Okay, I'd like to break this down into three parts: Old School, Middle School, and New School.
Post whatever you think is relevant.
For me:
Old School: Commodore 64 (128)
In high school, my buddy and I used to play Ultima III and we discovered that whenever you killed an enemy whether in the overworld or in the dungeons that it would leave a treasure chest you could open. We also found out that enemies in both realms could not co-exist with a treasure chest. We played the game for
weeks without opening a single treasure chest until the entire overworld and all dungeons were completely full of treasure chests and all enemy spawns were exactly a 1x1 square. Wish I could prove this with a screenshot. Eventually we got bored and opened all the treasure chests and the resultant booty and experience made us invincible and the game was essentially a cake walk.
Middle School: N64 (most would argue this is New School but I skipped the whole NES/SNES/Genesis generation of consoles >snore<)
I actually finished Goldeneye 64 with
all of the secret stuff unlocked legit -- for those who know this took a
lot of dedication and luck, this I
can prove with a screenshot if needed. My favorite unlockable: Enemy Rockets -- every enemy in the game is armed with a devastating rocket launcher where if you were clever could get most of them to kill themselves because of the splash damage and line of sight targeting. One mistake though and it was all over
.
New School: Xbox
I consider myself to be a pretty proficient Halo 1 single player aficionado (not so much 2 or 3); and consider it to be the pinnacle of a console FPS (props to Half-Life 2 btw). Legendary difficulty aside, I actually took the time to replicate all of Randall Glass' exploits including the famous Warthog Launch on Silent Cartographer. More importantly though, this game on Legendary 1p has the uncanny ability to make you feel absolutely bad@ss not just with graphics or sound, but with a
perfect user interface, perfect single player weapon balance, and perfect pacing. The first time I finished this game on Legendary I felt like I actually
accomplished something not just finished something. Few games can actually claim that without being just difficult or f#$king frustrating (Ninja Gaiden anyone?).
Honorable Mention: Xbox
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
and
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
On
Authentic. Those without dedication or skill need not apply.
All experiences on all consoles welcome; please post them here!!!