A game that challenges you mentaly = A good game?

[nikomas1]

So now im talking about realisticly hard games not just "Increase this to make you enemys have X more health" No im talking about games that insult you and tels you "Haha you can't beat me, You loser". When a game tells me that i usealy go, "Bring it on B****" And will keep playing that game untill i beat it or fall asleep from exastion. Taking breakes to eat and stuff like that ofcourse.

A great example is the game grid, I played the demo and the drift mode was, Well a tad difficult to get a hang of, when i completed it on normal i said to myself, Lets amp this upp shal we. I picked the hardest difficulty, put promode on, Locked camera to head and turned all supports of, I took the first corner and flew of the road into the wall. I spent several hours to win that one and after i felt something strange, A feeling of acomplishment and satisfaction. Not many games give you that feeling.

Another example was when my friend (Who knows I like realistic games like GRID) Lent me Operation Flashpoint Cold war Crisis and told me "Beat this game and I will lend you 3 games, Whatever games you want." So i took it home and told myself, "Well this can't be to bad, Right?"

Guess what? I was sadly mistaken. Im halfway trugh the game now and it proves another point. Games don't need shiny new graphics to be fun and exiting, I was realy enjoying the realism in that game and that you could never under any circumstances solo ANYTHING in the game, I also realy enjoyed that everyone had voices and that you were part of the squad.

Bottom line is that a game should challenge you without cheating. In other words a realistic challenge. A game that makes you go "I'm going to beat you, I AM going to beat you A******" Is a good game.

 

[LivemeLifefree]

I'll reply to the title, as I don't see what the post really means, but yeah I say a game that challenges you mentally is good. Which is why I did not like Portal, I felt like the game was meant for 5 year olds. I instantly figured out the puzzles and I was trying to find odd ways of doing the puzzles to make it harder. Hell my brother sat there struggling on the puzzles and when he realised what I was doing he was getting angry at me. As for the games cheating, yeah I agree. It's like for any RTS. The AI never gets smarter from easy-insane, their units just cost less.

 

[The_Deleted]

Rome TW is a belter for mentally chellanging you. The tactics come down to more than just 'get more ment than the other guy', although that can be beneficial. It all comes down the units you have and how effective they will be and the lay of the land.
F-ing genius.

 

[LesIsMore]

At the risk of being blocked, I have to say that I have a hard time considering any debate about the mental attributes of a game loses energy when "mentally" is misspelled in the title. It makes me think that the game being considered as a mental challenge is Pong.

 

[Humanfishboy]

@ LivemeLifefree: I liked Portal from levels 15 onwards, it picked up a bit from there I think.
I'm also currently liking the random puzzles showing up in half life 2 (which I only started playing when I bought the orange box) it's nice having to use the old noggin.

I'm not too much of an RTS buff, but I really liked Age of Empires II (didn't like AoE III quite so much, especially not online - the rushing... the rushing...)

@Leslsmore: Little bit harsh, maybe the OP doesn't speak English as their first language?

 

[Vicious Hallway]

I enjoy games that challenge me in the brain-department. If something is hilariously easy chances are that I will play it (assuming it is short enough that I don't feel as though I've just wasted valuable hours of my life) but then never touch it again and, likely, forget it ever existed in the first place.

 

[SimuLord]

I love a game that makes me think. Whether it's keeping an eye on my archers while driving home a cavalry charge in a Total War game, trying to make sure I don't get the whole world mad at me in Civilization 4 (the diplomatic AI in Beyond the Sword is impressive), or trying to balance all the disparate parts of a game in the Europa Universalis series, if I have to use my brain, I'm hooked.

 

[pkhtjim]

So far, the Final Fantasy Tactics series is the only game where I actually needed to predict what the computer would act a few turns ahead. Dang, that reminds me that I should pick up FFTA2.

 

[PersianLlama]

So far, the Final Fantasy Tactics series is the only game where I actually needed to predict what the computer would act a few turns ahead. Dang, that reminds me that I should pick up FFTA2.

Oh...FFT would be my favorite game, i've played through it 10+ times, but I didn't like the FFTA series >.>

 

[HayaiAkai]

areat example is the game grid, I played the demo and the drift mode was, Well a tad difficult to get a hang of, when i completed it on normal i said to myself, Lets amp this upp shal we. I picked the hardest difficulty, put promode on, Locked camera to head and turned all supports of, I took the first corner and flew of the road into the wall. I spent several hours to win that one and after i felt something strange, A feeling of acomplishment and satisfaction. Not many games give you that feeling.

Another example was when my friend (Who knows I like realistic games like GRID) Lent me Operation Flashpoint Cold war Crisis and told me "Beat this game and I will lend you 3 games, Whatever games you want." So i took it home and told myself, "Well this can't be to bad, Right?"

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What platforms are these 2 games for? i would like to pick them up if they are that hard.

 

[Nohra]

I like a game that has -sane- mental challenges. I really liked some of KOTOR's puzzles. Like the robot you had to evict from the Sith temple. The light side method of doing that (if you didn't hack it) involved using elimination to determine the order in which you had to disable his systems to do something or other that would get him out of the temple without destroying him.

A number of RTS have little mental challenges going on as well, provided they aren't terribly dumbed down. Each mission generally plays out as a puzzle that's solved by moving the right type of dudes to a certain area and decimating the enemy. The problem with this form of puzzle is that it can also be solved by building 50 Mammoth tanks and railgunning the shit out of everything (thankfully the way C&C3 is laid out, giant single armies aren't all powerful due to the effectiveness of other units versus them, i.e. stealth units vs. Mammoths (which don't detect) -- but they come damn close to it with enough numbers).

EDIT:

Bottom line is that a game should challenge you without cheating. In other words a realistic challenge. A game that makes you go "I'm going to beat you, I AM going to beat you A******" Is a good game.

QFT.

A game shouldn't have enemies with perfect 10,000 yard vision and sniper rifles everywhere. The challenge should be plausible and rewarding to overcome. When a game cheats to provide difficulty, it stops being as rewarding when you defeat it, because you know the game's AI wasn't beating you, the game's cheats were.

 

[Caliostro]

Depends on what you mean.

If it's hard and challenging, as in "this is totally possible to do, you just gotta find the right way to do it", mostly yes I do enjoy challenges. I suppose this is what you mean by "mentally".

If it's just stupid arbitrary "crank the difficulty up to a million and see who makes it", no. Stuff like puzzles guided by moon logic, puzzles that are solved more by random chance than skill, enemies with perfect aim and the gift of clairvoyance (they always know where you are), impossible "reflex testers", tanks that take 10 million hits to kill and kill you in 2 moves that hit 85% of the times... No, I really don't enjoy that, it's just frustrating and retarded.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

I think what the OP means in his post, is that he enjoys playing games that will kick the shit out of you and have absolutely no mercy on your game skills, not mental challenges that the game forces you to think about.

Think Ninja Gaiden, I Wanna Be The Guy, Battletoads et al. I'm strangely addicted to viciously difficult games too. Right now I'm playing through Etrian Oddyssey 2 on the DS, one of the most difficult Dungeon Crawlers I've ever played. Vicious enemies that will kick the shit out of you, even when you first begin the game, an extremely low amount of money to spend on items and equipment for your characters, hell, the game even forces you to draw your own map as you're making your way through the dungeons! And because of the inherent difficulty, and challenge of the whole thing, I'm completely hooked on it.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment, since the game's still kicking my ass.

 

[MawnLower]

You could say Raining Blood + One did that to me on Hard...

When I beat the game on hard I gave my tv the finger ^^

 

[death13245]

A good brain strain would be 7th Guest and 11th Hour for PC. Both are old so they are cheap and believe me they offer a much harder challange (spelt wrong I know) and will really make you feel proud when you complete each puzzle.

 

[HayaiAkai]

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What platforms are these 2 games for? i would like to pick them up if they are that hard.

Hey GRID is for the DS right? or is it multiplatform?

 

[varulfic]

Lately I've been playing Adventures of Lolo 3, a puzzle game for the NES. It's very challenging, I've heard there are 100 puzzles and I had to start to think about ten puzzles in. Every stage forces you to think, and it's immensely satisfying when you finally figure it out.

Then again, if it's too hard, it can easily go from good to frustrating.

 

[nikomas1]

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What platforms are these 2 games for? i would like to pick them up if they are that hard.

Hey GRID is for the DS right? or is it multiplatform?

Racedriver GRID is multiplatform, Im talking about the 360/ps3/pc versions. And the operation flashpoint series is for the pc. It's from 01-02.

Depends on what you mean.

If it's hard and challenging, as in "this is totally possible to do, you just gotta find the right way to do it", mostly yes I do enjoy challenges. I suppose this is what you mean by "mentally".

If it's just stupid arbitrary "crank the difficulty up to a million and see who makes it", no. Stuff like puzzles guided by moon logic, puzzles that are solved more by random chance than skill, enemies with perfect aim and the gift of clairvoyance (they always know where you are), impossible "reflex testers", tanks that take 10 million hits to kill and kill you in 2 moves that hit 85% of the times... No, I really don't enjoy that, it's just frustrating and retarded.

Yep thats what i meant.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Ya i think that a game that makes you think is a good game

Which is why I did not like Portal, I felt like the game was meant for 5 year olds. less.

I agree the game in general was pretty easy though i do enjoy the challenge of the least steps and least portals that makes the game worth buying in my opinion