For games like Fallout 3 or Oblivion (or almost any game where you invest a fair bit of time into a certain character) you can try a permadeath challenge. Start with a new character. The first time they die that’s it for them, delete the character and all of their saved games.
The optimal is right around level 4, actually. Scout 4/Jedi whatever is a very powerful combination. This also has the advantage of letting you finish the duel arena (doing it at level 3 requires some amazing luck).
Ah, see, I skipped that, or as much of it as I could.
No, as in, never clearing a square any other way (aside from the first one, of course). So if I start off with the upper-left corner looking like
_1?
12?
???
, even though I know that the square to the lower-right of the 2 is clear, I won’t click it. Instead, I’ll guess on one of the mines on the edge so I can do the clear-all-around maneuver.
In BF2:
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Play with just a pistol. No machine gun, no grenades, etc. Its a good way to find out which kit has the strongest pistol.
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Do not play squad or anything, just do you best to put C4 in surprising situations for the enemy like on a helicopter before they board or a stretch of road rarely driven on.
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Do nothing but sit there trying to shoot a pilot with a M95. Tricky, but its doable and quite a surprise for the pilots.
I’ve done complete knock-out runs on Thief, which I tried to combine as much as possible with no other disturbance, as if a sleeping spell had hit the place.
In Thief 2 there’s a level with a zombie hiding out in the cemetery. With some effort he can be coaxed out of his crypt and onto the city streets. Since the guards have no means of killing a zombie for good, the mass slaughter that ensues is quite fun to watch.
Also thanks to Thief’s semi-realistic physics and surfeit of stackable objects, it’s possible to do things like box in guards, climb to the outer levels, and bypass some areas that you’d otherwise have to spend time finding keys or other items for.
Bolding mine. Because spending several hours collecting boxes and such for all this takes *waaay *less time!
I’ve played Madden NFL in Franchise mode, in which I created a team using the best free-agents available in the game (i.e., a team comprised mostly of cast-offs), and then played a season with them, trying to win the Super Bowl (I managed to succeed).
The bit about leveling up reminds me of Ultima: Exodus, where leveling up was optional (you had to talk to the King to do it), and was actually a pretty bad idea. The only things that changed with leveling up are that your HP increased, and the enemies got tougher. You didn’t do more damage, or get more spells, or anything like that, and the enemies didn’t give any more treasure, and only marginally more XP (two dragons would give 30 XP, but then, so would 10 skeletons, and the skeletons are far, far easier to beat). So what you’d do is, you’d level up just far enough for pirates to start appearing (you need to steal a ship from them) and then stop talking to the King, until you’re ready to go to the final castle, and then level all the way up to 10 (the max) at once. If you’re being really meticulous about it, then after you get a ship, you rotate the high-level guy out of your party and go back to the 1st-level enemies.
This is similar to how FFVIII was designed: the mobs were basically synched in one form or another to your PC’s levels. Every mob including bosses. The key in that particular game, iirc, was that you didn’t so much equip characters with new items and weapons, but rather you could upgrade their weapons to powerful degrees. As such, there were no level requirements for weapons in that regard (not sure about other equipment; it’s been so long since I’ve played the game).
So you would plod along, running from every fight (running had a 100% success rate, again including bosses), collecting the material you needed to upgrade your weapons, and by the end of it all you were a level 1 character fighting level 2 bosses with a level 80 weapon. Good times.
I’m still in the process of playing FF8. I read a FAQ on the game before starting, which suggested that I get the Encounter-None skill ASAP. Not only does it prevent random battles from occuring, but it also makes sure I’ll never gain any levels, as for some odd reason bosses don’t give EXP in that game (I think some other FF games were like that too…pandering to low level players?)
FF8 is all about keeping your levels as low as possible, but then junctioning the hell out of your characters. You can have a level 1 character with 9999 HP if you junction 99 Cure4 spells to his HP, and all of the enemies/bosses will still have their regular Level 1 HP. That game really isn’t known for its epic battles anyway…
Another reason to do that is that later on you get Stat-Up abilities from GFs which increase a particular stat when you level up.
The power-gamer in me loves the FF games.
I’m not sure if this is what the OP was asking for, but it cracks me the hell up every time I see it. When my grandsons play Wii bowling, instead of bowling like normal people, they back all the way up into the other room, come running in and slide on their knees while windmilling their arm around in a Pete Townshend-like motion to throw the ball.
Originally posted by Tom Scud
I don’t even see how this is possible. I mean sure, there are all sorts of messenger and gathering quests, but as I recall, they’re all in the middle of other quest chains where you HAVE to kill x number of things to progress in the quest chain.
The one that still cracks me up are the Naked Noobs guild. They level their characters up only wearing cloak, rings, trinkets, and maybe boots and weapon. No other armor at all. I have no idea how they do it, but I guess they have several higher level members who’ve done it. I can’t even begin to imagine how absolutely craptastic that would be.
Speaking of naked… 
There’s always the Naked (Something) Run concept in MMORPGs. Multiple people (the more the merrier) take a particular character race, make a lvl 1 character, and with nothing but the starter gear, run across the continent/multiple continents, through areas guaranteed deadly to characters many levels higher, and end up somewhere far away and probably also very dangerous. Freak out the people on the other end of the run by being there and of such a far-removed race at such a low level.
I first encountered this playing the original EverQuest - my guild sponsored a “Naked Troll Run” - up the better part of one continent, through/around a city where trolls were hated by the populace such that they would be killed on sight by the guards, to the docks to wait for a boat to the ‘elf/dwarf continent’, and then run to a somewhat high-level dungeon (Mistmoore) where higher-level characters in on the run would provide them with beer and protect them at that point for the party.
I used to like playing Star Raiders without using shields. That was a real pain, but possible. I also used to go around and destroy the bases so I had no way of powering up. I wish my 5200 still worked.
There’s also the fact that in Zelda 3, you don’t actually need the master sword to beat Agahnim. The butterfly net works just as well for reflecting his energy blasts back at him.
Another fun Zelda challenge is to complete the game with only the original three hearts.
Master of Orion 1 and 2. Most races allow you to trade and talk with the others, but the Silicoids are apparently so hideous that no one would talk to them at all. In MOO1, you had to choose them and then piss off another race to get them to attack you. MOO2 allowed you to customize your own race, so you can get that ability for your custom race and then piss everyone off and try to win the game.
Also in MOO2, when designing a custom race, you have an allotment of something like 10 points to spend on race characteristics. If you choose all negative characteristics, you could boost your race “increase” by -10, which would net you a ton of points if you can beat the game that way.
Aaah, I see. Heh, will give it a try.