Many Japanese gamers regard Takeshi no Chousenjou as one of the hardest video games ever released (unfortunately, it never made it to the U.S. market). With a title screen that warns: "created by somebody who hates video games," "Takeshi's Challenge" forces players to endure such tasks as singing karaoke (uninterrupted) for an hour or holding a single button for four straight hours. For those who managed to endure such ordeals, the reward was a final
boss that required 20,000 "hits" to be defeated.
As one might imagine, much as been made of "Takeshi's Challenge." It's been called everything from "a Japanese precursor to Grand Theft Auto" to "a video game that riffs on human disappointment for as many hours as the player is willing to search for redemption." And that latter point is one well worth bringing up, I think. With so much back and forth over whether games can ever elicit a truly primal emotional response out of players, one tangential question that seems to be consistently overlooked is this: Can video games accurately mirror life's inevitable disappointments/insurmountable challenges? Novels certainly do. Same goes for film. And if they're ever to be considered an valid artistic medium, video games better learn to as well.
(via Metafilter)
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