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GameCube (Games) Entertainment Games

Challenge In Games Is Not A Dirty Word 109

Posted by simoniker from the word-is-the-bird dept.
Thanks to GamerDad for their editorial discussing why there should be more difficult-to-complete games out there. The piece takes difficulty complaints regarding F-Zero GX for GameCube as a starting point, saying "This isn't the first time a top quality, high profile game has kicked people in the butts with challenge and it won't be the last. This kind of challenge is good for gaming and we need more games like it." The article goes on: "Players have grown accustomed to difficulty levels that are far too easy and I think it's contributing to their boredom with many games", but also cites specifics: "The most important thing about challenge, and it's one that F-Zero GX gets right, is that the game must let the player know it was their fault that they lost."
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Challenge In Games Is Not A Dirty Word More

Challenge In Games Is Not A Dirty Word

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  • Adjustable difficulty levels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neglige ( 641101 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:39AM (#6892459)
    Players have grown accustomed to difficulty levels that are far too easy and I think it's contributing to their boredom with many games

    The real topic is that games should have various difficulty settings: one for beginners, one for intermediates and one for experts. And the settings should be really different. That way, anyone can pick their favourite level of challenge. And after having played through a game on an easy level, chances are that the player will re-play the game with harder settings.

    Good examples include System Shock (puzzles? shooter? your choice!), DN3D (come get some!), Quake or Civ 3. Or Grand Prix 3/4, where you could enable several stages of realism.

    Also a good choice if your game has levels: first levels are easy, then become more difficult. Baldurs Gate (2) did it like that, although some parts were (for me) extremely difficult. No problem if there is a cheat. And after failing 10 times at the exact same position, I'm inclined to cheat.

    • Re:Adjustable difficulty levels (Score:5, Insightful)

      by whee ( 36911 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:47AM (#6892482)
      And F-Zero has just that. From the GameSpy review:
      But is the game too difficult for most? That's pretty debatable. I personally found the difficulty curve pretty harsh -- particularly on the harder difficulty settings -- but F-Zero has always been about the overall challenge.

      I don't understand this reviewer at all. When the difficulty is set higher, the game actually gets harder! What a concept! This amazing technology should be implemented in as many games as possible.

      I think gamers are just getting used to games that are nothing more than busy work and no challenge. Obviously, a few hours of NetHack [nethack.org] could solve a lot of problems.

      • I don't understand this reviewer at all. When the difficulty is set higher, the game actually gets harder! What a concept! This amazing technology should be implemented in as many games as possible.

        The problem is that while the enemies get harder on the higher difficulty levels they're not the problem. The problem is not falling off the track. They only have 20 courses and they get quite hard with the 11-15th ones. That's a harsh difficulty curve.
        • The problem is that while the enemies get harder on the higher difficulty levels they're not the problem. The problem is not falling off the track. They only have 20 courses and they get quite hard with the 11-15th ones. That's a harsh difficulty curve.

          There are 26 courses, actually. And I'd argue your claim about the tracks being too difficult. Given some practice, most of those tracks can be easily completed on Novice or Standard. The difficulty comes in on, gasp, the more difficult levels (Expert and
      • Nethack has a good level of difficulty. It's a game you actually need to think about, that real literature can help you with. A fortune cookie once told me that reading the Lord of the Rings would help me, and there is certain in Nethack that is helped by that book. Back to difficulty, Nethack has a nice little option called "Explore Mode" where you can choose to die or not. Of course, you don't need that if you back up your save, but I learned a lot of stuff about the general architecture of Nethack, crea

  • Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by handsomepete ( 561396 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @09:47AM (#6892481) Journal
    How many other people share this complaint that games are too easy? Several of the games I have for my PS2 I haven't finished yet because I'm having trouble completing a level (ZOE2, Contra SS) or don't have the time to finish (GTA:VC). I'm sure a large part of it is because I suck or don't dedicate enough time to it, but are gamers at a point where they want every game to be Ghosts N' Goblins hard?

    If F-ZeroGX is as hard as that GBA F-Zero, count me out. That thing kicks my ass.

    • ...or don't have the time to finish (GTA:VC).

      I just want to start by saying I enjoyed Vice City as a general rule. Getting 100% completion on it, though, is an exercise in tedium. It wasn't so much hard as repetitive and dull in places. I wouldn't mind if that gets addressed, either.

      • Get cheats to unlock everything:) I have no idea how far in I am, but the missions bore me. I just like running round the city causing chaos:)

        One of the coolest inventions in recent years with gaming difficulty is where is scales to the player. For example, the most recent Papyrus NASCAR sim has an option for AI that scales according to your skill. I've tested it a few times, and it works VERY well. Keeps the racing close. A BIG problem with racing games is when you're either way fast or way slow. Having s

        • I have this weird personality quirk: GTA (3 or VC) is about the only game I won't use a cheat on. I've no idea why. (Though I agree: random chaos is the way to go.)

          I usually follow your strategy: go through once on easy (or whichever is default), then once more on the hardest (exception for Civilization derivatives: those seriously stomp my ass). More recently, I've tried starting on the hardest level, because I simply don't have time to go all the way through a game twice, and I feel like a wuss if I just

          • MOST games I like don't have a story or anything. Sports games and the like.

            As for GTA, I like to cheat. Not to give myself infinite health etc... But to get WEAPONS!:)

            There's also a funny trainer you can get which, among other things, let's you (if you hammer the key) have it rain cars:) THAT makes for some fun screenshots:)

  • On a Slight Tangent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NJVil ( 154697 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @10:06AM (#6892557)
    When will programmers stop equating difficulty with the computer "cheating" to make it better?

    As one example, even on the easiest level of CivIII, the computer players somehow, magically, know more about the map and areas they cannot possibly have seen (even by trading maps with each other). Only by clamping down on the computer players' ability to produce units/buildings does it rein in its knowledge. At the higher levels, not only does it know more about the map than a human player ever could, it outproduces you dramatically.

    Would it really have been that difficult to come up with an AI that did not cheat by violating the fog of war? I could understand it if at the highest levels this happened, but when it's pretty obvious on the easiest level, it shows a lack of interest in working on making the AI truly challenging, but rather taking a one-size-fits-all approach and altering the difficulty by manipulating non-AI facets of the game.
    • Or even more obvious cheats, such as in Frozen Throne on hard mode the computer has infinite resources while you have to keep going from mine to mine and risking your throat in the process.

    • Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hibiki_r ( 649814 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @01:44PM (#6894046)

      IMNSHO, the main problem is that on many games the enemy AI is coded way too close to the end of developement. If the internal data structures in a strategy game are not designed with the AI in mind, developing a challenging and fair AI is a daunting task. Thus, many strategy game developers end up having to create the enemy AI by reusing code. Yes, the same sub-par code that they created 2 or three years ago for the previous version of the game, or maybe just another game that used similar mechanics.After a week or two making sure that the computer uses some of the latest game features that the previous version didn't have, the AI is done.

      Of course, some game makers like Lionhead are making AI in strategy games more of an issue, but many developers are still cutting corners in the enemy AI due to the publisher's pressure.

      If you buy a PC strategy game this fall, and you get the feeling the enemy AI is pretty similar to the one of the previous version, who knows? you might be facing the exact same enemy you played 4 years ago.

    • Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:4, Informative)

      by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @03:02PM (#6894518) Journal
      Starcraft is the same. The AI knows from the start the entire map layout AND where you are. Easily demonstrated by cheating to remove fog of war, and watching the AI IMMEDIATELY head in your direction.

      Cheating AI is something I REALLY hate. It's just a kludge developers use to make the AI seem smarter than it is. Without the cheating, most game AI would be dumb as a brick.
    • As one example, even on the easiest level of CivIII, the computer players somehow, magically, know more about the map and areas they cannot possibly have seen (even by trading maps with each other). Only by clamping down on the computer players' ability to produce units/buildings does it rein in its knowledge. At the higher levels, not only does it know more about the map than a human player ever could, it outproduces you dramatically.

      That's entirely the point of the more difficult levels of play in Civ

    • Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FreekyGeek ( 19819 ) <thinkstoomuch@gma3.14il.com minus pi> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @07:03PM (#6895793)
      Would it really have been that difficult to come up with an AI that did not cheat by violating the fog of war?

      Yes.

      People who complain about the difficulty of video games (either too tough or too easy) are almost always unaware of 1) how tough it is to have variable "difficulty" settings in a game, and 2) the real-world restrictions that preclude what might seem like "common-sense" solutions to these problems - restrictions that game developers have to face.

      First, what does "difficulty" mean? It's a completely variable term, since everyone has different skill levels, so what seems easy to some seems difficult to thers. There's no objective measure of "difficulty". There's no such thing as a "difficulty meter". In some games, difficulty is easy to adjust - in shooters, you give the player more hitpoints, stronger weapons, or powerups. Or you give the enemies less armor, or whatever. But what about an RPG? A strategy game? Should game designers have to come up with three or more seperate puzzles for each place in the story that calls for a puzzle? How does one gague how easy or difficult a puzzle is? Some people can solve word scrambles in a second, while others can hardly do them at all. Some people think very visually and have good spatial relations while others don't.

      Second, there are a huge number of restrictions game developers work under - time and money, mostly. Every developer in the world would love to have the luxury of releasing games "when they're done". But unless you're Id, forget it. Sure, if you had a team of ten programmers with three years to do nothing but write AI code, you could come up with some very sophisticated AI for games, but that's hardly realistic. So games only have to have AI that's good enough to challenge most players most of the time. And often that means "cheating" by the AI. Ever tried to write AI? How would you design a game AI that could provide a good challenege to all players, with a variable difficulty level, without cheating, without spending ten years doing it, without requiring a supercomputer to do so?

      Strategy AI is hard to write. If it was easy, the military would just write the Best AI Ever and let it run all the wars. Stategy, even basic strategy, is an incerdibly complex subject with a billion variables. Don't believe me? take a look at Chess, a game with extremely simple rules. It has taken decades of time and many supercomputers to write software to beat a human at chess, and even then it is only through brute force, by analyzing every possible move and permutation. Ever wonder why the game of Go doesn't have too many good computer versions? because writing AI for it is so damn hard. he rules are evn simpler than Chess, yet Go makes chess look like tic-tac-toe in terms of strategic complexity.

      Second, there are very serious hardware limitations. Even on fast computers, AI chews up a LOT of CPU time. Programmers have to share the CPU time between all kinds of tasks, and the AI can't chew up 90% of the cycles. There's no point having a near-sentient AI if you the rest of the game runs like molasses. And as much as us high-end, hardcore gamers hate to admit it, a HUGE portion of the gamer audience still uses pretty old PCs. And they buy games, too - a lot of them.

      As is so often the case, this issue is far more complex than it appears. Game design does not happen by itself, and every hour spent tweaking difficulty levels is one less hour spent making the game better in other ways. Every cycle the AI uses makes the game that much slower and that much less accessible to people on low-end machines. Every minute of programmer time spent on any of these things costs money and adds to the schedule.

      In a perfect world, we'd have unlimited game developement budgets and cycles. Until then, compromises have to be made.

      • Great post, although your point about good AI being unrealistic isn't entirely true. Several years ago, a game called Creatures [game-revolution.com] was released that was quite remarkable in its use of AI. There's quite an interesting story behind the game and how it came to be as well, which you might find of interest. More recently, Black and White has been praised for the depth of its artificial world, and of course games like The Sims are only so fiendishly addictive because of this stuff. So sometimes games do have good AI

        • and of course games like The Sims are only so fiendishly addictive because of this stuff. So sometimes games do have good AI, but as you say, in things like RTS or FPS games other aspects often get priority.

          umm The Sims doesn't really have an AI, it just has a set of scripts that run when your Sim gets near a particular area in the game world. The actions of the Sims are built into the world, not into some AI, and the Sims themselves just wander a limited distance from their path somewhat randomly until t
      • You're right that building AI can be difficult. That's why there's really only a handful of chess programs out there -- GNUChess and ehrm... that non-free one.

        But with chess, the AI has to be good, because the game is fair. There is no fog of war, no way for the computer to know what move you'll make next. And the rules of the game are known, so the computer can't cheat and get away with it.

        You do know the engineering principle that the later you start development on an idea, the more it costs to imple
        • You do know the engineering principle that the later you start development on an idea, the more it costs to implement? The general rule is that what costs $1 in the design phase costs $10 in the development phase, which costs $100 in the testing phase, which costs $1000 in the beta phase, and $10,000 in the release phase.

          1) What is true in physical engineering is usually not true in software enginnering. Just because they're both called "engineering" does not mean that rules of thumb from one automatic

          • "What is true in physical engineering is usually not true in software enginnering. Just because they're both called "engineering" does not mean that rules of thumb from one automatically apply to the other. It's dangerous to spread such guidelines between largely unrelated disciplines."

            Every bit of software engineering research I dug up in grad school and every year of experience I've had in the software industry has consistently demonstrated that software engineering is as much like other forms of engi
            • Do you always recommend to your junior staffers that they pick the most computationally complex example when learning a new topic? Or do you point them to "Hello World?"

              Dude, that's why I picked Go - because it's simple. It has about 2 rules. It's probably the last complex strategy game you could have. You don't have to worry about enemy strengths, or tech trees, or bases, or paper-scissors-rock style attack and defense ratings, resource gathering, constructing new units, exploration, or any of the ot

              • "Dude, that's why I picked Go - because it's simple."

                Go is one of the most computationally complex games in existence, dramatically more so than games like checkers and chess. You may say it is simple, but it's probably one of the worst, if not THE worst, scenarios for developing a good game AI. The main reason is the size of the board, but an important secondary reason is the very lack of rules you describe.

                All those additional rules in "complex" games -- enemy strength, tech trees, resource numbers --
  • While I can't disagree with the article, as it is mostly an opinion piece, it
    seems that the author is not familiar with other segments of the game playing
    community.

    There are some -- myself included -- who do not want challenging games. If it
    takes more than a dozen tries to get through a level, and a trip to gamefaqs
    isn't able to clear things up, the game designers did [some of] their players a
    disservice.

    Those of us in that category like games that entertain. Playing the same damned
    level over [and over, an
    • I have to disagree about Res Evil being a good game. I found it tedious and dull, but to each their own.

      I agree with you. I like a challenge, sure. The first time I broke 75,000 points on the first level of Tony Hawk 2 was REALLY satisfying.

      However, games are SUPPOSED to entertain, not frustrate. Games are often likened to movies when it comes to categorisation. Now, when a MOVIE frustrates, it gets bad reviews, people bitch. When a GAME frustrates because it's difficult, we get articles like this one fro
      • Games are supposed to entertain. Some insanely addictive games (Bejewelled for example) don't ramp up the difficulty.

        And as soon as I found that I could basically play Bejeweled for an indefinite amount of time with no change in challenge, I got bored of it.

        I'm sorry, but if there's no challenge, there's no game. Can you name a single game outside of video games that offers no (or little) challenge, and is still entertaining to intelligent adults? Of course, there are games like Candyland that are pu
        • This is partly true, but video games can also be viewed as interactive entertainment, not just a "Game" in the traditional sense. Playing a game for the story is not wrong, especially for genres like the RPG where the story has a lot of focus. There's also some other reasons for playing games, like amplitude where you can remix your own song. challenge doesn't nescessarily add to that.
        • Rabid dog fever...

          I LOVE Tony Hawk 2. I like to PLAY the game, nail tricks etc... I have no interest in skating around and collecting the letters to spell SKATE and that nonsense. If I did, I'd write the letters to spell SKATE down on little pieces of paper and scatter them about my house. The level design in Tony Hawk is awesome. The game design is fundamentally flawed in requiring so much effort just to open up the levels. In fact I would go so far as to say the game should carry a label saying "Don't bu

  • One of the reasons reviewers get up in arms (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kenshiro70 ( 610599 ) <Kenshiro70.hotmail@com> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @10:13AM (#6892597)
    Quite a few reviewers play games at lower difficulty levels so that they can get a quick sense of the content without having to play a particular level five times just to see the next level. I wonder if that does figure into some of the complaints.
  • I've never had a problem with games being difficult, in fact, it's something I yearn for. Having grown up on games that actually didn't care if you lost, I'm very thankful for games like this. Reason why I picked up Ikaruga. Ikaruga has the perfect balence of sheer difficulty, rewards for playing, rewards for playing well, and fun. It's a side-scrolling shooter where level memorization is key, and skill is mission 1. Beating the game is difficult, getting a high score is even harder. Brilliant stuff for the
  • To be honest, it's almost impossible to get that balance right. Most games that are "hard" are also seen as just being frustrating. Mainly because they feel unfair. I think that problem comes when the difficulty level is not balanced throughout the level design.

    To put it simply, the problem occurs when a part of a level is out of whack, challenge wise with the rest of the surrounding area. Meaning repeated losses at the EXACT same part and for the exact same reason. That is what usually goes for difficulty

  • YES! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @10:34AM (#6892680) Homepage Journal
    This is exactly what I'm saying. When I got F-ZERO and found out it was hard I was overjoyed. The best part is that it's not the kind of game you can become the master of just by reading a strategy guide. You actually need to play it a lot and increase your skill level. Just like in the NES days, finally we have a new game that is "Nintendo hard."

    It really pisses me off that they dumb down all these games for the american audience. Since the Final Fantasies they have been making games easier for the US. The Japanese think that we are too dumb, or that we wont like games that take time and effort to beat. The sad part is that for the most part, it is true. I see too many kids these days, kids who's first console was a PSX, buying strategy guides with their games. Kids with a pc with gamefaqs.com next to their tv.

    When I have kids, they're getting an NES. When they master Mega Man 2, Zelda 1, Bionic Commando, Mario 1, 2 and 3, and all the other classics. Then I'll give 'em an SNES.

    My kids will be brought up right. Not like the shmucky kids of today who run at the slightest difficulty.

    Oh yeah, lastly, if I ever happen to make a video game. I will be sure not to publish an official strategy guide, and include a EULA to prevent anyone else from writing one. I will also make it a game like F-ZERO where all the strategy guides in the world wont help you, you have to practice and build skill. I'll make up for my loss in sales by suing the pants off all the unofficial strategy guides.
    • I don't mind hard games at all. I've played a number of games that aren't for the faint of heart.

      The problem with F-Zero is the lack of a tutorial or anything similar. I'm stuck on the 3rd mission in the story mode (the casino race). For the life of me, I can't get better than 11th place. I don't know exactly why. Am I turning wrong? Do I need to use regular turns, drift turns, the sharp turns? Should I configure my vehicle for speed or acceleration? I haven't a clue, and the game isn't helping me
      • I agree that F-zero tends to lack feedback and, even more, even when you do know what to do the game can become frustratingly impossible.

        Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game, but the difficulty level on some of the missions and courses is just incredible.

        The diamond cup, even on novice, is frustrating because few of the courses have edges so I tend to constantly fall off the sides.

        Trying to unlock anything in story mode is an exercise in insane frustration (you did know that beating a story mode mission
        • So with all the super-hard story missions and the insane difficulty in grand prix, I'm wondering if I'll even see the hidden stuff,

          I thought the same. I wondered: "God damn, I'll never beat chapter 3!" So I quit, and focused on the Grand Prixs. And you know what happened? *gasp* I got better, and went back and beat chapter 3.

          I thought I would never unlock Master difficulty. But then I went and practiced the tracks that gave me the most trouble (Half Pipe, Serial Gaps), and *gasp* I improved and unlock
          • It's a game that rewards skill, rather than the perserverence through inane tedium. And the only way to get skill, is to practice.
            Right on. I actually just unlocked the AX courses this morning. When an unlockable is hard to get, it is a lot more satisfying. Like in AV's Super Monkey Ball 2, you could get 99 lives per continue just by playing the game on any difficulty enough times. But this game made me feel a lot better in that I earned something not by repeating a mindless task lots of times, but an imp
      • Maybe some of you will agree with me. Another issue that I've felt with F-zero is that in this version you have to press the UP arrow to keep top acceleration. In my personal case, I feel that it affects the turning accuracy (especially on light weight machines), and that can make a difference on those tracks where you can fall down.
        The original F-zero let you just press the gas and focus on the turning, instead of this new annoyance.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Nice bit of sarcasm... :D

      One thing you folks are missing is that games are ENTERTAINMENT. This isn't a Calculus course. It's a GAME. Making a game ultra-difficult with no easy or tutorial mode is a guarantee the frustrated gamer isn't going to buy any of your other games, even if you add a "tutorial" mode.

      Most people game in their spare time and don't make a career out of it, so an extremely difficult game is just going to be unfinished. I'm sure that is not what designers had in mind, guaranteein
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Amen to this. I can't be bothered finishing all the sidequests for final fantasies lately, but I still want to see the story (and the nifty CG). I tried to play Breath of Fire 1 for GBA, and you needed to level so much I couldn't play it any more. RPG difficulty should be done the FF way, or like in Suikoden 3 where there were lots of tough battles you -could- win, but the story continued even if you lost.
    • Well, I have a different issue with F-Zero.

      It's, frankly, despite what the article says, frustrating-hard-dumb luck at times. Especially on certain levels (Mute City Serial Gaps, or Phantom Road at anything but Novice) where you can die completely from something that isn't your mistake: Wow, a computer I couldn't see or do antyhing about because I started at the end of the pack and had to pass him (or had just passed him) tapped me, now I hit ice and die before I can react, or hit several bombs in a row a

      • Re:YES! (Score:3, Informative)

        by scot4875 ( 542869 )
        Funny, I've died a few times because of 'dumb luck,' (on Half Pipe mostly) bust most often it has been because of my lack of skill, not luck. (and I tend to be a pretty skilled player)

        I spent the last few days working on Master difficulty. I was getting my ass handed to me repeatedly on some of the tracks. I ran the tracks a bunch to practice, and I got better. I just beat the diamond cup with 1st, 2nd, 1st, 5th, and 18th place finishes.

        It was an extremely satisfying experience. (1st on Undulation
        • Oh, I'm not saying most of my deaths (including pretty much all of my half-pipe deaths, I'm fine with that stage weirdly enough) weren't because of my stupidity.

          But it's not really correct to say that's what all the deaths are like. There are still a fair number of 'dumb luck' deaths on those couple of tracks for me. And that's a big issue when you start getting very few continues.

          Still, I got through expert and am occasionally trying master now. I'll eventually get there.
    • Not everyone is like you; not everyone enjoys the same things you do. I own and enjoy F-Zero because it is a challenging, fast racing game. I think it's the pinnacle of arcade racing available.

      I also buy strategy guides. I also read gamefaqs. Why do I do these things? Because, when I am stuck in a game, I no longer enjoy it. In F-Zero it's a matter of learning more about the game, but in most games it's a matter of noticing something that's not entirely obvious unless you've already solved it once be
    • The NES was notorious (maybe I'm abusing that word) for hard games. Even with saved states on an NES emulator, even the simplest-type game (Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers) was a pretty hard game. Maybe not super-cool like megaman, but still nice and hard. I mean, megaman 1 for the NES is really hard. The other ones are easier becuase of the password system, but Megaman 1 really takes the cake as for difficulty with megaman games. Megaman 5 has a good difficulty level, I mean, the Protoman's fortress/Wily's

  • It's the mentality of kids now (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cdneng2 ( 695646 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @10:35AM (#6892681)

    Ever talk to a kid about how fast they finish a videogame?

    Well, if you do, they'll tell you that they play until they get stuck. Then they go the FAQ, or the convenient gaming guide, that comes out at the same time as the game release, and then they continue playing until they finish the game. Kids nowadays almost play the game like a marathon. Kids nowadays don't spend the time to think about that obstacle in the game, and how to overcome it, they take the easy solution, and use the game guide to get through the problem. They'll put the game difficulty to the easiest setting to finish it right away.

    Take a look at 'Stuntman', the sequel to 'Driver'. That game was damn difficult, which critics argued was the reason why it did so bad.

    Sure I can see making a game difficult, but the attention span of kids nowadays are far too short to make the game popular if that was the case.

    • A) Stuntman was not the sequel to Driver, Driver 2 was the sequel to driver.
      b) Stuntman's "difficulty" mostly came from the fact that the game didn't tell you what you needed to do in a level until half a second before you had to do it, and then if you messed up forced you to start over at the beginning of a level. That's a flaw in gameplay and presentation, not a game being overly challenging.
      And there is a difference between a game being difficult and challenging. difficult makes you smash controlle
      • That's exactly true of Stuntman and was my biggest complaint with that game. There's no setup for the stunts. You're left to go into it blind which a real Stuntman would never, ever do. Stunts are rehearsed, choreographed and planned to the letter. The way the game handled it was trial and error. In other words, a failure.
    • The problem is when games provide uneven challenge or the wrong kinds of challenge for the player. I enjoy a good exploration, acquire information, put it all together kind of challenge. However, games sometimes provide an obstacle that you have to beat or not progress. If I can't beat it in three tries, I'm not having fun, so I FAQ, or cheat, and get on the with the game.

      There are many better ways to design games, including Jak & Daxter's auto-adjusting difficulty, or better information about why y

  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:3)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @11:41AM (#6893065) Journal
    I'm actually torn on whether to purchase Final Fantasy Tactics Advance; on the one hand I really enjoy that sort of game. On the other hand, when even the reviewers are commenting on how easy it is, you know it's going to be easy. And that's sad. I don't want a massacre, I want a challenge. Especially for something like FFTA, where the "challenge" is set by taking your party's level and adding some constant, and that's the opposition's level. (Or so I hear; Tactics Ogre was like that.) Is it so hard to add a difficulty level that consists of adding "4" instead of "1" or "2"? I mean, come on, that wouldn't have taken a full programmer-day, and the art is negligible.

    Sigh.

    And that's for the Japanese version. If I hear that they've dumbed it down even more for America, as they did in the past, I think I won't buy it.

    OK, I admit I'm a little "old-skool" here without trying; being brought up on an Intellivision will do that to you. But are kids today really that incompetent at gaming?

    (Well, I am 25 and can still whale on my cousins with any game I've played, and hold up even when I haven't played the game... maybe ~20 years of playing is hard to keep up with...)
    • I recommend you buy Disgaea for the PS2 (if you can find it). It's very similiar to FFT and FFTA but much, much more deep. Check the reviews for it, it sounds like it'd suit your needs.
    • Most tactical games have challenges set by the method you describe (party level plus x), for the random battles. The storyline battles in the PSX FF Tactics were at fixed levels, and I don't think that that would change for the game that's coming out on Tuesday.

      The Japanese version of FFTA includes some "laws" (battlefield restrictions) that were removed from the U.S. version simply because they wouldn't have made sense in English (ie all skills which started with a certain katakana were banned). IIRC on
      • Do I admire people who take the initiative and create challenge in their games by trying ridiculous things (such as the no-materia, all-initial-weapon completion of Final Fantasy VII)? Without a doubt. Just because the superweapon is coded into the game doesn't mean you have to use it.

        Oh, absolutely! I'm on my second "clean-up" game of Tactics Ogre and when that's done, barring FFTA ownership (which due to $$$ may not be immediate even if I do buy it eventually), I plan on trying the "Single Character Cha
        • or perhaps magic or spell points would be the key?

          if they had unlimited full heal, that would be impossible, but if they played by the same rules as you then it would mean nothing. Also enemies in the earlier FF games had 10x the HP, that covers a lot of healing.

          I found Skies of Arcadia to be difficuslt at the beginning. then way to easy, slowly working it's way to a good, maybe slightly to easy point.

          When you steal the big ass ship it is rediculously easy and a big nuisance for quite a while.

          Ganes li
          • In the original Final Fantasy, Chaos (the final boss) could heal himself fully, at will.

            Even in Easy Mode (PSX remake) this pissed me off to no end.
            • when I played FF1 I misread the G for gold after the price of nuke as another 0, I was something like level 45 when I baught nuke and my money didn't drop to near zero. I killed him in 3 rounds, there was no healing for him.

              I found the packs of 5 wind elementals in the sky palace the most difficult part of the game though.
  • Arcade games were very difficult. Some had simple patterns and could be mastered, but your average player can't get past the third round in Q*Bert

    NES games were pretty challenging. But when the SNES came out, games got real easy. Anyone remember beating Super Mario World the first night (or next morning) they brought their Super Nintendo home from the store?

    Todays games also have too many codes, maps, cheats... In the days of the NES you might get a walkthrough of the first couple levels in Nintendo power
  • but when the computer opponent cheats to give you a sense of higher difficulty thats a whole different world. Many games take this approach as a cheap way to say "oh its hard".

    I was going to buy the new FZero game, then I heard how hard it was. Now I'm probably not going to buy it at all. I don't have time to be beating my head against the floor because I can't win the race because I'm coordination-ally challenged these days.

  • Difficult games... good or bad? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Metroid72 ( 654017 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @11:54AM (#6893173)
    From reading the very few opinions posted, I've noticed the following:
    If you're a casual gamer, you seem to like the *easy* games.
    If you're hardcore (and old school), well you like *real* hard games.
    Honestly, I'd consider myself an old-school casual gamer, I spent a great deal of time with Fzero yesterday, and one side of me felt good (the old school/hardcore gamer), but the other side felt frustrated (the casual gamer, member of the workforce that has a life).
    I personally know that if I spend time with the game I'll master it. I remember my conquering of the original F-zero (familiarize with Novice-Challenge with Standard-Master with expert) - and who didn't feel like a god when conquering King-expert winning all races for the first time. (But two months had gone bye and the day was divided between Mario, Gradius III and F-zero).
    This time around is different, you have dates, you have to work, you read (to keep up with technology), if you live alone, you have house-stuff to do.
    I believe that a game like this is for the dedicated gamer. I beat a lot of difficult games when I was a dedicated gamer, but Unless I take as a personal challenge, conquering F-zero will be a long, long process...

    Happy gaming!!!
    BTW, Is it only me or the story-mode level race in the casino (after Beating Samurai Goroh) is REALLY difficult?? - I've been stuck for hours in that sucker.
  • During my years at school and university a hard game was always welcome, it meant that the game I'd just spent my hard earned grant money on was going to last more than a few minutes, and that I would get my money's worth.

    However, since finding gainful employment my gameing time has been dramatically reduced. To this end, easier games that I can play without spending hours trying to beat the same area have become much more welcome in my various consoles and PC.

    It's a shame, I do miss the days where I coul

  • Disagree (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kyouryuu ( 685884 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @11:58AM (#6893214) Homepage
    I've been a gamer since the days of the NES. From my own experience, I would be willing to say that the majority of games I enjoyed were consequently easy games. Why is that? I think it's because I find that video games, as a source of entertainment, are not fun when you're trying to get through the same damned level or boss ten times. RPGs, in particular, are getting so obscure these days that you'd swear they were written around the gamer buying the complementary strategy guide.

    Make no mistake, I like games I can sit down and play for twenty minutes and leave without caring much about progress. The idea of fighting a boss that takes 45 minutes to defeat, then dying, just isn't too appealing. I'm not a stathead or a completist in this regard - the kind of person that has to find and battle every last secret character.

    There is, as mentioned elsewhere, a fine line between difficulty and frustration. To me, a good challenge is described as one where when the player dies, (s)he can see how it happened and see some route to prevent it from happening the next time. This is as opposed to one challenge after another, to the point where when you die, you blame the game designers for their lousy creation instead of your own skills.

    • There was a game for the Genesis called Shining Force (and its sequel) where each battle took close to 1 - 2 hours. That was insane, it sucked bad when the last enemy on the screen whooped you.

  • It's not the difficulty, it's the lack of curve (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @12:35PM (#6893578) Homepage Journal
    When a game gradually introduces me to new concepts, and I end up mastering a highly complex system of controls, I feel I have really achieved something by performing the manouvers needed for the hard bits.

    Yoshi's Island is the best emample of this I can think of. If you sit down at the game for the first time and see all the controls it's overwhelming, but after you are 70% done, it's all become second nature.

    Contrast this with Gran Turismo 2 (and it's derivatives for PS2). You are required to comlpete the most difficult things in the game (the licence tests) BEFORE you can get to any of the events where you woiuld learn the necessary skils! The curve actually goes the wrong way, if you pass the very hardest licence, you can finally enter the race where you win a fortune for simply holding the accellerator dowm for half an hour and turning a gentle flat out left turn every few minutes (cue the NASCAR jokes).

    The best way to incorporate difficulty is to make the game enjoyable without leaving the people who don't do the hardest things feel they have 'lost'. The old N64 game Wetrix does exactly this, finishing it (by getting a billion points) took a bunck of people exchanging strategies of the net for months, and was the hardest think I eve did in gaming, but it was a complete surprise that the game actually did finish at all until we got there, so everyone is happy!

  • Only if you want to ensure a niche market share (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is basically an article about hardcore gamers for hardcore gamers. If developers really want to expand their market share, they have to realize that most potential consumers don't want to be challenged, they want to have fun. The Sims is successful because it allows gamers to play the game in any way they feel. Grand Theft Auto has challenging parts, but balances this by so much other stuff to do. Non-Challenging games != Non-Fun games. There are more than 1 type of gamer in the world.

    SpaceCowbo
  • Man, people who complain about games not being hard anymore aren't challenging themselves or playing the right games. Try unlocking all the features of the new stuff sometime, for example.

    I'm gradually finishing up the Weapon Master mode of Soul Calibur 2, and it's hard as hell. The further you go, the more the odds are stacked against you. It's like the Tetris of fighting games. Sure the first missions were easy... but the entire second half when they all reset to harder versions? ugh...

  • Kids nowadays (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scarblac ( 122480 ) <slashdot@gerlich.nl> on Sunday September 07, 2003 @04:36PM (#6894957) Homepage

    We old guys have stood on the right altar, Amulet in hand, and choked on a tin of spinach right there.

    And we still love the game!

    Kids nowadays, can't tell a d from a D.

  • Using F-Zero GX is a bad example for a "hard game". Sure it is hard in the sense that the AI is good. But it is also hard in that the designers used really cheap-shots, like you miss a jump; you die in the final levels to make it "hard". This does not make it hard in terms of a challenging game; it makes it hard in terms up memorizing the level so you can make that jump which wouldn't be such a big deal except that to make it "hard" the designers only allow you to continue 3 times. This takes F-Zero out of
    • I think you're way off base there. As I noted in the article, F-Zero GX never gives you any reason to think it was anyone's fault but your own that you crashed or lost positions. Racing games are ALWAYS about knowing the circuit and the fastest way around it. When the circuit has jumps and those jumps are required to keep from crashing, then it's up to you to navigate them. You're blaming the game for your own lack of skill if you take any other stance on it. You know the jump is there and you missed it. T
  • I hear this argument much. People compare the games from the NES era to today games and say how games aren't as difficult as they once were. Example: compare the difficulty of the original Super Mario Brothers to Mario Sunshine.

    But I think alot of people don't realize that back in the NES day the actual content of a game was much smaller. Play an old school NES game in a emulator with a save state feature, it will take you a hour or two at most to finish the game. Compared that with say, Half Life. Even wi

  • Depends on what makes it difficult (Score:3, Interesting)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Sunday September 07, 2003 @07:17PM (#6895858) Homepage
    It's no fun at all if the difficulty is becuase of a single puzzle that you KNOW how to complete, but can't because:

    1) you have to constantly press buttons a random complicated sequence as fast as possible (jump from one spinning disk to the other through five screens while doging the robot lasers, no saving allowed at this point in the game).

    2) you have to do long repetitive tasks over and over again (travel across the island, press a button, travel back flip a switch, travel back again press the second button, etc...) just to open a friggin' door.

    3) figure out a puzzle that makes no logical sense (give the wrench to the fox and tell him to use it to bash the witch on the head)

    4) figure out a puzzle that is complicated for the wrong reasons, or is so totally random that it is impossible to determine without the walkthrough guide (The secret code for the door lock can be found by taking the first letters of each name of the security staff, taking the greek equivlent of thos eletter, dividing by the floor that the elevator starts on in level 4 and then adding 3)

    5) adding some kind of arcade-style game into your rpg-style game that is REQUIRED to progress pass a certian point (The king says, "in order to be my royal quard, you must first beat me at tiddlywinks!").

    Making games challenging means you actually have to work at it. Dumping a puzzle that pulls you out of the story and takes ten frustrating days to solve doesn't make the game any more fun.
  • I feel as if games should be more like Deus Ex. Have a plot, but the gameplay be completely open ended. The difficulty settings range from whatever to completely and utterly reaslistic. i.e. Easy you can get blasted a few times before you die, in realistic you can get killed from one shot. Also, open ended gameplay in the game allows the player to choose how to solve problems in the game. While in Deus Ex you did have to use force once, in Deus Ex 2 you don't at all. Too many games force you to take on a ce

  • I remember Max Payne's advertisements stating that it was the first game to feature auto-adjusting difficulty to "keep you in the sweet spot" of gaming bliss. I postulate that this technique was invented long ago, and just forgotten by the new generations that want gratification and want it now.

    Does anyone else remember the Good Ol' Days where games didn't have a difficulty setting? Take the original "Super Mario Brothers", or Sega's "Wonderboy" on the Master System, for example. The first few levels a

    • Most Nintendo games are still made this way. You start with some fairly easy levels and new concepts are introduced one by one building your skill for the later challenges. Sega also does this fairly well. But there are far more games that do not understand the usage of this method of game design and either drop you in the deep end with no help or are simply too easy all the way through. Many game designers seem to come up with an idea, get so wrapped up in it, and then forget they have to do a lot of othe
    • Damn, that was one hell of a great game. I miss my SMS.
  • I remember when Mortal Kombat first made it to the PC. There was a big fuss made about how the game had "A.I." (almost certainly an exageration but we'll let it slip) that allowed it to learn you play style and adapt accordingly.

    So far, so samey for most other beat-em ups. One thing that got talked about, no idea of the varacity, was that it varied the difficulty. So, unless you suddenly pulled off something miraculous, it would keep it challenging but not impossible. If you kept losing at a given point, i
  • If you bought a 32ozs bottle of bleach and were told at the door that until you pass the Clean Laundry Challenge you can only have 16ozs would you go home and practice on the sheets? If a game has x number of levels and the last 6 can't be reached, because the developers 'Director of Sales&Marketing Philosophy' decided that the customer needs to develop more personal fortitude, you've been ripped off. You paid for it, it's yours. All of it.
  • These are three racing games, they're all fun, but how do they compare challenge wise?

    F-Zero GX:
    Difficult, but with practice any track can be mastered, in GP mode I have beat al but the Diamond cup in Master Difficulty (I just beat it on Expert, give me some time). The game is difficult in the higher levels because the drivers are better, and it works very well. You can still beat them, but you have to be good.

    Jet Moto 2:
    "Easy" should have been changed to "hard" and the 5 levels above it are even more di
  • is to give the to-be-motivated party a 75% success rate.

    Any more and it's boring - less and it's frustrating.

  • ...were the ones where you could hardly catch a breath. Anyone remembers "Killing Games Show" from Amiga? I got that game with a trainer. Boooring. But one day I got a badsector on the game disk and by lucky occurence the badsector happened to hit the trainer file. I recovered the game, but I was forced to play without cheating. WOW! Incredible. I lost maybe 200 times before I finished the first level, and then I thought "Hell, 2nd level is about twice as hard!". After a while I had no more trouble finishin

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