Top Ten Most Hardcore Games of All Time

Sometimes when you want to test your mettle as a gamer nothing but the most hardcore intense experience will give you the adrenaline rush you're looking for. So if you've walked out of Black Mesa without a scratch, tea-bagged an army of Master Chiefs, and sent every Nazi and Nazi zombie straight back to hell, this list is for you. We've compiled a list of the 10 most extreme games ever to ever hit gaming, they'll chew you up and spit you out, leaving you crying for your mommy.

10. Katamari Damacy (PS2): Katamari puts the ultimate power of the gods in your hands, you create the very cosmos! You're tasked with taking your studded sphere of mayhem onto the earth rolling over everything in your path and crushing it into a sick twisted melange of debris, broken dreams, and lost souls. The Prince lets nothing stand in the way of his gruesome tasks, not the humans begging for their lives or the animals crying out in pain. Once you've collected enough of the detritus of earth, your grim collection is callously tossed into the sky. This macabre mass becomes the next burning star or wandering planet, with no regard for the victims are still visibly struggling to break free. Worse still, even if the prince fails in his duties, our hapless earth dwellers are given no respite, as the unimaginably evil so-called "King of All Cosmos" shoots them into meaningless star dust before sending you back out on your grisly collection quest until you get the job right.

These poor bastards never had a chance.

9. Tetris Attack(SNES): Terrifying stars, ass-whoopin' hearts, extreme rhombi, you name it, this killer's got it. Using your Panel Annihilation Device, you swap those bastards back and forth until you force three together, the resulting explosion so devastating, bits of star and heart guts fly almost right off the screen. If that weren't enough to have you on your knees, begging your God for mercy, blocks with grimacing faces slam down on top of your stack. These titans imposing their dark will on your helpless panels following devastating combo attacks from your  terrifying opponents ranging from hideous, earless dogs to one very pissed off butterfly. Only the toughest SOB's in the world will come out of this game in one piece.

It's like Lucky Charms on steroids.

8. Pac-Man 2 (Genesis/SNES): Pac-Man returns in this vicious sequel to the brutal original, and he's kicking more ass than ever before. The game starts off with infiltrating a rotting farm to rip the milk right out of a cow, and our little yellow badass continues the debauchery from there. He scales a gigantic mountain of death and braving ungodly horrifying ghosts in an attempt to pick a wildflower for little Suzy.  As you press on into the dark and dirty streets Pac-Man will do the most intense skateboarding  you'll see outside of the X Games, Find the sweetest electric guitar in Pac-land, and  the most thrilling death-defying Arial acrobatics we've seen on hang glider since Pilot Wings.  And that's only the beginning, the carnage only grows from there! The game culminates in a show down at the most horrifying place on earth, the gum factory! You've got to hit the ground running in this thriller that could arguably be called one of the most suspenseful games of all time.

Pac-Man is ready to lay the smack down.

7. Animal Crossing(Gamecube): Nintendo is well known for its profanity-laced and gory games, but Animal Crossing just may be the definitive title of the company's commitment to badassary. You're new in town and get taken for a ride by  local "businessman" Tom Nook, instantly finding yourself deeply in debt and forced into doing Tom's business. From making "deliveries", to posting "messages" in the town square, to doing a little "planting", you're in deep. But even after you've freed yourself from Nook's debt you're still scouring the town and sometimes even shaking down it's residents for goodies you sell to Tom Nook for top-bell. If you don't play by the rules, you'll find yourself visited by the town's "enforcer",  Resetti, who doesn't merely threaten to break your legs, he threatens to erase your whole life. You'll find yourself doing anything to make those sweet sacks of jinglers and ultimately survive, be it pulling rusted cans from the river, being a courier for your animal clients or using the mail in ways you never thought possible, your adrenaline is always pumping in this thrilling title where it's just you against one bad, nasty town.

Tom Nook's not running a freakin' charity here

6. Mario is Missing(SNES): A quest around the world turns into a quest into hell for Luigi as he tries to track down his brother Mario who's gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Luigi finds himself face to face with the sleazy chicks and big studs roaming the mean streets of Paris, Rome, and Beijing. They're been watching and they're waiting for him. They're primed and ready to pounce, educating your sorry ass on any number of horrifying ancient artifacts before turning you back out onto the mean streets. Surviving these encounters is only the first step, so you'd better hope those facts were beat into you because only a grueling quiz will allow you to continue your search. If you fail you've got to restlessly hit the streets again until you "learned your lesson". History isn't here to repeat itself, this time it's just here to kick your ass.

Luigi has to separate the double talk and code words from the truth.

5. Mario Paint: Painting. Animation. Music Composing. Flyswatting. Arguably four of the most hardcore activities ever conceived by our sick ancestors collide in a fiery explosion of utter chaos with a Marioesque twist. Using pens, spray cans, flood filling and even more devastating tools, the player splatters a image on the screen with such reckless abandon, it's a wonder how they manage to stay upright. The truly insane will take it to the next level, stringing together their unholy imagery, using what can only be described as the blackest of magic,  to make it MOVE before their very eyes! If they get through the animation alive, it's time to put some music together, using cats, tugboats, baby heads and even more diabolical objects to concoct a frenetic cacophony that stretches the very limits of extreme. The perverse technology utilized in this maddening title allows you to take that painted image, take that animation, take that song you created and put it all together in one messy, dripping, hanging-off-the-bone collaboration of utter chaos that's certain to destroy the senses of even the most hardened gamers. And you haven't even gotten to the game where you swat bugs, yet.

Mario Paint? More like MARIO PAIN!

4. Barbie's Vacation Adventure(SNES/Genesis): One would think a game about a super model would deal with the horrors of eating disorders, drug addictions or sleazy industry insiders. But the early Barbie games eschew those stereotypes and bring you even more edgy fare. From Navigating the twisted world of Barbie's dreams in Barbie on the NES, to watching American's first badass woman claw her way to the top of the Fashion World, in Barbie's Super Model. None of the titles are for the feint of heart, but for the true badasses among us, Barbie's vacation adventures kicks things up a notch. This title opts for an expose of what happens when a super model is left alone in the backwaters of America. From the unsettling Deliverance-esque setting of the Iowa county fair where Barbie is watched silently by unseen farmers as she's forced to run after a loose pig in order to gain admittance to their "carnival games"  where she must win the freedom to move on. To her terrifying experiences in the dark and menacing woods of Wyoming where she's attacked by wildlife tossed into a powerful rushing stream, left cold, wet and frightened. When Barbie manages to escape back to her California Mansion the Nightmare deepens when she's faced with a clearly demon-possessed Ken who speaks only in riddles, and enters and exits rooms in ways that can only be attributed to dark powers. Once she's bested Ken's mind games, you're rewarded with a series of unexplained still shots leaving you with a myriad unanswered questions, but too scared to draw your own conclusions.

I bet I can make ya squeal like a piggy

3. Reel Fishing (PS1): The unbridled INTENSITY of brooks, ponds, and the big daddy of all fresh-water angling - THE LAKE can be matched only by the extreme monsters that live in these intense environments, THE FISH!! In Reel fishing, these swimming demons didn't care who you are or where you came from. If you come to their water with a pansy stick and weak thread, you'll lose your bait, your hook, and your dignity. The Char are sinister, the bass are brutal, and the cutthroat trout are just plain bad. At times you can't tell if you're fishing or fighting in a prison riot. All of this mayhem is set to a KILLER soundtrack that will kick your sorry ass even harder than the bitterling!

The true face of evil

2. Seasame Street 1-2-3: Ernie's Magic Shapes and Asro Grover (NES): This cartridge gives you a double shot of power with 2 hardcore games stuffed into one package. Think you know a square when you see it? Think circles are something to sneeze at? Well tough guy, Grand Wizard Ernie's got a few trapezoids for your punk ass, and if you're not careful this manic magician's gonna stick 'em right where the sun don't shine. And whatever left of you certainly won't have a chance in hell of crafting that train. So if triangles have a way of making a wuss out of you, perhaps you should try your luck with with the numbers, courtesy of Spaceman Grover. Astro Grover is like a mathematical punch to the face. Counting little green men might seem easy enough for you, but try developing a ghetto city-block with the power of math alone. You'd better have your head screwed on right, because if you fail to count 7, let me tell you buddy, your luck's run out. That moon over the city does not tolerate failure and not even NASA can save you from a run in with the Lunar Lunatic.

YOU GONNA GET IT!

1. Flower (PS3): Only a Hardcore system like the PS3 could bring you the most hardcore game the world has ever seen. In flower you control one of the most destructive forces on earth, the wind. Flower is for hardcore gamers only, so it doesn't mess around giving you a bunch of needless instructions or text to read. You pull yourself up by the bootstraps and forge your own way through the game's harsh environment as you learn to harness the deadly power of nature. You start by using your power of the gales to tear apart every flower  ripping off their petals and leading them on a death march through desolate fields, past terrifying turbines and culminating in ripping through a decrepit cityscape. Flower's intelligent soundtrack changes tone and intensity with every heart-pounding, anxiety inducing move you make, adding a layer of extreme intensity like nothing you've experienced before. You might think you're a gamer but no amount of experience PvP sniping, Zombie Killing, alien dismembering or street hustling can prepare you for Flower.

Make those whirling blades of death dance!

So this April 1st challenge yourself to earn your gamer cred by playing one of the above games and go down in history as one of gaming's hardcore legends.


~Stephanie and Richard


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Retro Review Tuesday: Hatris

After a long Hiatus I bring another Retro Review. With all this time between reviews I could have devoted myself to doing one of those great classics of gaming like one of the super Mario Brothers or Legend of Zelda Games. But  instead I decided to bring you Hatris.

Introduction

Hatris is one of those games that you can't quite explain the existence of. How did one person think this was a good idea, let alone enough of them to finance it, program it, market it and release it? I can't imagine the brainstorming session that came up with: You're two guys working in a hat factory where you stack hats on mannequin heads all day long! Regardless of how it happened, it did in fact to come to fruition. A small segment of the population was rewarded with the inclusion of hats in their puzzle game, which was the only thing that could truly bring these poor unfortunate souls any joy. Hatris was released in four flavors, arcade, Turbo-grafix, NES and Gameboy, I choose to go with the NES version as that's the version I own and first became familiar with.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this was a game about chess with hats, but sadly that's just an unrealized dream.

Overview

The title would lead you to believe that this game is just Tetris with hats. Which is the delusion I was operating under when we purchased the cartridge at a local game shop many years ago. However, in spite of being a puzzle game and being created by Alexey Pajitnov, the original creator of Tetris, it is nothing like Tetris. It's more like Dr. Mario or Yoshi's Cookie. Pretty basic puzzle game stuff.

Controls are easy, this is an NES game so as usual things are generally pretty self explanatory. Start pauses, the D pad moves your hats around, A switches your hats, and B calls one of your hat workers to help you out.

Graphics are adequate. Nothing good, nothing bad. They won't wow you, but they won't distract with their awfulness either.

Soundwise, it's pretty lacking. It changes every level, but none of the levels have particularly memorable music. It's really generic early Nintendo music, repetitive, forgettable and often annoying. My biggest problem with the soundtrack stemmed from a background sound which every song track seemed to utilized and happens to sound like an alarm clock with issues, not the sort of thing that really puts you in a positive puzzle mood. Luckily you can turn it off in the options screen and substitute your own soundtrack.

The Jukebox for music is self explanatory but why are you choosing a shop from what seems to be a mailbox and stage from a (maybe)soda machine.

Gameplay

When you first start the game you're brought to a screen where you can select which "shop"to start off in. Which will change how many hats start the mannequin heads start with and what color the background will be. The level you start off which is pretty self explanatory and you can turn the music on or off. As I said earlier, you'll probably want to check the music out at least once, but I prefer it off.

Assuming you start off with shop zero and level zero you start off with 6 empty mannequin heads and a selection of three hats, a white fedora, a top hat and a baseball cap. The object of the game is very simple You make a stack of 5 matching hats, and they get cleared off. You need to clear a certain number of hats to pass each level. Hats must be stacked vertically one on top of the other to be cleared. If you stack too many mismatched hats your stack will reach the top of the screen and it's game over.

As one would expect with each level that number of hats you need to clear to move on increases. You'll also get three more more types of hat, bowler, wizard and crown, to contend with. For added fun with each round you clear the mannequin heads turn into new and often disturbing shapes, including, but not limited to : a vampire, Frankenstein's monster, a zombie Abraham Lincoln, and a decidedly un-politically correct Native American. Once you've gotten past the shock of all this new stuff it's time to focus on the important job of hat stacking.

Not all hats are created equal, so some hats will drastically raise the height of your stack when stacked with dissimilar hats. The top hats and wizard hats are especially bad for as you'd expect just by looking at them. Crowns however can prove to be an even bigger problem, they're shorter when stacked with mismatched hats, but they don't stack well together. A stack of matched crowns is taller than a stack of matched wizard hats or top hats.

I have some real questions about how this hat factory makes any money this system seem very inefficient

It sounds deceptively simple, but honestly it can get quite difficult rather quickly,  just a few accidental hat placements can spell your doom. Luckily you're not all on your own at the hat factory, you've got two helpers. When you've got enough points you get a small head icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen. These heads correlated to either the top factory worker or the bottom factory worker, they're very similar looking though so it's kind of hard to tell which one is which. In any case when you hit the B button one of them will go onto the playing field and either switch 2 hat stacks (the bottom one) or toss out 5 hats from the bottom (the top one). In addition, as soon as you call them on to the screen the set of hats falling on to the field disappears so even if you aren't particularly in need of their other service you can use this to your advantage when a set of undesirable hats enters the field.

At the end of level 9, for all your hard thankless work in the hat factory you get the supreme pleasure of seeing a vignette which involves the hat factory workers pulling a rabbit and later smiley face out of a top hat before running around the screen. Their aimless running continues until you hit a button, which then brings you to level 10 which just seems to be level one with a different background. I admit I'm not totally sure on that as I didn't make it past level 18 to see if I'd get a new animation.

Ta-Da!

Conclusion

Hatris is a completely crazy concept, and not the fast paced addictive puzzle game you'd expect from a creative genius like Alexey Pajitnov. However that doesn't mean it's bad. It is fun and challenging, while playing it for this review I found myself getting sucked into playing it much longer than I had originally intended. I enjoyed the game but objectively it's very much in the middle in every category. If not for the ridiculous novelty of matching crazy hats, it would be a completely forgettable title.

~Stephanie

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