Nintendo Hard/Racing Games

"It's not any fun if I can't win, you faggots. I want to move on. I want to unlock whatever piece of poo poo clown car you have hidden away from me so I can start racing and get pissed off with that too. When your game prevents me from fully enjoying the product I have bought you have failed in your loving mission to deliver a game. You lose! You break the contract! You contract the gay and loving DIE DIE DIE."

- Nipple Bandit on F-Zero GX's 7th Mission's Normal difficulty in Story Mode at Something Afwul forums.


 * Since Underground, the Need for Speed series has had Rubber Band AI which falls through this trope.
 * Underground 2, on the other hand, is easier. Most Wanted returns to Nintendo Hard during races (police chases are just plain awesome), with any AI car that falls behind yours by more than 500 meters suddenly getting unlimited nitrous, twice the top speed, and the ability to reach said speed in about four seconds. Even if it's a Fiat Punto. And that effect generally won't stop until the AI car is about three kilometers ahead of yours. Carbon, fortunately, has more balanced AI than the previous game.
 * ...until the opponents' cars jump up a tier, while you're still stuck with your current car. Getting a perfect launch, and using the nitrous for all it's worth at the start, is absolutely necessary to get a jump on the competition, and then blocking like your life depends on it and using every shortcut in the course in order to keep them behind you. Once you get a same-tier car, the AI balances out somewhat.
 * Cobra Triangle is possibly the most evil vehicle-based game that ever came out for the original Nintendo. A boat racing game in theory, there were a number of levels in which you had your boat doing everything from protecting random swimmers to jumping over waterfalls. Most player never even get past the giant fire-breathing shark.
 * To say that the Midnight Club street racing franchise from Rockstar Games is tough is putting it nicely. The second game in the series, for example, is so hard that you have to input howhardcanitbe0 into the cheats menu to have a shot at winning any of the later races.
 * If "rubberband AI" was in the dictionary, this series (especially the 2nd installment) would be a listed example. Winning by milliseconds is the norm. After you cross the finish line, the others racers jump across it like they were waiting just off screen. If you screw up anywhere, you will go from first place to last before you can blink and be left in the dust for the rest of the race.
 * The latest game in the series, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, is second only to F-Zero GX in the Nintendo Hard racing game pantheon. The combination of (allegedly) unstoppable AI opponents, impossible-to-shake police chases, heavy, hard-to-dodge traffic, and the where-the-hell-am-I-going nature of the open-world races is enough to frustrate most gamers, even with a well-timed EMP or Roar attack to knock out the competition. Kotaku actually went so far as to call it "a Ninja Gaiden caliber challenge".
 * Also, despite being called Midnight Club, the game works on a 24 hour-like clock, which means that means half of the time, you will be racing during the day. Hilariously, it is impossible to see traffic coming at you during the day (as half the cars blend into the road itself), but quite easy to see them at night (when their headlights and taillights are among the few things you can see on the road). Furthermore, the latest Midnight Club slows down time to show your car spinning out of control as the AI races past you. Therefore, only race at night, stay close to the center of the map, and use the zone skill to keep your speed on turns, and you might just beat the game while only pressing the restart button 1500 times.
 * Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a particularly grating game, even compared to the rest of the Midnight Club series. Your cars have almost no grip on the road and bounce off of traffic like they were in a pinball machine. Now, your opponents will actually wreck when they are in front of you. The problem is that they are wrecking "in front" of you, which means, more often than not, "you" will run into them or the traffic they hit. This basically means you spend half the game with little to no control over your vehicle, flying around like you were out of control on some mad roller coaster praying you don't screw up or get screwed up (have you ever been on a wooden roller coaster by the way? They are designed to feel out of control which is exactly how this game feels, all the time!).
 * As noted on the Midnight Club page, Rockstar later patched the game to soften the difficulty curve. This patch was also included in the South Central pack and Complete Edition.
 * F-Zero GX is another modern example of Nintendo Hard. The multiple gameplay modes all have several available difficulties, ranging from the "antsy but doable" Novice to the "I'd dang well better get a trillion bucks as a reward for all this" Master.
 * To elaborate, there are three main single-player modes. Can you master them all? 1) beat all 5 Grand Prix cups on the Master difficulty. This is very hard. 2) beat all 10 story chapters on the Very Hard. This is extremely hard. 3) unlock all the staff ghosts in time trial and beat them, which is "don't even think about doing this" hard. Also, some sick dev decided to set up a bunch of interview questions and responses... each of 41 characters has over a dozen to answer, and only one is given each time you win a four race cup with that player). Getting even most of them together is a team effort.
 * The Forza Motorsport series, particularly the third game on the "hard" difficulty, which is up there with F-Zero GX.
 * Story Mode had so many moments of Fake Difficulty, that trying to get the AX racers without Game Shark is a masochistic endeavor.
 * In the Gran Turismo games, you are required to complete a series of driving tests to be able to compete in all races. These driving tests are usually pretty unforgiving, with tight time limits and immediate disqualifications for straying off the track, meaning it's easy to have to replay some tests dozens of times. After having to take the tests over and over again in GT4 you will absolutely loathe the song "Oh Yeah" by Yello (unless you're such a Ferris Bueller fan that the song eases the pain...)
 * One test in particular, from GT4, involves doing a lap around Nürburgring -- a 30 km track -- behind a slow car that must not be hit or overtaken. Not only is it very difficult, but it shows up twice in the game as some of the final tests before getting the top two licenses. The Super License version has you in a much faster car. A guide on Game FAQs says "You don't stand a chance at getting Gold on this test unless you have the entire ring memorized. There aren't any tricks or cheats on this course -- you just have to be good to do it. So practice."
 * Speaking from experience, after finally completing this test, even though I didn't get gold, I felt as if I could race around Nurburgring after spending hours practicing that test on the game, and I have no real-life racing experience. Just passing it is a tall order, let alone mastering it.
 * The Mercedes Showdown in GT4 is the legendary grand champion of Nintendo Hard motherf***ing races. You race on the Nürburgring, the opponents are given a 3 minute head start, your otherwise ultra-powerful car handles "like a fish out of water", and you only have one chance to catch up to them.
 * Mario Kart Wii has recently come under fire for this. From both this gamer's experiences and others he's heard and witnessed, this game takes the unfairness of the items from the previous games and turns it up to 11. First place? You're going to get hit by lightning while going over a jump, which means Lakitu has to fish you up and dump you back on the track. And then, just because the game hates you, you'll get smacked in the face by two red shells, leaving you somewhere around 9th. Then when you get close to first again, someone with invincibility will just knock you off the track again.
 * Even more fun, try for three stars taking all the various misfortunes into consideration. It's a borderline Luck-Based Mission, and it's enough to make you want to hurl your Wiimote at the wall.
 * To add to this the AI karts have the most blatant display of The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard I have ever seen. No matter what kart the player is in or how long you've been in first place you get within site of the finish line on the third lap and BAM: blue shell, another blue shell, star dude, red shell, lightning bolt, and to top things off 2 green shells and suddenly you are in last place. After leading the entire races with people far closer than is physically possible this situation almost led to a broken TV...
 * To add to The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard the game seems to up the ante when you're closing in on defeating it. Having previously achieved silver on the final cup, coming back to it later when it's the last remaining non-gold cup sees the opponents and item box screw dialed up to eleven.
 * Mario Kart 64 has a ton of The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard moments. no matter if you jumped half the track from rainbow road or the wall in wario's stadium, the computer always catches up to you. in bowser's castle, the opposite is true. if you fall from first place and lose sight of the current first place, you will never catch up to it.
 * The Adventure Mode of Diddy Kong Racing requires the player to come in first place on all the races. Twice. While collecting silver coins the second time around. And they have to beat the bosses twice as well. And you have to win trophy races on the first four worlds just to get to the fifth and final one.
 * And then once you beat the final boss, you unlock Adventure Two, where you get to do it all over again... except not only are all the courses mirrored, but during the Silver Coin Challenges, the coins are placed in some of the most absurd, out-of-the-way areas possible; it might take several run-throughs just to find them all. And you still have to come in first place.
 * Although the game did let you co-up. The later races are only hard until Player Two turns around and sits on an appropriate power-up spot and ejects a stream of infinite rockets. It's possible to hold some opponents in place for the duration of the entire race if done right.
 * Grand Prix Legends: A game simulating one of the most difficult and hazardous seasons in Formula One. This is the sort of game which it can take weeks to finish a sprint race on the same lap as the leaders, let alone a full-length race. Twitchy cars with rock-hard cross-ply tyres, brakes which seem fit more for sending you into the wall than helping you to corner and no downforce combine with terrifying variants of the already-difficult Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps tracks to make you feel wholly inadequate. Oh, and if you set up a race with less racers on the track, the sim keeps the better ones!
 * Richard Burns Rally: A simulator with unforgivingly realistic driving physics on narrow tracks where the slightest mistake will send you careening off the track and your car likely totaled. Not surprising given how rallying is the most Hard Core motorsport out there. Those used to Colin McRae Rally or Di RT will be in for a VERY rude awakening upon trying RBR.
 * In Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, the ultimate upgrades for each class have to be unlocked by winning a lap against a far superior vehicle. Some are easier, as the faster vehicle has poor handling, whereas others are frustratingly hard. The best power upgrade challenge pits you against a nitro equipped Zonda F on a track with two long straights and two hairpins. Yeah.. NO.
 * The Jet Moto series for the original Play Station. Large numbers of ruthless opponents, lots of sharp turns, Marathon Levels, Bottomless Pits everywhere, etc., not to mention a lot of confusing course designs that usually takes a few laps to get a handle on.
 * The first mission in the first Driver game requires you to complete a series of challenges in a parking garage in under 60 seconds. Very, very difficult challenges, on a par with Gran Turismo's license tests. Show us what you can do, indeed. This mission later returns in Driver San Francisco as a Nostalgia Level.
 * The final level of the game, "The President's Run," is a Luck-Based Mission... meaning that if you get really, really lucky, you might be able to do it. Even with the invincibility cheat active, it's still easy to lose by getting your car flipped over.
 * The Mario Kart clone Mickey's Speedway USA has this in the later stages which require you to do quick 90-degree turns to avoid falling off the course. Crazy Commentaries took these on and one of the members described the final stage, Colorado, as Battletoads in a racing game.