Casual games exist for the sole purpose of distracting children, engaging out-of-touch old people, and allowing some to delude themselves into thinking playing games on their Wii or iPhone makes them a gamer (the only REAL gamers are hardcore gamers, sorry).  Even other nerds mock these people…which is sad.

Find out what my picks for “Most Challenging Titles of 2009″ are after the jump!

The bleed-over of this “casual/everyman” approach to gaming has spread to mainstream, hardcore titles; neutering them, for all intents and purposes.  Once upon a time, the “normal” setting implied you’d face a realistic challenge and were playing the game on the best difficulty to enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played.

Now-a-days, the bar for what we consider “normal” has been lowered so low victory is dependent less on skill and more on your ability to decipher a complex (*cough* BS! *cough) quicktime event.  So now, the highest difficulty setting IS the “normal” setting. I’ll give one game higher marks over another with better graphics any day of the week, so long as it provides a challenge worthy of someone who has been playing games for over 20 years.

Sure, back in the day a lot of games were “hard” because of their simplistic pass/fail nature.  Titles like 2008’s Mega Man 9 hammered that point home for those of us who forgot.  There’s even something to be said for quicktime events and such when they are done right. God of War being a perfect example of quicktime done well (you still need to choose the highest difficulty to make the game tough, though).

I want a REAL challenge.  I want to feel like I have overcome an obstacle or struggle so monumental it would make my casual gaming peers cry themselves to sleep in their Mario pajamas.

Because Veteran really is for p***ies.

Title: Killzone 2

Platform: Playstation 3

Difficulty Rating: 8

Say what you want about Killzone 2, but I love this title (so say something good or else! Muhahha!). It was the first game I ever bothered to get a Platinum trophy for. I enjoyed the single player campaign immensely both because of the story and because of the challenging gameplay. I can understand some poo-pooing the story, but I find it hard to believe anyone can deny that the general AI of the bad guys, and the set piece battles were not far above average in terms of difficulty and quality for a shooter.

Kick the game up to Elite and you have one of the most intense shooters of the year; especially that final battle, let me tell ya! Killzone 2 was challenging, not because it was broken or because the Devs gave every enemy infinite grenades; it was challenging because the bad guys did more than just run straight at you or hide in the exact same spot the whole time.  While this does not seem all that amazing, for some reason most shooters just can’t seem to grasp concepts like that (hello, Call of Duty: World at War).

Welcome to Demon's Souls chump!

Title: Demon’s Souls

Platform: Playstation 3

Difficulty Rating: 10

If a more challenging big name title came out in 2009, I have not heard about it. 

Demon’s Souls is hands down the most difficult game, action-RPG or not, that I have played in years.  After dropping almost 40 hours into the game on a friend’s account (because he thought I’d earn him lots of trophies LOL) while my PS3 was in the shop, I have just started over again on my account and I have no doubt 100+ hours of brutal carnage awaits me.

If your looking for an RPG that rewards you like a child for every little thing you do; a “trophy farm” if you will, this is not the game for you.  Demon’s Souls is not Fable 2 or Oblivion. You don’t even make it out of the tutorial alive! I know a few people who have put weeks into the game and have less than 25% of the trophies.  I don’t know anyone who has gotten them all.  The game is not hard because it is broken or because the Devs just Superman’d (tons of hp and armor) all the bad guys. You need to think ahead (is your weapon too big to use here?), play to your characters strengths and approach every fight like it’s a fight to the death…because it is! Throw in the concepts of  “black phantoms” (players who can invade your game and grief you) and one of the most creative and unique online setups ever made and your in for a world of glorious hurt.

Go on, just TRY and read my body language!

Title: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

Platform: Xbox 360 & Playstation 3

Difficulty Rating: 9

BlazBlue is an unapologetic love letter to hardcore fighting game fans (specifically Guilty Gear fans) and anime enthusiatis in general. The ridiculously over the top and in-your-face anime style and esthetics of the game, combined with a pretty steep learning curve and overall difficulty, pretty much guarantee this game will remain a niche title, despite being one of the highest-rated fighting games of the year (just behind Street Fighter IV, which got bloated reviews IMHO).  At a time when just about every fighting game is 3D, BlazBlue is a 2D hand-drawn work of art.

Sure, there are only 12 playable characters, but at least they are unique.  This is not Tekken or SF; the bleed over between characters is kept to a minimum.  You can’t master one character and then move on to another and do just as well.

The “drive system” in BlazBlue, which sort of flips the script on fighting games by making “super moves” a core attack rather than the end of a combo along with the speed at which the game is played and the sometimes insane differences between characters, Arkune and Taokaka for example, make BlazBlue a unique beast.

Shrugging it off as just the successor to Guilty Gear is a mistake.  BlazBlue does not just kick the hell out of every single other fighting game this year…it murders them, covers their bodies in lye and then dumps the slop somewhere in Jersey.

Automatic? Really? Hey Grandma...this kid only drives automatic too!

Title: Forza Motorsport 3

Platform: Xbox 360

Difficulty Rating: 8

Now Forza 3 may seem a bit out of place on this list. The difficulty of the game is not so much about how tough your opponents are, as much as it is about how much of the work you let the game do for you. The higher the difficulty, the fewer driver assists like automatic braking and changing gears are available.

The flip side is that if you can master the game without the driver assists, you can actually perform FAR better than you ever could with the game holding your hand. Manual pwns Automatic, now and always! After wallowing in the arcade racers like Midnight Club I love so much for the last few years to get my racing fix, Forza 3 was a welcome return to some straight up technical driving.

The game looks great, the controls are sharp, the car selection is admirable and the DLC will no doubt flow for a good while.  I’ve actually seen a few races online where the top 5 racers where less than 1 second apart.  That’s how precise the racing gets. Zoom! Weeeeee!

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