The toughest game levels/missions

AvP before they introduced the save game in the patch.

The racing in mafia is hard but theres a shortcut in the track that allows you to win easy. After that there is a chase against some super fast limo style car I couldn't get past. Then the game broke on me. hehe.

Quote from JeanPaul

Ninja GaidenI almost cried playing that game (Xbox version)

Haha yeah was just about to mention it. I really wanted to complete that game but in the end I had to give up on it. Too damn frustrating :G

Also hate people that say its an amazing game, all it did was make me depressed. In my book thats a bad game . Really could've used some difficulty settings in the original version.

It was probably my favorite Xbox game.

Quote from FMPONE

2 wordswater

temple

(with no guide that is)

You mean the Ocarina of Time water temple?? I don't get why people find it that hard...

It was a downright bitch to learn though, it's not hard you just get lost and have no idea where to go next (on your first time through it that is).

And yes, the return of the father in Sands of Time was excrutiatingly painful. There is only one trick you can do to hit him. Just happens to be the same thing you had to do in the original against the first overweight guard you encountered...

I hated the water temple the first time ever, if I wouldn't have loved everything before it and hoped that it would be as good once after the temple I'd never had beat that game.

IcyTower at 1000+ floor .

I'm playing through mafia again too... just finished the hotel, race went pretty easy, finished it on normal/medium difficulty (best lap was like ~1.30. (patched 1.2)

EDIT: I remember I had some tough moments with some harder Rayman 2 missions.

Oh yeah, here's a really stupid one. The on-foot parts of Cyberia . Worst trial and error game play ever! At least I remember it as being insanely hard, especially considering that the flying sections were hysterically easy in comparison.

Really should try it again, what a piece of shit game that was

i remember in tomb raider 1 there is a place with 5 buttons. where you need to press in a order, to open a door "3 total". i got stuck on that. and completed the entire tomb raider 2 game. then after 3 or so days i finaly figured it out

What I dislike in games is the feeling of 'artificial' difficulty, where you're playing on a different playing field to the AI. That fucks me off. Some of hte GTAs had their moments, but by far the worst I've played recently is STALKER. Fucking hell. The Need For Speed series has irritated fuck out of me at times, but thats more because of the fact that each game is a huge grind.

Atlantic Accelerator on Syndicate? Fuck. Never did manage that, mind you, I was about 12.

Campaignjunkie : Think that article was by Keiron Gillen (SP possibly) I do remember it because it almost made me want to play Thief. Sadly, I am a complete spacker and grossly impatient to go with it, so I just cant be arsed with it.

Keiron Gillen... that brings back some memories. I used to love PC Gamer before James Flynn cleared off, and I really liked KG's reviews & stuff. Then again, I was a brain-dead 12 year old around that time, so maybe it's the ol' rose-tinteds beguiling me.

Quote from ifO

That WizPig boss on Diddy Kong Racing

Argh!

How dare you remind me of that.

Water Temple in OoT and TP.

Mario Kart on the 150cc levels, cheating AI bastards.

Oh and my vote goes for pretty much any racing game with traffic. There's nothing like making four perfect laps and opening up a big lead, only for a car to T-bone you at a box junction when there's absolutely NOTHING you can do to avoid it. I fucking hate games like that. I can't get mad when I see something and have time to avoid it, but when I finish in 2nd because of a call to rand(), I just want to punch someone in the face.

Maybe you guys can help me out (vaguely on-topic).

I found this site when looking for the awesome 'Chucky Egg' which also has the classic (if a little dull) game Hopper:

http://www.repton3.co.uk/hopper.php

Now I wouldn't normally give this game the time of day but this is bugging me. Is it just me or do you die every time you get to the far side of the river bit? I know it's probably something stupid but what am I missing, how do you get to the other side!?

You jump in the 'water' at the other side. Once you have a frog in every alcove it advances.

Thanks! Now I know how to play it, it's thoroughly tedious. *goes back to Chucky Egg.

Chucky Egg was ace. My friend had that on the BBC micro. Which reminds me, the Dizzy games were almost infuriatingly difficult. I think the original Dizzy game gave you 1 life (as in one, singular). When you died, the game was over. It had loads and loads of tricky bits so it was an absolute bastard to beat. Treasure island dizzy gave you the luxury of extra lives iirc.

The absolute king is definitely Battletoads, every level a different play style and tuned precisely so you’re crying blood. Most games released nowadays don’t have the joypad twisting frustration of Lost Levels or Jet Set Willy, though. I went back to Magic Land Dizzy (I think) not too long ago, and ruined all my childhood memories after failing to ride the shark fin across the moat until it was game over.

And I must say that FF7 chocobo race was quite frustrating but in my opinion it doesn’t hold a candle to the chocobo event in FF10 for joypad to wall action. The one with the completely random birds lunging at you at the speed of light while the rail you’re strapped to bends along some weird ass spline throwing you all over the place.

I’m going to throw in an honourable and maybe controversial mention for The Four Horsemen in WoW. Of course because MMORPG’s don’t require precise aiming with a railgun they automatically don’t quality as taking skill, but that encounter is really worth mentioning. People were banging their heads against that for months before people worked out how it was done, and then the execution needed perfection (and a bit of luck) too. Definitely one of the best designed and tuned encounters ever. Unfortunately they followed this design into the expansion immediately, which sounds like a good idea but it’s not. Entrance encounters this hard are a major handicap to new teams and despite being intricately designed Magtheridon (Strategy) and his 2 entrance buddies are doing more harm then good. But more assessment on this is probably for my geekier buddies.

My choice: The levels in Super Mario Sunshine where you don't have your water backpack. They start out simple and then get wickedly difficult by the end.

Honorable metions:

Zelda: OoT water temple

Sonic Adventure 1 fishing levels (not so much hard as poorly designed and frustrating)

Battletoads (still hard to this day)

GTA3 remote controlled plane levels