guys... I feel like a total BA right now... (video game momment thread)?

0_0, I beat Contra, by myself, no Konomi code... And I had to go through BOTH TANKS, with the bare basic gun, no powerups... The game made me into a FREAKING TIGER! When that huge spike vehcle starts coming at me, in my head I am like ":x, DIEEEEEEEEEE, as I mash the B button like there is no tomorrow."I felt like I was fighting a video game war on the screen, going against myself, CONTRA! That is what the name means "against." I WAS SURE AS HELL FIGHTING AGAINST THIS GAME! I went Rambo on this game, I was like "enough of the losing, it ends here... This video gaming afternoon. I only used one continue, and it was only because I missed a powerup at the end, it has been a while since I have been that far so I didnt really know what was coming up next. This game heightens your senses like no other, you have to do everything right, or else you will get overwhelmed very easily. Just for perspective I usually end up dieing, once I lose the shotgun I start to lose my moral, and the game annihilates me. But this time, I was the TERMINATOR, and I did not care that I just lost my arm and got impaled by a long metal bar. I was going to finish the job! i got to the heart of the game, and gave it an heart attack with my sheer reciliance and unwillingness to give up. I was on the last stage machine gunning my way through, half way, my gun got shot off, and I just pressed on...

Point being, I have a bunch of NES games that always tend to kick my butt, I basically cant just play it casually, I have to have the eye of the tiger to finish that game. Otherwise.... I will have to all the way to the beginning of the game... And at that point I just lose all hope, I cuss the f word, end up impulsively throwing the controller around, and give up. I did beat Super Mario Brothers, but again, I had to use the 1Up trick, so in a way I never have beaten a NES game... Legitimately. At least the 1Up trick does take some skill to make it work because you can easily mess it up and have to restart the game.

Anyone have those stories where they triumphed where they once have fallen many times? Right now, I feel like I can tackle most NES games, but boy do you have to be in the mood to do it.

I recently had one of those BA moments. Lately I've been replaying San Andreas on my PS2 going for 100%. I knew since I started that there were a handful of missions that gave me problems in the past that I would have to do all over again, namely Zero's first two missions. Anyone who played this game remembers these missions. The first on was hard, where you're on the roof with a minigun trying to shoot down all the tiny RC planes before they bomb you to oblivion while the reticle bounced around, and the second even harder, where you fly an RC baron and must kill 5 moving targets and go back to the shop. Oh and you had a fuel limit that went down seemingly too fast.
These missions gave me hell when I was younger. Countlss retries, a broken controller, so much frustration. I'm more mature though now. Going back in I told myself i wouldn't let these missions get to me. i would just accept my defeat when it came and calmly retry, taking a break every so often. I went in with the right state of mind. So you can imagin my surprise when the first mission came and I passed with incredible ease. So easily in fact I questioned how I could have ever found it so difficult! The second mission starts up and after accidentally flipping my plane and blowing up the first time (a fluke) I pass only on my second try! These missions which haunted my dreams and left a scar emotionally over the years ammounted to nothing in th end. I conquered them, shamed them. Made them my b****! It was a testament to how I've grown as a gamer over the years, and it felt soooo good.

TL;DR: Made zero my b**** in San Andreas

TL; DR : The Thread

Wall of Text : Dedicated Thread Edition

but fer seriousness, good job man. I could never beat Contra without the code. Just got bored after continuing a bunch. Grats again.

Congrats, I haven't played the game but that's a great achievement.  Most recently my best achievement has been beating Demon's Souls (yeah I know, not legacy) despite the final boss being a pushover.  

I'm working on Super Star Wars right now and I've gotten to the part where you have to escape Mos Eisley, beating that will be a great achievement as well.

I find SHMUPS are often great for these moments; by all rights and means you should have been hit, but somehow, you squeeked through an impossible tight spot and took out an entire level without a ship lost...feels epic. (was playing me some Mars Matrix last evening)

That is awesome! I've never tried it, but you've inspiried me. I think I'll give it a try this weekend. I was always a cheater at games as a kid, so I always used the 30 men cheat.

I have 2 moments that really shine for me:

1. Beating Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels from beginning to end, without warping, and without a single game over. That game is freaking HARD. But I played as Mario, not Luigi. I'm not that hardcore.

2. Getting 100% achievement points on Oblivion on XBox Live, completing all main-quests, all guild questlines, the Shivering Isles expansion, and The Knights of the Nine expansion. (and plenty of side-quests that distracted me) That one took a while.

I never played it on the NES but from what I have heard about its difficulty I would assume that the arcade version on the XBLA is a hell of lot easier than the NES version, is that correct?

I've beaten Contra so many times without the code, it doesn't mean much to me anymore, but I know it was damn hard the first few times I tried it, so good on you.

Now, I've been tackling Battletoads for the last 15 years and still haven't made it past the damn speeder bike level.

I would say my claim to fame was beating Total Recall.  I've also beaten Double Dragon (NES), G.I. Joe (NES, there is an arcade version - awesome game, too), King of the Dragons (SNES), but Battletoads eludes me.  At least legitmately ;)  Oh, as does Contra, Super C, Contra III, etc.

I've beaten Contra so many times without the code, it doesn't mean much to me anymore, but I know it was damn hard the first few times I tried it, so good on you.

Now, I've been tackling Battletoads for the last 15 years and still haven't made it past the damn speeder bike level.

WiiCubeM1

     There is just some games...  Where it is best not to try, see that is what you want from a game, something challenging that puts you on edge, but feels satisfying once you mastered it.  Some games ARE JUST IMPOSSIBLE!  Just last night I for some reason had this glutton for punishment, playing Battle of Chi Bi on hard without a fully mastered hero (you know, fresh game, heroe only minimally upgraded).  No matter how I played it, I lost, they end up taking over everything everytime, and then its just me and Sun Quan killing all these people that are freakin tanks.  Even the privates had more life than I did.  What sucked is, I forgot I left it on hard and I could just switch it to normal so I would have a fighting chance.  >_>  I lost three hours of my life.  I would kill 300 plus troops and then die...  All that progress, and all that effort lost.:cry:

     The thing about Contra is it is like Super Mario Brothers with the fire Mario, the game is easy because you can just kill everything on screen without much interaction, but once you get hit..  The difficulty skyrockets!  so if you have the shotgun the game is like your @#$(#, but make a mistake, and its like 0_0, no way...  (*turns off game*).  My experience felt unique because I didnt play flawlessly, often I had to fight the HARDEST parts with the basic weapon, so I was jamming the B button like there was no tomorrow!  I kept dieing in the worst spots, so that is what made it feel like an epic game.

     I read everyones post, surprised people replied to this thread after it has been like past a week with no replies.  I feel like as a child I was an unnaccomplished gamer, all these games that I enjoyed playing, but I just never beat for SOME FREAKIN REASON.  Then I lost the games as I became a young teenager, and eventually my desire to play these games resurfaced from a past long forgotten.  THAT is what my quest to beat these games is all about!  A lot of these games were too hard for a young mind to really comprehend.  I did beat Contra loads of times, but only because of the contra code and two players.  Now the difficulty has racked up because these days I kind of have to play them by myself, because I guess as you grow older people fragment.:?  And I am the only one who decided to pick up the sword and finish an unfinished past.  I NEED CLOSURE

I guess its sort of ironic but reading a long post is kind of like beating a difficult game that is fun, part of you just does not want to put the effort, because what do you really get out of it?  Money, nope?  Just a personal rewardless satisfaction that you have that much discipline, once you can put that effort though, its like the real world has NOTHING on you!  

     There are also games that I never beat that seemed sort of complicated back then, but then I decide to revist, then I realise the game was really simple.   Just like one of the posts, so I read all your posts, but I might not directly acknoledge them.  Starcraft was one of those games that seemed complicated in the past, but its really predicatable now, the AI has an obvious pattern.  Anyways, I feel like there is a game that I always saw but never played, Metal Gear Solic, and then there is the THING, where I got stuck on a certain part then the game just faded away from interested until now.

TL:DR: There are games that you can beat just by having enough determination, then there are games that take your soul to beat!  You need the eye of the tiger to beat them.  You need to train your mind to fight like it is the end of the world, its like a boxing match with the game.  It has every advantage against you, and you just have to keep taking the hits and endure, and hopefully you will have stood against it.  As a child I always watched my brother master games over and over and I just was like "how the hell does he get the energy?"  I did not even care to put that much energy, but over the years it kind of ate at me.  Right now I kind of collect games faster than I have been playing them.  And I have played games that I just never knew about in the past.  So the quest just keeps stacking up!  

  No, but I am a gaming bad@ss now!

  It seems that games are designed to intimidate you, but now the tables have turned, the game is now like "oh no, please dont play me and kick my butt! D:"

  No, but I am a gaming bad@ss now!

  It seems that games are designed to intimidate you, but now the tables have turned, the game is now like "oh no, please dont play me and kick my butt! D:"

mahlasor

Lol my only BA moment would be running from guards up 27 bloody stairs in MGS: Twin Snakes on European Extreme difficulty :lol:

I beat the N64's Superman around the start of the 21st century. I dunno why I feel proud of that.

In college, I got so where I could beat the NES version of Marble Madness and Mike Tyson's Punch Out pretty easily. I was very pleased w/ myself at the time (which would have been 1999 if anyone's counting). People would actually come by my room and ask to watch me play them. I didn't find either game particularly hard w/ the patience of a teenager rather than a boy but it was still pretty fun. I liked Marble Madness esp. since it took pretty much exactly five minutes to beat. I'd be like, "OK, three rounds of Marble Madness and I gotta go to class."

I beat the N64's Superman around the start of the 21st century. I dunno why I feel proud of that.

Aero5555

It's an acheivement that you actually managed to stomach the game long enough.