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


Don't forget to stop by our shop:

 

Retro Review Tuesday: Mario Paint

Introduction

Mario Paint is a game that makes absolutely no sense at all to those who didn't grow up with it. On
the surface it seems like an early version MSPaint, only with Mario branding. Which honestly a lot of the drawing portion is, though it's filled with all sorts of fun extras that make it way more exciting and addictive than sitting at your desktop. Along with the drawing portion there's an animation program, a coloring book, a custom stamp maker, a coffee break mini game and a composition program. In short it was a whole world of digital creativity at our fingertips long before there was MSpaint on our desktops or windows music maker,  or most of us even had home computers for that matter.

Overview

Controls
Mario Paint is one of the few games that utilized the SNES mouse. You use it like you use an ordinary computer mouse, you make selections with the left button. The right button has a few different context sensitive controls, but mostly it's used for going backwards while looking through the color palates. As you would expect you move around using the entire mouse. Like old computer mice it controls via a ball in the bottom and isn't terribly sensitive. It also gets dirty quickly so you'll often find yourself taking it apart and cleaning stray cat hairs and dust off the ball. Additionally the game offers three different mouse response speeds so you can experiment with which works best for you.

Music
In the sections that aren't specifically the composition program, Mario paint still offers plenty of musical excellence. You can select what you'll be listening to  in the "paint" screens. You can select the main recognizable Mario paint theme (which I've oftentimes found myself humming in the grocery store),  by selecting the man doing push ups. A generic fun song, by picking the three monkeys. Or some "relaxed" new age style music, which is the staff filled with various things instead of notes . The thing that looks like a nose (but is actually a dog...maybe) is silence.

The coffee break fly swatting game has several background themes depending on the level you're on. The stamp creation screen has it's own music as does the save screen.

In the composing section there are three pre-programmed songs including a version of the original Mario theme. However, you've got almost no limit to the songs you can create on your own so long as it's within the confines of 3 notes per beat and 25 measures.

So your game in particular can have either a great Nintendo soundtrack with the kind of outstanding quality you'd expect from a first party Nintendo game of this age or you can have a fantastic personalized one depending on your skill and patience level.

Gameplay

The game has several parts.

1. Paint

The main part is a digital paint as the title would lead you to believe. As I said earlier at first glance it's an early version of your standard computer paint program.

Your main page gives you several basic options at the bottom of the screen, a movement tool to reorient any and stamps, a pen in three thicknesses, a spray can tool, a stamp tool, copy tool, a shape drawing tool and an erasing tool. The top of the screen gives you 14 pre-programmed color/pattern/stamp palates and a 15th row for your original stamp creations. For paint functions second page offers a letter box tool, which simply removes the tool bars and frames your creation.  There's also a page fill tool which fill the canvas with whatever you'd like without having to wait for the paint brush fill. And finally it also contains the text tool and custom stamp creation tools which I'll go into a little more depth about.

The text tool is exactly what you'd expect, you can use the full English alphabet in lowercase uppercase and italics, as well as what I believe is a full set of Japanese Kanji. You can change the colors and make them small or large.

In stamp creation you get a 16x16 grid with which you can create your own stamp images to use anywhere in the game. It works pretty much like the pattern editor in the Animal Crossing games, just with fewer functions.

There are also 4 coloring pages (which are for some reason located in the save an load screen) Which feature: an image of Mario on Yoshi, a collection of animals, a birthday cake, and an undersea scene. They're exactly what you'd expect black and white pictures you color using either the pen tool or the fill tool.

Depending on your level of skill and your patience the paint functions allows you to make everything from a few minute silly scene involving baby heads and flowers, or use the save feature to create a multi-hour multi session 16 bit Mona Lisa. However, all that could still be accomplished in a normal paint program that most of us have at our fingertips whenever we use a computer. What makes Mario Paint different and more fun is the little surprises. There are 9 different ways to do a full screen erase each with it's own animation, the paint brush dances while it's filling, and the dog runs around the screen when you ignore him. There are Tons of other fun things, but they're best discovered by playing the game.

2. Animation

On the second screen you'll find the animation tool which is represented by the person jumping rope. The animation screen lets you first select the desired number of frames for your animation 4, 6 or 9. You can free hand your animation within the box or use stamps. There are several stamps already set up for animation so making a walking Koopa, BaBomb or Spiney is quick and easy. This is also and excellent place to use your own custom stamps. There's a copy tool here as well so it's easy to copy from one frame to another to make sure you've got your positioning right as there aren't any grids to help you.

Once you're finished making your masterpiece you choose the path you wanted it take across whatever you've left on the screen. The path will take into account any starts and stops you make so you may want o be aware of that. Once you've decided on the animation and it's path you can view the animation you've made. On the view animation screen you can put the frame on and set your masterpiece to whatever musical composition you last had up in the composition screen making for a full cinematic experience for the ages! You can even save your full creation by using the handy save robot, be sure to enjoy the hot techno beats while you wait (I died with happiness when I realized this same save music was used in Mario Maker).

3. Composition

One of the most memorable parts of the game is the composing program. As I said earlier it comes with several preprogrammed pieces of music but you have almost endless possibilities on what you can create with it as many a YouTube video will demonstrate (though it's worth mentioning that most of the YouTube videos aren't made using Mario paints base program, but rather a computer program based on it that offers a few more features). In the composition program you start your new Magnum opus by first selecting a 3/4 or 4/4 time signature. From there you get a selection of 16 "notes" which range from a Starman to a baby's head to a boat, each with its own unique sound. You can put no more than three notes per beat 3 or 4 beats per measure, depending on your time signature choice, in a maximum span of 25 measures. Should your composition ended up shorter than the full 25 there's a a staff end tool which allows you to end early. You can also loop your creation which is a especially useful if you're going to set it to a long animation. Overall the composer is something you can have a lot of fun with and if you're musically inclined at all and you will very likely lose hours of your life to it.

4. Coffee Break


This mini game seems absolutely random compared to the
rest of the game as it has nothing do with any sort of creativity. It is however the only part that really seems like playing a regular video game. It seems as though it was primarily included simply to get players used to their using the mouse instead of a controller, but it really is a great mini game. Your cursor becomes a hand holding a flyswatter and your goal is to swat 100 mosquitoes,dragon flies,houseflies and bomb bugs. You then get a giant mecha bug you must hit several times while trying to avoid his projectiles and clouds of killer bugs. Once you defeat the bug master you move on the next stage which rewards you with a different background, different music and more of a challenge. You follow the same pattern until you beat all the giant bugs.

It's honestly a lot more and addictive than it sounds (which you already know if you've got the first Wario Ware), when going through the game in order to better write this review I got myself stuck playing it several times. It's also a heck of a challenge to keep your hand from getting stung/exploded/otherwise mangled and screaming (yes, the hand screams), I don't think I ever managed to beat it as a kid, but I know for certain that I spent hours attempting it. I'd like to take this moment to suggest that we all write letters to Nintendo asking them to include this game in their next set of mini games for the Wii.



Conclusion

Mario Paint is a fantastic game at the time was quite unique, (though there was at least one coloring book style game on the NES). There were very few games coming out for any console in the US that didn't have what would  be considered normal formulaic gameplay. Mario paint challenged you to make your own game, and use your imagination to create what you wanted to see. Even more amazing than the concept itself is that it worked so well. Named one of the top 200 SNES games ever released, even now, 20+ years later people still remember this program fondly and still use it. If you've got a creative side, or just enjoy smacking bugs, Mario Paint won't disappoint.

~Stephanie