Haha I remember descent from so long ago. Great game. Hard as hell- at least for a 12 year old kid.

Boy that is a game I haven't thought about in a long time. Was considered pretty innovative for its time.

Geez... people talking about descent like its some ancient game makes me feel ancient. I remember thinking that game was ridiculously hard. It was like a hard version of doom.

I played Descent a little as a little kid and found it very claustrophobic like you said. It was fun but I think it was a little too ahead of its time, that type of game needed better texture resolution so you can tell where the **** you are.

If you had a kid the year this game came out, that kid would be in college now.

- I am assuming you are meaning the time trial, not 150cc for the SNES game. If that is the case I can absolutely relate to this. I put in a lot of time trying to get under a minute and then after I finally did, I submitted the picture to Nintendo Power magazine. I got a reply letter congratulating me on my record and look to future issues for it to be posted, but they never did. Still, it was sort of an obsession of mine to get that time.

- Another obsession in the arcade I had was Killer Instinct 1. As a 16-17 year old kid I would head straight to the mall to play it after school was done. I studied the game enough to master Orchid and became one of the elite players in the game. I got so good that the arcade "pro" challenged me one day and quit after 5 total games played. The fifth game he chose Cinder and tried to cheat by finishing a combo to get me flipped up in the air. If you remember Cinder he can repeatedly keep you up in the air until time expires. I knew what he was doing so I played a more defensive game which paid off and frustrated him. To quote Aliens 2 "Game Over Man" .

- I have always enjoyed the more challenging games. One of my favorite games was Legend of Zelda for the NES. Back in college I used to work as an RA at the front desk for some small $$. I found a site where a guy created a ROM of the game which had the same overworld map, but completely different dungeons layout and was a lot harder. I wish I saved where I found it, but it is worth looking into if you wanted to play a tougher version of that game (tougher than the 2nd quest).

you should try http://www.questforcalatia.net/ZeldaC/

completely different overworld and dungeons with enemies from everywhere just all over everything. i finished the first quest, but could never find level 6 (i think) on the second one and gave up after months of just repetition trying to figure out what i missed. it's ridiculously hard.

That might be it depending on what year it was made? I killed plenty of hours at the front desk of the dorms playing it and then sigh pausing when someone came up to the desk to check something out taking away from my playing time.

i worked on it when i was a senior in hs which was 10 years ago, but you said it was the same overworld map and this one is completely redone, so that's why i suggested it. if it is in fact one you've played, for the love of god tell me how to find level 6 in the second quest!

Such a sick thread. Halo 2 co-op on legendary was such a struggle for me and a good friend of mine. One summer we played it obsessively until finally beating it. Didn't get that into GH2 but I distinctly remember 5starring every song on hard and being incredibly proud. The game I never finished that nagged me for the longest time was Banjo Kazooie. An older cousin had it and whenever I would go to his house I would play and after getting through most of the game I got stuck and couldn't find my way through a certain part, bugged me for years. With the help of the Internet and an emulator that game was completed however

fixed a typo

I spent an untold number of hours playing "Dungeons of Daggorath" on the TRS-80 when I was little. Each game would take a couple hours and you had one life, so if you died that was it, and I had no way to save. I used to draw out maps of the dungeons and kept a journal of how far I got and what items I had and what killed me (I think I still have it in a box in my parents shed). Then I got a NES and of course didnt play the TRS-80 as much anymore, but even then every so often for the next decade I would break it out and give it another run. It always bugged me I never beat that game, so I downloaded an emulator a few years ago and spent another god knows how many hours trying to beat it without saving or looking up a walkthough. Finally broke down and started saving and beat it. That game was with me for well over 20 years, always in the back of my mind that I hadnt beaten it whenever games were talked about or thinking about my childhood. its what got me into computers, what got me into first person shooters, what got me into RPGs, all the commands were input on the keyboard so its what taught me type, except that it taught me this weird 3 finger typing style that I've never been able to unlearn my entire life and still type with to this day. I still view it as the best video game of all time.

The only other game ive ever really obsessed about not having beaten was the original X-Com. I used to stay up all night at my friends house playing that, wed end up arguing about what to build and get pissed and start all over the next weekend. Played that game a TON, but never could beat it. Downloaded it on steam a couple winters ago and spent something like 80 hours on it when I should have been doing other things and finally beat it. I was so pumped I called my friend just to brag about it.

I remember when I was a kid my brother and his friends would play descent multiplayer. Getting everyone to connect properly was always suspenseful and tedious, so naturally he would only let me play like 10% of the time. I'd wait half an hour just to die immediately and wait again. Best minute of my life at the time though!

I used to play MUDs when I was in 4th-5th grade, and in those games the people who were there first are always going to be on top, no matter how much time you spend trying to catch up. [And now I know all the powerful people just cheated with their immortal alternate characters, since MUDs are dumb and only creators/friends of creators still play!]

A lot of people played to socialize and made friends with each other, but I was too embarrassed to admit I was only 10 years old since their conversations indicated they were much older. I just grinded monsters, quests, etc in probably the least efficient ways possible since I had to figure out everything myself, and didn't get much help from others. This went on for a while and my character was finally getting decently strong (in my mind) until one day there was a special event where you were allowed to player-kill anybody for 24 hours(there are normally restrictions). I should've just not logged on that day, but of course I was impulsive and thought I was actually kind of powerful.

I immediately got killed.

At the least, they couldn't loot all your stuff and you could get most of it back by going to your corpse and grabbing it. So I went back, grabbed my stuff, and before I could log out, got killed again. This process repeated itself a few times, me frantically trying to type "get all corpse" and "save" before they could kill me again, but now I realize they were probably running scripts that auto attacked anyone that walked in the room. I then learned that if you die ~20 times you perma-die and your character is wiped completely.

I wish I could remember the name of that damn MUD and see if it's still up one day, but it was too generic of a name that's almost impossible to search for. White whale indeed.

Crap this just reminded me about this one MUD I used to play, can't think of the name, where you play until a level cap of 50 and then you get this title or rank or something and your approach to the game entirely changes. Most level 50 people described it as "the game not really beginnig until you reach level 50." I loved the early game but by the time I got to level 48 or 49 it became such a grind that I just gave up despite people telling me that the payoff was worth it. I should probably have more regrets about never making it to 50 but I honestly can't even remember the name of the game so it does to haunt me.

Another one was Gemstone III, in case that rings a bell. I played it on AOL when I was like 13-14 and got into a close relationship (just IMing not IRL) with a married woman who would tell me about her marital problems, probably not realizing that I was a sophomore in high school. I dropped it when I moved to a more aggressive pay structure. I don't remember any days where you could kill each other but there was a day where we played some sort of tag or capture the flag and it was one of the greatest gaming days of my entire life. MUDs were a weird but fun world.

Hahaha oh god, I haven't thought about this in forever but MUD crew checking in here. I played a game called Vampire Wars (mostly in high school) which was pvp-focused and got banned on like 4 different characters because I would troll people super hard. I also wrote bots to kill mobs and farm experience for me but never got caught for that. I remember when a couple friends and I teamed up to kill this one guy who had spent several thousand hours in the game, had the highest stats on the server and the highest PvP score. I think he was lulled into a sense of complacency by nobody being big enough to ever challenge him that it just didn't seem like something people would ever try, but we took him down FOR THE LULZ. There's no perma-death or anything, you don't lose equipment (you can spend experience to claim your valuable equipment and then you can never lose it unless you try to), but his pristine PvP score was forever ruined.

So much fun. Probably spent 2000 hours on that game lifetime.

sounds like southpark wow ep

I tried to play one a few months back and it was so boring. I don't know how I used to wait like 2-3 minutes of resting/sleeping my character just so he could regain enough hp/mana to do something again. It would be much better now with multiple monitors so I could do a ton of other crap at once, but ughhh

Somebody should make a MUD thread where you tell your stories. I don't think I ever played a MUD (maybe for 3 minutes) and can barely conceptualize what they were like to play, but I love reading the stories.

Would your stuff still be there?

Checking Steam, I apparently clocked 500 hours in Victoria 2. Probably still not quite whale status but I am pretty sure I was trying to create the biggest English industrial juggernaut possible by assimilating China, which was far more difficult than I expected.

This was definitely a white whale for me back in the day. The last few missions (carrington institute, the alien ship, and the alien home world) were brutal on perfect agent (you were dead if you took 2 hits) but fun. Way harder than any of the 00-Agent missions in Goldeneye.

As one of the last games on the N64, and being in HS at the time, I was too cheap to fork over money for a new console, so I had a ton of time to work on Perfect Dark.

I'd like to beat NES Battletoads (without cheats or savestates) before I die. Haven't played it in 8-10 years though. Watching some older AGDQ/SGDQ vids is good for sparking that motivation.

Great thread so far.

Moby Dick simulator, could never get that last boss whale.

My main ones were back in high school. One completed and one not.

The first was unlocking every cheat in Goldeneye 64. The facility time was insanely quick, and I remember playing like 5 attempts every morning before going to school. Finally got it, and was able to repeat it at probably somewhere in a 5-20% success rate. If Dr. Doak wasn't in one or two of his possible locations, it wasn't beatable. I guess also beating 00 agent on Aztec was difficult, but I don't remember trying it hundreds of times over and over until I beat it.

My other was getting to 1:Perfect ranking on multiplayer for Perfect Dark, which I didn't accomplish. I got to 2:Near Perfect, and am pretty sure the only thing I didn't accomplish was the amount of distance walked, or else I would be 1:Perfect. I did lots of 'cheating' to get close, including playing 1 kill wins levels with the dumbest bot with farsights and tilting the analog stick so my character would walk around in a circle for hours on end with another 'human' opponent so I would get distance walked increase by just leaving my system on overnight.

Well, one more addition from the same time period. Pokemon red. Tried to get all 150, 'got 149' which included just trading a few pokemon back and forth with my younger brother and his friend so I could get some of the blue only pokemon. Only one I never got was Tauros. Tried forever, and neither my brother or his friend caught him either. Oh wells. I also tried leveling up all my pokemon to Level 99 to prepare to dominate friends on Stadium. I did that for about 15-20 of my Pokemon, but at that time, everyone had lost interest, so it was wasted effort and then 5+ years later I wanted to play fresh so I deleted my 100+ days of play.

Great thread topic! And RE4 really is a masterpiece, go get it. I tried the RE1 remake on the game cube and quickly got frustrated by the controls, didn't finish more than 15% I don't think. Never played any other REs.

Heh, "sacred nut", amirite?

But seriously though v nice post

I haven't played since the original days on the NES, but I never came close to beating Ninja Gaiden at the time. I almost always could get to Death Adder (I think that's his name, the guy at the top of the temple who threw lightning), but almost never advanced. I did a handful of times but usually died in the next level; one time and got to the part where you fight *SPOILER*, but never made it past him. I think NG would be my entry on this list.

I feel like I'd have an even harder time with NG today given I'm used to today's more fluid controls - i feel like if I tried today I'd have no shot at all. I downloaded the original Castlevania from the store on the 3DS and I'm way worse than I used to be (never beat that one either FWIW, never made it past Death).

I remember this game being impossible, I'm glad I never developed a desire to beat it.

Ultima Underworld 2.

Took me over a year to beat that game. I can do it in a long weekend now.