GameBanshee Forums

Hello everyone!

I wanted to start this thread a long time ago, but the lack of time... Well, nevermind. Let's get to the point.

We all know that some games are dark, other are bloody and violent, several can be named disturbing.. But what about truly EVIL games. Let me explain what i mean with "evil". Not the storyline, graphics or gore. No. Evil for the player. Evil in a technical way. Let me give a few examples to clear things up (because maybe i just cannot explain it well anough)

- Alundra game, with its "puzzles" that sometimes were limited to running into a wall in a specific place. Wall which was looking exactly the same as all other walls in the game, and there were no clues about doing so. Or attacking a random flower will open a gate. Again, the flower was looking like zilion other flowers. Also depth perception made Alundra an EVIL game. You could never be sure how "far" the objects are.

- Daggerfall, also called Buggerfall with its countless bugs. And i do mean countless!

- Suikoden which in theory allowed the player to make some choices in the game (like declining someones offer to join, or doing X instead of Y) until you actually TRIED to make a choice, which resulted in a never ending loop of "Are you sure?"

- There was a game that upon deinstallation partialy formated your hard drive. I cannot remember the title.

- I also remember playing an arcade game which informed the player (on last level) that.. "We did not expect you to come this far, so we didn't prepare additional levels. Time to lose" and it loaded a truly impossible level. (trust me on that one) unfortunately, i can't remember the name here either

- There is also [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZuidKexBQ&feature=related"]Mushihimesama[/url] which even tho possible, will make your eyes bleed long before it ends.

I hope it's clear now so let's hear it! A game with no saves? A game with so many details that it was unplayable for anyone other than the lifeless fanathics (while none of us likes games with only "Pistole" and "Rifle" to chose, if there was one with 91 types of AK-47...) For example, with a scaled 1-100 skills of "Eating dishes with a fork, using right hand" or "You character has broken its thumb in two places". Evil games can also be ones with a zilion sequels that add absolutely nothing new to the game... Or sequels that are of completely differend genre.

So.. What evil games do You know?

sure I have quiet a few that have made me suffer.

jurney the quest begins: a DOS game, text base, for all its "freedom" if you dont do one little thing the whole games become unplayeble, say buy a magic map on the way you pass a river and you spot gold which is actualy blue mana as soon as you get the mana if you do not levitate your character he gets swarmed by the current and loses the map which is the only way to actualy leave a laberyth, but oh wait cant i skip the mana at the river? well you can but if you do half way thorugh the game the forest of the elves is burning and you need that mana to save the elves (if you dont game over)

arkania star trail: one of my faovrite rpgs and one of the hardest taskmaster even after 2 years of playing it I havent manage to finish it. at one point your stuck in city and you have to find someone, but how all the houses LOOK alike(clones of clones of clones) after one year I manage to find the place and he sends me to another place oh god well another year went by and now I have to find another house oh god..I need to lay down.

I have a few others but dont remember the names right now Ill come back here later

X-COM, which incidentally, they are re-making into a shat first person shooter was heinously evil.

When your n00b squad starts out, getting spotted by the aliens frequently leads to complete incineration of your dudes. No mercy.

You were slathered in blood before you knew what hit ya. Definitely 'evil'

I have to second Daggerfall, the fact I finished the game is more a testament to my bloodymindedness than anything; and being fortunate enough to have access to the internet and therefore the patch. The patch didn't fix most of the bugs, but did make the game actually playable; even then I don't think it was possible to play the game without knowing how to use the console. The good part was that because the game was so badly written I was able to get it for free because the local 2nd hand store was giving the game away with any game yu bought to get rid of them.

On a similar vein I nominate KOTOR 2, another fatally bugged game with a difference, Obsidian never did adress the fatal bugs, which makes it even worse IMHO. The game was also never finished of course, and full of bad cutscenes which frustrated the hell out of me.

Daggerfall was the more frustrating though, because underneath the bugs there was a great game trying to break through; Obsidian couldn't make a great RPG if they exist for another 100 years, god forbid.

@ Kozeph.

Your post reminded me of "Eye of the Beholder" games. While great, there were many ways of loosing the game by missing an important item, or pressing the wrong switch. Not by dying mind you, but by getting permanently stuck.

That game where you have to shoot balls against the ceiling and they only pop if you have three or more of the same colour but it is hard to aim and sometimes there is like a little whole you think you can shoot through to get deeper into the ball heap but then it turns our you aimed one pixel too far to the right and AARRRHGLBEJSEJRL<< fatal error

Speaking about pixels!

Iron Storm! Enemy snipers taking you out when there is a single pixel of your shoe visible behind the barricade. Iron Storm, where enemies could easily endure 10-15 bullets to the head (the regular soldiers).

And while there are some games described that way (due to their difficulty).. When writing this about Iron Storm its not overexaggerating.