Interesting thoughts on hardcore gaming + a HC game (another world-like)

[lilalurl]

2 parts in this post: 1) enjoyable readings 2) link to a game

1) While browsing on the threads dedicated to the Lost Snowmen

I stumbled upon a series of wiki-like 'articles' with a lot of examples of points related to old/hard core games.
Although it mostly refers to the console world, I think many points are shared with some amiga games (and also modern games). Actually I remember reading a few references to Turrican and Another World.

Here is a selection of some interesting articles:

fake difficulty
Nintendo Hard
A Winner is You
Goddamned bats
Demonic Spiders. I especially like the reference to the medusa heads in Castlevania
Self Imposed challenge. I guess many of us here have already experienced this
Super Title 64 Advance. I hope there is also something for Street Fighter EX+ turbo alpha revival III gold: the fighter destiny nightmare

Most of the hyperlinks to other articles don't appear clearly there (at least in firefox, it some darkish blue, which looks like normal text) so don't mind moving the mouse over the text.


2) If you you are in need of a game with the same trial and error gameplay as Another World/Rick Dangerous, with ridiculous difficulty, try I wanna be the guy

I heavily advise downloading only the demo version, to get a taste of the game.

I also recommend not reading the FAQ the first times. Then read it and discover a few things in the game.

Then you can also check the many youtube videos there are to see how sadistic a designer can be.

Have fun (well, you probably won't)

[DeepJedi]

'A winner is you' is hilarious! I've had that effect before - most notably with the SNES Super StarWars series - ALL of which I completed. Frankly, I think I deserve something more than a 'A winner is you' screen for that. A knighthood perhaps?

In fact, the more I think about it, I should get a knighthood just for completing the 'large snowspeeder' level on Super Empire Strikes Back!

[DeepJedi]

On self-imposed challenge I think I'm hard to beat i.e. you'll have to go far to be more insane than I must be! Baldur's Gate 2 SOA/TOB on the PC, solo play, without dying or buying magical items, using exploits, cheats, etc. (still not completed it but I have got through much of TOB i.e. fight with M.....n).

Streetfighter 2 Turbo on the SNES, beat game on level 8 without losing a round and at least 1 perfect victory/opponent; the attempt was to win with a double perfect against every opponent; I managed this vs. all but M.Bison but then my console broke and I've never fixed it! My fighter of choice for this, by the way, was....Blanka!

Hope these are 'interesting thoughts' on harcore gaming.

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by DeepJedi

Hope these are 'interesting thoughts' on harcore gaming.

Well, I entitled the thread 'interesting thoughts' because reading those made me think back on many things I did, like/disliked/cannot stand today, wondered about in my years of gaming.

I think Project-X deserve to be in the 'a winner is you category' and could even deserves its own 'hey, we know you can't finish our game without losing a life' category.
See this thread for details


Regarding your self imposed challenge in SFIIT, I believe Capcom acknowledged that kind of behaviour from their players since in some games you need to win with special conditions to fight some specific opponents (to fight Byakko/Rain in Star Gladiator, you need to win the two first matches with perfects and have special finishes) or even to get the 'real' ending (in Rival schools finish the two rounds against the boss Raizo with 'burning vigor attacks' to get to fight THE REAL BOSS Hyo).

Now we have FAQs and all that but in the days (mid/end 1990s) good luck finding that by yourself.
And good luck also achieving it when the CPU keeps blocking right when you want to land the correct super move...


Funnily, while I didn't think of it when I started this thread, now that I think of it, I really liked that UFO/X-com included a real 'game over' sequence. No simple 'game over' but a nice illustration of what humanity becomes and a decent amount of text.
You probably won't read/watch that screen more than once after you have seen it, but it added a nice touch to the immersion feeling of the game.


More thoughts later... especially if some other people join the discussion.

[DeepJedi]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

2) If you you are in need of a game with the same trial and error gameplay as Another World/Rick Dangerous, with ridiculous difficulty, try I wanna be the guy

NOBODY needs that type of game! lol They're the one's that separate the sane from the insane, methinks. The sane give up after an hour, never to go back, while the insane (players like me) become obsessive and spend hours and hours repeatedly trying to get past some devious obstacle whilest knowing, all the time, that the entire endeavor is meaningless! (Great emoticons, those!)

Rick Dangerous! I had the demo and played it to death. The error detection was so bad, even the touch of a native's hair would send you wailing off the screen!

I actually watched that entire film of Lemm (?) completing the game with one life. How many hours must he have spent learning how to do that?

Which reminds me... slightly off topic but I once saw a guy in an arcade who'd worn the skin of his hand down to a grotesque wound, scabby but also weeping and bloody, playing Streetfighter. He seemed to think he was cool for it! Hardcore? Call the men in white coats!
I myself used to play Konami's Salamander like I was getting paid for it. Man that game rocked. Anyone remember it?

Originally Posted by lilalurl

2Demonic Spiders. I especially like the reference to the medusa heads in Castlevania

I just followed up some more of that list and found some of it absolutely hilarious! I'm big into films and TV (maybe gamers usually are) and some of those just killed me! 'A Wizard Did It' was a special one for me.

As for the Demonic Spiders, I must've been playing all the wrong games (or should that be all the right games?); I just never got any of them (or the bats). No, I've not played Castlevania! Have I never lived?

[lilalurl]

Sanity... is for the weak (from some Chaos units in Dawn of war if I remember correctly).

Castlevania. Well, if you like frustration try the first games (those on NES or the arcade game Haunted Castle): stiff controls, boucing protagonist when hit (get hit by an enemy and be thrown in another enemy or in a pit...) and of course:
medusa heads
These are flying enemies flying in a wavy pattern, so a bit hard to avoid or attack.
They usually appear in numbers in a level called the clock tower, which mainly consists of small in width but long in height rooms.
So going through one room is frustrating most of the time. I.e. get to the top of the room, be hit by a medusa head appearing just before you reach the point where you would change screen, fall aaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way down and sometimes get hit by other medusa heads in the process, curse the medusa heads, try to go to the top again....

The 3D Castlevanias on N64 also had the great idea of having some intense platforming parts, with a not that good at all camera system.


While OTing on movies, would you happen to have watched that movie:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...tVampireHunter ?

Reading the description I found that promising

[DeepJedi]

Lilalurl, no I didn't watch that film. It sounds nuts. I am actually a bit of a 'cannonist' freak on vampires in films though (a subject well-covered on that site); it drives me mad when directors allow vampires to do things they 'can't really do' (or wouldn't be able to do if they were imagined properly!?)!

[BippyM]

Oooh I live in Notts now (Well for the time being )..anyway back on topic!

I hate games ooooh!