10 Video Game Difficulty Modes That Are Utterly BROKEN

Silent Hill is a terrific and challenging game no matter what difficulty you play it on, and offered up separate difficulty options for combat and puzzles.

Those who selected Hard Riddle Difficulty, however, likely weren't quite ready for the obscure knowledge required to make it through without using a guide.

This difficulty setting takes some of the game's already-tricky puzzles and renders them nigh-on impossible unless you're armed with the required knowledge - namely, the infamous Shakespeare keypad puzzle which requires players to deduce a numerical combination from pages of Shakespeare's plays.

If your English literature knowledge is lacking you're basically screwed here, for while The Bard is obviously one of the most widely-known authors in history, you need both a firm knowledge of his works and an ability to apply this to a mathematical puzzle.

To make matters worse, the Shakespeare puzzle appears extremely early in the game, and several other puzzles throughout Hard Riddle Difficulty also require players to intuit the most ridiculous and subtle clues. It is, in a word, ridiculous.