You hardcore? Try beating Ikaruga on Hard With no credits, and one life! five of the hardest levels you will ever play in your life.

Hardcore games usualy are BADLY designed games because the only thing that makes them hardcore is either a fckn myriad of useless things (like the million billion ways to punch your opponent in virtua fighter and the like) happening either at the same time or so closely nit together that youre left sitting in your chair in front of your pc or tv asking yourself what exactly just happend that made your character fly to the other side of the screen while ejaculating senseless amounts of bodily fluids.
OR they simply are horrible in the way of controls, because the designers obviously thought the weel wasn't good enough anymore so they set out to reinvent it which is an endeavor usualy destined to FAIL, in an epic kind of way.

So, saying your game is hardcore is the best way to make sure everyone will notice the shortcomings of your work as a designer.

The real harcore is:
You switch on your pc, console or girlfriend and start playing and suddelny you hear the angry voices of your boss, wife, family and or police screaming at you while knocking your door like bud spencer would knock a villain. (Hard and prolonged)
You just spend you don't know how much time playing with your game, or your girl, and suddenly notice its been too long since you did anything else, like washing yourselves or getting sleep.

That is Hardcore.

Seriously guys, no-one here is hardcore unless they have tried to play a Japanese airport simulator game on an Xbox emulating a Snes. I have no idea what it was called, but it was in japanese and indecipherable. It just made no sense whatsoever.

Nah but in all seriousness, "hardcore" is a broken word. Much like "emo", "max" and anything in "1337". They just don't mean anything anymore

TheGrue:
Seriously guys, no-one here is hardcore unless they have tried to play a Japanese airport simulator game on an Xbox emulating a Snes. I have no idea what it was called, but it was in japanese and indecipherable. It just made no sense whatsoever.

Nah but in all seriousness, "hardcore" is a broken word. Much like "emo", "max" and anything in "1337". They just don't mean anything anymore

That's probably true, the term has become so mis-used by both gamers and PR people its pretty much worthless now. Anytime anybody claims they're a hardcore gamer you can be almost certain that they're a rabid Xbox live player who obsessively collect points from dozens of FPS's.

(no offense intended to Xbox live players in general by the way, I'm just generalising)

it depends on the genre.

A hardcore adventure game should have a deep, enthralling plot and fiendish logic puzzles.

A hardcore RPG has tons of stats to track and a complex battle system.

A hardcore fighting game should have many unique characters and a difficult to master fighting system.

A hardcore first person shooter needs intelligent AI, varied weapons, and a LIFE BAR with health pickups (none of this hiding in corners to heal bullshit).

A hardcore beat 'em up should have varied combos, overwhelming enemies, loads of blood, and Travis Touchdown.

A hardcore platformer needs bottomless death pits and a complete absence of furries.

A hardcore pornography needs at least on scene of penetration.

and so on

Wow, can't believe all the replies this has gotten. I was beginning to think I was all alone in thinking this.

- When given a difficulty choice, do you pick the hardest choice you can?
If it's a new game I play medium first to get used to the controls. Ifit's a sequal I dive straight in.

- Do you not get why Ninja Gaiden is supposed to be so hard?
I get it. But I always sucked at that game.

- Have you played and completed Contra, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden (NES and Xbox versions) AND Battletoads?
I only played NG on Xbox.

- Have you been playing games since the 8 bit era or earlier?
I wasn't born until after the 8-bit era. I still play them though.

- If not, have you bought older machines, emulated, or otherwise found a way to play all the good old classics?
I do emulate them and play Flash remakes.

- Can you rattle off names of obscure, japanese games for systems that existed for two weeks in 1997?
That's just geeky. No.

- Do you love Shin Megami Tensei, but still consider the persons who can cross the above one off geeks?
The who now?

- Do you consider any given game or game series worse the more popular it gets?
Yes and no. Halo 3 is worse because it changed little and sponged of Halo 2's success. As did CoD 3 (Damn you treyarch!). But Cod 4, Metal Gear and FF don't so they are still good.

- Do you consider videogames serious enough to care about and spend hundreds of hours and THOUSANDS of dollars on, but find anyone who whines for hours upon hours about the medium's problems on forums to be idiots?
I have spent over 5,000$ on my 360 and I hate people who whine about medium. I was pissed off that RV6:V2 had a casual setting!

- Have you ever sat through at least FOUR separate games you hated extremely but still refused to put down, because you haven't completed them yet?
Yes, still do it.

- Do you consider the Xbox 360 achievment points to be worth about as much gaming "street cred" as saying that you have genital herpes?
They aren't important. It's funny when your GS is over 25,000 and you don't try and your friends only have 1,200 and tink you're amazing.

- Do you feel an extreme need to outdo any given gaming feat you hear of or see? ("He completed Sonic the Hedgehog in 10 minutes, picking up only two rings? I bet I can do it in nine, without using any at all!")
No, that is Eliteism and should not be allowed.

- Do you lament the loss of hard-as-nails gameplay that doesn't mean quicksaving and quickloading every five seconds?
Yes I do. I wish games wre harder than they are. I really do.

- Have you ever considered passing out from gaming all night a mark of honor?
Yes. I don't do it often, school and my health get in the way.

- Have you ever realized that you haven't had any other beverage than coke or red bull for two full weeks?
Try two years. Only if tat excludes milk on my breakfast cereal.

I is teh 1337. Just kidding, but I probaly play too much.

You're not a hardcore gamer unless you play "ALL" games. That includes "Barbie Adventures."
If you play only one type of games (fps,mmo,rpg,etc.) then you are NOT a hardcore gamer.
If you never picked up a super nintendo control or a atari joystick, you are also NOT a hardcore gamer.
Before you say you are a hardcore gamer, think about the games you have and haven't played.

lightbulbthief:
a hardcore gamer is a gamer who takes an active interest in the industry the oppisite to a casual gamer who will buy games if they see it in a shop and like the pretty cover or their mate recomends it,

Either that, or still playing for a top 5 European ranked Quake3 clan like my friend...thats hardcore.

What I consider "Hardcore" gaming?

Pretentious pricks with a suppressed inferiority complex needing someone to feel superior over. People who bash the Wii because it's "just for casual gamers". People who forget gaming is supposed to be fun instead of just a way to collect bragging rights.

I've been gaming since before most "hardcore" gamers filled their first diapers and a significant amount of my time and salary is spend on gaming, but I'd prefer not to be called hardcore. I prefer to have fun with my games instead.

And yes, I fully recognize the irony of my first sentence in combination with my second paragraph.

Hmm, I would think that the term "Middlecore" could be used to them in the void between casual and hardcore gamers.

the last level of biometal(snes) was hardcore (btw my favourite ever force device was in that game)

people who 'enjoy' parodius - hardcore :)

almost breaking ryan harts' 52 game winning streak without ever having played tekken tag before, prior to this defeat i was hardcore :)

the guy I saw on youtube playing the last level of ikaruga 2 player with both joysticks was hardcore :)

mugen AI coders are hardcore.

trying unsuccessfully to not post on this forum at my age, hardcore! :p

paying twice as much for import japanese rpg's when you know damn well that all the fun's in the story.

wondering why everyone is calling super contra hardcore?

Hardcore is not something I aspire to *grins*

Bioshock can be borderline, upon occasions, but is not hardcore. Fighting four Spider Splicers on Hardcore with a wrench and with a pressing desire not-to-die, that can be hardcore. Mostly, no.

A game which artificially endeavors to ramp up your heartrate and encourage the pursuit of deranged scores, like Geometry Wars and it's kin, I do not consider hardcore. They try too hard.

Hardcore.. Hardcore..

Hardcore is what UT2004 would be in a 32 player server on a small map if anyone really cared about the objectives.

Hardcore..

True hardcore is something I've rarely found.

Ah - Neocron and Planetside achieved true hardcore. It wasn't the pace of gameplay, which was merely respectable in both games, it was the scale of it, and the weight of the objectives. No-one wants to die in an MMO, objectives seem more epic when 200 people are fighting for them.

A gang war on the streets of PepperPark in Neocron, a 200 man 6 hour battle across the northeastern quarter of Ishundar in Planetside...

That was hardcore. When it's raining artillery and you know every shot was fired by a real player, when bullets are hammering your cover and you're getting reports on teamspeak that a guy on a higher tier channel got reports from the commanders on highest tier that six New Conglomerate tanks are en route with a squadron of Reavers.. Hardcore.

Merely running very fast firing a rocket launcher or adding up your score muliplier is not hardcore. It wishes it was ;) To be hardcore, you need to care about success, and for more of a reason than getting a higher score than your little brother, I think.

Yum. Hardcore.

If you are on this website, you are likely a hardcore gamer. I'd call myself a serious gamer, and an obsessed gamer, but I'm not sure about hardcore, since I suck at most games.

I am a hardcore gamer, but there is no such thing as a hardcore game. I used to play Gran Turismo 4 or Ace Combat 5 or Zero for over 6 hours every day, sometimes I would get off work at 2:30, fire up a game at 3, and not turn it off until bed no earlier than midnight... But I wasn't playing Hardcore games... Only the above mentioned games. Or San Andreas.

"Hardcore gaming" is, to PR and your friendly neighborhood suits, just the opposite of Casual gaming. And yes, the term is overused to the point of uselessness.

"Hardcore gamers," on the other hand, is a phrase that still has some meaning. Proud to be Middlecore. Peggle and its sundry lot isn't nearly enough to quell my thirst for variety of gaming experiences and my willingness to spend a-bit-too-much time on them, but I couldn't give a damn about speedruns, perfection, the hardest difficulties, or the bragging rights that come with any of the above.

MathU:
I may be grasping at straws here, but what is the first thing you honestly think of when you hear the term "hardcore"?

Snobbery.

Credossuck:
Hardcore games usualy are BADLY designed games because the only thing that makes them hardcore is either a fckn myriad of useless things (like the million billion ways to punch your opponent in virtua fighter and the like) happening either at the same time or so closely nit together that youre left sitting in your chair in front of your pc or tv asking yourself what exactly just happend that made your character fly to the other side of the screen while ejaculating senseless amounts of bodily fluids.
OR they simply are horrible in the way of controls, because the designers obviously thought the weel wasn't good enough anymore so they set out to reinvent it which is an endeavor usualy destined to FAIL, in an epic kind of way.

What? Virtua Fighter is excellently designed. Just because you're not very good at a game doesn't mean it sucks. There are no useless features in Virtua Fighter, it's one of the best fighting games in the market because you have so many options in the style that you choose to take to fight. Play through the training in Virtua Fighter 4 and you'll see that ALL of those features have uses. And they are smoothly implemented.

And also, heaven forbid that anyone try to think up new methods to control games. We should all still be using D-pads and two buttons for all our games, right? Don't be an idiot.