mode in Guitar Hero 3... I've been trying for 3 days straight.. I got 98% of the way through, but I kept failing it.. CURSE YOU, METALLICA!

~Burkey

[Takila]

It's time for an over analyzed quote thingy!

Anything Spyro is frustrating.  You never really get any power-ups throughout each game.  Except in the latest installment, you get Lightning, Ice, Fire, and Earth Breath.  Sure, they all do the same amount of damage, have the same shapes, and move the same way, but come on, different colors!

I'll agree that the new games are bad for a variety of reasons, and not go to far into them.  Those games weren't made by the same company as the first three, and it showed.  Powerups, on the other hand, have never been part of a traditional platformers.  It forced limitations on you, rather than giving you 15 billion options to do the same thing (JaRPGs, WoW, fighting games, etc.).   

Let's not forget that the monsters are all the same.  In Spyro III for PS1, I can count the variety.  You had the ones immune to fire, the ones immune to bashing, and the ones that you could kill in one hit of anything.  Just different shapes and/or colors through each level which had basically the same theme, only a different theme.

The Spyro trilogy was, and always will be, a platforming game.  The first was far more strict, and a good deal harder then the other two.  The same level design exists is all games.  As a rule, Monsters end up as a flavouring for the level rather than a focus.  Both the game engine and your mastery of it come further into play.

 

You know, instead of being a cave full of lava, you would have a cave full of ice (which acted like lava).  Or a pit of poison, or a pit of spikes, or a bottomless pit, or a piranha-infested river...and let's not forget castles.  You have ruined castles, frozen-over castles, burning castles, dark creepy castles...and occasionally a castle in the clouds.

While I agree that the levels shared functional similarity, they were graphically very different.  Different colours, different art styles, and plots were all overlay for the basic design of the level.  As for creativity, its nice as long as the game remains playable and straightforward enough.  Could you imagine a platformer without a fire or ice level?  It's become a very traditional part of any game, other than the odd ones.

I can play through the first two levels of any of the games, then not even the plot or voice stylings of Elijah Wood and David Spade can keep me interested for much longer.

If that's the way you think, then my arguing wont be change your mind.  The game is simplistic and repetitive, but not out of line with modern games.  I enjoyed the plot(s) of the first three games for a ten to twelve year old, which was the target audience at the time,   Though I don't know when you played it, I'd hope that you weren't too cynical of a kid.  If you did, then here's the best I can do:

The Spyro series is a lot like the Mario series.  Sure, you had the same enemies, a limited skill set, incredibly repetitive levels with a light coat of paint on them at best (Mario 3 here), a good many castles, and was graphically simple. The fact is, it still considered to be one the best games made ... of it's time.  That's what Spyro was and is: a series that was well made at the time, and stays as such.

If you really want a good modern platformer, play Psychonauts.   It's funny, it's highly creative, and the dangerous surface type thing? Its not fire, poison, electricity or spikes...  its water.  As in, the main character has a fear of water.  And the levels take place in people's minds.


As a parting thought (RPing as Yahtzee here): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yon2YuXssvo&NR=1

[KageReneko]

Ninja Gaiden 1 for NES (Damn Birds), Final Fantasy 1 for NES, Jurassic Parc for NES, the f***ng G.I. Joe games for NES, TMNT 1 for NES, The Castlevania Adventure for GB, Double Dragon for GB... I never could beat any of them (At least not without cheating)

Man... the old gen games are killers... Specially the ones without continues!!

[Cloud-Boy]

Super Ghosts and Goblins.

The dude armor is about as protective as the Imperial storm Trooper's  armor.

[Crow]

I beat One on Guitar Hero 3 finally. Now to move onto Raining Blood and TTFAF.

Funny thing is; I can play Raining Blood on my real guitar much easier than GH3...

~Burkey

[Crow]

Necro-bump.

Good ol' Final Fantasy VI is always tough. Stuck on the Dullahan battle in the tomb of Daryl.

~Burkey

[CRBWildcat]

In recent years, Starcraft has made to the top of my list (for the frustration bit). This isn't really the programmers' fault so much as the fault of the people I've played against---and my own as well. Due in part to my schedule, I've had to recreate my Battle.Net account several times. The last time I did it, I couldn't even last seven minutes into a game, let alone the two hours needed to keep my account---people kept on cannon-rushing me. To top it off, I kept getting booted off of games before they started. Finally, I just said: "Forget this", and gave up on playing on Battle.Net altogether.

To a lesser extent, the Megaman ZX series as well. Stinkin' instant-death spike traps.

[Crow]

Dead Space is giving me a headache at the moment.

So many enemies.. So little ammo..

C'mon Issac! We can do this!

~Burkey