Out-smarting a Game

[Da Chi]

I remember back when Metal Gear Solid Three was being released. The buzz I was most excited about was the sniper battle, in which it was a wide sprawling map and the AI was supposedly impossible to out-smart. I always relish a challenge when it's Me vs. Programmer in a "Who can think ahead better" kind of affair. I bought the game and rushed to the point where I could go mono-et-mono with that bug eyed jaggoff. After half an hour of shooting him in the face, re-loading my save and repeating I found his movements almost predictable. Basically moving left or right of his position after he shoots. Making the battle more or less a long distance version of rock paper scissors. I found an easy strategy to beat him knowing that, run into the open, wait for the gunshot, look at the map and guess where he will go next. Sneak up behind him, slap him in the bum, repeat. It was hardly a challenge.

That being said I was more than slightly disappointed with the battle. Instead of being a battle of wit, it was a guessing game. I've yet to truly run into a challenge where I can honestly say a game got the better of me. I want to know if any of you have run into a game that out-smarts you. Not counting a Tomb Raider type game where a puzzle was a little bit tricky.

 

[Lust]

Super Street Fighter 4.

The AI on the hardest difficulty, has lightning fast reflexes. >:l

Sometimes resulting in me rolling my eyes or getting pissed.

 

[CD-R]

I just recently started playing X-Com Terror from the Deep and they are not kidding about it being much harder than the first X-Com game, which is already pretty hard. Your weapons suck, the aliens can take a lot more damage, and they grenade spam more than a Modern Warfare player. A lot of the game takes place in tight corridors which are just perfect ambush spots for aliens.

One game I had my base invaded after only three days of game time. Usually this doesn't happen until at least 6 months to a a year in game time and only if you've been shooting down lots of ships. And this was on the normal difficulty setting. Needless to say I lost the game hard. I really wish I had been recording because it was just so crazy.

My current play through I'm finally not getting my ass kicked. Mainly by abusing the hell out of the save game function.

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

Dark Link in Zelda II. He does exactly what you do. Pretty much the only way to kill him is to sit in the corner and stab his knees, but then it's unbearably easy. Without this method, however, he has to be one of the toughest bosses ever.

 

[Durxom]

Super Street Fighter 4.

The AI on the hardest difficulty, has lightning fast reflexes. >:l

Sometimes resulting in me rolling my eyes or getting pissed.

Well, thats partially because the game is actually reading your inputs and countering them.

"Ohh, his Ryu is readying a Shoryuken motion, beep beep boop, counter"

Who needs execution skills and timing when you have 1s and 0s? =D

 

[Double A]

Dwarf Fortress.

That is all I have to say on this matter.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Fighting Dark Link in Ocarina of time. I couldn't figure out how to beat him, he kept dodging everything. So I went an stocked up on magic, and spammed din's fire for 5 minutes. Laughably easy.

 

[InnerRebellion]

TimeShift. Learning to spam Pause+Reverse made an amazing game become laughably easy.

 

[Lust]

Super Street Fighter 4.

The AI on the hardest difficulty, has lightning fast reflexes. >:l

Sometimes resulting in me rolling my eyes or getting pissed.

Well, thats partially because the game is actually reading your inputs and countering them.

"Ohh, his Ryu is readying a Shoryuken motion, beep beep boop, counter"

Who needs execution skills and timing when you have 1s and 0s? =D

I know. I try to do my ultra and look what happens. I get hit by a perfectly timed light kick/shoryuken.

I just get kinda mad because I have no one else to play.

 

[guitarhero666]

I just recently started playing X-Com Terror from the Deep and they are not kidding about it being much harder than the first X-Com game, which is already pretty hard. Your weapons suck, the aliens can take a lot more damage, and they grenade spam more than a Modern Warfare player. A lot of the game takes place in tight corridors which are just perfect ambush spots for aliens.

From TVTropes

"Nintendo Hard: Terror From The Deep in general. Because the (then unknown) bug in UFO Defense locking the difficulty to Beginner prompted the fans to complain about it being too easy, the developers made TFTD's Beginner setting as hard as UFO's Superhuman. There's a common rumour that TFTD had the original's bug backwards, locking difficulty to Superhuman. It doesn't; it's just a lot harder."