SenileProfessorOak

Oh yes, I hate all the chase missions with a passion, you never know whether you a suppossed to gun them down on the road of if you should follow them to a place and have shootout with them there.
Because if just have to follow them you drive around and try to hit them and empty entire magasines into them, but they have god-mode so it doesnt do anything, damn i hate those missions.
The only thing worse than a GTA 4 chase mission, is GTA 4 chase misssions where you have to use a motorcycle. I almost gave up on the game, when the only two missions i had was two motorcycle chase missions. F...!!

Barl

D3m0n1k_Ang3l

muteaid

Hatebunny

freespeech

Kamakazie

SisterGrim

StickyPurpleCat

It's like they charged me $5 so they could kick me in the balls a few times before I decided to swallow my pride and give up. And no, this isn't a "haha boy is it challenging" comment. In no uncertain terms: Fuck that game.

planetidiot

RanChan03

Fatal Fury 3 and Art of Fighting 2 have proven unreasonably difficult since I've revisited their single-player modes on the PS2. I suspect it's that damned SNK Boss Syndrome coupled with my advanced age causing me problems!

patheticnerd

Norellicus

boopadoo

kurokotetsu

Goldeneye 007 : 00 Agent Difficulty : The Control Center : The part where Natalya is hacking the computer, someone always gets by and boom boom she dies. I have always found this to be the most frustrating moment in video games because the enemies a) never come from the same spot and b) Often times break the glass without making a f***ing sound. It also helps Natalya lacks the knowledge to move when someone is shooting at her.

Cheers

sniperz53

twonjosh

greatslack

TearsandScreams

The insanely high difficulty of Ninja Gaiden is an error, son. I cannot explain to you how much I battled through that game, how many times it made me swear at the TV, how many times it made me just stare in blank, dejected silence after dying once more.

I know they were trying to be hardcore by starting the difficulty level off on 'hard', but for it to be so restrictively difficult must have turned away several many players.

carrliadiere

big_scottie5

This isn't to say the game isn't great, but dang, it's hard.

CyberGlitch

The hardest game I ever played, and I can almost guarantee no one will have even played it - was called 'Caverns of Caranor' on the SC-3000 (I think it was only released in NZ). It was like Jet Set Willy, (also near impossible).

During the prime of my video game playing ability (and patience) I spent a year trying to beat Caverns. One day, to my complete disbelief, I finally did it - a screen flashed up for 3 seconds, said "Well Done", then returned to the title screen.

floppylobster

Jamaces

Kid-icarus

2. The final tower in SMT:Nocturne. Don't get me wrong, I love that game, but the last tower drove me insane. Oh and fighting Satan. Apparently I was little underleveled. It took me two tries. The first time I was at it for about 55 minutes before Satan finally killed me. Damn High Pixie and her weakness to ailments. The second time I played for just as long, if not longer, and when I finally killed Satan, I was ecstatic.
*SPOILERS*
Then the ending was only about a minute long and I cried.

3.Populous for SNES. I rented it as a child and it didn't come with the instruction manual. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to play it.

4.Karnak(NES) Just awful controls and armpit fireballs.

5.Wolverine(NES) Now this one also pissed me off just because it was a terrible game. I was incredibly deprived of video games in my youth. I was allowed to play a grand total of 2 hours per week end. I owned 3 NES games. I had Super Mario 3, Mega Man 3, and Wolverine. It was painful to play. I knew it wasn't my fault, and that the game sucked, even back then. To top it off, I could never kill Sabertooth. (He was invincible to physical damage and had to be pushed off the edge of a cliff at the other end of the level. I ended up downloading a rom and checking game faqs years later to get my revenge.

Finally,

Castlevania 4. There's one boss near the end. I don't know his name, he looks like a bird skeleton and carries a spear. I CANNOT BEAT THAT GUY. I can kill Dracula no problem, but that bastard is just unpossible.

cio

L_K_M

Palladium

fenderfuel08

House Of The Dead 2&3 Return: OK, never played them in arcades (have always been a PC gamer until this gen), tried these games on Wii, can't beat them no matter what. Even downloaded a save file so I could play on easy and I make it nearly to the end then die. Fack.

Motorstorm: Anything on Level 4. So fucking tedious, can't stand it. Rather just play the online.

jiSh

Fuck. Hoverbikes.

Fuck those motherfucking hoverbikes back to whatever hell-dimension spawned them.
But god, I love that game.

Uzumaki_Kiba

Yeah, I don't know anything about this game, but I am totally familiar with this relationship.

Cliff_Donner

H3G3M0N

Actually who am I trying to kid? Most games irritate the hell out of me. But Megaman Zero is the only one that ever made me bite my GBA.

Rubiximus

_Ted_

Insidious-Dan

Not too hard, but too boring, FF XII. I love turn based combat, I love real tie action, but that hybrid meter thing took too long to fill. Battles that take minutes in which my character attacks twice are not fun.

ggodo

Like others have mentioned, the number of items that target the player in 1st is frustrating to the point that I'll stay in 2nd just so I can nail the guy in first with an item and cross the finish line to win.

@karasu is my homeboy: That's a damn shame. In my opinion, the last level of Rez has the best music.

VergessenHeld

tkshredder

For example CoD4 on veteran, particularly the end of "one shot one kill" waiting for the chopper, or "no fighting in the war room" near the end going through the tunnels to the control room...the bit where you have to go left or right through the missile silos with guys in all directions...but eventually i was victorious.

Still to complete ninja gaiden on the xbox...was just so put off by the first boss being such an absolute tank...ended up about half way though it i think before i finally gave up.

But back to the actual question, as for pulling my hair out, i find that only really happens when i find myself failing for something totally not my fault, that the game is handicapping me and i have to wrestle with the controls to get it to do what i want.

Examples of my least favourite dodgy controls:
GTA4, Niko's cover system, fine in fighting, but getting him to leave cover and walk normally on occasion can be stupidly complicated. As is his auto-aim...hello dude there's a guy just to your left with a shot-gun and you are auto-aiming on the wall ahead. Urgh..and i find the cars can sometimes act completely weightless while driving...i can drive flat-out down the street hit one lamp-post and flatten it...hit the next and i flip into the air and do about 4 flips around before landing right on its roof.

Not exactly game-breaking faults and i am really enjoying the game, but when these little faults happen several times in the space of one mission i start to get a pretty vexed.

Another game with dodgy controls that had me yelling at the telly was Ass-ass-in's creed, this one really got to me, as i could wage huge battles in the exploring part and intell gathering stages...but when it came to an actual assassination i just couldn't get altair to function at all. My favourite glitch in this was locking on to the final boss in front of me, chucking my last throwing knife and watching altair turn 90 degrees and throw away out to sea. For some reason known only to himself.

So...(that post kinda got away from me there)...there have been others but thats what generally gets me pulling my hair out. Dodgy-ness.
Anyway, bye. :D

Kuraigu

Fitz Rhapsody

Crashproof

Trace Memory for having a 3x3 slider puzzle. I can't beat the game because that requires a different kind of thinking that I don't have. I like adventure games but I don't like those kind of puzzles. <.<

Oh, and the last puzzle in Silent Hill Origins where you have to put all the pieces you've collected together. You already went through the effort collecting them throughout the game, fucking put them together for me! I still can't get past that part. As a said before, some puzzles I just can't do, like sliders.

ShinjiKinomoto

Actraiser

[gelbooru.com]

Umbrella Chronicles. Instakill jiggle-based quick time events, while the separate halves of your controller are locked in a rigid plastic frame.

Fuck you, Capcom. How can you mangle a simple genre so horribly? Don't you spend money on designers and beta-testers?

Mindbleach

Ecco the Dolphin, now that's a hard one, hard as ---- without a guide, at 9 years old...still hard without a guide at 22.

No, I've played Battletoads, but on Genesis. I just read Wikipedia and read the NES version is way harder than the Genesis version.

blurayforever143

Cactuar

BudDudandSlash

Itchy (PSN: Kaizoku-ou)

sooiee115

I think that a key aspect of good game design is that you should be able to just pick up the controller and go. No reading manuals, no lengthy in-game tutorials, just pick up and play.

Any game which demands that you spend hours on end just learning a complicated control system is an instant failure in my opinion.

Florence-McSniffle

bcskid

excel_excel

hogarth1

hrabbit

Zelda: A Link To The Past: When you're down on your last heart they annoy the snot out of you with that annoying *beep beep, beep beep*, GOSH!

Megaman: Battle Network 3: It's bad enough random battles are annoying, but the final boss is a friggin' NIGHTMARE! good GRIEF he's annoying! I was so happy when I finally beat him:D.

Call Of Duty 2: The very first time I played through this game I played it on Veteran - big, big mistake!! I mainly did it because I wanted all the achievements but I risked nearly beating up everyone and tearing my hair out in the process!

Call Of Duty 4: I played through it on normal first and THEN on Veteran!(I learned from my mistake) it may have been shorter than COD2 but it certainly wasn't easier on Veteran! oh em GEE I had a doozy of a time beating it, especially the hallway part on the level next to the last (most of you probably know what I mean). Not to mention the Mile High Club achievement, GEEZ!!!!

weeoo

RedRust

TheLoudCowboy

Soleyu

badmoogle

Knoxximus (360/PSN)

Knoxximus (360/PSN)

And Shinobi ... oh how I hate Shinobi ...

der13manner

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

alienmastermind

Turael

Tycoonalex1337

artofwar420

BongoYoda

Misframed

I gave up on Siren.

Currently I'm playing Dead Rising, and there have been several moments where I just wanted to fling the disc outside like a very expensive Frisbee. I'm determined to finish it, though, because goddamn if I don't love slicing up some zombies.

caffeinequeen

Secondly, Ikari Warriors 2. Great game, fantastic even. Vertical scrolling shoot'em'up with equipment and stores and hidden mini-bosses. Then you get to the end of the game... and the hardest boss ever created. Your of course stripped of all weapons except grenades and your sword.. and he moves faster than you do. Can't win.

Finally, seriously.. has anyone... ANYONE ever beaten Master Blaster? I get the hover power then the jet power thing and just can't figure out how to get to the last stage.

chungo

ninjafetus

[scottthong.wordpress.com]

VeNoMmx

How Did Anybody Get Good at This?: Defender.

Invisible Staircase: Castlevania II.

Impossible Map Memorization: Air Fortress. Text-based anything.

The Controller Can't Do That: Caveman Games, I can't rotate a D-pad 360 degrees.

Hall of Immortals: Ghosts n' Goblins. Friday the 13th. Bad Dudes. Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Dear Activision 2600 Decathlon, your game leaves players in physical pain. That is all.

Prof.Corpse

MrPerson

Great game, fun as shit, but one of the hardest game's I've ever played, hands down.

Koontz

ItotheCtotheE

Swizzler121

thekoopatrooper

Veteran mode is just full of bullshit and makes you play the game in a way that should not be played. You try to find anyway possible just to get to the next checkpoint, whether it be chucking a flashbang and running straight for the next point or ducking under a deck and waiting for your allies to kill everyone off. This totally turned me off to finishing CoD4 altogether so I'm at least glad I finished the game on 'Regular' mode on the PS3 beforehand.

Hostile

Thankfully, and I think a lot of people miss this, you DON'T HAVE TO DO THE MODEL PLANE MISSION. I discovered this as I decided to take a break and look around for other stuff to do. I finished SA, but Zero and his shop remain forever locked in the struggle with his equally-nerdy rival.

Final Fantasy Tactics, too, in the early game. Some of those fights are freakin' hard: Far harder than the late game. Also, getting the Crazy Hand trophy in Smash Bros Melee, by getting through Adventure Mode on Hard without losing a single life. So... much... cheapness...

Devil May Cry 3? I eventually moved on to other games, due to that game's insistence on making you PAY for your extra lives with the same points you use to buy special moves, AND making the extra lives more expensive with every purchase. The hell? In a game that freakin' hard, with punishing bosses that take several tries to figure out, making every death more punishing is just freakin' unfair. I had fun playing it while I was playing it, but then I'd die, and be reminded once more how much this game likes to say "Ha ha you suck! Now REPLAY THE ENTIRE LEVEL!"

MrPerson

harticus33

pomogamer

I really don't see what all the fuss was about. It was beautiful, sure, but that's all it had going for it.

Pantsman

uppitycracker

purdy

One genre I can never manage and tend to get frustrated at is the RTS e.g. Age of Empires (although I still do enjoy that game, but I have avoided many others since). I don't know why I can't get into them, but after spending an hour doing something and it going totally awry, I tend to give up.

Often point 'n clicks can be too hard for me too. The Longest Journey is an example - some of the puzzles in that demanded some insane logic to get past, which usually compels me to a) gamefaqs or b) quit, despite the superb story (played it after Dreamfall, and its a huge difficulty jump). I really like that genre when I get into it (Zack and Wiki) but a really hard RTS truly turns me off.

johnny_ultimate

they made it way too difficult and convoluted for no reason.

PLUS, it would make my system crash every 10 minutes until I found out it was so demanding I had to add a fan to my GPU.

interstate78

lestat730

AtomicPlayboy

Chanaluss

Chopper_Mike

RogueBoar

On the SNES:
- Super Swiv: just too damn hard and no save option/code. Also no continues I think.
- Dragon's lair: horrible jumping made this game a nightmare...But It was pretty.

On the gameboy:
- I remember having a hard time with a Bart Simpson game for the same reason as Dragon's Lair: jumpin was horrible.

On the PS1, PS2, DS, Gamecube and Wii:
None

Games are too easy nowadays
- compares Super Mario Galaxy or Sunshine to SMB3
- compare Metal Gear solid (1,2, or 3) to Metal gear
- compare Twilight princess to the Adventure's of Link
- compare Street Fighter 2 or any KOF bosses to Tekken 5/ DOA2.

Thriceborn

Hollowcow

Antiterra

darshannon

PBnZelly

Human Bomb

Human Bomb

Yet I keep coming back for more.

fatefully

Nobody let's me be the banker anymore because I always sneak a few hundreds...

Big World

outofmind23

All GTA games are infuriating not so much because they're terribly difficult, but because, on certain missions, the absence of checkpoints forces you (when you fail) to yet again go through the easy, unchallenging but incredibly boring 5-minute stupid cross-town ride in a slow-ass van.
And I've lost count of how many missions I've failed due to various glitches.

Oh, and the fucking bike missions! Hear, hear, Rockstar: bike pursuits SUCK, and everybody except "That Guy" (© Yahtzee Croshaw) hates them.

Of course, none of it compares to my arch-nemesis from my early gaming years: Xenon 2, the sole reason behind my distaste of shmups. Childhood trauma is not something you overcome easily.

Antiterra

I can't beat Raining blood on GHIII on Hard~!

Ninja Gaiden on Xbox

friscom99

collinc

mcool93

Covert_Knight

Krumm

graze81

Super Stardust HD, play the new mode Endless. absolutely fucking ridiculously hard. hardest game i've played this generation bar none. probably the hardest game i played in years. the regular game is bad enough, but Endless is apocalyptic in its difficulty. you have to be a sadist to play that game

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Benjo

Akari-Ryo

Strange Bedfellows

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Anybody remember a really crappy game called Skulljagger for the SNES? I have no idea why I just thought of that but man did it suck. Actually, I'm not sure if anybody besides me ever played it.

TSlade

WEGGLES90

The difficulty level went from an average of 7 through out the game to 15+ with the end boss.

I never did finish playing the game.

--Core--

Roto13

Playing Gears of War in co-op mode, dying, and then being forced to look at your bleeding, huffing corpse while your co-op partner has all the fun and can't/won't come revive you. Such brillant, compelling gameplay. I know Cliffy B likes to think he's a genius but that is one of the worst fucking design decisions in gaming.

bag79

Ultima:Exodus for the NES would always kick my butt too. I never was able to figure out where to go and would always get stranded somewhere and get killed by ridiculously powerful enemies.

Dullshimmer

MidnightScott17

I think a lot of the games listed people just haven't put the time into. Ikaruga, for instance, takes about 30 hours of practice when you're trying to beat it on one credit. I think most people lack the patience to play the same five levels over and over again for that long. Same goes with games like Contra, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and 90% of other 2D games. The thing is, you don't see your progress the same way you would in a mission based game, so even though it takes just as long to beat it often doesn't feel like you're making steady progress, so it's easier to just give up on. Thus, I don't think a lot of the games mentioned are genuinely as hard as people might think.

That said, the one game that I've always had trouble with (I'm still trying to beat it to this day) is Resident Evil Fucking 4. I mean seriously, shit just doesn't die in that game.

I'd also like to give honourable mention to Dead Rising. It's not that tough to get through the main story, but you're bound to fuck up a lot in other places every time. I never got to the end of the three days in that, even after twenty or thirty hours, simply because I kept going back and trying to do things better. They really did a great job at extending gameplay in that one, despite the limited time frame allowed for the story.

NeoStarr

scarecrow

GourdCaptain

That leads me to GTA4 being the game currently doing this to me. Not because it's difficult, just because there's so...much...tedious...driving. And the lack of in mission checkpoints is stupid.

Captain Wrong

I've tried 3 times to play it and beat it. I have all the expansion, I have tons of upgrades, but it all comes down to the travel system. How it takes about 30 minutes of travel for 10 minutes of gameplay. How the combat system is pure hack and slash over and over again. You can 'hit' the target a dozen times but miss in damage.

I love the story, I love the setting. But after beating oblivion, it seems like such a downgrade. I can hardly play it.

huginn

Back in the day. Suffice to say "SUCKS" isn't even close to describing it.

The_EE_God

As far as a game I found to difficult Alien Hominid is up there along with Ninja Gaiden.

digipen89

Starts off like a cakewalk, then the AI becomes lame and one hit kills.

Grimalkin

Americo

So hard to make all those countries happy! =/

lemmk

sand

charman

Ultron100

Tiger-Fever

What the fuck.

leetXcore

Mattitude

yojimbo32

garfaloonarunner

Ever since then as I grew older my suckage at Mario games became bigger.

Candlejack

Dues Ex 2 Invisible War pissed me the hell off as I swear I would randomly run out of ammo. Great game, and finally beat it, but I still don't know how to play that game well (and I'm talking on easy difficulty...)

That and the original Splinter Cell. I just never was able to beat it, and haven't tried another since. Much prefer MGS (and I'm an Xbox owner... tear...)

Oh and I don't suck at games. I beat Ninja Gaiden on Very Difficult, probably my greatest gaming accomplishment.

Sonic_and_Tails

More recently, the last few levels of CoD4 on Veteran. Deeply unpleasant, still haven't beaten Mile High Club. I must get back to it!

EvilSuperSean

Why is it when you manage to eke into 1st Place, everyone and their brother manages to get something to hit you. And they use them all...in a row!?

Shyguy

Devil May Cry 3

Contra-Shattered Soldier

geoffcbassett

I'd like to see a poll of games that are super hard but feel good to play anyway.

Sunjammer

Console FPS controls, as a PC gamer, playing Halo or anything else on the console is an exercise in frustration because of how clumsy the damn controls are compared to the mouse and keyboard.

fumar

SpuddOner

I love playing Dead Rising for kicks, everything about that game short of the friendly AI impresses me, but the time limits and ridiculous escort missions just annoy me to such an unbelievable extent i feel no joy in playing it for winning. I always just wind up running around ignoring my objectives, kill a few zombies, and then shut it down.

So i'd have to say Dead rising. It's just too much.

Sunjammer

zzt

CurlyJim

grogg

sean.thor

Umandsf

Stick34

SpuddOner

vincevl

JamieA

Trial and Error gameplay to the max, with no save points in the entire game...

I_fit_in

+ No saving when you meet a boss, you have to fight up to him again, see the cutscene, AGAIN, and then try... again!

But, I felt accomplishment when I was done. Not something that many games offer, and something I really miss

Deyardly

There was supposedly a level select cheat, CRABALLARD, but I never once got it to work.

JudgeNutmeg

scottieb2

SAKY

def PD

Ikaruga. Nuff said.

And that's all I can think of at the moment. I've calmed down for the most part when it comes to playing games.

Zyzex_Remix

old: shogo, endless one hit kills by an enemy suddenly running around the corner; but it was so much fun and i could quicksave so i didnt really care.

older:
that sega megadrive helicopter game... desert combat or whatever.
i loved it as a kid since it as so realistic, but damn was it hard

ideon

ecto311

#1: Battletoads sure comes up a lot...I played it...never could beat the "dodge all these little walls as you fly your overly tiny space ship way to dang fast" part.

#2: There sure seems to be a lot of newer games, which rather surprises me. Either games are finally becoming harder...or a majority of the people posting aren't old enough to remember the harder games on some of those classic consoles. Either way...I'm probably old and in a Video Game Life Crisis.

#3: As far as my pick for a game that made me want to pull my hair our...it would have to be "Driver 2" for the Playstation.

It wasn't the whole game...just like the second to last level. The one where you had to take out some bad guy while you drove along a 2 lane road, with 2-way traffic, on the side of some mountain.

I think I tried that blasted thing 100 times before I finally chucked the control down in rage and screamed at the game, "YOU'RE CHEATING!!!"

Never turned in on again.

jshgambit

Playing the 'Master League' campaign mode on harder difficulties, the COM opponents, when they need to score, score.

In the previous games you knew when it would happen; defending a one goal advantage, inexplicable last second corner, headed goal. Everytime. But in the latest one they've now got a habit of getting contentious free kicks and scoring every time, compounded by the fact that the button command to move your keeper doesn't actually work as stated in the manual.

Jeez, this is like therapy. Honorable mentions also go to Zero in GTA: SA and that Mario Kart Blue Shell bullshit.

lordburnio

sander_dutch