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[MaximumZero]

I'd actually dispute that. NewCom is far more difficult and hardcore than OldCom. In OldCom you can rush research and have swarms of completely expendable soldiers. Every decison in NewCom is of vast tactical importance, especially on Classic and Impossible. One base, one research focus, can't sell lazer cannons to African warlords, soldiers are limited in both scope and number.

In fact, NewCom is better than OldCom in almost every way. That's right, I said it. I'm not sorry.

I really like NewCom, and I'd almost put it on par with OldCom, if not for one personal quirk of mine. I put myself in practically every game I play, (games are supposed to be personal fantasies, right?) and when I die, game over. No respawns, no clones, etc. I often died two or three missions into OldCom.

[EnigmaticHat]

Casual Mode Life: 0-11 years old.

Not really.  Life for 0-11 year olds isn't necessarily easier or safer or more pleasant than 11+.  The main difference with younger people isn't that you life is better, its that you have less control over your own fate.  That could be seen as a positive thing or a negative thing.

[Mesa]

Casual DotA: League of Legends

[itisnotlogical]

Casual Starcraft: Warcraft III (before those damn Night Elf missions, anyway)

Casual Quake: Doom

Hardcore Xbox 360: Original Xbox

[Mesa]

Casual Starcraft: Warcraft III (before those damn Night Elf missions, anyway)

Casual Quake: Doom

Hardcore Xbox 360: Original Xbox

How can a console be hardcore?

[PTTG??]

Casual Mode Life: 0-11 years old.

Not really.  Life for 0-11 year olds isn't necessarily easier or safer or more pleasant than 11+.  The main difference with younger people isn't that you life is better, its that you have less control over your own fate.  That could be seen as a positive thing or a negative thing.

Well, yeah. Easier but less nuanced.

[WillowLuman]

Casual Starcraft: Warcraft III (before those damn Night Elf missions, anyway)

Casual Quake: Doom

Hardcore Xbox 360: Original Xbox

How can a console be hardcore?

It's part of that whole nostalgia filter. Although the games for original Xbox weren't, on average, any more or less difficult. As for using the console itself, well, the original Xbox didn't melt it's circuits and RROD , preferring instead to occasionally fill up with grime.

[Alkhemia]

Casual DotA: League of Legends

I wonder what a Hardcore Dota would be.

[Mesa]

Casual DotA: League of Legends

I wonder what a Hardcore Dota would be.

It would be played on a modified version of the Dwarf Fortress engine where you have to build your own base and equipment from scratch.
And it would have DF's combat system.

[werty892]

Casual DotA: League of Legends

I don't see DOTA players being registered as pro-athletes and going into world championships for millions of dollars.

[Rakonas]

I'd actually dispute that. NewCom is far more difficult and hardcore than OldCom. In OldCom you can rush research and have swarms of completely expendable soldiers. Every decison in NewCom is of vast tactical importance, especially on Classic and Impossible. One base, one research focus, can't sell lazer cannons to African warlords, soldiers are limited in both scope and number.

In fact, NewCom is better than OldCom in almost every way. That's right, I said it. I'm not sorry.

Wait, what? After 5 years of playing, I still have never beaten OldCom. I beat NewCom in a ~12 hour play through.

[Alkhemia]

Casual DotA: League of Legends

I don't see DOTA players being registered as pro-athletes and going into world championships for millions of dollars.

*cough* http://www.dota2.com/international/announcement/ *cough* the prize pool it at 2.5 million atm still going up

[EnigmaticHat]

I'd actually dispute that. NewCom is far more difficult and hardcore than OldCom. In OldCom you can rush research and have swarms of completely expendable soldiers. Every decison in NewCom is of vast tactical importance, especially on Classic and Impossible. One base, one research focus, can't sell lazer cannons to African warlords, soldiers are limited in both scope and number.

In fact, NewCom is better than OldCom in almost every way. That's right, I said it. I'm not sorry.

Wait, what? After 5 years of playing, I still have never beaten OldCom. I beat NewCom in a ~12 hour play through.

OldCom can be rendered trivially easy if you know what you're doing.  Psi powers completely break the game, as you can render your squad mostly immune by finding soldiers with low psi strength and disarming them.  When YOU get psi powers, you can win missions (including the last mission!) on the first turn by mind controlling aliens, walking them up to other aliens, using the LOS to mind control those aliens, ect.  Manufacturing is also really powerful, as it allows you to effectively produce money from nothing, as well as spamming blaster bombs once you have money.  You can also do stuff like spam laser pistols or rockets to clear away all the cover on a level, and then send out expendable scouts to spot for your competent soldiers.

There's also the issue that since money becomes plentiful from mid-game onwards (either from repeatedly raiding supply ships/bases, or from selling vast quantities of laser weapons) individual soldiers and weapons can become meaningless, especially if you build your squads with core of elite soldiers and a swarm of rookies and use the rookies for scouting.

The actual difficulty level of Oldcom is higher, but once you get yourself some breathing room you can set up really overpowered strategies.  Some of the difficulty is also kind of artificial, like how you can't set it so that the rookies are the first to exit the skyranger unless you use a fanmade utility.

So I guess hardcore Oldcom: give yourself a bunch of self-imposed rules to avoid breaking the game.

[SealyStar]

Hardcore Starcraft: NES-style: no saving. If you lose a mission you have to start over from 1-1, the first mission of the human campaign.

Battletoads Starcraft: The non-base missions (like recovering the psi amplifier) are much less forgiving about where you can move units without sounding an alarm and getting swarmed. You have to move and react quickly and precisely in order to stay undetected. For example, perhaps a guard unit would trip an alarm in 3 seconds, and so requires 3 or more marines firing in unison to be killed quickly enough.

Casual Starcraft MP: The game is officially and without exception banned by the South Korean government.

Hardcore Metroid Prime:
-All beams have limited ammo (including the power beam), and once out of ammo for all beams you have to punch things instead. Punching doesn't do much damage.
-Limited space for expansions on the suit, so you have to choose certain combinations of health/missile/powerbomb/ammo ones, and you can only change at save stations.
-Bombs, power bombs, missiles, and charge combos all damage you. Bomb-jumping just got a lot harder.
-No more charge-tractor beam.
-Damage from phazon also causes permanent mutation/corruption.
-Save stations don't heal you anymore.
-Enemies don't drop pickups (only crates and whatnot)
-No gravity aboard the frigate.
-Suit upgrades are now suits in themselves, so you can only have one at a time - Gravity, Phazon, or Varia? Again, they can only be changed at save stations.
-With the plasma beam you can melt all the ice in Phendrana Drifts and burn the plants in Chozo Ruins/Tallon Overworld.
-Limited oxygen in some areas - deep caves (Magmoor), underwater, outside the Frigate at the beginning.
-Magma is deep enough that you sink like water. This is a bad thing. Phazon is also found in liquid form.
-More stuff can be scanned. And must be for proper completion.
-Enemies repopulate semi-realistically, instead of reappearing every time you move two rooms over and come back. There are also, however, many more of them to begin with. And you can drive species extinct in any given area.
-You actually have to evacuate the Impact Crater like you would any true Metroid boss area. It's also bigger.
-Better AI for basic grunts (like Space Pirates), and they now mob you in larger groups.
-You can cripple the Space Pirates' infrastructure, however, which decreases their numbers gradually. Much like extinctifying things.
-The suit gradually loses functionality as it loses energy.
-Once you run out of energy, you have to take off the suit and use that weenie little pistol from Zero Mission for protection.
-Status effects: acid burns, catching on fire, and so on.

[werty892]

SNIP

WANT SO HARD. That was so much fun.