God of War III
A huge part of the enjoyment of playing a video game is the experience of breezing your way through the campaign and just enjoying the story. However, many gamers that I've known over the years simply don't take advantage of difficulty levels, and are satisfied with beating the game once. Go ahead and play some multiplayer if the game offers it, but I dare you to complete even one of these games on the hardest difficulty.
One extremely challenging game is God of War III. This God of War series follows the story of Kratos and his quest to take down the Greek gods of Olympus. Many view this game as the best in the series, and also the most difficult. You shouldn't struggle too much on your first playthrough, but on 'Chaos' mode (the hardest difficulty level) you'll want to throw your controller out the window.
Enemies attack without mercy, recover immediately, and do insane amounts of damage! In my opinion, one of the hardest fights in the game is one where you defend your family from endless waves of Kratos clones. It just keeps going and going without mercy. In addition, the already challenging boss fights become even harder, so get ready for a long, frustrating challenge.
Dead Space 2
The first Dead Space was a pleasant surprise, that was fairly challenging and had plenty of jumpscares to freak us out. Dead Space 2 still has the horror aspect, but its generally less creepy and more deadly.
First of all, you'll actually have to use other weapons besides the plasma cutter this time around. It's still a great overall weapon, but ammo is very limited and there are situations when other weapons come in handy. Even on normal mode, certain portions of the game can be a struggle. The final boss is an especially frustrating fight.
Once you've unlocked the 'Zealot' (very hard) difficulty, that's where the game starts getting ridiculous. Enemies are extremely tough and take you out in just a couple hits, but at least you have the comfort of save stations. If you're crazy enough to take on the 'Hardcore' difficulty, you'll have to beat the game on Zealot difficulty with only three saves total!
Lost Planet
How can I best sum up the awesomeness that is Lost Planet? I won't hesitate to say that it's one of my favorite shooters of this generation, because you get mechs, giant enemies, awesome weapons, and a good storyline all in one package. The multiplayer gameplay was absolutely terrible, but the campaign is nothing short of epic. On normal, Lost Planet was an extremely enjoyable experience. After beating the game, I thought I was hot stuff and jumped for the hardest difficulty -- Lost Planet immediately became one of the most frustrating gaming experiences of my life.
So just how difficult is it? Almost every boss battle in the game pits you against some type of giant monster or a powerful mech, on the hardest difficulty you almost always have to take on enemies that are 10 to 100 times your size while on foot. Also, the artificial intelligence is cranked up to an insane level that hardly ever misses and deals a lot more damage with each hit. As an example, it took me at least 30 tries to defeat the first boss on the hardest difficulty, and I actually gave up after losing to a late game boss around 50 times.
Devil May Cry 4
In Devil May Cry 4 you control a new character named 'Nero.' He carries a sword like Dante but his demon powers are contained in his arm which can be used to grab enemies from a distance. Around halfway through the game, just when you're getting used to his style of play, the game forces you switch over to the iconic 'Dante' from the previous games. You might think that the difficulty would reset slightly at this point, but well...you'd be wrong.
The good news is that Dante is much more powerful than Nero, but he's also much less graceful in combat, which makes the rapid transition a shock. If you've never played the Devil May Cry series before, then you're in for quite a few beatdowns until you get used to controlling this new character. By the end of the game you basically have Dante mastered, but you then have to take control of Nero once again. This back and forth character switching alone makes DMC4 a tough game.
The thing that makes this game truly difficult however, is the extreme level of play required to defeat the higher difficulty levels. I managed to breeze through 'Devil Hunter' (Normal), but then things got ugly fast in 'Son of Sparda' (Hard). I did eventually manage to beat it on that difficulty, but I was utterly worthless on 'Dante Must Die' (very hard). I hardly even want to mention the 'Hell and Hell' difficulty where you always die in one hit and enemies maintain the very hard level. Just beating the game on Dante Must Die requires insanely fast reaction speeds that only a select few have.
The Devil May Cry series has always been a challenging one, and many say that Devil May Cry 3 is one of the hardest games of all time. However, the fourth entry in the series is no cakewalk. If you haven't played this game, you can pick it up on the cheap these days, and action game fans won't be disappointed. The combat is addicting, the boss battles are epic, and there's a ton of replay value here.
Resonance of Fate
Resonance of Fate came out at almost exactly the same time as Final Fantasy XIII, and that's why so many people (including myself) overlooked it at first. It got middling reviews and looked like an odd FF knockoff, but ignoring this RPG was a huge mistake. It turns out that Final Fantasy was just a big boiling pot of mediocrity, where as Resonance of Fate had elements of true greatness.
The problem with RoF, and the thing that gives it such a high difficulty rating, is the extremely steep learning curve. This game is fairly hard to beat, but just learning how to play is probably the most difficult part. Most casual video game players probably won't get past the first battle in the game, and even experienced gamers will likely die over and over again for an hour or more until they finally grasp the strange 'Tri-Attack' battle system.
Those that do eventually comprehend the combat in Resonance of Fate are then greeted with a game that requires strategic gameplay and some level grinding to win. There are also a whopping 10 difficulty levels, so there's also a huge time commitment involved in completely beating the game.
In the end, Resonance of Fate is a highly satisfying experience that won't let you down in terms of character development, story, graphics, or gameplay. Of course, you have to get past the first battle to experience any of that, and some people never will.
Call of Duty: World at War
You might be surprised to see a Call of Duty game on this list, but Call of Duty: World at War is one of the most frustratingly difficult games of this generation. The campaign is simple and straightforward on the standard difficulty, but just wait until you turn it up to 'Veteran.'
For whatever reason, the developers decided that enemies on Veteran should throw grenades constantly. You need to be prepared to run away at any given time, and even then it's hard to escape when three or four grenades land around you at once. Most players simply gave up on beating the game on Veteran because of this obnoxious tactic.
On 'Heart of the Reich,' the second to last mission, you face massive waves of enemies. Repeatedly running through this endless barrage of grenades will make you scream in anger. At least this game introduced the Nazi Zombies mode, which can relieve some of your pent up frustration.
Vanquish
Vanquish is a third-person shooter by Sega that didn't even register on most gamers' radars during the busy 2010 holiday release schedule.I'm not trying to say that Vanquish is a flawless game, because it does have a few annoying bugs and gameplay issues. My biggest complaint is that it's one of those games that forces you to watch entirely too many cutscenes. All those negatives make Vanquish sound terrible, but the real meat and potatoes of this game is the combat. The main character is outfitted with an 'Augmented Reaction Suit' that allows him to travel at very fast speeds, and effectively slow down time.
Now onto what you're all here for, the difficulty. Vanquish is an insanely difficulty game that requires not only solid shooter skills but also quick reaction times and tactical movement through the battlefield. I consider myself an above-average gamer, but I died quite a few times just playing on normal. I decided to take a shot at the 'God Hard' difficulty to see what it was like, and I was blown away...literally. I couldn't even make it to the first boss because the most basic AI opponents are so ridiculously good.
I'm sure that a select few out there have beat it on the hardest difficulty, but it would take weeks or even months of dedicated practice. All that hard work will eventually earn you a spot on the leaderboards, so at least you can compare yourself to other gamers and brag to your friends.
Men of War: Assault Squad
Men of War is a lesser-known RTS series that features similar gameplay to Company of Heroes. Assault Squad is the best offering of the bunch, as it offers multiple campaigns and online multiplayer. In the game, players control and axis or allied power during a World War II battle and attempt to defeat the enemy force while taking all of a map's capture points. This seems like a very straightforward task, but making just one or two mistakes can be fatal.
What makes Assault Squad so interesting is the way that it actually forces you to use realistic strategies when purchasing and maneuvering your forces. Just one solider that happens to be in the right place at the right time can completely turn the tide of a battle. If you like a more personal touch, you can also take direct control of any unit. In addition to combat, you also have to pay attention to a semi-realistic ammo and supply inventory for each unit.
Fans of the RTS genre are probably used to insanely hard AI opponents and rampant cheating by the computer, but never before has it felt so unfair. Men of War: Assault Squad is extremely challenging on Normal and becomes nearly impossible when bumped up to hard. Oh, and then there's still the 'Heroic' difficulty level after that. Victory is only accomplished by working together with your teammates and setting up multiple lines of defense. Completing just one mission on Hard will likely take hours, and even then you may lose to one good push by the computer.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed game Demon's Souls, and it's every bit as hard as the original. In the game, players explore dungeons in an open-world environment and encounter a number of deadly enemies along the way.
Dark Souls is not a game for those who are easily frustrated, as it's essentially designed for the player to die repeatedly until developing a working solution to a battle. This trail and error system is actually what makes the game so addicting and eventually rewarding when you finally kill off that high-leveled monster. One thing that actually makes the game easier is the bonfire, which replenishes health and magic. It also provides a less frustrating respawn point compared to restarting the level completely.
I'd have to say that one of the hardest parts of the game is Tomb of the Giants because it's essentially pitch black inside. You basically have two choices: use a lantern and get killed because you don't have a shield, or don't use a lantern and fall off a cliff over and over. Some parts of this game are just infuriating, but that's also what makes completing it so satisfying.
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