The Age of Decadence. God damn that game. I had to stop one playthrough because I messed up somewhere during my it, to have another thing set me back and force me to do another playthrough or if my character build was not for the gameplay even though it came from a guide.

This is the exact thing I hate about Stracraft 2 too. They lock the game speed because of idiotic achivements, forcing people to play the way they want instead of how the players want. I finished all the campaigns on Brutal, because the AI is kind of bad on the lesser difficulties but I HATED being forced to play on the fastest speed. It was a chore because the difficulty was artifically bumped by speeding up the game. Why can't I play against the best AI without speeding everything up by 35%? Achievements.... I never cared for them, but Starcraft 2 is the first thing that made me actively dislike them as they were detrimental to my enjoyment of the game.

Easily the hardest mission in the entire campaign BY FAR. It requires nearly absolute precision and even one mistake can mean game over. Took me many tries, but was able to beat it and eventually get the gold medal for it.

Hard disagree with the co-op statement. I never played a second of co-op in that game and never in any area have I felt that it was "obviously" designed for co-op.

One of my biggest regrets as a lifelong gamer is being shamefully bad at RTS games. As much as I've always enjoyed the genre, I simply lack that certain finesse that separates the hardcore players from the casual crowd. My desire to learn and improve has always been there - and indeed, I've spent hours reading strategy articles and watching expert gameplay on Youtube - but I'd consistently fall short in my own efforts. I won't sugarcoat anything: I'm terrible at using/remembering hotkeys, and I struggle with balancing macro and micro. The real-time element is a little too hectic for me, so I end up going at my own pace and giving the AI a huge advantage. My skills don't seem to improve much with practice, so I've come to accept that I have a lower ceiling than most.

Age of Empires II is one of those RTS games I've woefully never finished. I'm not kidding when I say that the William Wallace campaign is the only one I've beaten (and probably on an easier difficulty). Every other campaign I attempted had a mission where I got stuck:

Joan of Arc 3
Saladin 3
Genghis Khan 4
Barbarossa 2
Montezuma 3

It didn't help that I got foolhardy and attempted most of the above on Hard or Very Hard difficulty. Certain missions like "The Horns of Hattin" and "Into China" gave me fits due to the almost constant AI attacks on multiple fronts. Another weakness of mine is that I get flustered easily when the "you're being attacked" warning chime keeps on sounding and the mini-map starts flashing like crazy all over the place. Having said all that, I'd probably do a little better now that college is over and my time is less divided.

I recently dug up my AOE2 CD's and got them to run (with some help from the Internet), so maybe I'll try my luck with the various campaigns once more. I'm testing out the Attila one first; I don't think I've ever tried it at any length. Playing on Hard, I've already restarted the first mission a number of times. I tend to rely on trial and error a lot, so I can only make substantial progress when I know how the AI behaves. It'd be cool to breeze through these like the top players apparently do, but alas.

X-Com: UFO Defense: I can readily acknowledge that this is one of the greatest PC games of all time; I'm afraid it just doesn't "resonate" with me. There's the "open" structure where you have to react to real-time events, instead of a predefined succession of fixed levels or missions; then, there's all the managerial aspect and long-planning, which I don't find that appealing. While these features are surely what attracts praise from other gamers, they don't work for me. A pity, since it's undoubtedly a great game. I have a feeling, I would have liked it much much more, if I played it at a younger age.

Alone in the Dark: in my opinion it relies too much on combat; the combat itself feels awkward; and I am stuck at a certain point, and clueless about how to progress. I really wanted to like this game... I can perfectly understand why it's considered a classic, but sadly I don't think I'm going to return to it, at least in the near future.

Realms of the Haunting: I got stuck and honestly I don't think I'll go back and revisit this game. A pity, since it's fairly enthralling and has a peculiar "flavour" to it. But I don't know what I am supposed to do next and I don't care enough or I don't have enough time/patience to find it out.

Redneck Rampage: a game that I feel sorry to abandon. True, it has a limited gameplay and it's a bit primitive from a technical standpoint, but the setting is original, the atmosphere is nice and not without its charms, and it could offer some simple, if crude, fun... if only you didn't have to go looking for hidden keys, levers, switches, secret areas etc.! I don't like this kind of things, because I generally suck at finding them and I end up wandering around without knowing what to do or where to go, until all the fun goes down the drain.

The Incredible Machine (with all its sequels): as much as I'd like to finish all levels, I don't think it will ever happen... it's just too much. I wonder if someone ever made it. Well, maybe someone.

Kairo: it is one of those "enigmatic" games, where you move around a misterious environment trying to understand what to do, without instructions or even a readily apparent plot. Generally I do not enjoy this kind of game (Antichamber being a glorious exception), since my gaming time is not that much already and I don't like having to spend it to figure out what I'm supposed to do. I reached the first milestone (turning on a kind of lighthouse), then my interest waned rapidly.

Heroes of Might and Magic: these turn-based games on a grand scale take sooo much time... plus, if I'm not wrong, the campaign is just made up of a series of unrelated maps, and no. 2 is better anyway, so I got uninterested pretty quickly.

On a different note: I found Silver too childish, and I didn't feel the urge to go further.


Hey, I could also mention the old P. P. Hammer on the Amiga: I thought the game had only 20 levels; when I reached level 21, I felt suddenly exhausted... also, R-Type, level 3. Ivanhoe: I never lasted for more than a minute, never understood what was going on in that game, except that it sucked. And don't even get me started about Lemmings...

On the C64, there would be a ton of such games to list (Impossible Mission, or Strangeloop for example, or Ghouls 'n' Ghosts), but there's one in particular that for me is the very embodiment of defeat and frustration: the quite obscure Microdot. It always felt like a truly impossible task, one I couldn't even begin to accomplish. Hey I was just a kid, maybe it would be different now... maybe.
Also, Escape from Paradise: I never went beyond the first screen. Never understood where you had to go.

(Yes, old games were harder...)

Same for me. BTW I managed to finish the game, but only on the "normal" setting and, to tell the truth, only with a bit of "savescumming" near the end (basically, saving between successive waves of enemies). I must say that, contrary to what happens in most games, I found the "normal" difficulty to be too hard (at least according to my taste).

Interesting theory. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if, absurdly, I was paid for playing games, kinda like a job. Would I be able to finish each one of them?