Goro – Mortal Kombat
Once you’d settled on a favourite character and set about making fools of the A.I. competition, Mortal Kombat wasn’t so tough. Until you got to Goro. Unlike every other opponent in the game, there were no simple tactics to beating him. Four immense arms that he’d use to grab you from half way across the screen before pummelling a selection of brown shades out of you, coupled with the ability to wipe out half of your life bar in one strike made Goro one of the most frustrating end of level bosses of all time. Countless Megadrive D-pads have been smashed in honour of this hulking bad boy.
Mike Tyson – Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
Go ahead, find some videos of this classic 80s game online. Looks rubbish today. Oh fool that you are, you know nothing about end of level bosses until you have beaten the human slab of volcanic rock that was the digital incarnation of Mike Tyson. Up until you meet him it’s a question of learning the opponents special moves, waiting for the queue and giving them a good slap. But Tyson was something else. He didn’t have a special move per se, more like a flurry of punches ala the man himself. It took the reflexes of a fighter pilot or the mind-bending memory of an illusionist to put this guy on the canvas, so much so that many of us gave up. Or cheated. Okay, I gave up and cheated. And no, I don’t feel big or clever and I still haven’t gotten over it.
Lou – Guitar Hero III You might think that since you don’t actually have to beat this guy up he doesn’t deserve to be here. So go get this game, set it to the hardest level, ring up that friend of yours who can actually play the guitar (and by that we mean he can solo with the best of them and doesn’t look too silly licking the fretboard while he’s doing it) and then put him in front of Lou. Lou’s so hard to beat he has been known to make real guitarists give up and try their hand at the flute. Good job GHIII didn’t exist when Hendrix was a child or we might never have heard Purple Haze.
The Boss - Metal Gear Solid 3
If you want to discover just how annoyed you can become before you actually burst a blood vessel, might we suggest you seek out this game and play it all the way through just to get thrashed by The Boss? And we don’t mean first find a walkthrough or scout around for clever-clever easy ways to beat her, we mean go in blind and just try to take this queen of frustration down. You won’t do it first time round. You won’t do it second time round. In fact, unless you’re one of those gods we mentioned earlier, you won’t do it until something inside you has prolapsed through the kind of fist clenching, teeth grinding, vein bulging rage 28 Days Later depicted so charmingly. Arrgh!
Sephiroth – Kingdom Hearts
Right, so you’ve got this boss that has a move that can wipe out both your health and magic, thus leaving you unable to do much more than heal like mad and avoid, avoid, avoid. And if you do manage to heal up enough, Sephiroth would only go and do it again. If ever there was a reason to invent TVs you could kick in that would self heal, Sephiroth is it.
