NetHack

4 Not for everyone
I am going to start with the cons first, and really, there’s only one con.

The interface. Let me get this out of the way, the interface is terrible. It’s not so much a learning curve as a wall, for the first couple of games, you’re constantly looking up how to do simple things like put on armor or open doors. After a while, you get used to it though, and soon it becomes second nature. There are still problems though, such as the fact that there are different buttons for taking off armor, and taking off accessories like rings. That’s just poor design.

Now, that we’ve examined the cons…okay con, let’s examine the pros.

This game is different every time. You will never have the same experience. Each dungeon level is randomly generated so you encounter something new every time. I’ve only owned this game for a couple of weeks and I’m still finding brand new things to kill me. Which brings us to our next pro:

It’s hard. This might not seem like a very good pro, but trust me it is. If this game were easy, then you would beat it first try, and go: Well, that was alright." Since you keep dying, it forces you to learn new tricks and really admire the levels and all the work and detail they put into the game.

And if you won, it wouldn’t be so addicting! I swear I find myself thinking about this game when I’m not playing it! I’ll just be doing some work, when suddenly my brain says “Wanna play some Nethack?”

“Yes, brain, but I have to work”

“No you don’t”

“Shut up!”

Two hours later I found myself STILL PLAYING, all thoughts of work banished. I regretted it later but it was worth it to reach level 8! And then die.

Some people might not like the ASCII graphics, but I didn’t put them in as a con because the game comes pre-packaged with a tileset. And there are plenty of other tilesets you can download as well, so it’s not really a complaint.

In short, Nethack is a hard, hard game which is difficult to get in to but once you’re in it’s hard to get out.

5 the behemoth
This game is one of the most cruel, dark and unforgiving games ever created. It has been in existence since the 1980s and through all that time, people have completed it (ascended) can claim a glory few others can.

Crabes review below is pretty solid, i mainly added this review to big up the challenge. Roguelikes as a genre are generally inaccessable to new players. But read abit and learn the interface and you will be rewarded.