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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?
I admit it. I was balked at the first Harry Potter game. Everything went fine until I got to the "Fluffy" dog heads. I could not find a way to get them all to sleep at the same time; gave up after a while.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
well there have been people that have scored @1,000,000 on this game and no ending, after the 22nd level the timer is way too low, so basically you just squeeze out a few points extra at that point. Heres a recap of the current world record
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
If you pick first, pick a corner not the center square. The satisfaction from crushing engineering majors repeatedly in Tic-Tac-Toe is something special. The confusion horror and masochism the exhibit is truly special. It's a game that everyone thinks they've mastered but far fewer have.
Play it right and X can only win or draw, and O can only keep alive by moving into the center square on their first move and a side square on their second. Any deviation will rack up a win for X.
Its a rubbish game. The only way to win is to set it to 0 players.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
Hard games? Nothing has ever compared to the baseball diamond puzzle in Zork II...
I spent hours playing this game, it was annoyingly frustrating at points. There is no way I would have gotten through it without using the hints guide. I was able to figure out putting together the improbability drive, solve each of the scenarios, and I knew enough to collect everything I found in the game.
But seriously, how in hell were you supposed to figure out to plant all the fluffs in the damn pot to grow a plant???
And talk about an anticlimactic ending. After so many hours of typing obscenities into the game engine out of absolute frustration, you finally complete it and there was absolutely zero reward, not even a joke from D.A. (except for the one on the player I guess).
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I've seen this as well. My girlfriend has always been a gamer, back well into the days of 8-bit consoles and sierra adventure games. She did, however, have quite a bit of time off from gaming during college and medical school-- which coincided nicely with the advent of the 3D gaming era.
I was amazed by how much we just take for granted-- and the painstaking detail required to "bring somebody up to speed." (you have to manage the camera? is moving body-relative or screen-relative? how can i tell where i'll land from a jump without depth perception?) It turned out that the easiest way was to drag out the old N64 and let her start 3D gaming from where 3D gaming started. The games were simpler, and the rules upon rules hadn't been built yet.
There are other things, as well-- things we just don't realize. Consider all of the graphical conventions. The average slashdotter probably recognizes three or four different ways to indicate a "status ailment" in an RPG, for example. But to somebody new, in the middle of a fast fight, how can you explain the difference for the status ailment indication, and the powerup indication? It can be done, but it's tricky, and it's a huge barrier to entry. She expressed an interest in Battlefield 1942 a while back, and I'm not sure *how* I'm going to get her up and running with the PC FPS genre without teaching a class.
I am an avid fan of MOM, MOO, and MOO2, but please don't tell me that Master of Orion 3 was not difficult. It was so confusing that I couldn't even figure out the whole colonization thing properly. Some times I would colonize and some times my ships would just kind of hang out. There were so many things to tweak but you never knew what they were doing. Maybe one day, I'll go back and try it again, but I uninstalled it to save room on my PC (I have beaten these other games, plenty, and a couple XComs to boot). Sidebar: Please bring on MOM2! Are there any OSS sequels to MOM?
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
Sets you back two whole levels? Dude, there's a savepoint near the beginning of every level (expect for the very last boss battle, I believe.) It isn't handed to you on a silver platter, but your -first- order of business upon reaching a new area should be to find that savepoint, and not get killed in the process.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Did you try:- "Turn into hulk"
(If I remember correctly you had to kick yourself over backwards on the chair, hitting your head on the floor, which made you angry, which turned you into the Hulk. That might be totally wrong though)
I have no sig yet I must scream.
Pardon me. Medal of Honour: Allied Assault
Genociding cockatrices actually makes the game harder. Cockatrice corpses are an awesome weapon in the right hands, when u make sure you have gloves and can't fall into any pits or something.
Hell.. it can kill Demogorgon in a single strike.
Keep the genocide until you reach Lichs... they are MUCH more worthy of it. Bless your genocide and kill L.
^_^
One of the hardest games I ever played was Hulk on Commodore 64... You begin the game as Bruce Banner tied to a chair... I never succeeded getting free. It's a text adventure and we tried everything: "get angry", "cut ropes", "break free", "you're a wimp"... and all sorts of insults to get Bruce to turn into Hulk but it never worked...after a couple of hours we stopped trying and never played again.
You should have read the instructions, it's explained there.
The trick is to get your character to feel pain, to start the transformation.
> ovgr yvc
(in rot13)