The funny thing is that some of the levels are actually easier on Legendary, since your units will have more experience when they get to them (due to the incredible hordes of monsters in previous missions). If I remember correctly, your dwarf can hit the max of 127 kills in the first level alone. When they get that good, you can actually get away with things like grenading an enemy unit in melee with one of yours (the dwarf aims for just outside of the battle, so the enemy gets splashed, but your guy doesn’t).
I never played the game, but wasn’t Myst supposed to take forever to beat? Or does this thread not include computer video games?
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Viewtiful Joe yet. Parts of that game were just ridiculously hard. Five bosses, in a row, with no healing and no saves? The last level with massively powerful guys coming at you from both sides where a single hit takes off multiple hearts and once you get hit you’re lined up perfectly for the other guy to hit you again? Friggin unbelievable.
Also, I second Ikaruga. That game is a work of art but it’s also crushingly difficult in the later levels.
I also think RE4 was pretty difficult. It wasn’t that frustrating since dying usually only undid whatever you had done in the room you died in, but I died a LOT finishing that game, and I died twice as much finishing it on Professional. My biggest complaint was that they unlocked the unlockables upon finishing the normal game, and you basically get nothing for finishing the game on Professional. Considering how hard that was, I would have liked a little something for my trouble, even if they’d just taken one of the things they give you for finishing it on normal and made you finish Pro for it.
Actually, I think the bonus is for not picking up any items before you reach the RPD. You can kill any amount of zombies you want, but no bullets in the van, or the gunshop, and no taking the gunshop owner’s gun after the zombies kill him.
[RE-fanboy tangent]
Then you get to fight a zombie Brad Vickers (who is kinda tough unless you come back later with a shotgun), and he has the key to the locker that contains the special costumes. For Leon, either costume also results in him holding his handgun gangsta style and shooting slightly faster. For Claire, she gets one costume (a cowgirl outfit) and a Colt Single Action Army, which fires very fast and I think is slightly more powerful than her normal handgun.
If you really want a ridiculous challenge, try unlocking Hunk and Tofu. Have to beat the game without saving, dying, using first aid sprays (herbs are ok), can’t get any two slot weapons (SMG, spark gun, flame thrower, rocket launcher at the end of the B Scenario is ok), and you have to finish in under 2.5 hours. You have to do all that twice to get Hunk, and six times to get Tofu. Hunk’s scenario is getting from the sewer to the RPD roof through an obscene amount of enemies with limited health/ammo. I’ve come close, but never actually been able to finish it. Tofu has to do the same thing, armed only with a knife. Now that’s hard.
[/RE-fanboy tangent]
I still can’t for the life of me can’t stay alive for more than a single stage in any of the Metal Slug series. Those games just eat quarters…
…speaking of which, I was very disturbed to find out, after probably hundreds of hard-earned summer allowance money, that Gauntlet does not have an ending…
As a kid I remember playing Activision’s River Raid a lot - did that game ever end at some point?
I’ve played the Atari 2600 & 5200 versions, but don’t recall an end to the game.
I tended to aim for the ground for more control. Maybe I should have let the dwarf do his own thing. Once the mykridia are introduced though, that’s a bit much.
For me, it’s Narc. The boss is completely unbeatable. You have to basically hit him with every missile you have just to get his head to explode, and THEN he becomes a skull with a Slinky for a neck that reaches across the entire screen and is impossible to avoid. Oh, and he breathes fire on top of that. I HATE that stupid game!
Myst is pretty easy, but Riven is quite hard. Myst IV also was difficult.
Neither are the hardest games of all time, though.
Thank you for my new favorite saying. I’m going to begin angrily muttering this to myself in public immediately. 
Rastan has to rank up there pretty high on the list. I play it on Gametap every so often but end up getting frustrated pretty quickly.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .
Myth and Myth II were awesome. Frustrating as HELL, but awesome at the same time. I felt proud to get through the first Myth game on the easiest setting.
I could never get too far into Donkey Kong Country, nor could my son, who’s actually good at this sort of thing.
god of war for the ps2 on god mode
The older games, say about till '99, were so cheap. Except, you know, the cheapness benefitted the player. The old fake out the goalie and put the puck in the other side of the net thing always worked - the goalie couldn’t get to the other side fast enough. I used to get epic scores doing that, even if it was cheap. I dunno how the AI is now though.
Every sports game now has AI weaknesses. That’s how you play the games these days…find the defensive and offensive plays that the AI can’t handle. The next year, they’re pretty much covered up. Two years ago in Madden, it was “HB Look” on offense, now it’s an out pass if they’re not pressing, the 10 yards, then diagonally out, which beats up the man defense, and yadda, yadda, yadda. I don’t know if the AI is advanced to the point where it can adapt to its own weaknesses, but I LUST for those days.
50 years down the road, when we’re playing Zelnarg 2076 and I’m an old motherfucker, I’ll fire up my fuckin’ holodeck and play the shit out of it.
I agree about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. I can’t get past level three.
MOTHERFUCKERBITCHWHOREDUCKFELCHERDONKEYGRABBERCUNTSNOT!
Ahem…yes, that game is difficult.
I’d also like to add T&C Surf for the NES. I hate that monkey on his little surfboard. Stop dying, you coward!
Another game that frustrated the hell out of me was Cobra Triangle for NES. It was made by Rare, the same company that went on to make memorable titles such as Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.
It was a weird speedboat racing/combat game. One of the hardest things about it was that the stages all had time limits that were nearly impossible to beat. Never made it very far in that game even though I had it for a few years.
Rogue, Nethack, Moria, and the rest of the Rougelike games were designed to make death count. Yes, the games are evil like that. But it makes winning all the more sweet.
(No, I’ve never won.)
And even after level 6, there’s still plenty of ways to die suddenly. My most stupid death: Removing weapons and armor to cast a spell, forgetting to reequip the weapons, attacking a cockatrice. Why was this stupid? 1: Touching a cockatrice (including attacking it with bare hands) results in instant death by petrification. 2: Metal armor interferes with spell casting – but weapons don’t!
I’ve also almost chocked while eating a giant corpse, and almost drowned in a puddle of water.
I just beat Startropics again last night. I’d forgotten how hard that stupid thing was!