Journal

Video games I’ve beaten…

18 Comments

I can count the number of video games I’ve beaten as an adult (with and without the help of walkthroughs) on one hand…

1) Pokemon Snap
2) Super Mario 64
3) Gauntlet Dark Legacy

It’s possible there are others, but I doubt it. Mostly I play games to relax, and when they start making me uptight I quit and do something else.

Yesterday evening I picked back up on the Metroid Prime game I’d abandoned back at 18% completion (or something like that). The kids gathered round, and I’ve had a good old time figuring out where all the buttons are again.

Then this evening the game again got sticky and difficult, fighting some dang rock monster boss in blinding snow. I may be ready to give it up again and go do something else.

(No, I don’t need your hints. I’ve already paged through several walkthroughs, and if I play MP any further, it’ll be walkthrough all the way.)

–Howard

18 thoughts on “Video games I’ve beaten…”

  1. Good old Thardus. One of the most fun battles in the game. Not half as annoying as one later in the game, though. Good luck and great happiness with your gaming enjoyment, Howard.

  2. Play Mario World, that’ll make you happy. (get an emulator and USB controller if necessary)

    Don’t know if that counts for beating as an adult.

  4. Try Mario Golf. 😀 Nice, not at all stressful game… unlike even Harvest Moon, where you can worry yourself sick about making sure the crops get in, or that the animals don’t die, or whether you’re making progress in your courtship of a girl and if you missed her birthday or not.

  5. I’ve been playing Myst III: Exile and finally finished it today. I used some walkthroughs, and I REGRET NOTHING!

    In fact, there was only one puzzle that I really cheated on, and the rest of the help I got was in the form “Oh — says here I can go in this direction, but I don’t see– oh, heh. Yep. There IS a ladder there.” (Would I have found it if I kept playing without a walkthrough for the sake of pride? Maybe. Would I have lost more hours to a video game? Definitely. So why do I have to keep telling myself there’s no shame in using hints for a game?)

    ***MYST 3 SPOILER***

    I had to have my wife help me with a color-based puzzle near the beginning. The combination was Yellow-Blue-Green-Red-Yellow-Purple-Red, and my eyes were telling me it was Green-Blue-Green-Red-Green-Blue-Red. (I considered just trying the 120 possible permutations of 5 colored buttons — glad I didn’t though, since the combination was not limited to five digits.)

    1. Hi Randy, I “friended” you. — Kurt

      The last game I went through was Doom 3. I used the cheats, mainly because I don’t have the patience to play games that long. I needed the cheats to speed through it.

      Next up? Half-Life 2. That game will be out Tuesday. I’m more interested in the multi-player stuff that comes with HL2, as opposed to the core game.

    2. Eh? I seem to recall beating that one without much of a problem; just paid attention to the beqre va juvpu gur yvtug cebterffrf guebhtu gur zveebef; gur pbybe bs gur xabo ba gbc vf gur gevpx.

      Used walkthroughs later, though. I have much hatred — ENORMOUS hatred, in fact — for that one rolling-ball area.

  6. What? No Starcraft? No Warcraft III? Shame on you, man.

    Seriously though, you should check out some Blizzard games (that’s the developer of the two I just mentioned, in case you didn’t know). They’ve generally got great stories, and with only a few exceptions they don’t get frustrating even if they get hard (My one exception being Terran Mission 10 in Starcraft. That one I had to cheat through.).

    1. Oh, PC games. Yeah. I guess if you count THOSE, then my count requires more than one hand.

      I played Warcraft, Warcraft II, Starcraft, and Starcraft with the expansion through to completion in single-player mode. I enjoyed using multiple saves as a cheat method. With the help of a little bit of time-travel-via-the-save-file, I played the Warcraft titles to completion without losing a single unit.

      I never bothered with the type-in-the-cheatcode cheats.

      This is harder than it sounds, because towards the end of the campaign there are non-repairable/non-healable units taking up food, and we can’t let them get SHOT at because that would spoil the perfect record.

      I never played any of the Blizzard titles in multiplayer mode.

      –Howard

      2. No, I’ve been pretty thoroughly butchered in Warcraft II. I can believe that’s hard. Congratulations, man.

        But when (or if) you’ve got some free time, you should check out Warcraft III. The story is one of the best I’ve ever seen in a computer game, and it’s great fun as well.

      3. Oh man — playing them in multiplayer mode is fantastic fun/incredible pain. I’ve punched holes in more things as a result of playing those games unmedicated than any other hole-makers combined. But to WIN! To TROMP on those dirty, dirty humans/orcs/zerg/protoss/elves/undead who oppose me! That is pleasure.

        I didn’t much care for the cartoony look Warcraft III went with. And I didn’t like the heroes when they added them to Warcraft II, so I didn’t much care for them in III, either.

        [random]
        Chalain and I discussed ideas for an Everquest-esque game a few years before it came out. I suppose the idea was straightforward enough for anybody to come up with it, but we were hungry for it. To date, I’ve still never played it, because my spiritual creedo forbids addictive substances.

        (And my financial creedo forbids recurring revenue streams where I am not the destination of the revenue, but the source.)
        [/random]

  7. Ah, Thardus. there’s a reason the name has “hard” in it. He ain’t kidding around.

    somebody went under a dome
    There she saw a rock!
    It wasn’t a rock…
    It was a rock… MONSTER!
    (dun dun dun da-da dun-da-da-dunnnn)

    Vorn

  8. Agreed, Thardus was one of the hardest bosses in the game. I had an easier time with the final boss, all told. But at least you got to play the pure joy that is Metroid Prime. Now, off to go get the sequel!

    Popo out.

  9. I feel the same way a lot of the time.

    I spend upwards of 40$ on some games, and then I don’t play them to anywhere near completion.

    My list of games completed:
    1. Dungeon Siege
    2. Gothic
    3. Gothic 2
    4. ….. I know I’ve finished more than 3 games, but the others just seem to elude me right now.

    Still, my list is short and pathetic as well.

    🙂

  10. Never try Nethack. Or ZAngband. Or Moria, or any of the other games in the RGR* newsgroups. I will admit that in all likelihood you already /have/, and probably already have nearly thrown your computer through the window because of them, but I wouldn’t want it to happen if you didn’t.

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