I know it's bad but with the GTA games (well I played 1, 3:VC, 3:SA and 4) I got bored and cheated. It was much more fun shooting groups down with a rocket launcher and then using a tank to go joyriding. Plus it helped me complete all of the difficult missions.

GTA always includes a driving mission that will leave you wanting to kill dead things. And guess what? Sometimes you can't progress until you finish it

Was the motorbike and and final event for the flying school.

I find the GT driving licence tests infuriating, especially the international/super: WTF, I only cut one blade of grass FFS, JFC the car never left the track, FFFFUUUUUUUU!!!

Super license on GT is mental. I hate it but I love it at the same time. Some of the hot laps seem impossible when on the first run you realise you're 8 seconds off (especially in the slower cars where you are expected to NAIL every single corner). I do remember a circular track and an overpowered american piece of crap + rain almost made me throw the joypad through the TV.

I dont think games are getting easier. Any game I currently play becomes a challenge on hard and frustatingly so on Harcore or Insane levels. I tend to play everything on normal tbh.

I remember that track too, it was something like a Corvette and thoroughly crap. I only ever managed it by the skin of my teeth.

Am I the only one who hates driving games then? Tho the driving parts of Half life are fun, I could have done without. All you need is a crooowwwwbarrrr

They vary a lot. GT3 was the only driving game I ever really enjoyed playing on my own, every other game has either irritated me intensely or been played against friends, where it's more about the social competitiveness, rather than the game itself.

I had a game called Stuntman on the PS2, I never completed it as I found it too frustrating because of time-limited checkpoints and failure criteria. I don't mind a challenge, but needless repetition because you can't learn the 'tracks' in anything other than minute segments was too much for me. I would have prefered it to have been a game of continual improvement rather than painful progression.

It depends on the game. Some have very hard sections, though if that happens I end up with a game save that is not access for months until one of the kids can get me through the problem. I was stuck in a room in Halo for months unable to get out before the brains managed to overwhelm me.

I remember that (or something similar).

I like driving sims because they're largely reliant upon my skill. I liked Delta Force for a similar reason.

However I hated FarCry because they ruined it with the Trigen sh*te jumping out of doorways for no good reason. You meet a minigun on level 2 FFS! Never have I been so bitterly disappointed with a game.

Went for maybe. The way I see it, a lot of videogames haven't particularly got easier, it's just through growing up with video games means that I'm a lot more savvy with regards to playing them. Kind of inevitable when you've been playing since the Atari (only just mind, it was dad's after all). I found Sonic 3 +Knuckles to be tremendously difficult back in the day, which is now about how long it takes me to do a 100% run with the three characters.

Having said that, the loss of any meaningful lives system, quick saving, and the need to aim for the mass market, has meant that challenge is a bit more difficult to come by. Taking the example of Modern Warfare 2; yes, some bits of that are challenging, with consideration to tactics and so forth, but it's ultimately a casual/pick-up-and-play shooter and so therefore sees fit to tack on difficulty by giving the 1000+ yards away AI the aim of a primeval God. That isn't a challenge, merely an excercise in memory as you learn where to fire your gun after respawning. Well that's how I see it anyroad.

Must have been the first time the Flood appeared? I was there for a while too!

That was the name. Flood. I was stuck there for nine months. I had the kids come and stay and one of the twins got me out in a matter of minutes. After that It only too a few days to complete the rest of the game. The problem is mazes are lousy for amnesiacs. Even with a manual you cannot read it fast enough to get through.

I had that game also.

It was really annoying! I remember one track had a chimney that you had to hit perfectly and then a train that you had to race to the crossing and then jump through a carriage that had open doors on either side. (or something).

Then there was one in an Indiana Jones type setting.

I love doing the GT licenses! I loved that circular rain one too! I had mastered the use of feathering the throttle even on the control pad What I find frustrating is that you do a track a million time and are fractions of a second off the limit and then suddenly you knock 2 seconds off on one run but then can never get close to doing it again!