10 insanely tough games

[Triumph]

Back in the day (1989?), we would play and beat Oregon Trail on those rainy days where we couldn't go outside for recess. The game is not that hard. Start as a banker, set pace at grueling, have lots of kids so that you don't run out of people to die before the end.

 

[dwell]

Ghosts n Goblins was nearly impossibile. I beat it on the NES more than once but most likely at the expense of a controller.

 

[ichy]

The original X-Com was very challenging.

 

[NuclearNed]

Raid on Bungeling Bay <-- evil, evil game. Evil. But awesome.

most of the Infocomm games

 

[vi edit]

I wonder if there is any correlation in the attention span of kids today vs 20 years ago because of the way video games worked.

With the NES there was no "save" function short of some of the handful of expensive RPG games that had the battery in them. Otherwise it was a full sitdown commitment of several hours...or putting the game on pause overnight to pick it back up to crush your way through a game.

No autosaves, easy/medium/hard levels. Just put a game in, and play it for hours until you either beat it or gave up. If you played for 3 hours and died at the end the game gave a big "F U!" and you had to start over again.

 

[actuarial]

No autosaves, easy/medium/hard levels. Just put a game in, and play it for hours until you either beat it or gave up. If you played for 3 hours and died at the end the game gave a big "F U!" and you had to start over again.

That was Contra for me with 3 lives (as opposed to 30). It took a long time to beat entirely (or at least I remember it taking a long time), and I swore at the game many times trying to beat it properly.

 

[Fritzo]

Before most of your times, but Impossible Mission on the C-64 was...well...IMPOSSIBLE. It has amazing graphics and voice generation for the time, but one false move and you had to start all the way from the beginning of the game. It was nuts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5eC_BDSfiQ

 

[Wyndru]

&#8593;&#8593;&#8595;&#8595;&#8592;&#8594;&#8592;&#8594;BA is the only way I could beat Konami games.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/10-insanely-tough-games-211451468.html

Contra on NES is not that hard IMO.

What say you ATOTers? What are your top 10 hard games (on all platforms)?

Ninja Gaiden on NES was very tough at the end. I had to purchase a NES controller with the slow down button to beat the end boss.

And The Rocketeer game was so stupid. In order to play, you have to beat two other airplanes (the CPU) before you can even start.

You beat Contra without the 30 life cheat code?

 

[lxskllr]

MOHAA. I only finished it out of stubbornness. It was virtually impossible, and I only made the it through the game with luck, and the liberal use of F8.

 

[clamum]

LOL, "I Want to Be The Guy" looks fucking ridiculous. Hahahaha.

I agree with the others saying Oregon Trail shouldn't be on the list. I guess it was kind of hard when I was in fifth grade but it's nowhere near the difficulty of Battletoads. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the 1989 NES game) was pretty hard too. Oh and Top Gun. Those three are the ones that first come to mind for me.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I want to be the guy shouldn't even count. It's not really a game. Games tend to have rules that you play around with and use skill to get past. IWTBTG is just random shit that is hilarious but you can't really do anything about without replaying it over and over and over and over and over.

 

[El Guaraguao]

A lot of old school Capcom games were difficult.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Pong. I needed the cheat codes.

 

[mmntech]

There's tons of super hard NES games out there.

Battletoads
Ghosts n Gobblins
Silver Surfer
Ninja Gaiden

To name a couple. That's not including games that were hard because they were bad. Extreme difficulty was a common trick back then to extend playtime. Comes from the arcade days. They called it Nintendo Hard for a reason.

 

[JTsyo]

You beat Contra without the 30 life cheat code?

My brother and I did Contra, SuperC and Battletoads. There was a game called Hellfire for the Genesis that I couldn't beat until I got it on the emulator and saved along the way. It's hard to practice when it takes almost an hour to get to where you need to practice.

 

[bguile]

Ghost n Goblins. I never beat it, but got up to the devil plenty of times. A few years ago I picked it up for the wii to show my son, and couldn't even get out of the grave yard. Looking back, I have no idea how I pulled it off when I was younger.

 

[SandEagle]

um, Contra in the NES was easy. I used to beat that game without the cheat and less than 3 lives. had memorized every single thing on it . now Contra: Shattered Soldier on PS2 was the hardest game i had ever played. eventually memorized the pattern and beat it with about 5 lives.

agree that NES G&G was near impossible to beat. Same with Super G&G on the SNES.

the trick to Ninja Gaiden's last boss came to.me in a dream. serious. you have to keep the swirl attack from beginning and get to boss with it. one or two hits and its dead. if you beat it and die on the 2nd boss form , the next time you come back, you start from the 2nd boss, and so on with the 3rd.

 

[clamum]

Oh, and Gradius III was fucking hard too. I love the game but it's frustratingly hard.

 

[rasczak]

I have never beaten Ikari Warriors.

 

[SP33Demon]

Oh, and Gradius III was fucking hard too. I love the game but it's frustratingly hard.

Yep, that was a tough one and Lifeforce was a PITA too.

G&G was hard, so was Ninja Gaiden (fck that game!).

Also took me awhile to beat one of the Castlevanias where Dracula was a PITA.

 

[kinev]

I have never beaten Ikari Warriors.

A-B-B-A (infinite continues)

Played that a lot with friends as a kid...

 

[SlitheryDee]

Oregon trail was one of those games that was hard the first few times and then suddenly trivial once you figured out how to play it.

Contra was pretty hard, but I don't remember ever playing it without the cheat.

 

[Ashenor]

I don't know about the rest but battletoads and Ghosts 'n Goblins were ridiculous.

Ghost and Goblins was crazy hard.

I used to get so pissed at that game.

 

[VashHT]

Some of those games the sequels/spin offs were harder. Contra force and contra 4 were a lot harder than the original and battletoads & double dragon is ridiculous, even harder than battletoads which was crazy to begin with.