Are Modern Games Too Easy?

bippy writes "Game critic Brian Crecente's weblog Red-Assed Baboon asks if modern video games are too easy. He argues, after playing the new Pitfall game, that what made the games from the '70s and '80s such as the original Pitfall! so much fun to play was 'because the game is so hard - brutally, temper-tamper inducing hard' - Crecente goes on to conclude: 'I'm not saying we should go back to the days of Donkey Kong and [the original] Pitfall!, but maybe developers need to worry a little more about challenging a gamer, instead of plopping them into something that is little more than an interactive movie'."

Not Necessarily

[leadfoot2004]

It is easy to provide examples of modern games that are too easy compared to older games, but let me provide an example otherwise. Take some first-person shooters for example: Wolfenstein 3D vs. Return to Castle Wolfenstein. People may argue that the newer game requires a bit more strategic thinking and better skill at aiming players. Granted, players nowadays have much better video games skill than players 10 years ago. The game itself may be harder, but the improved skill level of players more than compensate the relative difficulty of the game. (Super Mario Bros. vs Super Mario Bros 3, where SMB3 is so much harder)

maybe

[__aaklfb6460]

Well, maybe they're getting easier. When I played old rpgs like The Bards Tale or Ultima,I had to draw maps manually which was probably the hardest part but also most exciting.Nowadays,maps are a common feature in rpgs.Sure, it does save us a lot of pain but the challenge and excitement of mapping is being missed.

In terms of difficulty of the games these days, I dont really see much of a difference.Some games like rpgs,fps are a lot easier whereas other genres like adventure,strategy are quite tough.

these days they have diffulty settings wherein you can tweak the settings (ie easy,normal or hard).It started with Wolf3d if I remember.Before that it,all games were of default difficulty.

Saved Games!

[Frostbeard]

If there's one thing that makes a game seem much easier, it's the ability to save your progress frequently. For me, it was never the individual challenges presented in a game that made it thoroughly difficult. What presented the real challenge was playing a near-flawless game up until those challenges, and then passing them without a crash and burn scenario. It's a matter of mounting pressure and exhiliration - frustration and glee. Having the ability to save your game eliminates the need to repeatedly have the near-flawless run - once you've done it once, you can just reload from that point and carry on. It also takes all of the pressure off. If you feel like you're too far into it, you can set the game down, dry your palms and come back in a couple hours without losing any of your progress. I still thoroughly enjoy the old twitchy pulse-pounder style of game, but I've also learned to love the modern start and stop style. *shrug*

Hard games

[yoyhed]

This article doesn't really touch on the fact that there are VERY hard games out there today. Take Frequency for the PS2: how many games have YOU lost 6 months' worth of contact lenses to because you can't blink without losing? (by the way, if you've played frequency, and want some manly scores to compare yours to: here's mine (the ALEX column.) [dynup.net] I could cite MANY games, but I'll just stick with Frequency, as most people that pick it up won't even beat one of the 27 songs. Brian's article, however, was right about one thing: some games are little more than an interactive movie (read: the ENTIRE Final Fantasy series), with you moving along a linear path with pre-rendered backgrounds and then watching a half-hour cutscene only to run back across the same path for another 10 seconds...

Pointless Article

[mrshowtime]

Are there easy games out there today? Yes. Are today's games "easier" than yesteryear's games? No. Why? It's like comparing apples and oranges. Games of the golden years were designed around the 'arcade' mindset, giving the player a fun time, but making it hard enough so that they would have to keep putting their quarters in. Home systems, up to the release of the nes, were just platforms for people to play ARCADE games on, which by their very nature, designed with an (usual) high curve of difficulty. Also, if you were around at the time of the original pitfall you have, oh, almost TWENTY FIVE YEARS of experience with videogames by now and should be much, much, better than you were back then. Personally, I miss the old arcade days, those were really great times. It was great to grow up concurrently with the entire development of videogames and playing videogames back in the 80's was great, but I personally welcome the "movie style" videogames. In a way, it's what I've always wanted out of videogames; to be like interactive movies. Games like the new Pitfall and Tomb Raider are easy because the designers decided to tread the same path that's already been done, over and over. You already know what to do, where to look and how to beat it! A lot of games today just suck, it has nothing to do with difficulty. BUT, I do not want to go back to the days of incredible difficulty to make up for bad gameplay. I destroyed the 2600 cart "DragonFire" because it was too fucking hard and became the antithesis of fun. I also destroyed "Ghost's and Goblins"; a good game, but hard, but after beating it you find out that you have to beat the entire game AGAIN at a much harder difficulty to truly win. Fuck that, Ghosts and Goblins has been "sleeping with the fishes" ever since. :)

No game balance is just hard to do right.

[SmallFurryCreature]

I can't speak for console games as I don't play them. However PC games are a mixed bag. UFO Aftermath was widely considered to be impossible while say Deus EX 2 was a cakewalk. Call of Duty on normal settings can be completed in a couple of hours with only a few reloads for when you get hit by mortars or walk face first into a machine gun. On veteran every mistake is lethal and it becomes almost a platform with you learning were enemies are coming from.

Of course this is just how I experienced those games. Other players may rate them completly differently.

A good example is perhaps the C&C series. Despite the fact that it is now in its 1 millionth release the games still follows the exact same structure. First mission 2 units. Second mission 3 units. Third mssion 4 units. And so on. Frustating for seasoned players who already know how to play the game but needed to not alienate new players. Some games use tutorials for this. C&C wastes the first few missions on this.

I recently played the platformer Prince of Persia. Well partially. Upto the second timed bit. 2 tries and then I gave up. To fucking hard I am not a 12 year old boy anymore. That game for me was totally wrongly balanced. To much work to little fun. However the owner of that game had no troubles with it. Faster reflexes the timed bits were easy for him.

I seen only a handfull of games that really had good difficulty settings. Good difficulty settings go further then just easy normal hard. They allow you to say disable certain aspects of the game that you may find annoying. Flightsims are usually very easy to setup. Don't like blacking out? Disable it. No rudder? Disable drift. The ancient System Shock allowed you to alter the amount of puzzles vs combat vs exploring. If only some designer had thought of allowing me to disable timed sequenzes from Prince of Persia. Had thought of making the first game started in UFO Aftermath not to be on the highest difficulty level or even better have presented the selection screen to the user. Deus EX 2 is probably beyond saving.

Games that are to hard are usually the fault of the designers being unable to fathom that gamers perhaps do not have the experience with the game that they do. Games that are to easy are either trying not to alienate new players or just lack good coding to have effective AI.

Oh well thank god for the PC and modding. UFO Aftermath has a lot of mods out that rebalance the game. Making your weapons just a tad more powerfull and the aliens weapons just a little bit less. If you played it then you should be able to appreciate slower alien rockets with less power while your guns generally do more damage. The offical patches also address the game balance but don't go far enough. Perhaps this is the future? Rather then get it right out of the box games will be balanced by playtesting by the gamers?

The best of both worlds

[foidulus]

What I really liked about FFX was that the main game was pretty easy(had to be since it was like a movie!) and somewhat straightforward. This allows even the most casual gamer to get some enjoyment out of it.
However, there were a decent amount of very difficult mini games(chocobo taming?) and all sorts of extra aeons, ultimate weapons, etc that entertained the hardcore gamer. I never bothered with most of this, but I know people who have just insane amounts of this stuff and can beat those monsters in the arena. I think that the main game should be easy, but there should be enough optional, challenging(and of course rewarding!) side quests/mini-games etc to satisfy the more hardcore gamer like this author.
Kudos to Square.

Re:They still exist, just not in quantity.

[Jarlsberg]

The reason the old games simply ramped difficulty up to the point of impossibility was they had *nothing else to offer*.

*SMACK* - you hit the nail on the head. In recent years I've replayed a lot of the older games that were nigh impossible to beat, but this time on an emulator with a savestate function, and it often amazed me how little the games really had to offer beyond the really crazy hard initial levels. Games like Bruce Lee, H.E.R.O. (still one of my faves), Jumpman Jr., Paperboy etc.

Lack of memory was often the reason why they was made like this. Sure, it would have been great to have tons of different levels and enemies in a game like Bruce Lee, but there just wasn't enough memory to support all that. Making games harder was the only way to prolong the experience, short of multiloading disks/tapes, which really were a pain in the a**.

Re:MDK2

[johnwroach]

Where did you give up? I gave up at the part where you had to fly the dog up the tower with the jetpack...

...after a MONTH of trying.

I do agree somewhat with the article. The new Metroid (Zero Mission) is WAY too easy, because of the automap and the helpful "Hey, go here now" messages. Luckily, it has the original on it, so I can get butt-lost for days again.

Ninja Gaiden

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone played the new Ninja Gaiden for Xbox? Am I the only one who thinks this is hard? Definitely a throwback to its NES/Famicon game roots....

Hells Yes

[Apreche]

Me and my friends have a phrase that we have been using for years. "Nintendo Hard" Most games today just aren't Nintendo Hard. That's not to say they are bad games, look at something like Wind Waker, fantastic game too easy.

There are other types of games where the lack of difficulty ruins the game. But I must also note that the wrong kind of difficulty can ruin a game also.

Look at FF:CC. The game is great and all, but only because its multiplayer gameboy element makes up for what it lacks elsewhere. All the best items and secret happenings can only be found in stupid arbitrary ways. They aren't a puzzle you solve like in Wind Waker, they are something you have to know. Information you can't possibly have unless you read a FAQ or strategy guide or come across completely by accident.

Another thing I think is that sometimes game quality is not the top priority of game designers. Why make a great game that is hard? People will keep playing it and take all year to beat it, they sure as heck wont give up. If they're still playing that one why would they buy a new one? If people beat their games they'll stop playing them and buy new ones.

Pretty much I agree with this guy a whole lot. In my /journal somewhere there is an article about RPGs and how they have become movies and not games. That is very relevant.

Re:Different kinds of hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never really had a problem with "hard" games. What really pisses me off (and I suspect others are the same), is when I start to think that a game is being unfair. For example, 99% of a level is fairly easy, but at one point, it just so happens that you need to make a jump to pixel-perfect precision, and it's not even a crucial part of the game. Or if 99% of a level is made up of tests of your skill, and then you get to the end of the level, and there's a 50% chance of something dropping out of the sky and killing you instantly, no matter what you do.

Re:BS

[DarkkOne]

A note about a few things, such as the customizability. Most games I've seen with difficulty levels still don't offer that level of "perfection or death" that some games challenged you to in the past.

Whereas alot of "difficult" games nowadays depend alot on chance, and timing, the challenge in older games tended to be a learning issue. If you could recognize patterns, you survived. The development of modern AI has created more realistic and believable enemies, but at the same time, removed a factor of problem solving skills from most modern action games. Honestly, you mention dying over and over to figure out some pattern, but I didn't play terribly many games where you couldn't avoid shots/attack/whatever long enough to see the pattern.

Most importantly, the question isn't the starting difficulty, but the ending. Alot of old games had a sharp difficulty ramp, where the beginning levels were (fairly) easy, but completing the game actually felt like a solid accomplishment. If you learned the skills, you could beat it on the first try, and that was something to BRAG about. And beating it at all still felt good. Now you have to beat it at least once, just to replay the same crud on a challenging difficulty, and most games I've completed have left me feeling grimy and bored, wondering what developer thought this would inspire any REAL sense of accomplishment.

Beating a game should be like that final warning-free compile, it's done, there may be room for improvement, but at least this time nothing went wrong, and damn do you feel good about it.

Re:The best of both worlds

[sweede]

FFX-2 had many more mini-games, sidequests and other adventures for you to go on than FFX. I beat FFX pretty easily without getting killed until much later on in the game, almost near the very end.

FFX-2, if you're not very good with your dress spheres or are just plain to slow, you'll get stomped very quickly.

I think i was killed more times in FFX-2 than any other FF series, including the original :)

oh, and want to talk about a hard game! the first FF !!

Boredom with todays games

[beefness]

I grew up in the 80's with my C64, despite the fact that the games took about half an hour to load, I loved them, because they were really challenging.

I also really liked playing games on the Master system, games like Alex Kid were really quite challenging, the controller wasn't great, you had to have real good finger control on the D-pad to be able to get Alex to do a full height running jump, I remember spending literally hours playing that game with a group of friends and we all used to watch each other and cheer each other on.

These days I find games are too easy, the movement is perhaps too slick, too smooth, too automated. It's gotten to the point where I dont really play games anymore, I cant be bothered with them.

A good example I can think of... Street Fighter 2 (back on the NES or SNES). SF2 was challenging because you had to practice the moves, pulling off a good combo was an art that was hard to master.

Now, the latest SF game on the Game Cube is the complete opposite, you just change the groove and you can pull off any of the special moves by pushing a single button, there is nothing challenging about that, it just means that there are more button hammering newbies that think they are the dogs doo-dahs.

When it comes to FPS games, I dont really hold much with the current crop, games like UT or Quake 3, you run around and shoot, jump in the air a bit and do some circling, it's not really a test of how good at a game you are, it's just set of strategies that anyone worth their salt knows how to use, you can move from one game to the next and not much will have changed, you just have similar controls, similar functions, similar weapons and similar opponents.

Now, think of a more advanced game... e.g CounterStrike, this is a much more challenging game, because you have things like smoke bombs and flash bangs which you can use more strategically, the game goes at a slower pace, but it allows for a better development of your skills, I have always seen Half Life as by far the best First Person game as yet developed, HL2, when it's realeased will probably be the first game that'll interest me in quite some time, I just hope they dont make it too easy.

My take

[shoptroll]

I think this is fairly true.

I'm currently playing Final Fantasy IX (I'm a little behind the times still). If you're diligent the game is wicked easy, as you're gaining skills and abilities that make the party incredibly strong.

I'm also playing Earthbound Zero, which is incredibly hard as the random battles are fairly numerous, and there are a lot of modern conveniences not present in the game due to its age (1990).

But there are still some games with challenge. F-Zero GX is by far one of the harder games I've acquired recently. I would also put the Zelda: Oracles pair in there as well.

But in all honesty, I think difficulty is sacrificed for length or story. Who wants to try and beat a 40 hour game if it's going to take you 60 - 80 hours overall due to Game Over screens and reset button hits?

prince of persia was waaay too easy.

[AntiNeutrino]

I used to play a *lot*.

back when I was in school I used to play 3 hours or more every day.

Now I havn't played properly on almost 3 years and was greatly looking forward to playing Prince of Persia after the glowing reviews it had received.

It was a walkthrough!

I don't mean to say that I never needed more than one attempt, but the jump sequences were ALL too easy. (I needed 6 attempts only once - the timed run with the collapsing floor outside the tower walls - for those who played it).
The riddles were not riddles but wastes of time... (who ever thought of having a character in the game tell you whenever you were gong wrong - like in the 'arming the palace' sequence).

I only needed ONE attemt for the last fight.
:-(

but I have not had so much fun playing a game for ages and I can't wait for a mission/add-on pack that is hopefully a bit harder.

cheers

AntiNeutrino

Games that get easier if you're not very good...

[spoodie]

Slightly off topic but I've noticed in two games which I've come across that certain puzzles will become simplified or even completed for the player if they're struggling.

For example in Broken Sword 3 I failed a small stealth puzzle (I've never been good at stealth) about 3 times so I got to see a cutscene of my character completing the puzzle without my assistance. And then in another game which involved memorising a sequence and then duplicating it, the sequence became increasingly simplified until it was virtually impossible to get wrong. Have any other slashdotters experienced this?

Proof that Pitfall was tough

[rigmort]

When I was a kid, I got a Pitfall sew-on patch through the mail from Activision. You had to actually take a photo of your TV displaying your score -- I think it had to be over 100k, or maybe 200k points.

definition of fun?

[spir0]

the original Pitfall! so much fun to play was 'because the game is so hard - brutally, temper-tamper inducing hard'

I don't see that as fun at all. When a game is so difficult that I want to smash things, I typically do. If I'm angry, then I'm not having fun.

Frustrating != fun

Impossibly hard != fun

however, if you do want impossibly hard, MOST games have Easy, Medium and Hard modes. Try changing them. Some games have a Nightmare/Insane mode. I think that's what you're after. Quoting one game as being too easy and using that to justify your statement of all modern games being too easy is just bullshit.

Re:It's about the money

[WesternActor]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a big part of this also relates back to the days when producing games was a lot harder than it is today. I know people who spent a whole year playing Ultima V until they beat it, but it made sense, because there was, as I recall, more than a one-year gap between Ultima V and Ultima VI. Origin, for example, kept people interested enough in that game to keep their attention up until the next one came out, and so on down the line. When so many games today are cookie-cutter style or expansion packs--and with the sheer number of games being so much higher, that's a lot harder to do. So, as you say, the publisher is interested in getting as much money from the consumer as possible as fast as possible, and making difficult games doesn't fit well into that business model.

I suppose it goes without saying I preferred the old days.