Custom PC's ten hardest games ever

by Kevin Kelly { Jul 18th 2007 at 8:55PM }

Pictured: games that might be hard to buy, not play.

Are these really the ten hardest PC games ever? We cast a somewhat doubtful eye on Custom PC's list (replete with handy guides, walkthroughs, and cheat codes), but there are a ton of hard games that didn't make it on here. Is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas really one of the hardest games in existence?

We remember playing Wing Commander III until our eyes bled, restarting level after level after level, and smacking our stupid sound card around until it made some sort of noise. Maybe there should be a "Hardest To Get Up And Running Smoothly" games list. But as far as hardest ... that's a tough list to make, and a lot of source material to draw from. Heck, some of those Infocom text games were pretty freakin' hard. Who else pulled their hair out during Zork II when the Wizard of Frobozz would suddenly appear and screw you over?

Anyhow, check out the list and see if you agree. They get some uber-bonus points for putting Syndicate: American Revolt on there, but c'mon ... Far Cry?

10: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
9: System Shock 2
8: Homeworld 2
7: Final Doom
6: Syndicate: American Revolt
5: Grand Prix Legends
4: Far Cry
3: IL-2 Sturmovik and add-ons
2: Armed Assault
1: Aliens vs. Predator

Tags: Far Cry, Final Doom, Homeworld, PC, Syndicate, System Shock

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Tom @ Jul 18th 2007 9:07PM

Hell yeah Far Cry! I never beat that godamn game.

t_m @ Jul 19th 2007 12:59AM

weird.. i'm pretty rubbish at FPS games these days, and i had no trouble with farcry at all. I can think of a number of recent FPS games i've had much more trouble with.

Didn't find System Shock 2 at all hard either.. or AvP.
Is it just because Farcry and AvP didn't have quicksave?? I actually found it improved them both, and didn't make them that hard.

Syndicate, on the other hand, WAS frickin hard! But i'd include some X-Wing or Wing Commander games in there as well.

Come to think of it, the hardest games i've played have been on consoles.. (Driver3, Ninja Gaiden, Buffy, etc..)

Syndicate 4 president tho..

pezman726 @ Jul 18th 2007 9:10PM

Took me almost a month to get past that last level in Far Cry!! Stupid lava pit with all the rocket launcher guys and snipers!!!

Geo @ Jul 18th 2007 10:18PM

!Ha,ha,ha you are funny man, i had the same experience.....

Poisoned Al @ Jul 19th 2007 2:42AM

Yeah me too, and to top it all the ending was shit!

Arno @ Jul 18th 2007 9:16PM

San Andreas was hard?

Amos @ Jul 18th 2007 9:20PM

That's a pretty lame list. More like "Which big-name games were somewhat difficult." The truly hellish PC aren't half as well known as most of the stuff on that list.

MosquitoControl @ Jul 18th 2007 9:33PM

Far Cry was only hard in that one level, the lava pit. Other than that it was pretty easy.

Syndicate was a bitch, absolutely.

Alien v. Predator, the Rebellion one, right? The Alien third was simple, insanely easy (and fun.) The human one was rough, but very doable. The Predator part was impossible to get through, but not because of difficulty, because it was just no fun.

Anonim @ Jul 18th 2007 9:49PM

Loved this game.
In my top 3 games.

Predator mission were the most boring and easy ones.
Alien was fun but after getting know-how not terribly difficult.

Human campain was very nice - especially if played on hardes diff using ONLY riffle and flares.
*Hard* , challenging , fun!

Almost as fun as playng Halo 1 using ONLY assault riffle and granades. *NO* 'cheating' by skipping enemies , working in off limits areas etc. (And Legendary of course)

Fun fun and hard :)

marcandrer @ Jul 18th 2007 9:33PM

Silver Surfer on the NES is by far the hardest game I have played.

Laggy @ Jul 19th 2007 9:05AM

Somebody's been watching AVGN :)

MosquitoControl @ Jul 18th 2007 9:35PM

Just want to point out that, as much as being a Predator sucked, the other two sides of AvP were very, very good, as was the multiplayer co-op.

One of my favorite games.

Kri7z @ Jul 18th 2007 9:44PM

Seriously, Megaman didn't get a mention? God, the Yellow Demon is one of the hardest bosses ever! If it wasn't for the pause glitch, I don't think you'd ever be able to beat that game.

What about Contra? Ninja Gaiden? Surely either of those games would be harder than Far Cry, of all things.

Erik @ Jul 18th 2007 9:51PM

No Battletoads, eh? Still don't know anybody who beat that one without a gameshark..

3cubedminus3squared @ Jul 18th 2007 9:51PM

Are a lot of these shooters or something. I don't think I've heard of half of this list, then again, I don't play games on PC.

Jamus @ Jul 18th 2007 9:51PM

"Thexder"

Most anger incurring game ever.

Erik @ Jul 18th 2007 9:52PM

Also, there was that NES dragonball game which i'm fairly certain is just unbeatable.

Fuzzbee @ Jul 18th 2007 9:56PM

I don't get the San Andreas one. Its very long, but not hard (thats what she said) to get through. Farcry's lava pit, holy crap that sucked. I think I had to cheese my way through that by putting a chair in the door so it wouldn't close behind me.

3cubedminus3squared @ Jul 18th 2007 10:02PM

Maybe they found getting the Pilot's license hard.
I know it took me like two hours to get, but after that, it was pretty easy.

colin @ Jul 18th 2007 10:37PM

for the office reference

+1

MosquitoControl @ Jul 18th 2007 10:02PM

You guys are missing that this is the hardest PC games ever.
Not video games ever.

Those of you not PC gaming, start. Don't be an idiot and buy HL2 for the 360 or PS3. It's mouse or nothing...

WiNG @ Jul 18th 2007 10:04PM

Homeworld 2 I can attest to is ridiculous ( you hear that Anam? ). Controlling a fleet of about 300 ships in full 3d against like 2 enemy fleets in a mine field while trying to keep 1 specific ship alive is a BITCH.

Don't know about the others, though I found TIE Fighter CE pretty damn hard back in the day.

Anam @ Jul 19th 2007 9:04AM

I hear you, and now I'm scared. The only RTS I was ever good at was StarCraft, so it sounds like I'll get murdered in Homeworld 2. Oh well, we'll see.

Avatar @ Jul 18th 2007 10:07PM

I don't get how people say the last level of Far Cry was hard. All you need to for those snipers and rocket soldiers is confuse them with random sounds (rocks, firing rockets). To be honest I found that part one of the easier to get through, mainly because it's all or nothing, no need to conserve ammo for later levels, and who cares if you finish with 1 health point at the end? I think the original Longest Journey should be on that list, because some of those puzzles were really convoluted.

Yoshi @ Jul 18th 2007 10:12PM

I disagree with the San Andreas thing, but damn, Far Cry and Alien vs Predator definitely WERE hard.

Lijik @ Jul 18th 2007 10:21PM

Why the hell is Rayman not on the list? I have been getting my ass handed to me in Bandland every day for the last few months.

At least I was able to actually beat the games on this list.

Ross @ Jul 18th 2007 10:22PM

Syndicate is one of my all time favorite games. But yeah it fully deserves to be on this list. It took me about 20 tries to get past the first mission.

Not to mention on of the later mission has you fighting 9 other agency. The only way I beat it was only taking one agent and equipping him with only force fields and a single air strike. I had to run around and make the gangs all chase him in till there were all gathered in the center square airstirking half of them to oblivion. The remaining i killed by making the other gangs shoot each other and looting miniguns

Trio @ Jul 18th 2007 10:26PM

Fricking Far Cry took me a month and two weeks to finish it, !damnnnnnn i can`t even belive that.
I usually finish most of the games in 1 or 2 weeks.........

jcmschwa @ Jul 18th 2007 10:27PM

swifty, i'm going to agree with you about the absence of LOMAC. maybe it's a list of games that are still playable while being extremely hard. LOMAC isn't really even playable, whereas IL-2 is playable, but can be a real bitch none the less...maybe they're referring to the uncanny ability of a CPU controlled belly gunner being able to score a through-the-cockpit instant kill from like .3km with the difficulty set to ace...that's always a real pain in the ass.

HollisJamison @ Jul 18th 2007 10:34PM

The original 2d Prince of Persia anyone? Thats a challenge.

Tulang @ Jul 18th 2007 10:38PM

I thought any one of the Descents were by far more difficult than any game on that list. And Wing Commander III was definitely a pain, damn Vorkath or Vorkats or whatever and their stupid rear cannons.

AvP was definitely not as difficult as the list is saying. I breezed through the missions on difficult. Only the human campaign provided somewhat a challenge.

spydey @ Jul 18th 2007 10:38PM

where's Paperboy!!!?

JimyD @ Jul 18th 2007 10:42PM

I agree with AvP since the original version did not have an in-mission save feature, which made it a nightmare to play. Other difficult PC games due to the same reason (no save feature) - Oni, Star Wars: Dark Forces (due to jumping puzzles) and Project IGI (I came close to shattering my keyboard playing this game). I would also throw in Panzer Elite for my sim entry.

WiNG @ Jul 18th 2007 11:12PM

Paperboy isn't on the list cuz it's not considered a PC game.

What about chess vs a perfect comp? That's hard...

meester anderson @ Jul 18th 2007 11:30PM

I remember playing wing commander 3 as a kid, I thought it wasn't too hard until I got to the mission where you are up against a kilrathi dreadnaught, which seemed invincible. how did u guys kill it?

Ninkul @ Jul 18th 2007 11:40PM

Ikaruga?

Agilo @ Jul 19th 2007 2:59AM

Ikaruga, seconded.
Really is very damned difficult; I'm actually VERY surprised it didn't make that list.

VedicHymn @ Jul 18th 2007 11:47PM

Seriously, Syndicate American Revolt should be #1 on that list. I was able to beat Atlantic Accelerator in the original, but I couldn't get past the FIRST MISSION of the expansion.

I also ended up being Tie Fighter without any problems, but as someone else said, the expansion content got ridiculously hard.

greatslack @ Jul 19th 2007 12:01AM

All of the hardest games ever made were made for the NES. End of story.

Hunterprime @ Jul 19th 2007 12:11AM

I love how many people have missed the point of this entirely.

It is PC only folks stop saying console games

Benor @ Jul 19th 2007 12:24AM

Okay, I'm not much of a PC gamer. I'm all about the consoles. Which is why I'm restraining myself from making comments about Ninja Gaiden for the NES and so forth.

But San Andreas? That's not tough. It's just big. Sure, there are hard parts, but this is not a game with overwhelming difficulty. Hell, a lot of the difficulty I had in playing it came from poor controls, not tough sections or good AI. I don't count things like "We didn't do a very good job on controlling flying vehicles" as part of a game's difficulty, either.

I don't know. I wish these lists would be restricted to "the 10 toughest games of the last decade" or something similar. I'm sick of "definitive," "ever" or "all time" lists because of things like this.

EMaster @ Jul 19th 2007 1:39AM

I have been wrestling for 2 months now to finish my copy of Tetris by Tengen for the NES and I cam only at level 15! Mmmmm... Unlicensed goodness....

Colt @ Jul 19th 2007 1:40AM

My pick is for the sims i still cant figure out how to beat that game

bombos @ Jul 19th 2007 1:48AM

Caesar III !!!

Poisoned Al @ Jul 19th 2007 2:45AM

I never finished Doom 3. Apparently, hell is really, REALLY boring.

madato @ Jul 19th 2007 2:48AM

Err..

Zeliard

dsub @ Jul 19th 2007 2:54AM

Battletoads was definately hard, but I'm pretty sure that these are all PC games here.

There are so many 2D arcade games from 1985-2000 that I could name as "the hardest games of all time" that it's not even funny. Mainly because arcade games are only hard if you don't have tons of quarters. Being that Battletoads was originally an arcade game, I wouldn't place that high on the hardest console games of all time list. AvP the arcade game (the 2D smash em up version) was hard, but it was no harder than other games like it such as Final Fight and Captain Commando. I would have to say that the entire Mega Man series on NES, NES and PS1 includes many of the hardest console games of all time.

Far Cry would definately be near the top of my list of PC games though, as beating that game without cheats on the harder difficulty settings is damn near impossible.