• 2Jul 08

  XBox 360 Achievements For The Adventurous, Hardcore, Or Insane

  I should have known when I bought an XBox 360 that I would become, sadly, addicted to achievements.

  I don't really know if I can put my finger on exactly why... maybe I have a bigger epeen than I thought. After all, let's face it -- one of the main purposes of achievements is to show people what you've been able to "accomplish" with your games, yes? Even though we all know that almost any goal achieved in a video game means nothing outside of the ability to say "I did it" and to get other anonymous players impressed with your achievement list, those of us who like to chase achievements do it anyway. 50 years from now, are you going to look back on the time you spent trying to kill the 200 pigeons from GTA IV, or the 14-hour achievement from Dead Rising, or the 10,000 kill achievement from Gears or War, and think that it was time well spent? Probably not, but we do it anyway.

  I like to think that I'm fully aware that no one cares about my achievements and that no one is impressed by them, but I'd be lying if I said there aren't at least a couple achievements I have that I feel "proud" to have earned. That's ironic, seeing as how I think epeen waving and e-bragging over video games of all things is incredibly ridiculous... and yet, I guess I have some of it myself. But really, I think that's not the big reason I like to do it. I think that for me, the big thing is I like to push myself and see how far I'm able to get -- to test my ability and answer the question, "Hmm, I wonder if I would be able to get this?" when I see an achievement that seems challenging. I'm not a total achievement point hound as I do not care for time-sink achievements like the infinitely stupid 200 pigeons from Grand Theft Auto (which 99% of the world probably cheats to get anyway, although for that particular achievement I can understand), and if I think an achievement doesn't sound fun or sounds like it would take too much time and wouldn't be anything but a grind, I won't do it. But if I see something that will push my ability but still seems obtainable and still seems to sound somewhat fun (Call of Duty 4 "Mile High Club" is a perfect example), I'll go after it.

  There are a few achievements out there though that are just crazy. I'm not talking about stuff like Mile High Club, where yes, it's very, very hard but if you keep trying, you'll get it. I'm not talking about achievements that are hard but can be obtained if you're only willing to put in the time. I'm talking about the ones that are out of reach for all but the very best players in the world, both skill-wise and time-wise.

  I'm still a little new to the achievement thing, but I've put together a list of a few achievements that I think are really crazy. If you're able to get these, I salute you.

  1. Final Fantasy XI -- I'm not sure if I should list this since I know very little about this game, but I'm not sure I need to. I don't even know for sure what achievements in particular are the hardest. But if you look at the leaderboard at mygamercard.net, you'll see that no one -- not a single soul in the entire planet -- has all the achievement points for this game.

  I kind of feel like I don't even need to know much about the particulars to know why. Final Fantasy XI is an MMORPG, which is a genre of game that demands huge portions of your time in order to reach the loftiest goals. I heard once that one of the achievements in this game is to get the game's strongest weapon, which is an exceedingly rare drop. Having spent plenty of time with World of Warcraft, I can relate to how improbable that can be. Just based on my time with that game and my knowledge of how rare certain items are in it, I don't even feel I really need to know the particulars of FFXI's achievements in order to understand why nobody has them all.

  2. Smash TV "Game Master" -- Smash TV's not the only game to have a "Beat the game without using a continue" achievement, but I have to wonder if it might be the hardest one to get. The game lets you continue non-stop, so anyone can get to the end. However, you only need to spend a few minutes with the game to know how crazy this achievement is. Non-stop waves of enemies and bullets filling your screen, crazy boss fights, and the ability to mess up very easily make this one so hard if you're aiming to do it without a continue. According to mygamercard.net, only four souls in the world have been able to get all 12 of this game's achievements. I don't know if anyone else has Game Master, but I'm guessing that they don't, since the achievement is 50 points and everyone behind the top four is stuck on 150/200 achievement points for that game.

  3. Robotron 2084 "Wave 100" -- Are you serious? Robotron 2084, the ancestor of Smash TV, is very easily one of the hardest games ever made. Take the amount of enemies and harmful items filling the screen in Smash TV and triple it, and that's Robotron 2084. Most people can't even get to wave 10, but this game has an achievement for those who are uber enough to get all the way to wave 100. You just have to tip your cap to anyone who can get this.

  4. Ikaruga "Unstoppable" -- Another "Beat the game without using a continue" achievement. Ikaruga's difficulty is very, very direct and to the point. It's the same crazy patterns every time, and either you're one of the very few people good enough to get past it or you're not. That pretty much sums it up -- it's a game that only a few people are talented enough to be really good at. Even with weeks of practice, you might not be good enough to do this.

  5. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter "World Champion" -- Like FFXI, I haven't played this either. And, like FFXI, you don't really need to have played it to know that this is a crazy achievement. This one's pretty simple -- top the world leaderboards in multiplayer. So, uh, yeah... have fun with that!

  6. Grand Theft Auto IV "Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic" -- You just knew that getting 1000/1000 on GTA IV wouldn't be easy, since getting 100% on any previous GTA IV game was an accomplishment in itself. There are two single-player achievements that jump out -- beating the game at 100 percent, and killing the 200 pigeons, but again, most people go to the Internet for help with those (I don't do that myself, am not a fan of doing that and I don't think it's right, but for those two achievements, I definitely understand). The hardest one overall is probably Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic, which requires you to take first place in every single multiplayer variation.

  The pain in the butt to come from that is the multiplayer races. The other variations can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, but when it comes to the races... not so fast. There are I think at least over three dozen races that need to be won, and I believe they need to be won both straight up and in "GTA Race" format, which allows others to use weapons. Winning one GTA race online is hard enough as racing in that game can be hard to control, contains many sharp turns, and has an awful online community that is filled with griefers that make it a point to try and wreck the race for whoever is running in first place. So unless I've got this wrong (the wording on the achievement is vague), this is a really formidable achievement. To win every single possible race is an undertaking that requires skill, time, and a hell of a lot of patience.

  7. Hexic HD "Grand Pearl Pooh Bah" -- Hexic HD is a pretty simple and fun puzzle game to get into, a "casual" game if you will. There's nothing casual about this achievement though. It's hard to explain what this is unless you play the game, but it requires you to get six black pearls and position them exactly right. Seeing as how it's not easy to get one black pearl, this one would take a while to get. Mygamerscore.net has just under 4,000 people who have landed a 200/200 score on this. That may seem like a large number, but consider that the total player base is around 1.75 million for this game and that's a very small percentage.

  8. Joust "Wave 100" -- Not as hard as Robotron's Wave 100, but just another game of old school quarter-muncher difficulty asking you to avoid a "Game Over" for a crazy amount of time.

  9. Ninja Gaiden II "Way of the Master Ninja" -- I debated whether or not to put this one on here since I can't decide how it compares to the rest of these. In any event, Ninja Gaiden II is one mean game even on the easier difficulties, throwing many things at players that are frustrating, difficult, and just plain nasty. You might have fun with this game, but you're almost guaranteed to feel like the developers are cruel, cruel human beings at least somewhere along the line. The Master Ninja difficulty takes it to the extreme, presenting a difficulty level that only a few people are going to have the skill and patience to pass. For comparison -- I would say that the Mentor difficulty, which is the level below Master Ninja, is similar to if not a little harder than Call of Duty 4's Veteran difficulty, which is something a lot of people tried. Master Ninja increases the challenge dramatically.

  10. Dead Rising "7 Day Survivor" -- Another game I don't know too much about as I've only played it a little bit, so to be honest I don't really know how difficult this is to do skillwise. But this one is notorious because it requires a gaming session of at least 14 hours. To my knowledge, there's no shortcuts either -- you have to sit there, and you have to play. Now I've had sessions like that before, and I'm sure some people who have done this have teamed up with others to do it. But this session is a little more infamous simply because you are on an XBox 360, which is a machine notorious for its problems with overheating. I've seen it said before that leaving your machine on for more than two hours at a time is too much, so you have to believe that people who braved this achievement might have been risking more than just losing an entire day to a video game.

  
  Now those are just some I'm familiar with. There's a large amount of very challenging achievements out there, including the ones listed here and here, so surely this list is nowhere near complete or accurate, just a reflection of some that I've seen so far that stand out.

  I think achievements have been really great for the XBox 360 as they add challenge and add life to games. Some of these achievements are nothing less than some of the hardest things ever devised in the history of gaming. So if you know of a gamer out there who is complaining about the lack of challenge in games these days, tell them to chase some of these achievements, and they'll most likely change their mind.

  • Posted Jul 2, 2008 10:56 am PT
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• 11Apr 08

  Video Game Music Tribute (Part One)

  I have been pleasantly surprised over the years of visiting gaming Web sites at the amount of people who seem to be fans of, or at least appreciate, video game music.

  Music can greatly enhance just about any experience, and I feel its power is often underestimated when it comes to entertainment. A great score, in my opinion, can lift a film or video game from good to great, from great to classic, or even from terrible to slightly tolerable.

  Think of the Final Fantasy scores composed by Nobuo Uematsu, for example. Can you imagine those games without those wonderful musical compositions playing in the background? I don't know about you, but to me, those games just wouldn't be the same -- or nearly as good -- without those scores. If you're like me, you found yourself on more than one occasion just sitting there listening to the music instead of playing those games.

  While I still feel music is overlooked a bit (I actually feel like the quality of a game's music is more vital to its overall quality than its graphics), it seems as if the appreciation for a good game soundtrack continues to grow. In recent years, we've seen more and more video game compositions receive orchestral treatments, and the games themselves have taken things to the next level as a few of the more recent releases contain soundtracks that are at least comparable to many of the better film scores out there. A video game soundtrack doesn't have to include a full orchestra or a choir to be great though -- some of the very best are still those that were made way back in the 8-bit era.

  Since I'm bored, I thought I'd peruse one of the greater inventions to come out of the Internet era -- YouTube -- and collect my favorite examples of video game music. As I began to do this, I realized it's going to take longer than I thought, so I'm going to break it up into portions. Take a read, click the links and stroll down memory lane, or maybe discover a catchy tune for the first time.

  For me, it starts way back in the arcades, with the catchy jingles you'd hear when starting up a game of Pac-Man, Frogger, or Galaga, but for this I'm going to begin with the NES. Obviously the most famous NES soundtracks are from Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, and for good reason -- Super Mario's theme was incredibly catchy (no need to link it, I'm sure you have it memorized) as was Zelda's. Both Zelda games for NES had the beautiful overworld melody, but the version from Zelda II might be my favorite rendition of the famous theme in any Zelda game. As for Mario, of course the tunes got better with each installment, and I'd say that SMB3 had the best... but the one that gets stuck in my head for whatever reason is the bouncy overworld theme from SMB2. As both franchises continued to pump out legendary sequels over the years, the quality of the music stayed strong too -- and it all started here.

  Those may (or may not) be the most famous soundtracks to come out of the NES era, but are they the best? I would say that honor goes to the incomparable Mega Man 2, which still stands today as one of the very best soundtracks in gaming history and is my vote for the pinnacle of 8-bit soundtracks. It's an absolutely killer collection of fast-paced, techno-ish melodies that in my opinion was the icing on the cake that made the game the best of the Mega Man series and one of the top ten games in the loaded NES library.

  The Mega Man 2 soundtrack can be found all over YouTube. There's footage of bands playing it live, talented guitarists or pianists playing their own renditions, or people playing it on a custom track in Guitar Hero. But fortunately someone was kind enough to post the soundtrack in its entirety in two separate videos. Check it out here: Part 1 | Part 2

  Be sure to check out some of the guitar renditions of those songs that are available on YouTube as they are very, very cool, and of course other Mega Man games have quality soundtracks that are easy to find and worth hearing as well.

  There are so many cool little soundtracks that came out of the NES years that I could go on for quite a while, but I'm just going to list some of my other personal favorites, in no order:

  --Batman had a solid soundtrack but the first song is the one that's truly golden.
  --Blaster Master was (and still is) an extremely awesome game and had a rousing soundtrack to go with it.
  --The Castlevania games are known for their cool music. Castlevania I and II both have lots of cool tracks, but my favorite track from the NES Castlevania games is the first stage music from Castlevania III, which you can hear here along with the rest of the songs. We'll be hearing from this series again when I get into Symphony of the Night.
  --Metroid also is a series we'll come back to at another time. I think my favorite from the original Metroid has to be the creepy, brooding music for Kraid's lair. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking I was heading towards something sinister, which of course I was -- the showdown with Kraid.
  --The overworld theme from Faxanadu is my favorite track on a quality soundtrack.
  --The Adventures of Bayou Billy is a ridiculously difficult (and not very good) game, but it has some funky tracks, especially the first stage. I couldn't find anything with just the music, so I linked a walkthrough.
  --One more I love is the song Fountain of Dreams from the Kirby franchise. The Kirby games are the only ones on this list I never played, so I don't know if the song I like came from the NES version or not. But it's as catchy as any of these, maybe more so. I'll come back to it when I get to Smash Bros. down the line, but for now, here's the awesomely catchy Kirby/Snoop Dogg remix.

  That's just a few that I feel are among the best of the NES era. As I said, there really are a bunch of them that could be considered... writing this really hammers that home. I feel like I'm cutting it too short, but I don't want to get too long-winded here.

  Down the line I hope to find time to post a follow-up that consists of some songs from two systems I unfortunately didn't play a whole lot -- SNES and PlayStation -- and gush over Final Fantasy, while throwing some love in there for the PC. Then to wrap it up, PS2, XBox and GameCube.

  • Posted Apr 11, 2008 2:16 pm PT
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• 11Dec 07

  The Hardest Games I've Ever Played!

  Are you a player looking for a challenge?

  I know I am. I'm not an overly skilled player, but for whatever reason I love to seek out and try and conquer the toughest games.

  If you are the same but aren't sure where to look to find those games, here's a list that might help. This is not a list of the toughest games ever made because I haven't played them all, so I can't give that list for sure. But I've played a lot -- and this list contains some that stand out in my mind as being particularly challenging.

  Before I begin, it's important to point out some of the games I haven't played that you may consider...

  Games I Haven't Played: I'm not going to sit here and tell you these are the toughest games ever made because there are so many games I haven't played that carry that reputation. One such game is Battletoads for NES, although I hope to play it someday. I have taken a peek at some Battletoads stages on Youtube and it seems like the real deal as far as challenge. Another game I've heard a lot about is Contra: Shattered Soldier, and it's another game I'm hoping to play. I'm just looking for a copy that is in satisfactory condition. Some others are Far Cry (PC), MDK2 (Dreamcast), Silver Surfer (NES), and I guess I'll include in here The Adventures of Bayou Billy for NES. I played Bayou Billy when I was just a kid, but it really wasn't a very good game, so I didn't play it long enough to really know what kind of game it was.

  Someday maybe I'll get to play all those games, but until then, here's my list. Some of these I think you will agree with, but others you probably had an easier time with than I did. Regardless, I wouldn't call any of these easy.

  Castlevania (NES): Castlevania is perhaps most remembered for one of the most annoying collections of enemies in gaming history. It is a seriously cool game with fun, challenging gameplay and sweet music, but it may be overshadowed by the fact that the game will make you so mad that you'll want to break whatever you can get your hands on. Even though one weapon (Holy Water) is overpowered and will help you wipe out the majority of the bosses with ease, it will take you a while to get through this game. If you are annoyed by creatures flying at you in annoying patterns, knee-high monsters whose only movement is jumping up towards your face, monsters that move away from you when you move towards them but keep attacking, etc., etc., etc., you might want to think twice before playing because there's a lot of it here.

  Contra (NES): Along with the Ghosts N' Goblins games, Contra might be the one franchise most known for unrelenting difficulty. Don't let Youtube speed run videos fool you -- you'll die a ton trying to beat this game, and beating it without its fabled cheat code is a true accomplishment. I have only played Contra and its sequel Super C, both of which remain strong challenges years after their release. It's got all the good stuff you've come to know and love from old school games -- instant death, few continues, lots of bullets flying across the screen, and a continuous stream of enemies.

  Deadly Towers (NES): I'm not going to say much about this game because it's really terrible and not worth spending a lot of time talking about. It's also really hard. You don't know what to do or where to go, and the doors to wherever you need to go are all hidden. It was always the only game left on the shelves at the video store, andmy friends and Ifound out why when we brought it home. If you were tough enough to see this one through to the end, you're a better man than I. Unlike the other games on this list, you should go out of your way to not play this game. Ever.

  Devil May Cry 3 (original version) (PS2): When DMC 3 hit the streets, it immediately gained a reputation for being one of the hardest games you can buy. Does it live up to that? Yes and no. While much of DMC 3 is indeed very challenging, there's also a few areas and bosses that can be passed fairly easily.

  Maybe the hardest part of DMC 3 is that it doesn't ease you into the action at all. It throws you right into the fire and pours a little gasoline on you for good measure. Three of the first four boss fights in this game are as hard (if not harder) than anything you'll encounter the rest of the way. If you can make it past, say, Stage 5, you should be able to beat the rest of the game as while there are similar challenges to be found, there isn't anything quite as hard as the bosses found at the end of stages three and five, who are tougher than the majority of final bosses you'll find in other games.

  The game has its share of bad camera moments and can throw a cheap shot at you every once in a while, but the game is seriously fun and has some of the fastest and most exciting combat you'll find. Novice players should steer clear of this game, but for a veteran player it is very doable, especially the easier Special Edition.

  Ecco the Dolphin (Sega Genesis): The Ecco games seem like sweet little family-friendly games on the outside, but don't be fooled by the cute dolphin on the package. These games proved to be pretty darn tough. I haven't played these games in years, so I'm not sure how well they've aged and if they would be worth picking up, but at the time, Ecco was actually a pretty cool game. It took place mainly underwater as you played a dolphin on a quest to rescue the other members of his pod, and it was a pretty game to look at. Ecco's probably somewhat forgotten among the annals of tough games, but it deserves a spot.

  F-Zero GX (GCN): You think the GameCube didn't have any hard games? Well, try this one on for size. The latest version of Nintendo's F-Zero racing franchise was so tough that I'm not ashamed to admit that it scared me away. Certainly there are some tracks in this game that aren't hard, mainly the early ones. Where the difficulty comes in is with Story Mode, as well as the extraordinarily daunting task of trying to achieve all the unlockables.

  What makes Story Mode so hard is the lack of room for error. Video games usually give you at least a little room to be sloppy, even the toughest ones. In F-Zero GX Story Mode though, you have to be pretty much perfect to advance to the next track. Close to perfect doesn't cut it, because all it takes is one mistake to send the other cars flying past you. And if you want to try and unlock everything in this game, you're going to have to beat Story Mode on the hard and very hard difficulty levels.

  In a word, this game is hardcore. I'm not very good at racing games, but I know I'm not the only one that feels that this game is one of the toughest challenges you can put yourself through. It's the only game I can remember that made me give up due to difficulty as I really wasn't having enough fun with the game to put myself through the hours, weeks, months of work it would have taken to complete its top challenges. It's my pick for the toughest game of the last console generation.

  God Hand (PS2): The great thing about God Hand is the extreme ROFL factor the game delivers. It's good that it exists because it prevents you from getting uncontrollably mad at this game. A beat-em-up brawler with an old-school flavor, God Hand is difficult largely because of how hard the enemies hit you if you make a mistake. You can take a punch or two just fine... but get caught in one of their special moves and it's goodbye health bar. In an interesting twist, it gets harder as you get better. If you string together a bunch of kills without taking a great deal of damage, you will level up -- only not in an RPG type of way. In God Hand, "level up" means your difficultly level increases. The higher you go, the less damage you can take. It also has a very difficult arena mini-game that will put you to the test much more than the normal game.

  God Hand has a solid, consistent level of challenging difficulty for the first six stages, with a few battles certainly being harder than others. The last two stages see a big jump in difficulty, and the final battle is easily the toughest part of the game. You will need to be fairly good at this game in order to beat it, and that final showdown definitely makes you earn your victory. This is probably one of the five most difficult games for PS2.

  Gun.Smoke (Arcade/Capcom Clas-sics Collection): If you see the word "Capcom" on a game you are about to buy, chances are you're about to buy something challenging. Capcom is well represented on my list, but of all the games I've played from this exceptional game creator, Gun.Smoke might be the toughest. As with many old school arcade games, the presence is simple but the execution is difficult. You're a cowboy, and there are lots and lots of bullets flying at you. That's pretty much it. Gun.Smoke is actually a cool little game, and playing it again recently along with the ghost town portion of Zelda: Twilight Princess hammered home the fact that we really could use a truly great Old West/Cowboy game. But like so many other arcade games, Gun.Smoke wasn't designed for you to get a lot of entertainment for your quarter.

  Playing this game, I wonder sometimes why it's so hard because it doesn't seem like it should give you as many problems as it does. It could be because your character is very motion sensitive and is kind of hard to control sometimes. Or it could be all the little bullets that fly in your direction. Either way, I suck bad at this game and usually can't stay alive for more than a couple minutes.

  Other Arcade Games: As anyone who used to frequent the arcades would know, you could write a book on the amount of hilariously difficult games that could be found there, so I'm not going to devote anymore space to arcade games. Yes, they made them tougher back then -- a lot tougher. Your quarter wasn't meant to last very long. The list of those games is too long, but a few other games from that era that stick in my mind include Robotron: 2084, Gauntlet (especially without multiple players), and Commando.

  Ikaruga (GCN)/Gradius V (PS2): I tend to lump these games together because they are both outer space shoot-em-ups that are made by Treasure (another company whose name alone indicates a challenge). It's hard to quantify where these games stand difficulty-wise because after a while, they automatically unlock unlimited continues, which means that technically anyone can beat them if they just played long enough. However, as far as the gameplay itself is concerned, these two games are tops on this list. To me, these are the ultimate games to see how good of a player you are because they don't come any harder. They are meant for the hardcore player and the hardcore player only and exist not to reach the end but to see how good you can become.

  Both games feature an insane amount of ships and bullets flying towards you at all times, and both games have some of the toughest boss battles you'll ever experience. You will die again and again and again, and unless you are an exceptional player, you will likely only see the end of these games after free play is unlocked. Skill and a lot of practice will be required if you want to be regarded as good at these games.

  It's kind of too bad that most people will put these games down after 15 minutes of play because they're really quite awesome. Ikaruga's just a gorgeous game to look at and the soundtrack is, in my opinion, really incredible. Both games are just a blast because they get so intense, and it's such a rush to try and navigate your ship through hundreds of bullets and obstacles at the same time. I'm truly excited that Ikaruga went to XBox Live as it will expose more people to what is a truly great game.

  Ninja Gaiden games (NES/XBox/PS3): This series's reputation speaks for itself. If you're looking for a lot of action, a lot of challenge, and -- in the case of the more recent editions -- a lot of violence, this is the place to look. The NES versions of Ninja Gaiden are vintage side-scrollers packed with annoying enemies, tough jumps and an unforgiving difficulty. The modern version took the NES formula and brought it into the 21st century, with scintillating results. Like Devil May Cry 3, the modern editions of Ninja Gaiden will put you to the test right away as you may find the first two bosses to be as tough as anything you'll face the rest of the way. You'll need to be adept at offense and defense in order to complete the game, and it doesn't hurt to have a lot of health potions as well.

  Both the XBox/PS3 versions and the NES originals are worthy of playing. They will all give you a stiff challenge and a solid adrenaline rush. And you're not going to find a cooler character than Ryu Hayabusa.

  Shinobi (PS2): Shinobi's kind of silly because a good portion of the difficulty in this game is artificial since the game has no checkpoints before the boss and makes you start the entire stage over again if you die. Seeing as how you can die by simply jumping wrong and accidentally falling off a platform, it gets kind of annoying. Most of the stages actually aren't too hard, but they aren't that fun either, so you don't necessarily want to go back through them again. A midway checkpoint system would have done this game good -- heck, even Super Ghosts N' Goblins has a midway checkpoint on most of its levels. A crappy camera in spots doesn't help either.

  Shinobi's true difficulty comes in its boss fights as well as its difficulty to master. Beating the game is one thing, but can you grade out at an A or S when you do it? That would take some true practice. You can be cruising through this game thinking you're doing well, only to get "awarded" a C at the end of the stage. It's like the game says to you, "Congratulations for getting this far, but you sucked in the process."

  I came into this game expecting a ruggedly difficult experience and I wasn't disappointed. I was surprised at how doable it was in some spots, but there are some bosses in this game that are going to push you. The ones that stick out are the final boss of stage 6-1, who will pretty much kill you if you step foot on the ground, and the very last boss of the game, who is about as tough of a boss as you're going to find. I'll never forget the time I spent with him -- six hours of failed attempts, then waking up the next day to get him on the second try by the slimmest of margins. He's just... wow. But if you can beat Devil May Cry 3, you should be able to take out Shinobi. It's toughest spots are harder than most anything in than DMC3, but it follows the same basic defensive strategy of "The best defense is get the hell out of the way." Having played one will help you with the other.

  There's another little twist in this game as if you don't keep killing things fast enough, you will start to lose health, but it doesn't affect you as much as you might think.

  StarCraft: Brood War (PC): I included this for a couple of reasons. One is because it is legitimately quite hard to beat this game, especially if you are no-good at RTS games, as I am. The last three stages in particular are pretty vicious and can be a challenge even if you are a veteran of this game. Two is because of the multiplayer facet. That may be a lame reason because playing against a talented player in any game is hard, but of all the things I've put on this list, there may not be a harder thing to do
  than to go on Battle.net and play one of those StarCraft vets who have been playing this game for ten years. It's also a genre of game (RTS) that is kind of easy to suck at. I think you need to have a certain level of skill to be legitimately good at this or other RTS games, and I can safely say that I don't have it

  Super Ghouls N' Ghosts (SNES) and the rest of the Ghosts N' Goblins games: Each entry in the Ghosts N' Goblins series is hilariously hard, but Super Ghouls N' Ghosts is the one that sits at the top of the heap. I've seen it referred to on more than one occasion as the toughest game ever made by the gamingmedia. Of course, it's tough to say that for sure, but it at least should be in the conversation.

  The game of course is unforgiving as two hits equal death, while falling off a cliff or falling into water/lava will result in instant death. Dying results in either getting sent back to the beginning of the stage or to a mid-stage checkpoint. Enemies continually spawn on screen and often move in wavy patterns. And the game requires that you play through it twice, with the final boss requiring you to beat it with a lousy weapon in order to win. You can't save your progress and come back later either, so if you want to beat it, you're going to have to take a good portion out of your day to do it and do it all in one sitting.

  While there's a trick to make most of the boss fights in this game very easy if you have the right weapon, the stages themselves can get crazy, and that final boss fight is extremely hard due to the fact that the weapon you're using sucks and you will be up against the game's time limit. The cool thing about it is despite it all, this game is still fun to play after all these years. Once you start playing, it'll keep you coming back for more -- even if you're not always exactly sure why.

  Super Monkey Ball 2 (GCN): Looking at the package and presentation, this is the last game you'd expect to be hard, but not only is it hard, it approaches "WTF" levels of difficulty. The story mode is the culprit -- a bizarre combination of probably the worst story you'll ever see and some fun but mind-boggling puzzles. The game requires a sharp brain to go with sharp reflexes and skills, and I've discovered that it's the brain part that usually causes me problems. No boss fights here -- just see if you're good enough to find a way to get your ball (with a monkey in it) to the end of some truly absurd mazes. Very cool game though.

  Viewtiful Joe (GCN/PS2): This game almost got the best of me.One of the latebosses -- Fire Leo -- had me stumped for an embarrassingly long time. After picking thisgame up again recently anddiscovering the trick to victory I should have found a long time ago, I finallygot him down.Even after figuring him out, he's a heck of a tough boss, but this game is pretty hardcore with or without Fire Leo. It'll kick your butt quite a bit as the enemies are plentiful and hard-hitting, and you don't have a lot of health, so there isn't a lot of room for mistakes. The strongest enemies and the bosses usually require lots of trial and error, and you'll love it when the game makes you fight five of those bosses back-to-back. On top of everything, the game also has some puzzles that are tougher than what you usually see in an action game.

  This game really is a ton of fun to play though. It's hard, and it's a bit strange, but the gameplay is like butter and the action never stops. Don't overlook this one.

  
  That's all for now. Give those games a try and see what you think -- and try not to throw any controllers!

  • Posted Dec 11, 2007 9:51 am PT
  • Category: Games
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