Tough Love - Can A Game Be Too Hard?

Thanks to Slate for its article discussing the excessive difficulty inherent in some videogames. The writer argues: "Some [games] are so freakishly, spoon-bendingly difficult that they take 10 hours of solid play before you've even begun to master the basics... I usually discard them in frustration after a couple of hours and wonder: What's the point? What adult has the time to master this stuff? Could it ever be worth it?" He continues: "The latest test of this thesis is Tecmo's new Ninja Gaiden, a game so punishing that even some hard-core players fear picking it up." Although the piece concludes: "Just because a game is hard doesn't mean it'll have a payoff", what games have you played that are insanely tricky to master?

Comments

Insanely tricky

[joelparker]

what games have you played that are insanely tricky to master?

wopr# globalthermonuclearwar

Re:Insanely tricky

[minotaurcomputing]

Oh please! That game is soooo simple. The trick to winning is not to play the game.

Nethack

[tttonyyy]

It's pretty hard getting that @ down to level 20.

hey Beavis

[Anonymous Coward]

hey beavis, that kid sits in his basement all day long beating his donkey kong.

Using game limitations

[zero_offset]

Above and beyond anything else, the one thing that always ticks me off is when a game relies on arbitrary limitations of the game itself to make something really hard. The best example is always JUMPING.

It never fails -- if you're in a game that allows the player to jump, there will be some level or test which requires you to RUN right up to the teeter-tottering edge of plunging to your death, then perform an AMAZING jump, which will allow you to just BARELY make it to safety on the other side.

In my opinion, it's rarely much fun. Doom did this a few times and I still remember how annoyed I was. I mean, if you were that super badass Marine, wouldn't you just say Screw It and grab the ledge and haul yourself up or something? "Dammit, I'm a badass Marine fighting the minions of Hell, yet I just can't seem to manage those extra two pixels!"