I remember getting stuck multiple times in Escape from Monkey Island. Honestly, I have no idea how I made it through the game. I seem to remember having a paperback walkthrough, though I don't know where we got it. The parts I remember getting stumped on the longest were the swamp part, the diving competition, and monkey combat. I never did actually figure monkey combat out. I succeeded by simply doing it over, and over, and over, and over.

I also remember playing Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb for the first time. The last level of the first mission (the one with the huge crocodile) had me stumped for a few days because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to avoid getting eaten. It swam really fast and always killed me until I discovered I could trap it. There was also a level in the Prague section that you have to go through this dungeon or something, with lots of traps swinging objects intent on kill Indy. Took me forever to figure out I actually could go through the traps, I just had to be really careful.

This is entirely new news to me. I had no idea that there were like actual hotlines that one could phone to get help with certain games. Pretty cool actually - might've made a fun summer job :P

Really? But, but but.. This is the reason why old Sierra adventure games (yes, about all of the Quest games) are designed so illogically in their "puzzles" and "ridles", with dead end from missable items..Hotlines to bank more cash in! The sad part is, all of this is factual truth. :(

I have to say, that is a relief in some sense - so it wasn't solely due to my own perceived ineptitude that I got hopelessly stuck in those games :P (granted I only played most of those games several years after they came out - also my parents would've destroyed me had I made an international call in those days...)
Coming to think of it, its like a weird early form of micro transactions :P

Lots of good memories here! But, what about the games where you have access to walkthroughs... and still can't finish the darn game?

I'm currently hopelessly stuck in Crysis 2, and I've read lots of walkthroughs where I'm stuck and I still can't get past it. I'm on a street, behind some concrete barricades, and this enemy ship crashes. ALL your buddies leave the scene, and just leave YOU to mop up the HORRENDOUS battle that ensues. There is this huge 3-legged robot (Pinger?) that comes crashing through a wall, so taking him out is hard enough (never managed it)... but with all the other smaller/faster aliens that keep spawning and harassing you, there's just no way I'll ever figure out how to get past this mission. So I just had to give up. (sigh)

Settlers 4
Cossacks

Oh yeah, there's a few of those around. :D Nice post.

ARRRGH!

I HATED monkey combat! I forgot all about that damned thing until you mentioned it. Worst. Part. Of. Monkey. Island. Franchise. Ever.

I only beat the game by accident. That took over a week of frustrating back-and-forth with that stupid combat non-puzzle.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. When I played it again many years later, I found that the actual rules are fairly simple. Certain combinations of monkey sounds will change your stance, and each stance will defeat another stance. The problem is, the combination of sounds necessary to go to the different stances is different for each match, so the only way to figure out how to change to the right stance is through trial and error and writing down what your enemy does. To make things worse, doing the wrong combination of sounds will hurt Guybrush. In other words, it's horrible and tedious.

It stinks, too, because I liked the game all the way up to that point.

It was all about paper, preferably graph for those dungeons. If not available, I made my own square, lol. There were alot of games that really made you work to see that ending.

The earliest games Bard's Tale and Ultima's were way too tough, although I did really get far in Ultima 1 all the way to space then had no idea what to do next. Pool of Radiance was super fun although I never made it past the first town, however it was a hugh maze and tons to explore. I was able to finish Wasteland only because Crown Books had the hint guide for the game. Console wise, just like PC I had to graph most of the games, someone mentioned Miracle Warriors, that took alot of paper and didn't have much problem finishing the game, im sure the ending sucked as I don't even remember it. Phantasy Star was so much better however I remember being dissapointed in the end too, the journey was fun though ^_^

I could go on about more games from Lucasarts for the PC that were really tough. The early console games fortunately were not as difficult as most PC games in the early days. I never had much trouble with Square and Enix, and even the early legend of zelda game and its sequel not many liked, lol.