Game Essentials - 20 Difficult Games

Last week, in a discussion of the essentials of game design by John Harris, Gamasutra posted a list of twenty really difficult games. It's interesting not only for the purposes of the article (examining the concept of challenge in game creation) but also simply as a personal scorecard for your own gaming career. My personal albatross: "8. Monkey Ball, a.k.a. Super Monkey Ball. Putting that monkey in the ball may have been a whimsical masterstroke, but don't let it fool you. This game is hard. Design lesson: If you're going to make a super hard game, make it fair. No one thinks Monkey Ball is unfair. There is no randomness. Everything that happens is a direct result of the player's actions, and there are no hidden portions of the level waiting to destroy the player. It's not like a boss enemy with secret attacks the player couldn't possibly survive the first time seeing it. It's not only possible to reach and finish Monkey Ball's Master levels, but it could be done on one's first try. Winning the lottery is more likely, but it's possible." How many have you mastered?

I havent beaten a game in years...

[ihatewinXP (638000)]

I'm too busy playing in digital playground type games with open endings like GTA: San Andreas. Give me the 5 star code, a bicycle and 100 foot bunny hops and watch me go ET over the national Guard - the best games are the ones you come up with.

Mastering though? Certain courses and cars on Gran Turismo - and I lie about not _beating_ a game of late, recently I knocked out both Super Paper Mario and Godfather: Wii Edition in the last few weeks. And as I sit down to write this I just got done playing Wii bowli

Ikaruga

[benbean (8595)]

It made me sit through eleven pages only to find Ikaruga wasn't on the list. Pah.

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[Poltras (680608)]

I've made it through, but never been able to pass the fourth boss of Blaster Master [wikipedia.org]. To my knowledge, none of my friends were able to pass through the 6th boss (without the glitch). From the wikipedia article:

Blaster Master is also regarded as one of the most challenging games for the NES, along with Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden.

Man is it true... although it didn't make the list. All of us finished Cobra Triangle and Lolo, while there was only 2-3 of my friends at the time that could get through Metal Gear 2: Snake Revenge (the last boss). That list is definitely biased towards game designers (knowing Gamasutra, this is no

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[gauauu (649169)]

I've beat blaster master a few times (yes, it's hard, but actually not THAT bad). The same for BattleToads. Ninja Gaiden really isn't bad either...I've done a run through without losing a life.

Now the REAL challenging game for nes is Snake Rattle and Roll. I've tried so many times, but could never beat the moon level without save-state cheating on an emulator.

The TMNT game for NES

[EraseEraseMe (167638)]

Now that game was F'ing hard. I could finish every other game on the NES we had in my youth, except that one. Getting to the technodrome, with it's one hit kills and various baddies was hard enough. Shredder then would proceed to live up to his namesake and spit out a gutted turtle corpse. It wouldn't be so bad if you could restart from where you lost your original turtle, but no such luck. Back to the beginning of the level you went, often with the weakest turtle to fight Shredder with.

Try Battletoads

[Alicat1194 (970019)]

The only time I ever managed to get past the first speeder bike level was when I accidentally hit a level warp (and got sucked into a surfing level, where I was quickly killed off)

Got to say it did wonders for the heart rate though - no need to exercise, just play Battletoads and watch it go!

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[deftcoder (1090261)]

Haha, wait until you get to level 9... you have to swim through an underwater maze without getting crushed by fast-moving gears.

I never made it past level 9. :--(

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[gauauu (649169)]

Ha, just wait until you make it to the last level. You'll die like a pathetic little fly. I know I did....

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[r_jensen11 (598210)]

There was a trick to solving TMNT. First off, you can swap turtles anytime. If your turtle is hurt, swap him. Also, health pizza powerups near the entrances of buildings and sewers respawn as soon as you enter the room. Go in and out of the door and that one piece of pizza can heal all your turtles to full health.

No shit, how do you think he got as far as he did?

Super Monkey Difficulty!

[ideonode (163753)]

Ah yes, Super Monkey Ball. Specifically: Expert Level 7. Those who have faced this level will understand the sheer frustration felt.

Another hard game: Project X on the Amiga. It took two of us playing co-operatively to beat it. And this is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up!

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[Fross (83754)]

Project X was massively hard, but good fun. Not the hardest Amiga shoot'em-up though.

That accolade must go to the original Xenon, which the Bitmap Brothers freely admit they made stupidly hard inadvertently by playtesting it themselves throughout development and tweaking it to their 6-months-with-the-game ability!

(Not the sequel, Xenon II, which was great but perfectly possible to complete)

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[crgrace (220738)]

Another hard game: Project X on the Amiga. It took two of us playing co-operatively to beat it. And this is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up!

I thought Shadow of the Beast was incredibly hard. What pissed me off about it was you had to get through the entire level again after you died. So, if you had a hard time at one spot near the end of a level, too bad, you had to work for 5 min to get there again. That f*in game made me want to throw my joystick through my 1084 monitor! Another tough one was WINGS. I g

Ghouls and Ghosts

[jeffy210 (214759)]

Who remembers Ghouls and Ghosts or Super Ghosts and Goblins for the NES and SNES. You want to talk about hard games. I'd say those two are quite a bit harder than Zelda. Those two always gave me so much trouble, I think I have yet to beat the first one.

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[aldheorte (162967)]

Anyone who remembers the original NES Ghost and Goblins game needs to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLTQRJXzwP0 [youtube.com]

If the music doesn't bring on a rage headache, you probably didn't play it. It's not only ridiculously difficult, but after you win it once, you are told it was all an illusion and are forced to go back through it again from the first level to officially win.

Go ninja go ninja go

[Pojut (1027544)]

TMNT for NES was INSANELY hard....and in a complete opposite direction here, Ninja Gaiden Black is definately up there in the top three hardest games once you get into the higher difficulty levels.

Hardest Game Ever...

[blahlemon (638963)]

...Duke Nukem Forever Why do you think it hasn't been release to the general population.

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[PFI_Optix (936301)]

So now games have five difficulty levels:

Easy
Normal
Hard
Impossible (but not really)
So hard you can't actually play it, we'll just TELL you it's hard.

Sort of like Brockian Ultra Cricket when you think about it.

Sinistar not as hard as Defender?!!!!

[hal2814 (725639)]

"The Warriors are so troublesome that Sinistar, while not more difficult than Defender,..."

Did I just step into some alternate reality where Sinistar is the mother of all side-scrolling shooters and Defender is the massively hard top-down shooter where a self-assembling robot demon chases you around screaming "Ron Howard?" I deeply love both games but Sinistar is way harder.

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[dreddnott (555950)]

I found Defender to be much easier than Sinistar - of course I played Defender all the time on a cabinet in my grandma's backyard at a young age, but yeah, Sinistar is way harder. It's the only video game that makes me suffer from motion sickness.

You won't see any more of these.

[Fross (83754)]

Oh for the days, when computer games rewarded ability rather than perseverance.

Computer games used to be about developing a skill, playing it until you got sufficiently good that you were able to complete something on a higher level. Nowadays, it's about who can put the most amount of time into a game. The difficulty level is a gentle gradient if not entirely flat.

Compare modern games to the simplest and most iconic of old games - Pac-man. It only had one level, one playing level. One! Yet the same level played again and again, with increasing difficulty. Faster ghosts, less time on power-pills, etc etc. The only way you would see level 20 was if you were good enough to beat level 19, and that was damn hard.

Compare to games these days, such as the GTA series, Half-life 1 and 2, Halo, World of Warcraft, whatever. The end of these games is not significantly different in difficulty from the beginning. The last levels involve generally the same baddies, but more of them, and you have bigger weapons to handle them. The experience is constant throughout the cycle of the game, so that a little perseverance will reward you with progress.

Why is this? Games are now a much bigger proposition, and the audience is wider. And the audience wants easy gratification and no frustration. Sure, it's meant to be entertainment, not a challenge. But for many of us, the entertainment is in the challenge and ultimately, surpassing it.

I remember spending ages playing Pac-man, Defender and the rest as a child trying to defeat the higher levels. When you achieve something you hadn't done before through your own skill and ability it's far more rewarding than just cruising through it.

Games are about perceived value now, and someone who fails to finish a game will not have gained that full "value" from it. So games are tailored so almost every user can finish it, that Bob the Button Masher will be able to work his way to the end and see all the pretty bits eventually as long as he doesn't run out of Cheetos in the meantime. But this is at the cost of a real sense of progression and challenge, and hence accomplishment, by those of us dedicated enough to put the effort in to get good at something.

Many games used to be open-ended, with just increasing skill levels and no defined end. I guess this got past that problem as every level was a measure of ability and a goal in itself. You can defeat it on level 15? Well I can get to level 20.

Games used to be closer to a martial art (simply in terms of dedication, application and training), now they feel more like a particularly wimpy yoga session, where as long as you can make it through the time, you can say you've completed it.

(No offence to any yogaers out there, you know what I mean)

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[EMeta (860558)]

I must disagree. First of all, on any PvP games it comes down to ability (most of the time), because perseverance doesn't get you anywhere against other persevering players. Secondly, all the freaking rhythm games, which are hugely popular. DDR and Guitar Hero let you improve with practice, but without some innate sense of balance or finger finess, you aren't going to pass their hardest stages.

Let new gamers get into WoW with just time spent. The original FF certainly did the same thing. Different

Rhythm games, yes. WoW, not really.

[Fross (83754)]

Rhythm games certainly do become a test of skill, you're very right. I'd not included them in my thinking.

WoW (as a player too myself), I'd have to disagree, aside from PvP which is only a small part of the game (or, a large part of the game for only a small number of people) - in that, it becomes a test of matching skill against another human as all online games from chess to Counterstrike do, but as the opponent is a human, not due to the game itself becoming harder as it progresses.

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[Zelos (1050172)]

Horses for courses, really, but I find most of the old-style games incredibly dull now (I'm 28, gaming since I was about 9). I loved space invaders etc. back in the day, but they're so repetitive that these days they're dull.

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[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

Thank goodness for MAME. Now I can play through all of those arcade games that were designed to eat quarters. To beat most of those games you had to play constantly and memorize patterns, something that gets boring fast.

Re:You won't see any more of these.

[kisrael (134664)]

I've been a classic gamer for a long, long time, I was posting on r.g.v.c. since like '93 or so...

Here's the thing: games now have distinct content, lots of it, not just one playfield or enemy set speeded up.

(Ideally, this content involves new interactions, i.e. involving programmers as well as designers, not just the artists saying "well, here's a 'new city' to 'explore')

So people want to get the game that they pay for. Me, and maybe it's a personal fault throughout many aspects of my life, I don't like challenge for its own sake. I want to play with novel interactions in as economical a way as possible. (And, oddly, the time a game uses is counted both towards its cost and its benefit)

Most games, especially sandbox ones, will have some rewards for the really dedicated and skilled player, or at least have challenges so such a player can self-motivate and have something to do. And now you even have youtube and specialty sites to show off your 'l33t skillz. Quit griping that big chunks of content aren't being created (and tested) just for you and your dedicated little band...

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[Gulthek (12570)]

The void you are imagining has been well filled by XBox 360 achievement points. If you are competing with your friends and family on points, It's not enough to finish the game you have to finish it with style (and do a bunch of other crazy or hard things). The best thing is, when you actually do that crazy/insane/hard thing to win the points, everyone sees it! Instant proof that you really did it!

As an example, check out the achievement point list for Dead Rising: http://www.achieve360points.com/game/deadri [achieve360points.com]

This does look interesting

[Fross (83754)]

As I've never owned an XBox, this is news to me.

However looking through some of the guides you linked to (eg http://www.achieve360points.com/txt/d/Dead_Rising_ AG.txt [achieve360points.com] ) it seems they are mostly about collecting items or finding secrets, rather than eking out the last bit of skill from their performance? That's what I meant, games like GTA award perseverance and endurance over skill.

I agree there's definitely potential in the achievements to have skill-based secondary goals, and I like that idea. Thanks fo

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[brkello (642429)]

I think what you wrote is a load of crap. Pac-man is in a different genre than the games you are talking about. It belongs in the puzzle game category with games like Tetris or even guitar hero. Can you beat all the songs at 100% on the hardest level? I bet you can't. For that genre, you have simple gameplay that gets progressively harder. Comparing this to World of Warcraft and Half-life is silly.

World of Warcraft is based on an RPG. As long as you keep at it, you will progress in this game to th

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[vecctor (935163)]

These two comments seem to contradict each other:

Oh for the days, when computer games rewarded ability rather than perseverance.

and

Computer games used to be about developing a skill, playing it [for hours and hours, repetively] until you got sufficiently good that you were able to complete something on a higher level. Nowadays, it's about who can put the most amount of time into a game.

(bold statement added by me - but it is accurate)

Old games were TOTALLY about perseverance. You had to play that game to death until you mastered every move and memorized every aspect of every enemy. You talk about putting time in with current games, so what do you call the constant pracice/replaying to get good in the older ones?

I don't think that type of gameplay was all that great, and it certainly required MORE time and was less interesting than curr

True, but...

[Fross (83754)]

all difficult tasks require repetition. In terms of the skilled old games, they required repetition to get your skill high enough to finish the harder level, before continuing. For more modern games, they require some repetition to get through the content (and of course, "getting through the content" is a whole lot of fun!), but little to no skill increase.

I'm certainly not wanting games to become more simplistic, single-level repetitive affairs. I'm disappointed that, say, GTA 3 didn't get harder as the

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[Fross (83754)]

Actually, there was more than just the speed of the game, the power-up pills worked for a shorter time for example.

Perhaps there were patterns in those simple games that could be exploited to turn it into nothing more than a test of speed, but otherwise the game certainly got harder as it went along.

You missed the point.

[Fross (83754)]

This is not an expansion, the change is there - most new games do not get significantly harder throughout their levels like they used to. Some people, including me, enjoyed that.

I enjoyed (and finished) all such modern games I listed in my original post, but as good as they were, I felt they weren't testing my abilities any harder towards their end than they were at the beginning - and that is the point.

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[TuringTest (533084)]

Your loved games haven't disappeared - they've just lost focus. Classic, skill-based never-ending games have survived in the form of minigames.

The main storyline is like reading a book with interactive challenges, and those challenges ARE skill based. Many of them can be replayed to your heart's content, and become as difficult as you want them. You can think of this as a new genre which has absorbed the old ones.

Not hard

[Pancake Bandit (987571)]

I don't really understand the purpose of this list. At least the author doesn't pretend that these are the 20 hardest games ever, just 20 difficult games. Mischief Makers, even getting all the gold gems, was a bit of a challenge but not an extremely frustrating one. Lolo wasn't that much harder than a lot of puzzle games I've played. A few of the games on the list were only difficult because they suffered from poor gameplay, silly programming decisions or lousy instructions.

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[kisrael (134664)]

Well, it was a highly subjective list, but it didn't pretend not to be.

I appreciated the "game design lessons to be drawn from this" section.

toughest ever

[by Anonymous Coward]

Getting laid.

Miami Vice for the C=64

[MrHanky (141717)]

Most people I knew didn't even know how to drive the car at any significant speed (or steering it). I was pretty good at driving myself, but never understood the point of the game.

My Favorite Hardest Game

[Daetrin (576516)]

Whenever i think of hard games i always thing of Legacy of the Wizard [wikipedia.org] for the NES. I haven't actually taken the chance to try it again but at the time, when i was in early jr. high i think, it seemed incredibly complex. It was a dungeon crawling adventure game that made really good use of puzzles that required finding items in the dungeon to solve. Item A would be blocked by puzzle 1, which you needed item B to solve, but that was blocked by puzzle 2... and there were five or six different characters, each

[brag?]

[QMO (836285)]

We had Defender for our Atari 800. (Actually both on floppy and on cartridge.)
My older brothers and I would play untill we had a bunch of extra lives and smart bombs, then let our younger siblings play for a while while we rested. We could play that game in shifts as long as we wanted. It's kind of fun to use only smart bombs for 5 - 10 levels.

Joke

[Rocky (56404)]

Where's Wizardry IV: Return of Werdna? That was heads and tails the most difficult old-school RPG of that time.

Williams Games Cheat!

[kisrael (134664)]

I couldn't find the Usenet reference, but I remember some old rgvc conversation about how Sinistar cheats: it doesn't compute things offscreen nearly as much as you'd think, so those little gatherers and warriors can freely fly without worrying about hitting asteroids...

still an amazing technological achievement...

The Incredible Machine...

[benfinkel (1048566)]

...and it's sequels. Those games were brutal!

How about "In Search of the Most Amazing Thing"? Anyone remember that? I remember finding the most amazing thing and then being killed by one of those monsters-disguised-as-a-fueling-rock on my way back to home base. Jerk.

Checkers vs Chinook?

[TheLink (130905)]

I never could beat the computer at chess in "high levels" either.

Nuff said :).

the NES had the hardest games

[Alzheimers (467217)]

Ninja Gaiden -- that last stage was *brutal* and then if you lost to the bosses you had to repeat it. Needless to say, one of the games that stands out in my head that I've never finished.

RoboWarrior -- such a fan of Bomerman, I thought this game would be the greatest thing ever. Except for the limited number of bombs. And the fact that you couldn't go backwards. And it just made me feel so stupid sometimes, I put it away with disgust.

Amagon -- For some reason this game held a strange appeal to me, yet

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[Mprx (82435)]

Just because you suck at Nethack, doesn't make it "difficult".

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[Aim Here (765712)]

Rogue, some implementations of which are FOSS and/or public domain, is right there at number 18.

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[Aim Here (765712)]

I admit no such thing. I don't actually know exactly what the copyright status of rogue is. It's either FOSS or near-FOSS, in that the source code is freely available on the net and there's no problem with people making copies of it; I'm just not sure if there's any free software incompatible restrictions, such as a noncommercial one.

In fact, I'm also not sure which of the many games calling themselves "Rogue" out there are Rogue, ports of Rogue, versions of Rogue, ripoffs of Rogue, clones of Rogue or not-R

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[chrish (4714)]

Rogue's in there, what are you talking about?

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[guruevi (827432)]

There is certain campaigns in Battle for Wesnoth that are really difficult to finish (or even impossible) especially when your hero HAS to die.

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[Descalzo (898339)]

It's a sad, sad day when I have to admit that beating all 150 levels of Lode Runner is one of my real accomplishments in life. But I beat it on the Apple ][.