Writing this blog and doing this weekly feature seems to make time go by a lot quicker. I'm already at the end of the third week for this summer challenge. For readers without a clue, I've been attempting to beat most of my games on their hardest difficulties over the course of July and August. This week though, I've been feeling a little burnt out on this whole thing. I didn't really have much motivation at all to continue with the one real game I've played all week, BioShock.



Since I didn't want to disappoint anybody, I managed to trudge through it over the course of the week. I figured since I hadn't played it in a long time that it would seem fresh and new again to me. it wasn't at all. I had already gone through the game twice before and gotten all of the achievements until the one 100 point one came out when the DLC was released. I died quite a bit over the course of the game, mostly due to having to fight the Big Daddies. The Bouncers weren't very difficult to deal with since they were somewhat easy to dodge. However, the Rosies are a different story. I died many times fighting these cunts. Most of the time it was because I would get shot or blown up before I got the chance to hit B to heal myself. I also ended up saving all of the Little Sisters to make it a tad bit more difficult since I wouldn't have as much ADAM to work with.

In an attempt to conserve ammunition, I played through most of the game with the Winter Blast plasmid to freeze enemies and shatter them with the wrench. I also never purposely destroyed any of the turrets or cameras if I didn't have to. I would hack everything I could so it would help me out when I least expected it. This play style actually worked out in my favor. Since I didn't use a whole lot of ammo and I didn't have to keep buying any, I ended up with enough money to keep my First Aid Kits and EVE Hypos fully stocked. By the time I had reached the very end and was about to fight Fontaine, I was more than happy to finally finish the game. The boss fight was also as disappointing as I remember it being. With my ammo and abilities all maxed out, the fight wasn't difficult at all on Hard. He's more or less limited to two moves. Those being firing a projectile at you and charging at you right after. They are very easily avoided by strafing around him while shooting. I had actually intended to record a video of me fighting him again for the first time, but after I set up my camera and hit record, the battery in it died. I didn't feel like replacing the battery or charging it, so I just did it without it. I'll try and record something else to make up for it.

I'd have to say that even with the Vita-Chambers turned off, the game is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Granted, I was already familiar with all of the areas and mechanics of the game, having gone through the game twice beforehand. I could see how it would be a lot more difficult on someone's first playthrough. With the save system the game has though, it's just as easy to load up a previous save as it is to respawn in a Vita-Chamber. Below is the achievement I got for beating the game on hard with the Vita-Chambers turned off. I had gotten disconnected from Xbox Live about an hour before I finished the game and forgot to reconnect before the achievement popped. That kind of annoyed me.





I would have been pretty disappointed in myself if I had only played one game on my list this week. So, I fired up inFamous again and got started on playing through it again on Hard as an evil character this time around. I would say that I've gotten through roughly 50% of the game so far. Not having to worry about killing innocent civilians and having much stronger powers is a huge help getting through it on Hard. I found that an effective tactic that I didn't tend to use on my first playthrough was just spamming the default lightning attack when fighting a bunch of enemies. The attack doesn't use up any of the electrical power that you have, and when you're evil it has the chance to explode an enemy when you shoot them in the head, damaging the enemies around him. Given how far I am in the game already, I should be able to finish it within the next day or two.

I'm definitely going to try and step it up a notch this week. It seems to me like I'm not making any good progress when I only end up finishing one game a week. I'll make it a goal to finish at least two by my next post. I finally ordered a new gaming PC today and should be getting the parts by this weekend. I haven't been into PC gaming in years and I have a lot to catch up on. I'm hoping that doesn't distract me too much from the task at hand. Well, that's all I've got to say for this post. You can read all of my ASOP related tweets on my Twitter feed here. Catch you all next week.

RECAP:
Introduction
Week 1
Week 2

It's now the end of the second week of my Summer of Punishment. If you haven't been following for the last two posts, what I've been doing is playing some of my games on their hardest difficulties over the summer. I've been doing my best to limit my frustration to cursing off the television and occasionally punching myself in the thigh. I've had to replace controllers in the past, and they cost a pretty penny these days. Anyway, this post will be a tad bit shorter than the others since I didn't game as much as I normally do for one specific reason. I'll get into that further down though. I'll start with the game I played towards the end of last week, Devil May Cry 4.



I had previously gotten up to Mission 4 on Dante Must Die mode and stopped playing. I seemed to have made as much progress as I did last week though, as I only got up to Mission 7 before Friday. The only real issue I had was fighting Agnus and all of those stupid flying swords. I was talking some pretty harsh shit towards Nero every time I got hit or died. From my Twitter that night I quote myself.

"You people should hear the shit I'm talking to Nero right now. It's obviously his fault as the character, and not me as the player."

That's basically the way I felt all night playing the game. I'm trying to take this game out in chunks in between some of the easier games. The game I played the last two nights was Mirror's Edge, but before I get into that, I'll mention why I got less game time over the course of the week.



Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, members of Dtoid New York got together for a Beach NARP, which was graciously hosted by keener. The weekend was filled with drinking, Rock Band, SingStar, Brodozers, Justice Mode, Anne Frank Bombs, Samit flying a plane, BlazBlue, Street Fighter, dining and ditching, and of course Bella. Thanks again keener for hosting and everybody else for showing up and having fun. For all the other Dtoiders, find your local Dtoid group and go to the next NARP!

Note: I'm in the middle of the picture above with my game face on. On the right we have the one and only Sharpless with his epic beard and proof of his existence.



Back onto the subject of games, I started up and managed to finish Mirror's Edge on Hard all within two nights. I probably could have done it in one if I hadn't taken breaks to go play Battlefield 1943. Playing through it again reminded me of how depressingly short the game is, even with the added difficulty. It probably didn't take me very long since the majority of the game is free running in the city, which isn't something that's affected by what difficulty you have the game set to. The combat is what held me up at points, but it's pretty easy to beat by using the classic gaming strategy of trial and error. I basically had to find the easiest way to disarm one enemy without dying, and take his gun and take out the next guy. I kept switching guns to make sure I had enough ammo to kill the next guy without putting myself in a position to have to restart the entire fight. I seem to remember the combat being more difficult on my first playthrough, but that's probably because I played through the game the first time without using guns. I would have done that again for Hard mode, but I had no way of proving that I did it since I had already gotten that specific achievement. Below is the achievement I got for beating Hard mode.



In closing, I'd say that this week was relatively easy. Playing through Mirror's Edge again reminded me of how much I liked the gameplay mechanics. I might just pick up the DLC for it with the time trials if I ever end up with some spare Microsoft Points. I've got to save up for the upcoming Summer of Arcade line-up. For the week coming up, I'll probably try and knock another easy game or two out of the way. I might start up The Darkness or BioShock, in addition to plowing through Devil May Cry 4 on Dante Must Die mode. That's it for this week, I'll probably go back and continue to play some more Battlefield 1943 on that recently unlocked Coral Sea map. As always, you can read my ASOP related tweets on the Twitter feed located here. See you next week!


RECAP:
Introduction
Week 1

Here we are at the end of the first week of my "Summer of Punishment" challenge. If you missed my first post last Tuesday, I basically announced that I was going to attempt to play a good portion of my games on their hardest difficulties available. Some of these games include the Devil May Cry series, Ninja Gaiden series, and some other random games such as Bionic Commando and Dead Space. Overall this week, I didn't encounter too much frustration or rage, and it went by pretty smoothly. The first game I jumped into, and the game that took up most of this week's time, was Dead Space.



I started playing Dead Space last Wednesday on Hard, under the assumption that it was the hardest difficulty available. I got about an hour and a half into the game before I found out by looking at some of the achievements online that the hardest difficulty was actually Impossible. I also found out that the only way to even access that mode was to select it immediately after you finish the game. Problem was, I had already started the game over the first time I beat the game on Medium. So, I ended up having to play through the entire game over again on Medium to unlock Impossible mode. I was originally going to play through the game on Impossible mode normally, but Isaac Clarke issued me a challenge in response to my tweet. The people who developed Dead Space challenged me to complete the hardest difficulty in their game with only the first weapon you get, the Plasma Cutter. So, of course, I felt obligated to do it.

I started the game with only one advantage, the Military Suit you get for completing the game. I had no upgrades to any of my equipment at the start, and I had no credits to start with. I only died 5 times during the course of the playthrough on Impossible, 1 time while stumbling upon a group of Swarmers by accident, 1 time while fighting a ridiculous amount of Necromorphs in the large hall on the USM Valor and getting hit by an Exploder, and the last 3 times while fighting an Enhanced Brute for the first time.

Overall, I'd have to say that Impossible mode was somewhat easier than I thought it would be, even though I only had one weapon to use. The most difficult thing about it was making sure I had enough health and ammo. Since I only had one gun, running out of ammo meant death if there were Necromorphs around. I also recorded 3 videos while playing through for the first time on Hard mode and uploaded them before I found out that there was an Impossible mode. The first video is embedded below, and the remaining two videos can be found here and here.



Also, just so I have something to show for it, here are the achievements I got for completing the game on Impossible with on the Plasma Cutter.





I also played quite a bit of Mega Man 9 the last day or two and I've already defeated half of the Robot Masters, including, Concrete Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, and Plug Man. I'm stuck on Tornado Man's stage at the moment. I am only playing through the game normally, since I feel that it is hard enough. I am aware though that there are increased difficulty modes available for the game, but to get those I would have to purchase DLC, and I'm playing through the games as they are. I died a countless number of times already since it's a Mega Man game and the only way to get good is to learn the levels. I have been doing better than usual though, and that might be because I've been listening to some awesome Mega Man music remixes instead of the music in the game. I'll try to finish this game within the next week or two. I like playing it in between other games better than playing it on it's own.



Finally, I played through the first 3 missions in Devil May Cry 4 on Dante Must Die mode to get myself used to the game mechanics again. I haven't played this game in a long time and I'm totally out of my element with it. I played this for a couple of hours yesterday though and started getting good at it again. I had previously beaten Son of Sparda mode, and was about to start Dante Must Die mode, but never got around to it. Berial was easily the most difficult gaming challenge I had the entire week and he was a bitch and a half to kill, but I managed to beat him. Totally not looking forward to playing this or any of the other similar action games since I'm getting my ass kicked at them. The hardest difficulty I'll play through in this game is Dante Must Die mode, even though there is a very difficult mode called Hell or Hell. In that difficulty, all of the enemies are more difficult than they are in Dante Must Die mode, and they can all kill you in one hit. I'm not even going to get into that since I know I'll never be that good and I'll never finish it.

Well, that's all I've got done this week. At the moment I'm taking a break and playing some Battlefield 1943, which is amazing. Go pick it up for XBLA today or PSN tomorrow for $15. It's worth every penny. I've also been tagging all of my "Summer of Punishment" related tweets on Twitter with #ASOP. If any of you want to read a feed of them, you can check it out here. See you all next week!

RECAP:
Introduction

Hello there Destructoid. It's certainly been a while since I was seen here fairly often. I've never really blogged here regularly, nor have I ever thought up a good original feature to do. However, garison replied to my tweet about how I was going to try and complete most of my games on their harder or hardest difficulties this summer, and suggested that I write a blog about it. So, I thought, why not make it a weekly feature and update everybody on my progress?

Starting tomorrow, I will start my two month endeavor to finish the games shown below on their hard difficulties. I have picked games that are likely to be very challenging. Some of these games, though, I haven't even played yet. I'm interested to see how difficult it will be starting a game off I have yet to play on it's hard difficulty. I can only really remember doing this once to see how challenging it was, and that was with Call of Duty 4. I played through the entire game for the first time on Veteran difficulty and I wanted to shoot myself. I probably won't be able to get through all of these games though, since some of them require a significant amount of playtime, but I'll try my best.







Like I said before, I'll be starting tomorrow. Since I'm kicking it off on a Wednesday, I'll try to post a new blog with updates every Wednesday from now until the end of August. I'll try and make it interesting by keeping track of some statistics such as playtime and number of deaths. I might even record a couple of short gameplay videos with my crappy digital camera. Let me know what you guys think of this in the comments.

...and I got banned.

Credit to SiloViro for the video, again.