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In the old days, you didn't come back to a game again and again for anything as fancy as online multiplayer or user-created content. No, you came back because the games were freaking impossible. That was the only way game designers of the Nintendo Entertainment System and SNES days could extend the play time: through mindless, frustrating repetition. These are the 10 games so infuriating, their very mention makes the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. #10.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out
The premise:
Why it was worth playing:
Look at him, it's like he thinks there's a guy out in the audience with a rifle on him. Also, in an era when other sports games were occupied by generic placeholders (not even team logos were represented), Tyson's celebrity endorsement was pretty cool. Seeing that crazy bastard step into the ring as the final boss really meant something.
Why it was infuriating:
But, when you finally made it to Tyson (or "Mr. Dream" if you bought the game after Tyson's title defeat to Buster Douglas), no amount of Rocky-inspired runs through the city were going to save you. Mac's punches have about as much effect on the champ as a stiff breeze, which doesn't stack up well against his ability to send your teeth flying with little more than a mean thought.
Basically you had to withstand a series of withering blows from Tyson, dodging each with perfect precision (if any of his punches landed, you were done) while waiting for a window of opportunity about a quarter-second long to strike back.
Saddest moment:
The premise:
Why it was worth playing:
Why it was infuriating:
The Dam level required you to try to beat the clock through a sprawling maze in order to defuse the bombs, which were prepared to unleash the fury of the Hudson River. See that pink seaweed shit? The stuff with an opening barely big enough for a mutated turtle to pass through? It killed you. It was ... electrified somehow. The science in the game wasn't all that accurate.
Setting aside the terrible example this set forth of telling kids the Hudson was safe to look at, let alone swim in, the failure to defuse the bombs resulted in an immediate game over, no matter how many Turtles were still alive. The margin for error was about one pixel wide and half a second long.
Saddest moment:
Next Turtle, please. #8.
The premise:
Why it was worth playing:
Why it was infuriating:
And, as is unthinkable now but was common then, you couldn't save. Every time you turned on the machine, you were greeted with the same fucking levels, which made failure a hundred times more infuriating. Every misstep meant you were about to lose a couple more hours out of your life.
Saddest moment:
... and say, "I want that. That is right up my alley." #7.
The premise:
Why it was worth playing:
Why it was infuriating:
The levels (and there were more than 60 of the bastards) were often designed so that it was entirely possible to, through bad luck, get trapped in the level with no ability to progress. You were left to commit Hara-Kiri or wait for the final cruelty to take over when Dana's timer ran out. Just like the real world, kids!
Saddest moment:
#6.
(Super) Empire Strikes Back
The premise:
Why it was worth playing:
But, both versions were as hard as brass balls.
Why it was infuriating:
By 1993, gaming had advanced to the point where long-ass levels were the norm, but the whole concept of a "checkpoint" had eluded this game's creators. If you died--even at the boss--you had to drag your sorry ass all the way through entire level again. In the end, though, the sheer impossibility of the game's design may have prevented substantial property damage by Star Wars fans. If they'd progressed, they'd have reached the part where (in the NES version) Luke rescues Han, kills Boba Fett, and, in an act of Star Wars blasphemy, defeats Darth Vader in a light saber duel. We aren't making that up. They never brought out a Return of the Jedi game for the NES. Well, we're thinking that's why. The Empire game fucked up the storyline to the point that there was nothing for a Jedi to return from.
Saddest moment:
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If Video Games Were Realistic
Does anyone knows about an old video game like 80's about this guy looking for keys to open doors to get to the next level , it starts in a house looking for safes with diferent prices inside especialy collecting litle people and as it goes cops are after him , he works his way down the house to like basements ,and as he goes he gets diferent kinda weapons or clothing like ear phones so he won't hear the cops music, a sling shot, a coat to protect him from falling icycles ,special shoes for the ice, and stuff like that; gosts come out too and diferent things.. at the end of the game he gets to an old ship and gets the last little man and thats were it ends. Thats all i can remember about it and I hope someone knows about it and can help me find it . Thanks
I'm slightly surprised the Metal Slug series didn't get a mention. Sure, it's beatable, but the constant fire from all sides guranteed that you would die many, many times. The bosses varied in difficulty, depending on the game, but the end bosses were always difficult, regardless of which game you played.
Contra on the NES was retarded easy. The 30-life cheat was completely unnecessary. I'd get pissed if I died even once. Hit the nail on the head with Ghosts and Goblins, though.
ghosts and goblins is the most SADISTIC game in the world. you only have 2 lives, and if you don't play it right the first time, you have to the the whole mother f*cking thing again!
I've beaten Battletoads...
...with save states.
come on baxter you know i dont speak spanish, in ENGLISH!
that should've been "dis-honorable" mention to Punch-Out
couldn't get past Vodka Drunkenski, oops... I mean *Soda Popinski* without using the cheat codes
everything else I eventually worked my way through after many wasted childhood hours
to this day, I have never beaten Battletoads
honorable mention to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out?
60% of the time it works everytime
I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly...
Battletoads was a bit though, because I was about 6 y'old when I played it.
damn I hated how my older brother could get on the teleport on the hoover bikes but I always smashed when I tried to!
OK TMNT was a b***h but the one that really fucked up my childhood was TMNT2, not only was it so insanely hard that it took me and my cousins a couple of years to perfect our skills enough to get to Shreder but also when we finally got there we discovered that you can't f*****g kill the guy, he would just split in two, and when you killed one he split again and so on until you dedided it really wasn't worth it and went find something to eat while you watched TMNT on TV. Seriously if you know how to beat the bastard please let me know.
I'm no gamer, but my mom loves dolphins. When Echo came out, we were on it. Ten+ years later, we both still drown the damn dolphin before making it out of the cave.
in the early 90's with my younger brothers egging me on with motivational propaganda such as the old, " dude you have to kill the boss...he raped mom," i finally defeated ghouls and goblins only to find the game quickly starts over at turbo speed and 3x the ghouls 5x the m***********g goblins.that was the last game i played with the intention of finishing.
What about the first 2 Zelda games. You'd have to either be a super-genius or be completely lifeless to beat either of those games. It's a wonder anyone knows the ending since odds are little people ever got there.
Battletoads was hard, but not impossible. Hell, not even one of the toughest, really (though playing it on a keyboard with an emulator sucks balls). But I don't get why people act like Ninja Gaiden was so tough. My friend Aaron and I used to sit around and go through that game in time trials. "Game over? My turn!" Once you got jump-and-slash and learned where all the other power-ups were so you could avoid them, the game was cake. Seriously, you could tear through the Jaquio with hardly any damage taken in about 5 seconds. I forget if you lost your power up before fighting the demon, but either way, I don't remember him being any more difficult.
The big kick in the dick for me was Metal Gear. I could NEVER find Key Card 5. I spent weeks looking for that thing. Lacking GameFaqs or any sorts of guides, I just broke the password code for it and wrote myself a password that let me start the game perfectly normally, except that I had Key Card 5 in my inventory. It was the only way I could do it. Did the same thing with Strider, but I only did that because it was rented, so I only had one weekend to do it in.
It's not old-school, but it was made to seem like it. It has 8-bit NES graphics and is a platformer. In fact "Platform Hell" is very much an understatement. It's called "I Wanna Be The Guy!" and it takes everything hard about platformers and multiplies them a few dozen times. In impossible mode, there is one save point in the entire game, and it's fake. The save point tries to kill you. The apples fall and try to kill you. The apples fall UP and try to kill you. THE MOON tries to kill you.
The best quotes from the game: "You jumped into a sword! You retard!"
"I have bested fruit, spike and moon!"
Check this site for a better summary, details, and a link to the game download. Just the picture of one of the levels on this pages upper left corner will make you drop your jaw.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IWannaBeTheGuy
Seriously, one guy beat it on Impossible and the creator's response was: "Holy crap! Are you serious?!"
I signed up on here just to post a comment on this. Perhaps the trauma has just resurfaced after 17 years of silence. Im afraid that there are a few games that have gone unmentioned. In particular, the bastard Gauntlet for NES. This piece of trash sought to rob me of my childhood admiration for the once beloved gaming system. Was it the absurd mazes, maybe...but it was really that damn level where you walk onto the crappy glittery box and end up halfway on the other side of the room or in the other corner or on the top, any which way, it was impossible to effectively reach the exit. Damn it. Another notable pain in the ass was bubble bobble for which i had no patience as well as Blaster Master, which was an endless load of crap. I would also like to thank the writers of this article for mentioning ghosts and goblins...
Godd list thjat recognizes Battletoads for its awesomeness!
That game was very very well made, and lots of fun to play!
You should have talked about the whole game instead of only the turbo tunnel, which is actually quite easy to play with relatively little practice, if you are of the platforming generation.
I can play the last section with eyes closed (okay almost), since there is actually a very simple pattern to it (up,down up,down) that doesn't involve any coordination at all.
Proper hard started at stage #7, Volkmire's inferno, the little jets that looked like the turbo tunnel... the last section had one wall that was very difficult to avoid without excellent precision.
Next... The rat race was just sooooo stressful, looking at an old playthrough of the game made my heart pump again.
The pipes were also very hard (picture what you showed from TMNT in 10x harder, but still lots of fun to play).
Then the unicycle stage.... that was my stoppign point for some time, very hard stage, but pales in comparison to the last stage, the dark tower.
Very ingeniously programmed, damn ridiculously hard but still lots of fun to play, where gameplay varies a lot inside that single stage!
Battletoads made you learn new game mechanics for each new stage and thus was a truly great game.
Very challenging, and much, much harder to beat than the others you mentionned.
I beat battletoads, Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden and a few others from the list.
While it is true thatthey are frustrating at firt, those simple games rely on patterns which we are proficient at learning.
I played these game in nostalgia last year, 15 years at least after I had last played them and could still play the harder parts relatively easily.
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This was a great article. That battletoads bit was gold.