Games nowadays are a streamlined experience - think less about your inventory, and more about how to shoot that man over there. More and more accusations are flying over the 'dumbing down' of the experience, but many forget that a quick fiddle in the options can make a world of difference, with many developers taking time to create some truly devilish difficulty settings.
Here are the top 'Hardcore Modes' that not only give you a challenge, but also encourage you to approach things from a new angle.
1. Fallout: New Vegas on Hardcore
If money is particularly tight this summer, why not forgo the traditional camping holiday in favour of a more exotic, giant bug infested experience? Fallout: New Vegas' hardcore mode retains the traditional elements of wilderness survival such as eating, drinking and sleeping, and combines it with the constant fear of being eaten alive by ghouls. With instant health replenishment removed, careful rationing of those last few Hello Kitty plasters is also needed.
2. Halo: Reach on SWAT
Halo's multiplayer is well known for its insane, unpredictable battles where riding vehicles off cliffs and throwing grenades at Moa birds are considered effective military tactics. Head into team SWAT however, and suddenly actual thought is needed. Losing shields, boosting health and limiting player radar immediately impacts the way you approach the game. Headshots become necessities rather than bonuses, and sticking with your team is vital.
3. Metal Gear Solid 3 on European Extreme
When it comes to bouncing back and forth over the line of realism, nothing bounces faster and more frequently than Metal Gear Solid 3. Heal yourself with proper medical procedures, wear camouflage to hide from your enemies, engage in tactical espionage action and... wait, is that guy made of bees? If you feel a game with a protagonist called Naked Snake doesn't take itself seriously enough, playing through on European Extreme difficulty results in Game Over whenever you're spotted. Your appreciation for long grass and cardboard boxes will be a lot higher after a few hours of playing Hide and Seek: Cold War edition.
4. Sniper Elite V2 with the physics switched on
Gamers are often too busy shooting things, or punching things, or stabbing things, to concern themselves with such trivialities as gravity, the wind or respiratory systems. However, all of these and more are addressed in Sniper Elite V2's somewhat nepotistic 'Sniper Elite Mode'. Now when shooting German soldiers, bullet drop, wind resistance and breathing are all things that can get in the way of liberating Europe. However, if you specialise in aiming slightly to the left or right of a Nazi's crotch, then I have good news...
5. Operation Flashpoint on anything
Many First Person Shooters claim to have realistic guns, accurate military technology or characters that you actually give half a peanut about. While Call of Duty does have its Online Hardcore mode, AKA the "It's ok to camp, there's no killcam!" option, fans of down-and-dirty action should pick up the slightly shonky Operation Flashpoint: Red River.
Here's a sample engagement: approaching a village, you're shot in the leg from several hundred metres away. So you sprint to cover, return fire, order your team to suppress targets, dodge behind another piece of cover, throw a grenade, switch weapons, vault over the wall, run into a building... and collapse from loss of blood. There's no recharging health on offer here - every injury requires immediate attention, including those suffered by your three idiotic squad-mates.
22 comments so far...
sonicmark on 21 Jul '12 said:
I use method number 8 on all of my games, and I raise the stakes by sitting in the same place for 12 hours solid and not eating or drinking for the entire time, finish 'em first time, everytime
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Bezza89 on 21 Jul '12 said:
Operation Flashpoint and crysis have the same damage taken and given for enemies and allies which is great, as the higher difficulties then only take away HUD elements and checkpointing etc, so you really know how to play the game when upgrading difficulty and is less frustrating because you know what to expect, sort of.
Crysis is just easy in every difficulty because of invisibility and is far too tempting to not use. So I would say OF Dragon Rising is the better game to play, mainly due to the more sandboxy nature of the world compared to my admittedly brief time in Red River... and I'd say buy Dragon Rising cos I own it and have yet to finish it and would like help
Clanger67 on 21 Jul '12 said:
Plus devs. just don't dumb dowm games in the first place,end off.Some of us have been playing over thirty years.
Huffy1968 on 21 Jul '12 said:
9. Play Dark Souls.
RetroDad on 21 Jul '12 said:
Agreed. I also found that I could just drive a vehicle straight through hotspot areas at times. Koreans actually speaking in their native tongue made for a more immersive experience in my opinion. I died a few times extra, as I didn't know the Korean for, "I've just thrown a grenade at you, ha-huh!" I notably died a few times fighting the Ceph Hunter on the deck of the aircraft carrier. Once I had a rhythm going, it was double bubble achievement time.
I am slightly surprised by the exclusion of Dead Space 2 from this list. The Hardcore mode facing players here is surely worth a mention?! Makes the Crysis Delta campaign look like the Koreans are only armed with pointy sticks in comparison. Ah well.
Joe90_Remy700 on 21 Jul '12 said:
ahh shame, i sold it a few months back. had both and dragon rising was by far and away the better. in fact, there are few games i've played that are yet to match up to it even with all its nuances. and one of the few games i've got 100% achievements on (yes, i did it on hardcore with just 1 other human player - it rocks!)
Decent_Jam on 21 Jul '12 said:
OMG only two pages
I find most games hard enough as it is, there's no room for making things unnecessarily difficult when you are already struggling through on normal. The fact that I only just managed to finish Max Payne 3 campaign is a testament to how well balanced it is in terms of difficultly, I'm sure the likes of Old School and New York Minute are next to impossible by my standards.
RetroDad on 21 Jul '12 said:
Bottom line, any game I play has to be enjoyable. If I find the difficulty is swear-at-screen-break-controller-pisstake-hard, fun is not being had! Playing on the Xbox is my way of unwinding and should never be a source of stress.
ChiefWarFac3 on 21 Jul '12 said:
Play Portal 2 split-screen co-up, controlling the 2nd player with your feet...
STE MO on 21 Jul '12 said:
The first Operation Flashpoint was god damn hard on normal so I'd hate to play OF:RR, and I usually set shooters to insane, hardcore, legendary or whatever the hardest setting is. OF is for real gamers!
Halo Reach SWAT is just the same as SWAT on previous Halo's, and is a right good laugh. It's the way Halo MO should be played.
Hardest game has to be Mass Effect 1 on insane, it beat me after about an hour
Decent_Jam on 21 Jul '12 said:
I agree that game-based frustration isn't much fun, hence I tend to shy away from harder difficulties. I think it's a difficult line to tread though, since it's not too fun if it's too easy either.
Games that frustrate me with dead LOTS tend not to get finished.
Plamsa wing on 21 Jul '12 said:
Crysis was hard? Someone didn't use cloak and play bush monkey.
Hell on Crysis 2 I hardly killed anyone during the super hard playthrough, just ran through the entire thing.
I thought Mass Effect 2 was the hardest, well up until after the Collector ship, after that aside from a couple of side missions with two YMIR mechs at the same time, it was easy.
With ME 1 all you had to do was use Immunity, then Adrenaline Burst and by the time Immunity was over you could use it again followed with Adrenaline Burst.
Then you had the never over-heating weapons upgrades.
Caligulove on 21 Jul '12 said:
I'd like to take this opportunity to brag about the fact that I have 1000GS for Dragon Rising.
The hardest and maybe most rewarding 1000 chivos on the 360 I think. If I still had it I'd offer to help but it was lost during great unemployment plague of 2010.
Bezza89 on 22 Jul '12 said:
Thanks for the tirade of endless people displaying Dragon Rising 100%s.
I'll just go over here and stay in the corner 
Clanger67 on 22 Jul '12 said:
Aaahhhhh Bezza
Take heart at least you are beating me on DR cheevos.I ought to go back and finish it someday,not been on it for a while.Yet finished RR quite easily still not got many cheevos though.Did like RR so might go back to that one day.
golliwoza on 22 Jul '12 said:
At least you didn't have a headless PLA soldier trying to run you down in the first mission. I will be up for some DR I much prefer the scale even if it is hard as hell.
Bezza89 on 22 Jul '12 said:
I'll be online soonish, my plans for european domination as the Brutii family in TW are being besieged on all fronts by the Nazis and Pharoahs, and those Egyptian bastards are cunning. Long story short, it's hard, I've had enough, if you see me on give me a shout.
golliwoza on 22 Jul '12 said:
I am having a similar problem on Medieval 2. First of the French wanted to attack me then my traitor English Pope decided to excommunicate me for attacking them and Scotland. No worries now though both are pretty much dead the only other problem is I have a Jihad against me from Egypt.
Did you get some Xbox live then?
Bezza89 on 22 Jul '12 said:
Yeah got some midweek, saving up for premium now.
Clanger67 on 22 Jul '12 said:
What's the best way to get Gold ?.Not from live,lol.Is there anybody usually cheaper than anybody else ?.I noticed on Amazon 12 months is a couple of pound cheaper.
Bezza89 on 22 Jul '12 said:
Dunno shop around, I got a deal on live last year for £30, went for amazon this year as I saw no deal.
STE MO on 22 Jul '12 said:
I got the deal on Live a few months ago for £25. Normally I get mine from eBay for around £30 for 13 months.