Hardest games you own

[Phetishboy]

Hard to stay alive for more than 60 seconds, hard to get better at, hard to figure out, or hard to rack up scores?

To me these, are all definitions of "hard" but not all "hard" games will meet all the criteria.

Gravitar is hard, we can mostly agree, but with practice, you can get better, also, even a casual could have a game that lasts a little bit of time, once they learn how to not fly into rocks.

Defender on the other hand, if you don't have the coordination for the controls, it will meet all of the above criteria. you cant get better, you wont get a decent score, and you will die quickly.

Maybe an interesting discussion is what games seem "unfair". Pac Man plus for example, the ghosts go invisible and will kill you without you being able to avoid them. I am sure there are other examples.

What kind of old man nerd talk is this? I couldn't get past the first three words. For me if a game is hard, It's hard. I don't give a fuck why. My top three:

Kangaroo
Satan's Hollow
Popeye

 

[Buzzman]

Has to be Defender or Sinistar.

 

[cwilkson]

What kind of old man nerd talk is this? I couldn't get past the first three words. For me if a game is hard, It's hard. I don't give a fuck why. My top three:

Kangaroo
Satan's Hollow
Popeye

Old man nerd talk.....

Kangaroo? Yes. Controls suck. Period.
Popeye? Yes. Too many no-wins.
Satan's Hollow. Yes. But only after it really gets going. First 100,000-200,000 is not so bad.

 

[John6769]

Zaxxon-cool cab and sounds and graphics but impossible to me so I needed the space!

 

[kcorcoran]

They're all pretty hard. Have you ever whacked your head on one bent over in the back trying to fix something?



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hayo! i'm here all week.

 

[cwilkson]

They're all pretty hard. Have you ever whacked your head on one bent over in the back trying to fix something?



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hayo! i'm here all week.

Not the particle board ones. They just fall apart when you do that.

They do leave plague contaminated sawdust embedded in your scalp though.
And the cysts that develop later...those are pretty hard.

 

[fleckopolis]

I swear I could get past this stage back in the day, but now it seems impossible

 

[TOK]

I kinda love the brutality of Williams games, because as hard as they are they are also fair/rewarding if you put in the time. I have Defender, Stargate and Robotron all right in a row.

I only play Kangaroo on MAME, but that's a solid choice due to horrible controls and collision detection. Scramble was a great call too... It kinda beats you down each step of the way until you memorize whats coming.

 

[Brick Top]

What kind of old man nerd talk is this? I couldn't get past the first three words. For me if a game is hard, It's hard. I don't give a fuck why. My top three:

Kangaroo
Satan's Hollow
Popeye

Haha, consider the source, old man nerd right here.
If something is difficult, I want to analyze it and see if I can "fix" it. AKA, learn how to make it easier. If I see other people doing well, then it's not that hard, is it?

I could dismiss every game I don't like as "too hard" but where is the fun in that?

Joust
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong

Actually that was pretty fun.

 

[CraftyMech]

I could dismiss every game I don't like as "too hard" but where is the fun in that?

Joust
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is hard! I'm decent at Junior, can make it past the Hideout and back again. Top score ~75k or so.

DK forget about it, top score 35k! I need to spend some more time with the game. The barrels always screw me, it is like they are heat seeking.

 

[CraftyMech]

I swear I could get past this stage back in the day, but now it seems impossible

View attachment 719187

Definitely need an 8-way w/ a good grommet for the Base stage so you can really throw the joystick into those diagonals. Microswitch is too jumpy I always crash into the walls when I don't mean too.

 

[Raxnahali]

Interesting. I don't consider it HARD, but I've never made it to The Pit. Just curious, how far can you get? It feels like it gets to a point where you just can't shoot fast enough because of the monsters appearing in your corridor, even when using the radar.

I can only manage to get in about 8 screens before getting wacked. I've only been able to make around 34k high score I think. On a side note, I am really pleased that I got this game working again. It is all original and was in bad shape when I picked it up for 200 bucks. It is my biggest accomplishment in the hobby since I started.

 

[quickray]

Ghouls n Ghosts

 

[emig5m]

R-Type kicks my ass.

I can beat it without losing a life, well at least I could when I played it frequently...you definitely don't want to play the Japanese version of part 2, it's even more of a ball-buster lol. I've smoked the Twin Galaxies high score for the arcade version of R-Type, just never cared or bothered to submit it.

Anyhow, my top three hardest games would probably be...

Super Missile Attack
Asteroids Deluxe
R-Type II Japanese version (higher difficulty than the American/World version)

 

[facelift]

This is a good topic and a couple games come to mind on this.

Mappy: there are times when you can't see the other side of the corridor you enter and commit to go that way only to find a cat in your face and then another behind you. That seems unfair to me.

Sega Turbo: I've been playing this a lot lately and there are times when the terrain changes from a curve to a straight away and the computer car that's in the curve with you will jump to a completely different part of the road and usually right on top of you. That seems unfair as there isn't even a chance that you can avoid that crash.

that's why you back off in the corners when you know it's about to change. Not that hard to do......

 

[mopar5150]

I have the hand-eye coordination of a sloth so Defender just kills me. I love Gravitar but still find it difficult.

 

[gumby1109]

Qix, I have a love hate relationship with it. Frustrates the shit out of me.

 

[ArcadeJason]

speed freak

 

[vegas12]

1. Looping
2. Ghouls 'n Ghosts
3. Defender

 

[Phetishboy]

What kind of old man nerd talk is this? I couldn't get past the first three words. For me if a game is hard, It's hard. I don't give a fuck why. My top three:

Kangaroo
Satan's Hollow
Popeye

Forgot to add Tutankham and remove Satan's Hollow.