Over at Gamasutra (hat tip to Dubious Quality) there's a feature on 20 difficult games and what they can teach us in terms of game design. Check out page 10 to see #18 on the list.
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DarkCampainger wrote:
Hah, Blast Corps and Mischief Makers. I thought those games were pretty darn hard :P Blast Corps isn't too bad once you get a handle on the evilness that is the dump truck. | |
I owned Blast Corps at some point. Looks like I traded it in when I traded in a bunch of games to buy a new GameCube after my old when got fried by lightning(surprisingly it still worked, but it would just turn itself off after 30 or so minutes of play, quite crucial when it was the main way to play Mario Kart:DD). The dump truck was indeed a control nightmare, but overall it wasn't that hard of a game.
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I'm surprised XCOM: UFO Defense isn't on there.
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Damn skippy, Rogue will never die. The difficulty of roguelikes make them attractive. I once had a character in Nethack that lived for about ten months of real time, with nearly constant play. I didn't try to complete the goals, I just leveled him up. I don't know how I did it, and have not been able to repeat it since.
I also had a character in ADOM that lived for a good six months real time. It just happens, and it never happens again. They are tough games, and skill doesn't make you survive any longer. It's partially luck of the draw, and partially knowing when to run. | |
<3 Mischief Makers
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I was surprised Ikuraga wasn't in there =(
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D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
I'm surprised XCOM: UFO Defense isn't on there. X-COM: UFO Defense isn't that hard once you get the hang of it, or once you get some armour for your troops. It's only hard in the beginning, and that's only because it's realistically difficult: untrained soldiers being fielded in small numbers against similar or larger numbers of better-armed aliens are going to have a tough time. At the start of the game, if you come back with less than 50% casualties, you've done well. Of course, if you play on any level above Average or whatever it's called, the game cheats -- big time. Battleships in the first month, enemies finding your new bases instantly, assault missions every hour, aliens that never miss, etc. Ideally you'll want to play on Beginner to get the hang of things, then move up to Novice or whatever the second difficulty level is to get the fairest, most balanced experience. Average is for strong players who've beat it at least once. Re: Mischief Makers I hated that game. It seemed so pointless to me. Of course, I remember almost nothing about it because I only played it for about thirty minutes before I got bored of it and cranked in Mario 64 instead. I think my stepmom has a copy, though. Re: Rogue To date, I've never actually played Rogue. I'm a fraud! Re: Blast Corps Blast Corps was one of my most favourite N64 games. The dump truck was indeed the most irritating point of the game, but it was cool in its own right. I think I made the nuke truck explode more often by accidentally running into it than I did by failing to clear a path for it. | |
Thanks for posting this. Looks like a good read.
A quick skim show nothing but older games. Wonder why that is? ts | |
As the article points out, many newer games are designed to let you finish them fairly easily. Even if the game is fairly difficult overall, it's set up to be reasonable to get through. A lot of older games worked differently.
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(still haven't beaten either...)