Discussion: what's the hardest game you've ever played?

We all love games—that’s why we’re here. But that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes play games that bring us more pain than pleasure, more anxiety than enjoyment. What’s the most difficult game you’ve ever played?

Iain: Demon’s Souls, you ruined my life. Not only are you difficult to say, you are difficult to play, impossible to complete and your online interactions are addictive. But my god, you are so, so tough. If standard enemies aren’t disemboweling you, bosses are squishing you and if they’re busy, then there’s always a black phantom (another player) lurking in the shadows.

It’s dark, it’s grisly and it constantly pushes you forward. I find it impossible to say whether I enjoyed my time with Demon’s Souls or whether it drove me stark raving mad. I am certain that it was very hard.

Charlie: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Or, as it is known on the higher difficulty settings, #@!$% XCOM. Don’t get me wrong, XCOM is one of my favorite games ever and I loved the expansion, too. And it’s playable, if not easy, on reasonable difficulty settings. But crank it up to Impossible, tick the box next to “Ironman mode” (which autosaves constantly so you can’t reload when things go awry), and get ready to throw your computer out the window. I’ve never actually completed, or even come close to completing, a game on Impossible Ironman. Aliens with lethal accuracy, paranoid countries with stingy funding for the XCOM project, and permadeath for anyone who gets too close to a laser beam: that’s life in Impossible Ironman. We’d better hope a real alien invasion won’t be that difficult, because if it is, the earth is fucked.

Mary-Anne: Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Return. This stunning little platformer for the Playstation 1 starts off deceptively easy. As pink-haired jungle boy Tomba, you’ve got to traverse worlds and platforms and vanquish evil pigs. Of course, there are more enemies than just pigs, and there’s more to the game than just jumping on top of meanies. And it got hard. Because Tomba 2 had a bit of Metroidvania flavor to it, you had to keep returning to different worlds and using different tools to fully unlock what you needed to move on. I downloaded a ROM on my PSP, but I still haven’t completed it, because it’s tough.

Chris: Battle Toads for the NES was the sole source of all my childhood anxiety issues. Even watching a clip on Youtube stresses me out to an unhealthy level. The game is easily the most difficult game I’ve ever played and all others since then have been just a walk in the park in comparison. I remember the Terra Tubes being what separated the 2nd graders from the men, and I’ll never forget the feeling of accomplishment I got once I made it through.