The toughest game levels/missions

[zeon]

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

[Schmung]

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.

[Defrag]

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.

[Ginger Lord]

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.

[Defrag]

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.

[ifO]

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!?

[Taylor]

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

[ifO]

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

[Defrag]

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.

[Taylor]

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.

[Fletch]

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

[Warby]

2 words

water

temple

(with no guide that is)

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

that was my favorite dungeon

[Spellbinder]

Half Life getting past the three headed thingy in the silo. Tok me days to figure that one out. Also Zelda the first one, but that was really because i didnt know the english language back then. I was searching for Penninsula like forever. When come to think of it i dont think i ever found it. I just happened to learn its a half island some years after.

[JamesL]

The jumps across the stepping stones in the water - Last Ninja on the C64 [/retro]

[Thrik]

Man, there've been far too many games over the years that've driven me to the very edge of throwing my head through the television. Some have already been mentioned, but here's my master list:

1. Pretty much any part of the Dizzy games, a series in which you play an incredibly fragile egg that has either one or three lives, no save games, no level shortcut passwords, and basically nothing that precludes you from going right back to the start should you slip up once. Make no mistake, these games were tense.

2. The final boss in Beyond Good and Evil, which throws a number of cheap tricks at you including the much-loved "reverse your controls" attack, made infinitely harder due to it being 3D and you needing to continually attack the boss while in this state.

3. The bird race right before the last boss in Donkey Kong Country 2, where you have to race at high speed as a difficult-to-control bird against another one. The catch is that it's through a level where touching absolutely any surface (brambles) murders you. Almost on par with this is one of the "Lost World" levels where you have to fly through a similarly complex bramble level as the same bird, except this time the opponent bird is replaced by huge gusts of wind that randomly blow you left or right.

4. The "secret" levels in Super Mario Sunshine that Fletch mentioned, that get almost comically hard as the game progresses. Ranging from intricate jumping puzzles to sand blocks that disintegrate beneath your feet to spinning cube things that move around the air, getting through these things almost reduced me to tears as the draw of a star pulled me in.

There're quite a few more, but this subject is so great I think I'm going to think of some more and make it a blog post on my superb blog.