Kids these days have it easy...

[GrahamGarside]

I haven't bothered setting out to complete a game for about 8 years now though. When I was younger I had the hunger and more importantly the time to sit up all night playing tomb raider and completing it by finding every secret (well except one because on the ps1 version it would never let you get them all) where as now I much prefer a game thats just fun to stick on for an hour or two, dedicating hundreds of hours of my life to finishing games just doesn't appeal to me any more. The only game I've come close to completing of late has been Gran Turismo 4, and even thats only 99.9% done

[Blackmage]

I can't beat M.Bison on original SNES SF2 any more.

Old age sucks.

i can

[Stewart]

Mario 64 I found a little tricky playing recently, but only because the camera is so bad its 70% of the challenge. You have to fight it all the time so you can see where you are going, making a few simple jumps tricky.

For Bision, pick Ken, hide behind your fireball, dragon punch when he starts flying around, never try to throw. Or to cheat, pick Chun Li, and just jump around pressing kick.

[directhex]

Mario 64 I found a little tricky playing recently, but only because the camera is so bad its 70% of the challenge. You have to fight it all the time so you can see where you are going, making a few simple jumps tricky.

you're kidding, right?

mario 64 has the best camera of any 3d platformer - more than ten years after the event :x

[Stewart]

Its terrible. It gets stuck behind walls and ledges, you put it where you want and it slides back to some akward angle.

Still a class game though.

[node]

Same with worms, anyone remember how the wind affected the weapons so much in 2D but in the later 3D versions you could predict better where it's going (or maybe its cos I played with it a lot...)

Worms 3D does not exist. <end brief but predictable Worms snob rant>

The good news is, the Xbox Live arcade version looks ace! If only they'd sort out releasing it.

you're kidding, right?

mario 64 has the best camera of any 3d platformer - more than ten years after the event :x

Nah, third person cameras have come on leaps and bounds, Prince of Persia Sands of Time for instance had a fantastic camera that was always where it ought to be to give the best view

[WLC-1989]

Mario 64 is a cracking game, and I never remembered having camera troubles when I completed it back when I was about 8. However, I had a go at it about a year back, and found that I was constantly having to readjust the view..... Times change I guess.

The game I could never complete in my youth was 'Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' for the SNES. At the time, it seemed just impossible.

[Stewart]

The game I could never complete in my youth was 'Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' for the SNES. At the time, it seemed just impossible.

It still is.

[directhex]

It still is.

with enough blood, sweat & tears, it can be finished once

but you only get the ending sequence if you do it twice in a row

[Ciber]

spectrum games where almost impossible i cant on one finger how many i completed maybe it was because i was young or something, but they where so hard it was just stupid

I think I completed only one or two of the many many speccy games I played. Knight Lore being one and I played that a LOT as it was prolly my fave game for speccy. One reason was that you didnt have save games or save points IIRC, so you would have to start from the beginning each time - thats hours of finger perfect timing without your mum calling you for dinner or your dad telling you he was sick of the noise and to turn it off and go play outside lol. I even taped stuff over the speaker to muffle the sound so I could play longer lol.

Also, if a game was easy enough that you could finish it without incredible twitch reactions, coordination and a gargantuan effort, you would most likely think it poor value in those days lol.

[Bazzlad]

Now I class my self as an elite old school gamer , can still complete SF2 turbo on 8 star using a couple of continues, still get 96 levels on Mario World, and complete it in under 18 minutes (not with all levels obviously), and still own Goldeneye.

HOWEVER. This is THE HARDEST GAME EVER!


Battletoads in battlemaniacs. I've never played a game as tough - other than perhaps Lethal Weapon on the Snes, which was rock solid due to the game being complete pants.

I personally find modern games a lot easier, but for an avid gamer, in the past it was easier to find tricks, cheats and glitches to help you out. I mean, try and complete games like Super Swiv now. No Passwords, no instant saves no second chances. You die, it's back to level 1. The mans way of playing! Contra 3 FTW!

Best Camera ever was not Mario 64. It was Zelda Ocarina of Time.

[SteveC]

Many of the really old games (C64, spectrum etc) weren't really designed to be completed. I was convinced at the time that there were some games out there that were left unfinished, because it became so hard that it wasn't worth designing extra levels. Or that no one could be bothered designing extra levels so they cranked the difficulty up.

Mission impossible seemed a good example of that. As did some of the dizzy games, and many others.

And I still remember R-type on the sega master system - there was so much going on at different points that the hardware couldn't handle it, leading to sprites flickering all the time. Which made it even more difficult to avoid getting killed.

Quite why I played them at all I really have no idea - guess that's what extreme boredom can do to you..

[Dareos]

I remember completing Manic Miner and it went right back to level 1!!!, but then taht was really before game endings were a big thing.

Recently went back and kicked the ass out of SF2, but then i spent years beating it.

Bubble Bobble, 100 levels of coop play in the arcades, and me and my mate could complete it on 10p! fantastic.

i never could finish Atic Atac tho

[Mr Pants]

Best Camera ever was not Mario 64. It was Zelda Ocarina of Time.

QFT, but the Mario 64 camera is ok, try playing on a 3D Sonic game - it gets painful