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: Barbie Vacation Adventure SNES

So far in my retro reviews we've only done reviews of good games, and if not good they've at least been classics. Today changes all that, today I'm reviewing a game that has got to be one of the poorest excuses for game to have ever made it to a system as glorious as the SNES, a game that makes me ashamed to be a girl and even more ashamed to have enjoyed barbies, ever. Today I'm reviewing Barbie Vacation Adventure it was released on the Genesis and PC as well , but I chose to suffer through the Super Nintendo version.

***Introduction***

For many years game producers have had themselves convinced that girls are incapable of playing "normal" video games. No one with two X chromosomes has ever had any real interest in anything like Mario or Megaman, and forget about any fighting games or war games. Oh no, that's far too scary for us. So we were forced to play puzzle games maybe a few RPGs or a Kirby game if we were really adventurous, but mostly we just played Tetris. Soon, Tetris became synonymous with girls and video games. Producers saw this and thought to themselves Oh no! we can't have this, those girls could be providing us with a market share! We have to break them from their Tetris induced trances and get them playing other games! Other games we can profit from! Thus the genre of "girl games' was born. Games designed specifically to appeal to the female audience, with themes so cliched and fluffy they make magical girl shows look like serious drama. They usually center around dress up, care taking or puzzles and generally are borderline unplayable. The Barbie games fit right into this mold with vacation adventure reaching a special low. Not only is this game full of insanely boring cutesy family friendly tasks to do, you can't actually lose at any of them. Apparently the makers thought that given this game has the bare essentials of gameplay elements, that it might prove a bit difficult for the inferior female gamer and didn't think we could deal with the rejection of losing. But, I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Let's step back and take a deeper look at this poor excuse for a video game.

***Overview***

I don't have the booklet for this game so I can only go by what the cartridge gives me. Your basic story seems to be that Barbie has decided to take a vacation (a very patriotic US vacation if the map is any indication). The object of the game is to go on vacation and then go home for a party. Yeah, that's seriously it...

Graphically, this did not utilize the capabilities of the SNES at all.The best looking parts of the game are the title screen and the map, they fool you into thinking this might have at least standard SNES graphics, it all lies. It's not really much better looking than the NES Barbie game release. Though there are more colors and there's slightly more background animation happening. Barbie's overall look and animation, though she's little more than a stick figure, is OK but, on the whole the character sprites are definitely lacking, there are scores of NES releases that look better than this.

As for the sound, the music, is well, music for a barbie game. That's a better description than anything else I could say, but I'll try. It's certainly not good, but it could be much worse. There was at least an attempt to make it seem interesting and complex though in reality it's a collection of midi music that represents rejected theme songs from a mid-eighties sitcoms and standard repetitive uninspired video game tracks. I can say one completely positive thing about the music, it can be turned off in the options screen. The other sounds are just kind of there, they don't really detract from the experience, but they don't really add to it either. They can also be turned off in the options menu.

The controls for this game are pretty crappy. You've got the entire SNES pad worth of buttons to work with, but A, B, X, & Y all do the same thing, a generic action button that makes barbie do the selected action depending on what she's currently engaging in. D-pad makes her move back and forth, though when you're Barbie she won't move up and down at all. When you've got a cursor, you can move in all four directions, Exciting! Start pauses, select doesn't do anything except when you're putting together the tent and the L and R buttons don't do anything I noticed. Barbie doesn't respond particularly well and when you couple that with the poorly rendered environments and elements she's supposed to be interacting with, it can get very annoying though there's very little gameplay to speak of so it could be worse.

***Gameplay***

The game starts and you see barbie on the title screen sitting on her pile of suitcases from here you can either start right away or hit the options menu. In the options menus you can change the difficulty from blocks to mortarboard, that's kind of unclear, but I think I can safely assume that it's changing it to easy or hard. You can set the game to one or two players adding in Teresa or maybe it's Midge(I'm not sure I haven't actually played it with a second player)and you can turn the sounds and music on or off. After changing whatever options you like you can start game.

When you start the game you put in your name and are then greeted with a map. The map gives a very rough outline of the US conveniently patterned with the American flag just in case you were unsure of which country you were looking at, and positions the sun right on top of the great lakes area. The sun crashing into the earth hasn't seemed to put a damper on Barbie's vacation plans, she even seems unfazed that the calamity seems to have moved the state of Iowa into where Illinois used to be. Moving on, you can chose one of the following locations: Iowa to go the county carnival, Florida to hang out at the beach, Texas to hit up a local horse ranch, Wyoming to go camping and finally back home to your California mansion.

I choose to go to Iowa/Illinois first as I couldn't take my eyes away from the terrifying clown head used to demarcate it on the map. Let me stop for a moment and ask what kind of vacation destination is Iowa? I can't knock it too heavily because I went on vacation there just this year, but seriously there are no county fairs in the entirety of California that would have made a more sensible stop? Anyway, before you can send Barbie to the carnival you'll have to make sure you take time out for the most important part of any woman's vacation plans, giving her the proper outfit! This happens in every location, Barbie has a preset outfit and you choose the colors of various parts of it. I have to say, for a game that's supposed to be fashion conscious the clothes are pretty awful, even when taking the time period into account and it is incredibly annoying that the "same" colors never match.

After taking care of the business with your outfit you make it to the carnival and find that a prize pig has escaped. Barbie is asked to help them catch it, why I have no idea, I'd think a bunch of farmers who are likely to be at least sort of familiar with pigs would have a much better chance of catching it than a super model. Apparently though I'd be wrong as the pig runs around the screen until barbie hits the action button at the appropriate time to catch it. It then follows along behind you and then you're able to play carnival games because you caught it. HOORAY for perfectly reasonable coherent story lines, there's no flaws in that logic!

The carnival games are: knocking down cans, throwing balls in clown mouths, and ringing the bell on a strength tester. They're not actually horrible, but they aren't great either. When you're all done you walk off the side screen, Barbie will then talk about leaving and sends "you,"(whatever name you put in at the beginning), a post card talking about what she did there, yay! Then the game tallies up all the points you received in that level and others if you've played them to give you a total. Then it's back to the map to choose a new destination.

Next I went to Florida after carefully choosing Barbie's outfit (which looks nothing like what she ends up wearing during gameplay), you can choose to have her play "volleyball" with Midge or search for pirate treasure. I start of with "volleyball" I put it in quotes because last time I checked volleyball doesn't use a beach ball bigger than either of the participants to play. However in Barbie's world things are rarely as they are in the real world. In any case, you play with Midge until one of you gets to 10 points. If Barbie loses, it's no problem because she can just play over and over until she wins. The controls are especially horrible here and it's very easy to miss the ball, but you should be able to pass it without too much trouble.

After that annoyance I went to search for pirate treasure. Funny thing about pirate treasure is that in this case it's not only been discovered, but cataloged as well as Barbie knows the exact number of pieces, lucky her that no one else seemed to want to bother to pick it up. Some other interesting notes about this treasure is that it seems to float completely stationary and consists of cut diamonds bigger than any the world has seen, a few red diamonds a bunch of gold stars, a couple of treasure chests and some blue things I can't identify. While you're collecting all this conveniently located treasure, Barbie is slowly losing air so don't forget to pick up the perfectly safe and intact oxygen tanks that are littering the sea floor. After you collect all the treasure, you get a bunch of points and can leave the area. Then you can head to the sign in the middle of the level to exit. Barbie says a few words, sends her postcard, and you see your points and can select a new location.

Next, I went to Texas, to the Western ranch to be exact. I picked my outfit and then picked a horse to do jumping with. There are three different horses, a white horse, a bay horse and a black horse to choose from. I tried them all and they didn't seem to move any differently than one another. So pick whichever one you find the most aesthetically pleasing (that's like totally the most important thing anyway right?) and start your race against the clock on the jumping course. The clock starts as soon as you get on the course, no need to worry though, the horse runs at a steady pace by itself so all you have to worry about is hitting a button at the right time to jump over the bars, you'll gain 10 seconds every time you hit a bar and if you hit too many bars you'll have to quit. Though you still get some points even if you have to stop, so it's OK, you can try again, as many times as you like. Also note how when you're jumping, you can see the fabled misty mountain ranges of Texas in the background (yes there are mountains in Texas, but not like that).

When you're bored with that you can go play horseshoes by walking off to the right of the screen. Barbie aims like she's drunk, but you should still be able to hit the spike without too many issues. Be sure to take a look at how absolutely crazed Barbie looks when pitching them as well, it's quite frightening. When you decide it's time to move on you walk off the left side of screen and barbie says her words and sends her card, you get your points tally and choose the next destination.

Before heading home, I decided to send Barbie to Wyoming to do her camping. As usual you choose an outfit for her before starting. She then starts off by setting up here tent, which is an insanely simple puzzle set up kind of like Tangrams. Once you've finished that barbie goes for a walk through the woods.

This is the only part of the game that really feels like a video game. Barbie has to cross several streams by jumping from rock to rock, but she has to be careful as if she slips and ends up in the ankle deep water she'll have to go back to beginning to dry off. As we all should well know, it's unreasonable to even considering being wet while you're out camping and hiking by the stream. Making matters worse are the animals that get in your way and can knock Barbie off the rocks, causing her to get wet. Especially heinous are the butterflies, the cruel aggressors will mercilessly toss barbie into the water if they touch her while you're standing on a stone. Once again the poor controls/interactions can cause this to take longer than it needs to. After you get through the jumping trials Barbie decides to take some wildlife pictures.

This basically means that barbie will keep walking along while you use cursor shaped like a camera viewfinder to take pictures of the animals. Every animal you snap gets you more points though you can only take each individual animal's picture once. When Barbie's done, she sends her post card, you get your points tally and then move on.

Now it's time to head home after so many not-so-exciting adventures! If you're playing on the harder difficulty you have to have enough points to do so. Otherwise, you can't select California and you'll have to keep endlessly vacationing until you have enough points to go home. Once that's cleared up you choose California, pick out Barbie's dress color and then you find yourself in Barbies beautiful, ugly and insanely tacky mansion. As soon as you arrive Ken will tell you that there are gifts hidden for you to find, and then walks off...seems sort of suspicious but whatever, it's present time! If you're playing the harder level, Ken tells you where they are but, excluding the first it's via a series of annoying rhyming clues.

When you find a gift you try to figure out what's inside it, as that's way more interesting than actually opening it! If you choose incorrectly you just try again, if you choose correctly you get points and get to continue. Ken shows up again, tells you more presents are left or gives you a stupid riddle and then walks off again (he does this in rooms where he couldn't escape, but he's just gone! It's kind of eerie really). This happens until you find all your presents and then Ken says there's a knock at the door.

Barbie makes her way to the door then you stand outside with Ken and your pink convertible and...nothing happens. It's stationary scene with no dialogue or explanations or anything. You just sit there until you hit a button. I'm not sure if the implication is that Ken got you new pink convertible just like the one barbie has always had or what. Anyway after you hit the button you get a scene of Barbie and Ken on a balcony, where nothing still happens... Then you see a one page credits list, before it kicks you back out to the main menu. That's it, that's the game. All those points you collected? Worth pretty much nothing, especially the ones you got for guessing the presents.

***Conclusion***

This game is such waste that you can't lose and you can't really win. You can just play it, if you can call subjecting yourself to these mindless digital tasks playing. The concept is bad, the controls are bad and the sound is bad. The only time you'll feel good about this game is when you turn it off and swear off ever playing it again. If you want to play one of the worst games to ever hit the Super NES console, by all means play this game. If you want to actually get even a small amount of enjoyment out of what you're playing just about any other game will do. OK, maybe not Bebe's kids, but even Shaq-fu is more satisfying than this piece of crap. As a true gamer girl who has played everything from doom to pokemon, I can admit that I am in some ways a sterotypical girl and I do still enjoy dress-up and puzzle games and barbies. I'm still disgusted that such a horrible piece of crap was ever supposed to appeal to me. After all, in these modern times, a woman can buy her own pink convertible.

~Stephanie


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