Cyanosis

Unreal Tournament 3, it's pretty decent even if it is arguably the weakest entry in the UT series as it doesn't bring much new to the table or to improve upon the existing formula.

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution, the First Encounter anyway, started on The Second Encounter recently.

Resident Evil 4, going through the castle area of the game, it's seriously awesome and making up for the rather underwhelming Dead Space in terms of survival horror.

That's cool, extended and self-imposed role playing elements. Once I was trying to get through a GTA game (PS2 era) by only killing those who posed a direct threat, avoiding confrontations with the cops, and not seeking out weapon pickups hidden around the map, having to buy them instead or whatever I'd get off of enemies. It's good theming and turns out in 16 game days I had killed 104 irredeemable criminals, with no civilian or police casualties.

Carmageddon: Max Damage, 22 in-game hours later and I've completed 63 events in total.

WWII GI, a pretty terrible game but has its (few) moments. More shocking is that it's a BUILD engine game released in 1999, by the creators of NAM.

Finished Shadow Warrior Classic Redux's expansions and Cryptic Passage for Blood recently, going to be finishing Carmageddon II soon as I'm on the last group.

Wolfendoom, a standalone total conversion of sorts for Wolfenstein 3D by AReyeP that is based in the Doom universe and acts as an unofficial prequel to the events in the first Doom game. A bit crude and primitive looking by today's standards, with low quality sounds, not the best sprite rips and not a lot of source code changes (enemies still behave like their Wolf3D counterparts) but the idea behind the mod is well thought out and the gameplay is fun and challenging. For hardcore Doom fans who happen to like Wolf3D, it isn't trying to be exactly like Doom as its more of a new game altogether.

Stuff like this tickles my fancy, though I have yet to employ most of these I did create a list of challenges tailored for FPS/TPS games or just action games in general. These are for those who think playing on the highest possible difficulty just isn't good enough. No HUD: Disable the HUD if possible. If the game has sound and/or visual cues of low health/ammo this is actually not that hard. Coop Mode: Play solo in enemy enriched co-op mode if possible. This one only seems to matter for Doom engine games, there's often bosses in unusual places and just a lot more monsters around in general. Keyboard Only: No mouse allowed. This can be difficult if it's games that were designed with keyboard + mouse. Default or custom controls is up to you, but it has to be strictly keyboard. No Autorun: Manual running. Newer games have limited sprint which doesn't really count, but I won't let that stop you from trying to play without it. Basically you have to hold down an assigned key in order to move quickly all the time. No Health Items: Scorning health pickups. Consider yourself a pro? Try working with the only health you have. Can be on a by-level basis, but you absolutely cannot use health items. No Armor Items: Neglecting armor pickups. Ditto. You can have all the health you want, but no protection to decrease damage taken. No Power Ups: Avoiding power-ups. General pickups are fine, but any temporary super-boosters are zilch. No Inventory Items: Ignoring inventory items. Pretend the inventory system doesn't even exist, good for BUILD engine games. No Upgrades: Stock/underpowered character playthrough. Can be very challenging depending on the game, perhaps even downright impossible near the end. No Damage: No damage received either via level based or the entire game. As it says on the tin, if you get hit once you already lost this challenge. Hitscanners will be your worst nightmare. Stock Start: No consecutive play per level. Commonly referred to as the 'pistol start', the weapon you begin with in question varies game to game. Hub Start: Ditto for hub based games. Quake II refers to its hubs as 'units' but it counts all the same. Quake II actually allows you to execute a config in the console to begin a particular unit and gives you the appropriate weapons and items for a fair start. That's too easy, so manually warp to the beginning of a hub instead. Start Saves: Only saves at the beginning of a level. Dying means restarting, but you can keep the stuff you got from prior levels. Hub Saves: Only saves at the beginning of a hub. Dying here will be a problem as it means a lot of work lost. Progress Saves: Only saves when acquiring important items or performing important tasks. This is one of my favorites in key-based FPSes, I would save the game only when I got a key. The number of keys dictates the number of possible saves per level. No Saves: No saving permitted. If you lose its back to the beginning with stock equipment, kind of like an endurance run, except you can repeatedly fail on this. No Secrets: No aid via secret areas. Not all games require mandatory secrets to finish but some will be notably harder, maybe impossible without the aid of certain secrets. Shareware Weapons: Only use weapons found in the shareware/demo version. For example on Doom you would not have a plasma rifle or BFG. Quake 1 isn't as bad since it only added the thunderbolt in the registered version. Other games could be harder. Melee Weapons: Only use melee weapons. No firearms allowed. Might not be doable on all shooters. Bullet Weapons: Only use hitscan weapons. No projectiles allowed. Might not be doable on all shooters. Weaker Weapons: Only use lower-tier weapons of superior ones. For example a shotgun vs. a super shotgun. No Special Weapons: No exceptionally powerful or unique weapons. Be it the last weapon you acquire, something with unusual properties, or extreme damage. Start Weapons: Only use what you begin with. Again might not be possible on all shooters. Original Weapons: Only use base game weapons, no expansion content. Self-explanatory. First Person Mode: Play strictly in first person if an option. If it's a third person game by default this can radically change the way it plays. Third Person Mode: Play strictly in third person if an option. If it's a first person game by default this can radically change the way it plays. Fast Monsters: Use fast enemies parameter if available. This only applies to old id games sadly. Enemies are twice as fast and aggressive. Respawning Monsters: Use respawning enemies parameter if available. Again an old id games stable. Enemies don't stay dead and continue to hound you throughout a level. Hexen II actually has a secret fifth difficulty that makes monsters (and mana pickups) respawn but its only in the expansion. Endurance Run: No saves whatsoever in the entire campaign. This is the ultimate do-or-die challenge, it effectively means playing the entire game in one sitting and never failing once. If you die, it really is game over. You used to have to play rougelikes for perma-death, now you can have one anywhere!

All I can say is jesus christ, and I thought the Dark Zealot enemy in the first Torchlight game was unfair. The Chosen is a million times worse when it comes to cheapness. You have far, far more patience than I ever would for something this terrible.

Carmageddon: Max Damage, the vastly improved version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation, the latest installment in an extremely fun 'racing game' series for the chemically imbalanced. It's taken a hold of me and hasn't let go since I fired it up late last month. Being a big fan of the games, I can say this is the definitive Carmageddon title now for sure, and contains all the best (and none of the worst) elements of the first and second titles.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Having not played it since 2010 which was my first time, I can say it hasn't exactly held up as well in memory as I hoped. It starts off really fun, and quickly becomes very annoying. Combat with the stronger opponents is severely lopsided and it resulted in numerous cheap deaths and needless frustration in an otherwise competently presented and well designed game. At least in the art and sound direction. A number of gameplay elements could've either been handled better or done away with altogether.

Resident Evil 4, just finished the first chapter. The game feel and sound design in this is great, with punchy feedback and satisfying combat.

Run Like Hell, a third person sci-fi horror shooter on the PS2/XBOX that is in ways like a spiritual predecessor to Dead Space, with some Mass Effect style characters and universe. Underrated as hell and has a lot of celebrity voice talent involved.

^All definitive examples. In addition, the first Half-Life, Unreal, SiN and Daikatana also got civilians that the game doesn't seem to care if you snuff out (unless they're progression specific).