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  • Top 10 Ways to Tell If You’re Good at Video Games

    old-wizard.com
    Written by Zeromage 112 Comments
    Last Updated:: May 18, 2009

    We here at OW get a lot of flack for our beliefs. Further research, however, has shown that we are in fact right. Everything we say is actually the gospel truth! I know, we were just as shocked as you are. That being said, we are taking applications for worshipers. Unlike most religions we don’t want everyone, just your rich, cool, and popular people.  There is a minimum yearly salary requirement and a rather extensive interview process. Also we have put together a list that allows a person to decide if they are good at gaming. These days games are stupid and easy and everyone thinks they are good at games for no particular reason. Here is a way to tell if you’re actually good at video games. And if you remember from the beginning of this list everything we say is the truth. So we win again. Also at a recent staff meeting we have all decided we are willing to sell out completely. If any TV executives, advertising agents, or magazine editor are reading this and want to offer us money we’re in.

    10. You beat World 8-1 in Super Mario 3 without using a P-wing or a Cloud
    This level is the reason they made the P-Wing and the Cloud. If you have a P-Wing, this is the time to use it. There’s no better level to fly over than this one. If you don’t have a P-Wing, use a Cloud. And if you don’t have a Cloud, good luck. You’re probably going to end up smashing a bunch of controllers before you beat this level. Not only are there hard jumps, Pirhana Plants, and Bullet Bills in this level, but there’s even a Boo Buddy! Apparently this level wasn’t hard enough with the standard over world enemies, so the game designers decided that it was necessary to put a random ghost in the level as well. Can someone tell me WTF a ghost is doing in this level? Besides the randomly placed Ghost, you have to make it over two almost impossible jumps in this level. The first is the pit you have to jump over with a Red Paratroopa flying in it, and two cannons on the other side. Almost immediately after getting past that jump on your tenth try, you’re faced with yet another leap of faith as you have to jump on a music box to cross another wide chasm. If you can beat this game without a P-wing you’ve probably spent as much time as we have playing Super Mario 3.

    9. You Beat Street Fighter 2 with Zangief
    Street Fighter was a great game. The amount of time DestructoMaximo and I have spent playing this game is enormous. All those characters to beat the game with and all the two player action that could be had in this game made for one of the best fighting games in history. Play the game with Zangief though, and the player was in for one of the most difficult fighting games of all time. Zangief was slow, had no shooting power and excelled in no area except for basic power, which was useless in a game with fighters as diverse as Ryu and M.Bison. Congratulate yourself if you conquered Street Fighter with Zangief. It’s something even the most adroit players can’t accomplish.

    8. You Beat Bubble Bobble By Yourself

    The only reason anyone has ever beaten Bubble Bobble is because you get infinite continues.  Nobody could beat this game otherwise. Even with infinite continues few people could beat this game by themselves. This game is very easy to learn how to play, and you might not even get killed for a few levels. And then pretty soon you die and it hits you like a ton of bricks.  And you keep dying.  A lot. Remember how you once had a score of 300,000? Well, those days are gone. Each time you start over the score resets. There will come a point for everyone when they hit the challenge wall, and it will be a lot sooner than you’d expect from a game that has over 100 levels’ worth of play. I think for me it was around level 20.  It will probably be even sooner if you’re playing by yourself. The difficulty curve is way too steep for this game.  And if you do make it to level 100, you have to get past Super Drunk.  To wake him up you need to drink the potions at the top of the screen. The potion makes you spit lightning bubbles (60 will take out Super Drunk). If you have no friends, Passing Super Drunk will not give you the happy ending (This is evident after several hours of eye-glazing solo-play. You beat that sh*t and get a screen saying “This Is Not The Happy Ending). Let’s recap: If you’re going to get to the final stage of Super Drunk, you had best be drinking the sh*t that makes you spit hot lightning straight from the bottle. If you drink alone, you might pass Super Drunk, but it will not be a happy ending. There are some important life lessons for you here, kids, I suggest you heed them wisely.

    7. You got to Friday in Paperboy

    paperboy_02.gifBeing a paperboy might be easy in real life, but in the video game world its one of the hardest jobs out there.  One would think that being a professional spy or maybe a hit man would be one of the harder jobs out there.  But compare how easy 007 is to Paperboy and you’ll see just how wrong you are.  Anyone who tells you that they love this game has no idea why they love it. Maybe they liked getting knocked down after the 3rd house on the left by movers moving glass that they cannot get up on the curb for the life of them. Maybe they liked spending days and days of game play just to get to the end of the first day with the shitty bonus level that somehow turned from a street into a skateboard park with poorly designed skateboard ramps in the vein of the poor designs of Skate or Die. I have no idea why anyone would like a game this difficult. If getting by Monday was difficult, just trying getting by Tuesday and Wednesday. These were each about 10 times more difficult than Monday exponentially. Paperboy was a tiringly difficult game. Any game that you had trouble getting by the first level on had no business being recognized as a great game. Some gamers will try to convince you they got to Wednesday and even Friday, but you can be sure that most of these people are liars. Something about the cover of this game screams “simplicity”, but that has nothing to do with the fact that its extremely difficult to get half way down the street in the first level with the neighborhood elements being thrown at you. If anyone disputes these claims, they can send us their own personal video of playing paperboy and getting to Friday.

    6. You beat the first level of Ghosts n’ Goblins

    Some games start out easy and then gradually get harder.  In other games the first level is nearly impossible to beat.  There is no game that exemplifies this upshot from sheer difficulty like Ghosts ‘n Goblins. 1/8th through the first level you’re surrounded by mounds and mounds of enemies. As you’re walking as your character, you’re basically surrounded by a force field of enemies coming at you from every possible angle. Okay, maybe if you had a lot of energy or someone decent armor, you could take the level one onslaught of nefarious enemies. As you walk, you see you do have armor, looks like pretty strong armor, until a weak ass looking bird swoops down, barely hits you, and your armor comes flying off. Not even faux-Halloween armor is this poor. I’m pretty sure that if a bird touched a plastic armor suit that you wore for Halloween, it wouldn’t come flying off. As your worthless armor comes flying off, you’re left with an almost-naked character who is left with nothing on except underwear. Q: Who wears nothing under armor? Am I inept to mid-evil tradition or is there something completely untenable about someone wearing nothing under armor? You’re basically left naked running around in the wild with a force field of petulant enemy’s surrounding you at every second. This stultifying game play leads you to give up after 1 to 2 minutes making you feel like shit and making you retire to much more germane games with more sane difficulty levels. If you were one of the few people who made it to level two, consider yourself to be one of the elite in the gaming world.

    5. You’ve landed on the aircraft carrier in Top Gun once

    Ever try landing on the aircraft carry in Top Gun for the NES?  When landing your plane on an aircraft carrier, you are given terse directions from your “command screen” which you follow. If you follow the directions 100% perfectly, you will have about a 5% chance of landing the plane. I have personally seen the plane landed once. I remember that eventful day. I was at a friend’s house and four of us were watching my friends’ father trying to overcome this insuperable task. The first time we saw it land, we had a party. I remember looking over at one of my friends who may have been crying out of joy, that the annoyingly impossible task could be circumvented. The excitement lasted until the end of the next level where we all knew it couldn’t happen again, and it didn’t.  The dogfights are easy and the missiles given to you in the fights are smartly efficient enough to create a moderate difficult level in the sky. The rest of the game is easy, but try landing on the aircraft carrier and you are thrown into one of the most difficult moments in video game history. It’s one of the greater accomplishments in life itself.

    4. You beat Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!

    Mike Tyson’s Punchout was actually moderately difficult to play through. Certainly, fighters such as Glass Joe and Don Flamingo were no challenge for little Mac. As one became good at this game, one could beat the likes of Mr. Sandman and Super Macho man easily and with a little practice. It was the last boss in Mike Tyson though that we witness one of the most difficult moments in video game history. One was amazed by how one small uppercut by Tyson could take Little Mac to the ground gasping for breath as Doc smiled on. Could a  final boss really be this hard? Where was the gradual increase in difficulty level that could get you ready for this domination? Certainly, it wasn’t Super Macho Man regardless of how powerful his Tornado punches were. It wasn’t Don Flamenco part two who had the stamina of 10 men. Nothing could get you prepared for having to dodge oddly timed uppercuts by the Bronx basher. Timing down Tyson’s uppercuts was beyond challenging. The gamer had better hope he had a game genie where one punch to an opponent could knock them down, or infinite stamina so that Tyson’s punch no longer had any impact. Take away the cheats, and one had to time all the uppercuts perfectly which was unbearably difficult.  Tyson could be beat with hours and hours of practice. Still, Mike Tyson is one of the most noticeable signifiers for “Difficult Boss” in video game history. Every gamer is struck with fear in having to battle an opponent who could spell game over for you in 1 hit.

    3. You beat Contra without the code

    Contra contained the most conspicuous cheat code in gaming history and for good reason. We won’t go into the code because we know its already inculcated into every gamer’s brain beyond any doubt. Why is this code so well known though? Could it be that Contra was so hard that it became a staple for anyone who even attempted to start their journey in the game? This is precisely the reason why any code becomes imprinted on the human genome. It’s to bad too, because Contra is actually one of the finer moments in early gaming history when one knew they could waste 30 lives on a level. Take away this ability though, and you were doomed to the first level, maybe the second if your practiced it for over two months. Once you were in the second level you were pretty much lost to the electric shocks and countless enemies throwing bombs at you. The game after the second level just starts getting good too. The third level as the waterfall level in the game has one of the most perfectly abject bosses in gaming history. The gamer who thought he was good enough not to use the code would never be able to experience this boss, instead, throwing his controller to the wall in the event of being hit by the guns coming out of the ground in the first level. Contra today is known as a great game because it has become accepted that to play it in any casual fashion requires the code. The gamer does not feel remorse at having to play Contra with a cheat because he knows everyone else has to and that there is no one on earth who can possibly come close to beating the game without the code. One wonders if the creators of Contra ever knew how hard it would be to conquer the game without the code.

    2. You’ve beaten Super Mario the Lost Levels

    This game is near impossible. If you can beat this game you are beyond great. We here at OW have all beaten this game and we are all great. There isn’t anything easy about any part of it. Except the beginning when you press start after that it’s all work. This game is unlike modern games which are all easy. That’s right, all modern games are easy. And stupid. This game however is hard for the sake of hard. You truly have to become a master of every aspect of Lost Levels. You have to wear your controller down until it becomes ergonomic through erosion, not ergonomic by design. You have to live eat and breath Lost Levels until the very end and only then will you be a master of video games. Nay only a few have completed this quest, but they shall live on in the halls of eternity. Where they shall eat not but the finest meals, drink not but the finest wines, and sleep on not but the finest linens. Actually nobody will really care and it won’t really affect your life in any way at all. Trust us we have a religion based on us now.

    1. You Beat the Turbo Tunnel Level in Battletoads on Your First Try

112 Comments

  1. There I was, Reading the article as each entry made me feel more and more inadequate at gaming – then I read #2 and I remembered the time I spent spankin the ass off of super mario allstars. Lost levels was a bitch, but Super Mario 2 (different as it was) also took some beating. Great article , mostly because it confirmed to me that I am at least a gaming god. Ninja Gaiden 2 is the hardest I’ve played IMO.

  2. Btw, America gave us the nuclear bomb and Sweden gave us Ikea – weigh it up!

  3. #3 DekuNutEatingStalfos says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:06 am

    I did #10 and #2.
    I’m surprised that Ninja Gaiden wasn’t on this list. The final bosses were near impossible. They took me hours to beat!
    Lost Levels is something I did not expect to see on this list. I don’t consider myself to be the greatest at video games, but I didn’t think that the Lost Levels was that hard. I beat it in about 12 hours or less and I only threw my controller once. :P
    Thank you Old Wizard, for making me feel better about myself. ^_^

  4. #4 Big Swede says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    @Sambo:

    America has also given us such rich cultural treasures as MTV, American Idol, the Real World, Apprentice, Rap Music, Boyz 2 Men, Backstreet Boyz, …. Damn I could go on and on.

  5. @Gary:

    Go away.

  6. #6 Darth Mario says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    awesome list!

  7. @POLISH POUNDER:

    I’m sure your Matka is proud of you.

  8. This list is dope.

  9. Games were a lot harder back in the day. You definitely had to practice and master a level before moving on…

    That was without save points, extra continues and game saves unless the game and some super long code or a battery in the cartridge.

    Games have gotten easier today with all the helpings but the games are not as simple, as there is more thinking involved in a 3-D world, then just jumping to the next ledge.

    One game that still keeps it’s traditional old-school toughness is Ninja Gaiden franchise. I never did beat that Battletoads level though.

  10. This site needs to get past 1994.

  11. #11 Vintage Junkie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    Not every site has to be about current games.

  12. @bob:

    There are games from that era that don’t have patterns.

    Not all games from that era are reflex memorization games. Gamers from all ages should respect each other and acknowledge that there are games from every era that are good. Now, I’ll admit that some games are an acquired taste, but there are great and horrible games all throughout the genre.

    Most people acknowledge Citizen Kane as one of the greatest films of all time. Doesn’t matter if it was made in a different era. Now, if you can’t handle watching black and white movies, you just deprived yourself of some great storytelling and cinematography.

    As for Old-Wizard, his tunnel-vision is so narrow it’s blinding.

  13. #13 POLISH POUNDER says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    @Sam:

    Yes my mother is proud. Too bad for you that you can’t match my video game prowess. I would POUND you in any game of your choosing. My reflexes are faster than anyone’s that I know of. I constantly beat all my friends in any video games we play.

  14. #14 Albino Man says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    Love the new look, guys. Is there any chance you can put a chat room up on the site?

  15. #15 Boba Fett says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Contemporary vs. Retro

    There are distinctions, but it’s not like you’re a worse gamer if you didn’t beat the original Super Mario Bros with X lives.

    There are plenty of hard games made in later generations, but older games are probably some of the hardest ever. Specifically because they were inconvenient as hell twitch fests. No save points, no check points, no regenerating health, and (in RPGs) permadeath. You may have heard these types of games referenced as ‘Nintendo Hard’. Some games were so hard people thought they were broken out of the box.

    Eventually, developers finally figured the possibility of dying at level 30 and restarting at level 1 wasn’t that fun. Rightly so. Most games are easier these days because developers profit from happy customers. Not raging gamers stuck on the first level.

    It doesn’t make us any less “elite” (as much as I hate that term in gaming) if you haven’t played them. There are plenty of difficult games out now. Don’t take the list so personally.

  16. good list.

  17. #17 Party Time says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    good show, sirs

  18. I’ve only done #4 and #9, the latter being hardest (f’n Sagat).

    Never liked mario, never played some of the games, hell no could I ever do #1. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out is about as far as I ever got with games that decided that the goal was to repeat everything until you memorized all of the levels, which is what most of those are.

    Honestly, a good gamer is someone who doesn’t spend countless hours memorizing the actions in a game but someone who has played so many games that he can pick up almost any game and be more than competent with it.

  19. You forgot beat Ninja Gaiden on hardest difficulty without dying.

  20. #20 Heroic Janitor says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    I have definitely beat Super Mario the Lost Levels without skipping any worlds or levels, I went straight through, beating every single stage, it was about 5 years ago, I’ll never forget it! I’ve also beaten Contra, Ghosts N Goblins, and some of the other stuff here. Don’t think I ever beat that level in Battletoads though.

  21. Old games may have been harder, but for the most part they sucked. For one thing you had to beat most of them in 1 sitting or (for the latter games) write a 50 letter password each time you want to continue.

    Are Old games novel? Yes

    Are old games good games? Many are not.

    Also, modern games with Trophies have become just as hard as old ones. Try getting platinum trophies in some of the games such as: WipeoutHD, RockBand2, MKvDC, StreetFighterIV etc… Those are the TOP-END hardest games to get platinum’s in. Do even one of those and your a good gamer. Do them all and you are insane.

  22. this list was awesome. great read!

  23. I’ve only done 10 but am working towards 4 (with Mr. Dream instead though).

  24. #24 MaximoDestructo says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    This list sucks. Just like this site.

    I’ve done all the things on this list. Come up with some harder feats next time. Losers.

  25. #25 Sir In Your Pants A Lot says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:33 am

    I have done # 5 on that list twice.

  26. Wow, you’ve acctually played Top Gun more than once?

    I feel for you.

  27. OMG, I suck at video games… but I can’t stop laughing about #5 hahaha!

  28. 11. You don’t take any fucking notice of the lists on Old fucking Wizard.

    Fuck you, and you’re fucking lists, you dirty piece of fucking shit. Go on, go fuck yourself with that stupid fucking beard of that your so fucking proud of.

  29. I don’t want to play a game that’s hard because of shitty programing. It’s not fun, and it’s a waste of my time. I have shit to do, and I don’t want to play a game that an incompetent programmer designed (such as Top Gun or Paperboy).

  30. George:

    You must suck at video games.

  31. #31 Old Wizardo says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    Hey guys, I have been reading OW for quite a long time. And let me tell you something so you can save time instead of coming peridocally to this site:

    - Next Gen games suck because they have good graphics…only Snes and Nes games are good because of stroyline.

    - Metroid has the best bosses.

    -Ghost & Goblins is the hardest game… and Paperboy (really?) too, also no one can land on TopGun.

    -Mario Bros 3 is the best game.

    - Sonic sucks and the Wii is the best.

    The End.

    There, there is OW, nothing else. If you go t archive and check the other posts, they all end up on a statement that I have used.

  32. #32 One Eyed Willie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:49 am

    @Old Wizardo:

    Why do you continue to visit the site if you don’t like what they talk about?

  33. #33 BERSERKR says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    Unfortunately i think its time you Old Wizard guys throw in the towel, i loved coming to this site when there was at least 1 new list a week and lots of back and forth with the other people coming here, but now you guys maybe do a list a month and the talkback isn’t as numerous or fun, i know you guys have lives that’s why i think its time to pass the site on to people who don’t:P

    David Mcleod

  34. @David:

    Don’t give up on us yet. We currently have 14 lists ready to go. We’ll be releasing the first one this Sunday. We didn’t want to release any new lists until the site’s layout was completely finished. Starting next week you’ll be seeing at least one list a week from us.

  35. Upcoming lists:

    Top 10 Worst Fanboys

    Top 10 Most Overrated Songs

    Top 10 Beer Countries

    Top 10 Worst Types of Music

  36. #37 BERSERKR says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:04 am

    @Zeromage

    I’ll never give up hope, we may not always agree but i respect your guys opinions, especially on Thor being the most powerful super hero:D

    And i reiterate if Canada isn’t on that Top 10 beer countries list you guys will be in trouble!

    Even MORE trouble if you have Metal on the Top 10 Worst types of Music:P

  37. #38 One Eyed Willie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    I can only guess what you guys are going to have on your top 10 beer countries list. The USA had better not be on there.

  38. #39 One Eyed Willie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    I can only guess what you guys are going to have on your top 10 beer countries list. The USA had better not be on there.

  39. Apparently those people complaining that games nowadays are too easy have never played Touhou. Or I Want To Be The Guy. Or La Mulana. Or any of dozens of other games that are, if not harder than the NES games mentioned above, easily as hard. (IWTBTG is certainly harder than pretty much all of the above.)

    Also, it should be noted that with the exception of 10, 3 and 4 that all of the above items are also what we would call “Fake” or “Cheap” difficulty. In other words, they’re not hard because of a genuine challenge, they’re tough because they’re broken, or the computer cheats, or incorporates poison mushrooms, or whatever.

    The reason many games aren’t “Nintendo Hard” nowadays is that people won’t stand for as much Fake Difficulty.

  40. I don’t think I’ve ever done any of these things. I guess I suck at video games!

  41. Tyson isn’t the hardest boss ever. ever fought queen mitsurufu? (I forget the game.)

  42. #43 godwalker says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:01 am

    I think anyone who has ever beat a Shin Megami Tensei game is wortha nod…even RPG fanatics sometimes can’t get through those due to the insane difficulty.

  43. #44 else3573 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    Battle Toads and Ghosts and Goblins were a BITCH. I have beaten SF2 with Zangief, and every other character, and have also beat it without losing a round MANY times (with quite a few double perfects).That was my GAME (that and NBA Jam, I’m basically unbeatable, honestly).

    I’ve also beaten Tyson, of course, we all had the code to fight him, but IMO, Sandman was just as tough as Tyson, he just didn’t do as much damage with his punches, and Soda Popinski was a tough son of a bitch as well.

    Another hard game, at least to me, was 720. I never played the home edition, but played it in the arcade all the time. The bees always ended up getting me….

    The absolute hardest game I ever played was one i rented years ago for Playstation called “RUN”. You started off in this tunnel with glass windows and helicopters outside, shooting at you, while bombs went off, all types of stuff to kill you, coming from every angle, while you did just what the game implied, you RUN!!. I couldn’t pass the first board.

  44. #45 else3573 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    Star Road on Super Marioland was tough to complete as well.

  45. #46 else3573 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    One more thing, the way to beat SF2 with Zangief is to hit all three punch buttons and do that spin anytime a projectile is fired at you. I made a living off that, just keep spinning across the board, then grab the guy and do the hardest move in the game (360 power bomb) and take off half his energy with one move…His double kick does alot of damage as well, and once you get someone dizzy with Zangief, they’re in serious trouble…

  46. top gun was impossible.i could never land on the ship.i did make it past level 1 though,only to crash at the re-fueling plane on level 2…i remembe buying it for round about $2 or so when i was younger.he bought it from another guy.i eventually gave mine away…and i could finish contra and battle toads no problem…getting to sunday on paperboy?no problem.but top gun was utter crap.i doubt there are any levels past level 2…they got lazy and just decided to make it impossible.

  47. thank you for your wonderful web site. I liked it very, very much.

  48. #49 Razgriz says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    1 game. ikaruga. if u can beat this game, then u are pretty good. i managaed to make it to the second from last stage, but then it just got way too ott for me. if u can beat this on the hardest difficulty, u have my respect.

  49. #50 Patrick M says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:08 am

    I still need to beat Lost Levels . . . But I did #10 and I did beat the first level of #6 but on the SNES version (and I’m not sure if it’s as hard)

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