Video Game Challenges: The Hardest Ever.

[Stewart]

What are they then?

To be honest, I just want to brag about the hard stuff I've done, and moan about the hard things I can't do.

1.) Getting to, and finishing 'Master Mode' on Super Monkey Ball.

Holy mother of the tiny baby Jesus, this is hard. The first level on Beginer, consists of holding forwards for 2 seconds... level completed. Lets just say, its gets harder.

There are 50 expert levels, some of which I spent 2-3 hours on, learning to complete them, in practice mode. When (and it will take a long time...) but when you can do all 50 of these levels, you then find out that you now have to do them without using a continue. A continue, depending on how many banana's you collect, consists of about 3 lives. I've lost 70 lives just trying to do some of the harder levels in practice mode.

If you do manage to complete all 50 expert levels without using a continue, you unlock the first of 10 'extra expert' levels. You won't do these first time, so its back to practice mode, to learn how to do these 10 levels, after doing the 50 expert levels.

Many hours \ days \ weeks, later, you may, if you've been practiving a lot, do all 50 expert and the 10 extra expert levels, you unlock the fabled 'Master Mode'. Now, many many people can now get here, but when the game was released, I read a review that said only 3 people had been known to reach Master Mode... 3 people...

Anyway, they are as hard as you would expect them to be, which is very. Master 3, is insane.

For such a 'cartoony' game, with monkies rolling around in balls, it hides one of the greatest and hardest videogaming challenges ever, very well.

2) Atom Smasher, Hard Mode, Timesplitters 2

Someone's having a laugh, ain't they?

This is over the top. Evil, infact. The snipers are accruate, far beyond any mortal could ever be, one shot robs you of far too much health, the timer limit to defuse the bombs is very strict, Khallos is a dual-soviet-machinegun wielding maniac, and at the end, reaper splitters make a mess of you.

All levles on Hard mode are a bit of a shock to the system, but this level is for the pro's only. I remember going back to levels I thought were hard before, such as the Robot Factory on Normal... its a walk in the park compared to this baby.

3) Jet Set Willy on the ZX Spectrum.

Well, if you were lucky enough to get a version without bugs, that killed you when you entered some of the rooms, you could have a go at the impossible task. You had about 10 lives, and had to make your way through a mansion consiting of 100's of rooms, collecting objects.

Some of the rooms, like the Banyan Tree, were more than hard enough to take all of your lives alone, and finishing the game was about as close to impossible as you can get.

Also, due to another bug, sometimes when you died, you'd re-spawn in the air, fall, and die again, taking all your lives.

A real hard game, from back in the day.

I'll chip in with a few more later. Until then, brag about your achivements, and vent your spleen about those challenges you just can't do!

[Ferral]

Blagger on the Commodore 64.

Very similar to Manic Miner but it done similar things as Jet Set Willy. Miss a key that was required to finish the level and you had one of those platforms that vanished whilst walking on them and you were knackered. Pixel perfect timing was required. Not forgetting the time limit that got shorter on each screen.

AntHeads on the Amiga (Follow up to It Came From the Desert)

When the people turned into the ants and you had to shoot the Antenna off their heads while they were zipping about the screen. Not forgetting also escaping from the hospital with half the orderlys and security guards chasing after you. I always got caught at the main doors !

Airwolf (Commodore 64)

Most impossible game ever to control ! Helicopter didn't hover at all so moving through tiny gaps without hitting the scenery was just taking the proverbial ! Not forgetting also that the fuel went down from full tank to empty in seconds and you had to rescue people and take them back to where you started.

[malfunction]

Viewtiful Joe (Gamecube). Hard enough the first time through... Not dared to do all 3 times (think expert mode is the hardest). Also cartoony and hard as nails.

Ikaruga (Gamecube / Dreamcast). One of the hardest shooters ever... Same as Viewtiful Joe - hard to do and even harder to do properly.

[da_ging]

yeh i had airwold on the amstrad was a real bugger to do never got very far

rambo 3 .either died or it cocked up and u ended up stuck in a wall (think it was 3 anyway ,had a chopper on the cassette cover lmao cassette seems eons ago)

infact i think all c64 / amstrad games were compared to games today nigh on impossible to complete

[Frosty]

Well this hardness lvl is prob made harder be other factors and not the game itself

MGS2 : Substance on the pc (while using a Microsoft Sidewinder in 1 hand, the mouse in the other to simulate the analog )

Picture the scene: 10-20 fps and it being more unstable than my ass after an extra spicy vindaloo..then mix and stir with a dodgey port that far excels Halo Pc's dodgeyness...
When it came to the last boss (lol the ex-president of the USA nonless ) on hard... and i had to use a frikin sword!!! which was mean't to correpond with an analog stick right? wrong! had to dodge his bs and hax by navigating with the Sidewinder in my left hand and spamming my mouse with my right hand to try and get this blonde haired pansy to swing his blade.....did i mention no quick save???

Infact go and holf ur game pad in ur left had anf mouse in ur right!!! do it now!!! then

try anf kill stuff!!!!! aarrgggg....

Tis be evil!!

MegaManX on the Snes:

you first had to beat all the previous bosses with 1 health, then face Sigma's hounds...with that same 1 health....then...finally face Sigma (last boss) with that 1 health.....then he transforms into summit bigger, in his battlesuit and you have 2 kill that.... all with that 1 life, if u fail you have to start again from the bit with the earlier bosses......gay

Infact MMX3 is even worse put won't mention that accursed hardness yet

[unrealrocks]

Tomb Raider : The last revalation .. that moving between levels to get items was so hard.

You could forget an item 6 levels back and might as well have started over!

[Raz316]

Lemmings 2:
I just gave up in the end, it got stupid. Apparently you can complete it without losing a single lemming.... I didnt manage it :/

[sputnik found]

halo on legendary....

f1 2003 with no drivers aids on and using a keybroad...

[Knoxville]

GT3 - S license, final challenge - cote d'azur with a toyota gt1 with no traction control and you had to hit a damn hard lap time.

Smugglers Run 2 - the only game i've ever known that would randomly spawn trees infront of you.

[Grey M@a]

Bubble Bobble (Arcade Version) - Well you have a couple of hundred levels and trying to complete this on one credit was a nightmare, tis is hard and not so hard at the same time as if you manage to find that secret door on level 83 it will skip the next 50 levels for you great little addition but the fact you only get 5 seconds from the start of the level to find it.

Robotron - Now this is a game that didn't even have a setting for how hard the game was, it was just running in bloody impossible mode only. There have been times where Kirk and I from GiBTEK have sat down with the fully blown oversized arcade sticks for the original playstation and tried to complete this game. We must of spent a fair few hours just getting to level 48 by this time we couldnt see the screen for the enemies. If anyone can find a emulator and rom of this, or even better the original I advise getting it and be prepared to smash your console / pc up when the game keeps cheating and owns yo' ass

[Auran]

I thoroughly concur about Robotron - I broke a controller in frustration at that game, it used to take the p*** and playing it with a standard controller was a exercise in futility.

Repton 2 on the BBC 'B' was a bit of a nightmare as I remember, as not only did you have to solve all the puzzles on each level, you had to do them in the right order as well. It was also very easy to miss things that you had to pick up. Oh and there was no save function, so you had to do it all in one go.

Getting past three acorns on Snapper (BBC) was impossible as the ghosts were virtually invisble they were moving that fast. Used to get all that way losing perhaps one or two lives and then just die horribly over and over at a fast rate.

In fact thinking about there were a lot of games back then that have left me somewhat bald due to all the hair pulling in frustration. Frak - with it upside down, back to front, invisible monster / platform level. The final level on Utopia (Amiga) where your alien opponents were so more advanced than you it was like trying to fight of a hungry tiger with a pair of fluffy bunny slippers!!

On a more up to date note, Dance Mats!! Trying to complete one of the high bpm music tracks on the hardest difficulty settings after 7/8 cans of beer is a challenge. In fact not tripping yourself up as you try sets of double feet combo's is a feat in itself.....

[Skii]

Airwolf (Commodore 64)

Most impossible game ever to control ! Helicopter didn't hover at all so moving through tiny gaps without hitting the scenery was just taking the proverbial ! Not forgetting also that the fuel went down from full tank to empty in seconds and you had to rescue people and take them back to where you started.

Seconded

Utterly impossible

i always managed to last about 10 seconds on that game - at the most !

[Elspuddy]

pass if this counts but...
Delux pacman (amiga) i got sutch a high score that the program crashed after i entered my name in !!!

[Blub2k]

Finished said Blagger on the beeb, that is probably the game responsible for me being a night owl since early teens.

Airwolf on the C64 aaah yeah that was so hard.

Never finished Manic Miner, the telephone exchange got me every time still one of my faves of all time though.

[Pete]

(n64) goldeneye on 00 agent on every level for completion espaically control and aztec
dunno if anyone else found this hard i did!
Pete

[Raz316]

(n64) goldeneye on 00 agent on every level for completion espaically control and aztec
dunno if anyone else found this hard i did!
Pete

Hell yeah, I couldnt complete aztec on Secret Agent so I thought, what the hell and tried it on 00 and completed it. teehee I remember sitting up near the control panel at the end waiting for the countdown to finish, shooting my laser guns constantly perchance one of those moonraker peeps made it up.