The 12 Most Incredible Performances In Video Games

Gamer: Sansoo Kim
Game: Batman: Arkham City

When Rocksteady conceived the Arkham series, they did an excellent job simplifying combat. A button to strike, a button to counter, a button to dodge all made it easy for the user to feel like a masked crime fighter. Seriously, if you could fight this well in real life, you'd have no problem strutting through Pakistan with a shirt that said USA #1 on the front and had a picture of two guys kissing on the back.

The key to getting a high score is stringing together large combos while avoiding shots by your enemies. By "high score," we mean about a million, not 3.9 million with a 440 hit combo. This player never even takes a breath to recalibrate as they shuffle from hit to brutal hit with combos so poetic we thought Maya Angelou had created an Xbox Live account.

Gamer: N0Lif3
Game: BioShock

We really hope you've played through the greatest game of this generation. If not, we don't feel bad about the spoiler alert because, let's face it, this game's been out for five and a half years now.

The final boss of the game is Frank Fontaine. He's an arrogant prick throughout the adventure who brags about how he got you to do his dirty work. At one point he even plays a role in you beating your father to death with a golf club. At the end of the game Fontaine uses plasmids, (read: steroids that give you super powers) to evolve to a near godlike being only to get his ass steadily pumped by one man with a wrench on the game's hardest difficulty.

This YouTube user may be a bit too hard on himself (check his screen name). But we thank him for showing us an entertaining and efficient way of dealing with Rapture's most prominent smuggler. "No Life" we respect your ingenuity and reward it by making you a member of our not so prestigious club.

Gamer: Played by: Tons of Fun Posted by: Compyadmin
Game: Battletoads

This is a different accomplishment than the rest of the list because Battletoads was so nuts you had to best this challenge just to advance to the game's fourth level. We put it on the list because we just don't believe many people had the commitment or wherewithal to do just that. In fact, we imagine this was the point where a lot of disgruntled gamers put their feet through their NES's.

We always hoped Battletoads got imported to Nintendo's Virtual Console, so today's younger, more pampered gamers can appreciate the infuriating bullshit we had to endure in the early '90s. Creators Tim and Chris Stamper expected players to have the reaction time of an NHL goalie a task so difficult many gamers found it easier to just play the level over and over until they actually memorized the pattern.

It was a necessary evil to make games this hard because if they were too simplistic consumers would've polished them off in an afternoon and then never touched them again. We don't care if you're eight years old, if you beat this game you've earned the right to sit back, relax with some Jack Daniels and call yourself a man.

Gamer: RajmanGamingHD
Game: God of War III

The Challenges of Olympus in God of War III are unlocked after you complete the game and they vary in difficulty from the feasible to the utterly insane. "Get Stoned," the third such challenge would be at the extreme end of the difficulty scale that's so obscene it makes the player feel as angry as the games protagonist, Kratos. It requires you to get frozen in stone ten times and break out without dying. Any time something hits you while you're encased in stone you will die and have to retry. That means, like a lot of entries on this list, all it takes is one slight misstep for the whole effort to come undone. The problem with this clip is that RajmanGamingHD makes it look so damn easy. But if you're skilled enough to have completed this challenge yourself, you know there's only one real way to do it, with a giant vein bulging in your forehead.

Gamer: numb3rtw3nty
Game: Tecmo Super Bowl

The execution of this run back by video game legend Bo Jackson is a thing of beauty. In perhaps the most brazzen insult to an opponent in video game history, Jackson runs all the way to the two yard line, then back to the opposite endzone, and finally all the way back for a touchdown. The spectacle is made all the more entertaining as the player mockingly runs from sideline to sideline. Precisely the way coaches teach it. The great joy of this clip comes from watching player two's futile effort to run down Bo with former Patriots great Garin Veris; although we suspect halfway through the play he threw his controller down while saying "fuck this."

Gamer: sirhu923
Game: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was the Wii's swan song, the last major release on Nintendo's popular console. Skyward Sword was innovative. The developers had such ambition (and perhaps business sense) to require players to buy an additional peripheral, the Wii Motion Plus, in order to make the motion control more accurate. It was an interesting idea and it was mainly successfu, but it led to sometimes irresponsive motion controls that could leave you high and dry mid-swordfight.

We'd tell that to sirhu923, but we don't think he wants to hear it. He's perfected the Wii Motion Plus like a modern day virtual Lancelot. The game's final boss, Demise, is the Zelda equivalent to Satan. So the game's conclusion pits an elf against a twelve foot tall demon king. Hardly a fair fight.

In this feat, Demise waits a millenia for a chance to impose evil over the entire world only to get his shit absolutely wrecked without dealing out so much as a virtual bruise. If you look up "badass" in the dictionary, no doubt you'd see "sirhu923," sitting on his ass simultaneously battling an ancient evil as well as cystic acne.

Gamer: Johnny Stone
Game: Mortal Kombat

We're not sure if "Johnny Stone" is his biological name or if this guy's a budding talent in the porn industry, but one thing is clear: dude's Mortal Kombat game is tight.

YouTube is the ultimate site for dickheads to congregate to anonymously bash others and, rather miraculously, this feat doesn't have a single "thumbs down." On the highest difficulty he pulls off a double flawless victory on one of video game history's most agonizing bosses, Shao Kahn. Finally, something even the YouTube trolls can respect.

Gamer: andrewg1990 (Andrew Gardikis)
Game: Super Mario Bros.

The object of a Super Mario Brothers speed run is simple: get from right to left on your TV screen as quickly as possible. This was hard because early platformers required quick timing and some pretty solid hand-eye expertise. You probably already know this since this was one of the most played titles of all time. The fact that Andrew did it better than anybody is why we're so damn impressed.

Andrew Gardikis manages to do the entire game in less than five minutes. If our society had its priorities straight, this would've been breaking news on all major networks and landed him the front page of Time Magazine. Instead Andrew has to settle for posting it on YouTube and dealing with the requisite skeptics.

For what it's worth Andrew G. this is gaming done best. With your accomplishment, you've proven yourself more than worthy for being immortalized on nerd Mount Rushmore.

Gamer: Kayane
Game: SoulCalibur 4

Beating the best fighting game pros are hard enough but to beat someone without looking at the screen is a totally different beast in itself. Kayane of the Mad Catz pro gaming team showed a crowd at this past Paris Manga and Sci-Fi Show in France.

By reading the faces of the people in the crowd, Kayane was able to wipe the mat with her opponent in SoulCalibur 4. You have to see it to believe it.

Gamer: Siglemic
Game: Super Mario 64

This speed run was impressive because unlike Super Mario Bros. it required more than just getting from point 'A' to point 'B.'

To simply beat the game you only need to get 70 stars but in this speed run, "Siglemic" gathers all 120 in less than 105 minutes. He does this by using creative ways to finish goals and utilizing Mario's entire repertoire, which is so ridiculously athletic it would put Gabby Douglas to shame.

At roughly the length of a feature film we don't expect you to watch the entire run now, but if you give it a chance we think you'll realize that it would be a more than adequate substitute for a date night at the movies. Your girlfriend will definitely appreciate Siglemic's cunning ability to pull off some of those tricky wall jumps with that spastic 3D platforming camera that was so common back in 1996.

Honestly, the memorization on these more complex and longer speed runs is a remarkable skill that if put to proper use would result in "Siglemic" becoming a multibillionaire captain of industry instead of the first guy to ever crack an hour and forty five minutes while getting all 120 stars in Mario 64.

Gamer: Daigo Umehara
Game: Street Fighter 3

In this bout of Street Fighter 3, pro gamer Daigo (playing as Ken) is nearly ousted by his opponent Justin Wong. As if he went under a trance, Daigo blacks out and completely demolishes Justin to take the win. Trust us when we tell you that watching the video will give you chills.

Gamer: alternalw
Game: Demon's Souls

A lot of people consider Demon's Souls to be one of-if not the-toughest game of this console cycle. You have to remain patient, no enemy is a pushover, and a very small amount of health gives you little leeway for mistakes. In this speed run, the gamer throws patience out the window in order to set a record that we think is as close as you can get to unbreakable.

If you beat Demon's Souls in 20 hours you've accomplished something worth throwing on your resume. Beating the game in less than fifty five minutes is just plain bananas.