Comments on: So You Can Beat a Game? Big Deal

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:10:07 +0000

My favorite challenge is to beat OoT without getting a Sword. You can only do it on the original N64 or else you cant get by that annoying elf kid in the beginning who demands your sword and sheild. And guess what you have to substitute for the sword?

DEKU STICKS!!!! MILLIONS OF DEKU STICKS…

But I completely agree, side quests is where its at. Who wouldn’t want to beat FFVII with all level 1 party members?

By: Brittany

Brittany — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:47:18 +0000

Haha, I leveled my monsters in Monster Rancher too, especially my Pixies and Obelisks. They were always my favorite. My rabbit-monster ran away, I forget the breed though. I feel like with the advent of leaderboards people only care about showing off to their friends, which sort of irritates me. I love achievements because they are sort of the new “have-tos” for the 360’s era. I don’t care who sees them, but I always feel awesome when I get a hard one.

I remember playing through Amplitude and Frequency about a billion times each just so I could say I beat it on the hardest setting. XD No one I talk to even likes them, so of course it doesn’t matter to them, haha.

By: William

William — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:23:53 +0000

I don’t think I’ve truly wrung the life out of any game since FFVI, though I’m quite close to doing so with The World Ends With You.

Maybe part of what was so much fun about beating FFVI was the bugs. I never quite got around to the “beat the game with nothing but Cyan with no Espers” challenge though…

By: William

William — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:27:20 +0000

Oh yeah, also, SCREW red jewels. =\

By: Gloria

Gloria — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:32:57 +0000

Demosthenes: Ahaha, I never actually tried that. You’re making me want to dig out my old N64 and play. OOT was one of my favorite games.

Brit: I <3 monster rancher. I hated pixies. I always tried to raise dragons but their life spans were so short. My problem was getting into the top leagues and then my monster would be old and dying. xD So I’d just freeze it and combine two into a new one. I also really, REALLY hated suezos. I think my best one ever was a worm. Lame

William: You heard about the Cyan bug, right? It’s pretty crazy. And yeah, the pisser about Illusion of Gaia was they fact that if you missed a red jewel at any point in the game, it was gone forever. I felt like crap after I beat the game and found that out. Second time was the charm, though.

By: Matticus

Matticus — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:25:07 +0000

Now if only I can apply this mindset to something somewhat productive. Like visiting every Starbucks in the city. Acing exams without reading material. Stopping pucks while balancing on my head. Blogging without stopping.

By: William

William — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:36:12 +0000

A FFVI Haiku:

Cute green dance of death
That exploits two bugs at once
Go, Psycho-Cyan!

By: JoeSFO

JoeSFO — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:24:57 +0000

Beating a game used to be a big deal, because, back in the day, there was no saving and games were long and difficult. Blaster Master for the NES would be a perfect example of that combination. Other examples would be Super Mario without the warp zones or Contra without the cheat code. Nowadays, games have been n00bed for a wider level of access, and saves mean you now have all the time in the world to finish and can take a mulligan whenever you want, instead of hosing all the work you’d done to get to that point with one bad move.

By: Brittany

Brittany — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:28:36 +0000

Joe! Hi! I’m TheReclaimer. I’m glad you came to check us out.

Also I wanted to add that I just realized today that I have let achievements on 360 games control my play style as of late. I used to never spend time on games after I had finished them but lately I am going through just to get the achievements that seemed ridiculous at first look. It’s a bad habit. I really need to stop and go give my PS2 some lovin’ since it IS my favorite~

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:01:38 +0000

Another good one I did recently was doing all of Ravenholm with just the Gravity Gun. God, that was awesome.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:27:00 +0000

I felt Like an underachiever, but then I remembered I beat Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal with only the wrench

By: Nicest Girl

Nicest Girl — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:57:20 +0000

My boyfriend once leveled up Cloud and Barret in FFVII to level 99 BEFORE beating the first boss. It took him 3 months, he said.
Yeah………… I never even had the patience to level up Aerith before she died, let alone level up the two main characters fully before the first boss.
He’s crazy.

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:06:39 +0000

Honestly, trying out all the little in-game secrets or collecting items has always been more interesting to me than actually beating the game for some reason. I have dozens of games I love and have owned for years but never beaten, simply because I like starting over…I play more for the fun experience than the end-game rewards.

I love testing the limits of a game…like exploring places in Mario Kart to figure out new ways to complete the track (or running it backwards).

And proximity mines are actually my favorite way to play Goldeneye. Rather than hunting down my opponents to blast them as quickly as possible, I enjoy setting up elaborate mine traps and spend the rest of the time drawing pictures on the walls with the paintball guns while I wait for my friends to stumble into the traps. I find that way more fun that more traditional playing styles.

By: RiotMonster

RiotMonster — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:36:48 +0000

Demosthenes.. lol amazing idea.. beating OOT without a sword XD

And yes Sparkk.. my life has been all about acheivements for this past few days too.. good goddd..

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:32:46 +0000

Wait, what was so bad about the original MYST? There was one aggravating bug (at least in my 90’s-era disc) where if you screwed up the code to raise the sunken ship even once, it would never work, but other than that I found the puzzles doable. That’s not to say easy — they had me pulling my hair out more than once — but it’s a game centered around puzzles. If they had been too easy it would have sucked.

Of course then again I’m the Myst outcast who thinks Riven was the best of all of them…but that’s a rant for another time

By: James

James — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:48:35 +0000

First game i beat absolutely 100% was spyro 2 main reason i did it because that game actually had decent rewards to get 100% they opened up a mini-world full of fun games and after that a super powerup.

It was a challenge and the reward was brilliant so i went back and tried to get 100% on all games i did it on Super Mario World only to find the grand reward was a change in the colour palette. Bit disappointed about that one.

Finished GTA 3 and Vice city 100% too couldn’t finish san andreas that game is just far too massive.

I love the look of 100% completion and the way square enix rewards you for it is also pretty awesome the extra hidden endings.

Rewards for 100% are a must in my opinion but honestly the amount of stuff needing to be covered in the GTA’s absolutely required those damn strategy books and i just can’t be bothered when there is no further difficulty and it’s just taking a shot of a damn billboard across the street from your damn safehouse.

Damn!