Today, puzzles are mostly used as distractions. Something to momentarily break the pace between bouts of shooting. And even then, the solution is usually revealed before you've had a chance to think about it - by the camera swooping towards a door, or a glinting clue.
But it hasn't always been like this. Below are some of the hardest, most infuriating puzzles in PlayStation history. Conundrums that require brainpower and resolve to solve, without the developers waving the solution in your face.
BROKEN SWORD
Format PSone, PC
Puzzle The goat
This one stumped pretty much everyone who came across it. You have to trap a goat that's trying to butt you, by tangling its rope. To do so, quick timing is required to make George run towards a piece of farm machinery when his foe is distracted. The problem? Up until this point - several hours in - the player has never been asked to react quickly, and all other puzzles have been solved by using inventory items. This design overlook has sealed the goat's place in gaming history.
RESIDENT EVIL 3
Format PSone
Puzzle The water samples
Nemesis was the most action-packed pre-makeover Resident Evil, but also contained video game history's most laborious, maddening puzzle. One minute you're hosing hordes of zombies with an assault rifle, the next you're stuck in a dingy sewer matching rows of coloured patterns to unlock a door. Explaining it fully in less than 500 words is impossible. All you need to know is that it might be the worst moment in Resident Evil history. Yeah, even worse than Gun Survivor.
SILENT HILL
Format PSone
Puzzle The broken piano
The cryptic puzzles in Silent Hill are made all the more traumatic by the fact that you have to solve them in the dark listening to sinister music. In this diabolical conundrum, a poem about 'birds without a voice' reveals the order in which the keys on a broken piano are pressed. SH has a separate difficulty setting for puzzles and the higher you set it, the more oblique the poem is. But even on easy, deciphering it is a nightmare.
BRAID
Format PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Puzzle The jigsaw puzzle
There are harder puzzles in Braid, but this is the fi rst one you come across that teaches you to think 'outside the box'. There's a puzzle piece that's too high to reach (and you need it to complete the overall picture), but by combining all the pieces from other levels in this jigsaw puzzle, a platform appears in the image that you can magically jump on to reach your prize. Incredibly clever. This alone is a pretty solid case for Braid being the smartest puzzle game ever made.
ASSASSIN'S CREED 2
Format PS3
Puzzle The glyphs
At first these are laughably easy: simple shape-matching and word puzzles that you can breeze through. But just as you're getting used to them, suddenly the rules will be turned on their head, and you'll be gnawing your lip with frustration. Danny Wallace offers you a hint if you linger for too long, but he's mostly vague and useless. As puzzle bookstyle brain-teasers they're very well designed, but solving all 20 is a real test. Thankfully you're rewarded with a Truth video and a Trophy.
BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM
Format PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Puzzle The question marks
The cleverest of the Riddler's riddles, this puzzle-type involves finding two segments of a question mark - the 'dot' and the 'curve' - printed on different parts of the level, then lining them up from a specific vantage point. Some are relatively simple, but others have you frantically grappling around the level trying to find the exact spot.
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Comments
32 comments so far...
Hobosaurus on 24 Sep '11 said:
RE3 Water puzzle was fairly difficult, but could complete it age 12.. and I wouldnt put Arkham Asylum in there as thats fairly simple even without the maps..
Lance Uppercunt on 24 Sep '11 said:
The puzzles in the Monkey Island games are incredibly obtuse.
Going back a long way, Solomon's Key featured some seriously tricky s**t.
TheCrimsonFenix on 24 Sep '11 said:
This seemed like a genuinely great feature until you included the last two entries. There have been very few puzzlingly difficult games since the days of PS1 and PS2. Arkham Asylum or Assassins Creed sure as hell aren't hard enough to be included but that's just my opinion.
Broken Sword was definitely one of the games that would make me think when I was younger and definitely deserves a spot on here, Silent Hill too.
These features you've been doing lately sure are great when you read the titles but I always feel underwhelmed when I actually read the article itself. You trying too hard to be Gamesradar or something, cvg? At least they turn out actual worthwhile features.
TheLastDodo on 24 Sep '11 said:
The turret sections in Dead Space.
They are impossible puzzles.
As in it puzzles me how anyone could find them fun and it's impossible to find someone that can give you one good reason as to why they were included in the sodding game.
Dragon Furry on 24 Sep '11 said:
There is a mistake there..
ASSASSIN'S CREED 2 is not a PS3 only title.
lonewolf2002 on 24 Sep '11 said:
That bloody goat gave me nightmares, Discworld's puzzles weren't fun either, and dont get me started on Myst.
silent moose on 25 Sep '11 said:
the da vinci code game has the hardest puzzles I've come across in any game you can only complete it if you've read the book several times or if you can find people that have managed to create a guide its like the target audience for this game was dan brown's subconscious.
slick loose on 25 Sep '11 said:
Did you do all the glyphs in ACII!? I found some of them ridiculously difficult
Legrasse on 25 Sep '11 said:
My most memorably difficult puzzle is the Shakespeare book puzzle in Silent Hill 3, when the puzzle difficulty is set to hard.
dwhlufc on 25 Sep '11 said:
Has anyone played Red Johnsons Chronicles?
The puzzles in that are crazy hard,nit a clue what you need to do so it's just complete trial and error and as many have said you have to resort to a guide at least once while playing through it.
razors edge on 25 Sep '11 said:
Water temple in Ocarina of Time should be in here. The whole bloomin thing.
TheCrimsonFenix on 25 Sep '11 said:
Yep. The only real challenge to them were patience. They were sitting right there in your face, only thing you really had to do was rotate pictures, play Where's Wally with the Apple, and choose similarities. They didn't really make you use your brain the same way other game puzzles do. In my opinion they just made the reliance the game had for re-playability in the form of collecting pointless things, all the more repetitive.
rbt2 on 25 Sep '11 said:
In my case it was trying to work out how to get BBCI player on PS3.
I'm a bit fick.
Ain't I!
tmten on 25 Sep '11 said:
This.
dwhlufc on 25 Sep '11 said:
nezzko on 25 Sep '11 said:
That is the truest statement ever stated in any state.
slick loose on 25 Sep '11 said:
For a tough trophy?
ChrisTypeR on 25 Sep '11 said:
Anyone played Discworld on the PSOne? That was harder than all of these put together (other than Silent Hill!!).
TheLastDodo on 25 Sep '11 said:
Get out
Mmmmgrolsch on 26 Sep '11 said:
I really enjoyed the turret section of Dead Space. Had to do it for 2 of my mates though for thr trophy, I also thought it was easy.
TheLastDodo on 26 Sep '11 said:
You're the exception to the rule
I honestly have never read a good thing about the turret sections in Dead Space.
jim2wheels on 26 Sep '11 said:
There was a chandeliers puzzle in Darksiders that took a fair amount of time to figure out. Underrated beast that game.
gmcb007 on 26 Sep '11 said:
The LOST game contains a puzzle were you need to be a qualified electrician to be able to do it.
TheCrimsonFenix on 26 Sep '11 said:
I remember Still Life 2 now, from the same makers of Syberia. There was a moment in the kitchen which required you to make f**king biscuits of all things. Knowing the ingredients is one thing but being expected to make cookies which a certain character wants with specific measurements was taking the p**s.
jim2wheels on 26 Sep '11 said:
@Crimson
Off topic for a moment, is the Dead Island save game patch working as it should?
TheCrimsonFenix on 26 Sep '11 said:
I can't speak on behalf of the console version because I have the PC version which has been working better after the first patch but from the looks of the comments on a lot of forums and Facebook, it seems the latest console patch has actually made the game more unstable. A lot of people complaining about corrupted saves after patching and freezing.
TheLastDodo on 26 Sep '11 said:
@jim
Just to add to what Crimson said, I've been checking the forums for the past week and there were people talking about corrupted saves before the new patch was released.
I'm going to try it out in a little bit.
jim2wheels on 26 Sep '11 said:
Cheers fellas.
Dodo, could you could drop me a message on PSN and let me know if it's fixed?
Muchas gracias!
the688 on 26 Sep '11 said:
Hands down, the hardest puzzles I've been faced with, were in the legendary 7th Guest - a VERY old PC game.
Perhaps THE most atmospheric and downright creepy game ever. Basically you just click your way around an old mansion, you can't even WSAD your way around. But the mood was creepy - lots of clever and scary ideas - but the puzzles were absolutely wonderful. OK, I was a young teenager then, I think, and my english wasn't brilliant, but that was seriously hard!
Oh, and to top it off, you had your wits scared out of you when you thought you were safe - such as when quitting the game...
I miss 7th Guest. Think I still have those CDs somewhere. I think it was on FOUR CD's which was completely unheard of at the time - and you HAD to have a CD-drive, and a Sound Card... whoa, high tech stuff!
requiem75 on 27 Sep '11 said:
No Monkey Island or Fate Of Atlantis?? Come on guys, if your gonna do an article like this make it worthwile and stick some proper puzzle games in there and do some research, batman is not a puzzle game, the game industry has been around for longer than a few years you know, try digging up some classics for these features
jim2wheels on 27 Sep '11 said:
Welcome to the red top of gaming journalism. Most regulars are here because of the users rather than the content.
slick loose on 27 Sep '11 said:
It is rather funny that CVG does actually have a red top, not ashamed of what they are