Hardest Game/Level you've ever played(not necessarily beaten...)

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by JohnT
Defender came out in 1980, not '77. And, yes, we did actually have both consoles and computers way back then - I myself owned both an Atari 2600 (VCS) and an Apple II (and an Atari 800, but I think those came out in 1981).

Young whippersnappers!

You sure it was '80 (maybe '79). Could of swore that I was playing this while still in high school. But now that I think about it, I cannot remember any games played while in HS.
I think that I had the Atari 2600. Was that the one with pong on it? A couple of buddies of mine had the Apple IIs, but no way could I afford the 1500$ price tag. I played in the store until they kicked me out.

[Tuberski]

Defender was 1980, Stargate was 1981.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL


You sure it was '80 (maybe '79). Could of swore that I was playing this while still in high school. But now that I think about it, I cannot remember any games played while in HS.
I think that I had the Atari 2600. Was that the one with pong on it? A couple of buddies of mine had the Apple IIs, but no way could I afford the 1500$ price tag. I played in the store until they kicked me out.

Defender (as well as Pac Man) lost the "most promising game of the year" award to Namco's Rally-X, at American Music and Amusement Operators convention in October, 1980. The game wasn't finished until the start of the show because the programmer (Eugene Jarvis) burned the first set of ROMS backward. He had to work all night burning chips for the opening of the show, not knowing if they would work, and finished plugging them into the board about 1/2 hour before show start.

Jarvis also programmed Defender 2: Stargate and my all-time personal favorite, #1 with a bullet, video game: Robotron: 2084. He has done some pinball and lately, over the past decade, has been working on the "Cruisin' " series of arcade games (racing games, if that'll jog your memory).

I also sucked at Tempest. Could never work my way past level 2, 4th or 5th wave (red tubes). Seeing some people make it up to the 6th level (where the tubes were invisible) made me sick with envy.

[Kassiopeia]

I've heard of them being called "one-armed bandits" though I still prefer my grandfather's name for them: "separaters".

"Because they separate me from my money."

Remaining completely off topic, I asked my grandfather when I was a wee kid: "If it doesn't snow, how will Santa come?"
"With a separator", was the reply. Of course I had no idea what a separator was.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by JohnT


Defender (as well as Pac Man) lost the "most promising game of the year" award to Namco's Rally-X, at American Music and Amusement Operators convention in October, 1980. The game wasn't finished until the start of the show because the programmer (Eugene Jarvis) burned the first set of ROMS backward. He had to work all night burning chips for the opening of the show, not knowing if they would work, and finished plugging them into the board about 1/2 hour before show start.

Jarvis also programmed Defender 2: Stargate and my all-time personal favorite, #1 with a bullet, video game: Robotron: 2084. He has done some pinball and lately, over the past decade, has been working on the "Cruisin' " series of arcade games (racing games, if that'll jog your memory).

I also sucked at Tempest. Could never work my way past level 2, 4th or 5th wave (red tubes). Seeing some people make it up to the 6th level (where the tubes were invisible) made me sick with envy.

Love the history, thanks JohnT!
Did anybody have the defender claw (huge callouses on the knuckles of your left hand from manipulating the up/down joystick)?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL


Love the history, thanks JohnT!
Did anybody have the defender claw (huge callouses on the knuckles of your left hand from manipulating the up/down joystick)?

I had a broken finger on my left hand and had to play with a cast!

Actually made me a better player.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by Tuberski



I had a broken finger on my left hand and had to play with a cast!

Actually made me a better player.

You broke your finger playing defender??

Actually, I had my high score in a Bar in Austin, I thought I remember your loc having that in it for a while.

[pg]

1942? and other insanely hard arcade games...

http://old.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/classicgaming/mame32qa/mame32v61b.zip

ftp://aceroms:aceroms@61.136.63.122/mame/roms/1942.zip

http://www.playagain.net/pages/Jeux/arcade/mame.htm - million and 1 old arcade games

http://www.geocities.com/mamehelp/

thought this info might be appreciated.

[FlameFlash]

Hey pg! Thanks

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hey PG, do these games run on Winxp?

[monolith94]

"Even though I had a base and an army, an airforce, and a navy, and he had 3 subs."

That reminds me of when I was playing a 3v3 warcraft3 map, and my two 'teammates' abandoned me, and I was overwhelmed. What did I do? Well, what could I do - I was a night elf so I only did what came naturally. I ate trees. With my one remaining Ancient of War I ate my way to the very end of the map, and hoped they didn't find the trail I made to me, or use flying units to scour for me. It took two hours, but I got the win!!!

[Qilue]

Starfleet Command 1, Vanishing Act part 2. This mission is a complete horror.

[Phil_de_geezer]

Black & White is pretty difficult. Not entirely sure how difficult cos i got bored. I have never completed Lands of Lore (got stuck in that weird alien place). And Commandos just takes the piss.

[MattyBoy]

Defender was wierd because great players played at such an unattainably high standard. Rygar was like that too.

Command and Conquer (the first one) got very tough quickly and stayed tough.

Nethack is too hard to complete without spoilers. You might think you have finished by getting to the bottom, but the combination of things you need to do to allow you out the top is unreasonably hard to discover by trial and error.