Hardest dificulties that are ACTUALLY BLOODY HARD!

[Vhite]

Gothic 2 with Night of The Raven expansion. You wont make it on your first playthrough, neither your second,maybe on your third when you finally learn how properly spend your skill points, gain every possible experience point and master the combat system.
It is not really a difficulty setting but without the expansion game is a lot easier.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Call of Duty: World at War on Veteran. It's not even fair with all the grenades they throw at you.

 

[Elementlmage]

I played Crysis 2 on that hard unlockable setting and since I found it easy (I'm really not that great at FPS) it can't of been hard.... I mean what do the aliens do on easy? stand in the road picking their noses?

Pretty much, that's why you see all of those professional Crysis 2 reviews complaining about the AI and the odd review stating to opposite. Almost every reviewer played it on "normal," but a few bothered to try "hard" and were pleasantly surprised by the AI change.

AI still wasn't as good as the AI from Crysis 1 for some reason? They probably had to trim a bunch of it off to get the memory maps to fit the Xbox and PS3.

 

[henrius]

CoD 4, the epilogue mission where you have to save a hostage on board an airplane in I think 40 seconds. Play that on veteran, and you'll be there for an hour minimum. It's very rewarding when you beat it though.

 

[BlackSaint09]

Dante must die. Try killing demons that have stoneskin, ridiculous damage dealing capabilities and more health then the end boss two difficulties ago.

 

[Amphoteric]

COD: world at war on Veteran. NNNGGHHHHHHHHH *grinds teeth*

You must REALLY like grenades if you played it on veteran.

 

[marcooos]

Maybe I'm just bad at combos and using the weapons, or maybe this is too easy...but Ninja Gaiden II. Screeeeew that. Just no..no..NO.

*Sits in a corner* No more fiery armadillo things...no more. ._.

No ninja gaiden black (not sigma as its easier) on the hardest difficulty, as I dont actually know ayone thats done it. Anyone that has I'll name my first born after them

 

[Terminate421]

Insane on left 4 dead 1 and 2 is a *****.

If you are not skilled enough Hardcore on Deadspace 2 is murderous

 

[ecoho]

I'm just going to leave it there.

OMG this is so true i HAD the strat guide and let me tell you this video is an accurate portrayal of what happened

 

[Mormz]

Call of Duty 2 on Veteran. Mainly just The Second Battle of El Alamein. If you've beaten it you deserve more than an achievement.

This is the only game I've 100%. Veteran difficulty took me about four months for the whole game. Bloody awesome game, though.

 

[Calrin]

Catherine is pretty hard on it's harest difficulty. You can't redo your moves, so if you push the wrong block off of the space, Fuck you, start over.

It's hard enough as is on Normal so far for me, and I am always up for a challenge. Thing is, once you beat the game on an easier difficulty on a game such as Catherine, are the puzzles different? Technically, you'd know what to do, you just gotta do it a bit faster and without messing up.

On hard mode the puzzles are different but you just eventually figure them out

But those goddamn Babel stages are always random so you just have to get lucky and then theres
Axis Mundi which i believe might just be impossible

 

[Spookimitsu]

Ninja Gaiden 2 Master Ninja. Good luck!

Oh, uhh Dante Must Die? I heard someone say that was tough, but I never tried. So I guess I'm sticking with NG2's ultra hard mode.

 

[marcooos]

Another vote for Ninja Gaiden (XBox), Ninja Gaiden Black, Ninja Gaiden 2, etc.

Many games up the difficulty by making enemies have 10x or 100x the hitpoints, or making you correspondingly more fragile, or making the enemies do goofy things like snipe you in the left eye with a rusty pistol from 900 yards away, etc.

NG and its brothers simply outclassed you. Yeah, they did a bit more damage and you did a bit less, but holy bajeezus they were aggressive and SMART - very few games actually change the enemy AI based on the difficulty level, but these do. Lower your guard for a split second in a vulnerable area of a room on Normal - you'll probably get away with it. On Master Ninja - get ready to get juggled. Watch how they circle you, watch what attacks they use, watch how one will force you towards another - all that changes based on the level of difficulty. They aren't 5x faster or have 10x the hitpoints, but they still kill you with the speed of thought.

I don't see much skill in someone beating Ultimate Final Omega Boss #934583 in the latest Final Fantasy game (difficult because it has 10,000,000 hitpoints and regenerates, which IMHO makes it a test of endurance instead of skill), but I see a lot of skill in someone entering a room in NG 2 and taking on a half dozen Black Spider Clan ninjas and, in a FURIOUS burst of activity (almost too fast to follow) that lasts no more than 10 seconds, leaves all their opponents dead.

Black is the hardest one. Also its nice to see someone else who understands ninja gaiden. There is nothing more satifying then launching a ninja in the air and juggling him for half hour with the flail.

 

[Starke]

Fallout: New Vegas. HARDCORE.

...is pathetically easy compared to STALKER on Stalker (Normal).

Seriously though, Clear Sky or Call of Pripyat has got to be it. I've finished Shadow of Chernobyl on Master, but CoP had me dead the first time I ran into a Boar.

 

[Silenttalker22]

Ninja Gaiden 1 and DMC3 are the only 2 that come to mind, as they're the only ones I've done that have combat tight enough to actually push your skill and flexibility the higher you go. Instead of most others where (quoting Yahtzee here) "A challenge is one thing, but trying to break down a cement wall with your forehead isn't a challenge".

 

[Hairetos]

CoD4 on Veteran; still not completed it.

Edit: In fact, have only done 2 proper levels; I couldn't get past Charlie Don't Surf's TV station.

Dunno if you still have the game or are interested in beating it on veteran, but there's an interesting secret about beating CoD4 on Veteran.

Run. Ignore enemy fire as much as possible. Just run your ass off. The more you stop to shoot, the more time you give them to shoot you and you will NEVER kill everyone.

 

[Twad]

If you're not careful on stalker on normal, you can die quickly.

On master? Christ, the game wants to kill you for existing.

its not actually that hard (imho), yes you die FAST if they get the drop on you.. but playing slow and carefully is very effective.
I always play on master difficulty: When facing humans ennemies just use cover a whole lot (lean, crouch) Abuse walls and hills to break line of sight and keep moving (they love to use grenades). Aim for headshots whenever possible. When in close-quarter, check your corners quickly (so you dont get shot to hell by a hidden guy in a corner) Let them expose themselves to your traps rather than you going in the open after them... their AI will force them to look for you.

Against mutants, especially the big bad ones.. find an obstacle to circle around or climb on it and dont stop shooting (for the head). The only ones i still havent found a good strategy against are the chimeras since they move so fast. I havent tried sniping them yet.

 

[Starke]

Any of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games, though they're more than hard enough already. In the first one you had the exact same amount of HP as your enemies if I remember correctly and in the second one you had very slightly more but they also started throwing grenades in that one, so that didn't really change much. I haven't played Call of Pripyat but I've read that it's not much easier, though apparently difficulty works somewhat differently in that one so that the easier difficulties are easier and the harder ones are harder.

Unless I'm remembering wrong, which is quite possible, the only effect of difficulty in the first game was the abundance of resources.

Because you'd basically be ignoring equipment on corpses anyway and just poking them for stash info on easy after the first couple fights because of the carry limit, it wasn't really that hard.

Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat mixed that up a bit. CoP doesn't tie resource starvation into the difficulty level at all, it's a pure damage dealt, damage taken system. Clear Sky... I'm unsure, it's been too long since I played it.

 

[walrusaurus]

Trouble is a lot of times the hardest difficulty is just super cheap. Civilizations 4 (i'm assuming 5 as well) on Deity is probably the most rediculously impossible task i've ever faced in a video game. But its not because the AI is a genius, but because it gets super impossible amounts of resources to work with. At one point in the game i had a full on modern mech army with jets and tanks and shit roll up when i was still in chariots. Mental.

 

[Dr Jones]

Mass Effect 2's 'Insanity' setting. Everything has at least 2 layers of 'health' and each bar takes a beating. Your shields are like tissue paper if you're out of cover for longer than 1.5 seconds you're probably dead or running from Husks and your decent gun has f-all ammo and F### YOU GODD### F### SCIONS!!!

Puhlease... Mass Effect 2 is one of the most easy games on the hardest difficulty i've ever had the pleasure to play... I'ma say, like someone else did, SLASO in Halo: Reach or just plain ol' 3.. Missing hud.. No gun on the screen...