Hard Mode

Hard mode in Contra 3 is fucking unfair. Ryan and I always fire up the SNES after recording a podcast, which you can find here. Stealthy little plug, huh? It’s our semi-weekly movie podcast and in this episode, we review Thor.

We’re thinking of reviewing The Greatest Movie Ever Sold next, but Bridesmaids could possibly pull an upset. It’s nice to see Judd Apatow making movies again. Although Funny People disappointed, he’s almost singly responsible for taking mainstream comedies out of the clutches of Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. While he was gone, we got the cinematic masterpieces that are Couple’s Retreat, Little Fockers and The Dilemma.

Playing Contra 3 on hard makes Normal seems so much easier. Easy mode should not exist in any game. Easy mode is the game making fun of you. Remember how after dying over and over in DMC3 the game unlocked Easy mode? No thanks and fuck you. I’ll skip pussy mode every time.

Carlos and I did manage to make it through Contra 4 on hard mode a couple of times. It’s always a pretty awesome accomplishment to beat a game on the hardest difficulty level. Most of the time, you don’t get a goddamn thing for beating a game on hard except bragging rights.

Top 5 Games Hardest Hard-Mode Games

Devil May Cry 3
Ninja Gaiden (XBOX)
Contra 3
Little King’s Story
Resident Evil 4

Any amendments you want to make to the list? Leave a comment :)

Sometimes I wonder why RPG’s and platformers don’t have harder difficulty settings. I guess it would be tough to make an RPG harder since most powerful enemies can be overcome with some grinding. But a few more and faster moving goombas and koopas could ramp up the difficulty in any Mario game. Fewer power ups could make both of the New Super Mario Bros games tougher. That’s not to say the platformers feel unbalanced or simplistic, but an optional hard mode would be kind of cool.