Games Are Supposed To Be Fun, Right? 122
The Game Chair has up an editorial examining the increasing complexity and learning curve that pervade todays games. He examines the reality that, for many people, games are becoming simply unfun. From the article: "As a Gamer, I am amazed and delighted that games have advanced as far as they have. I'm still blown away everytime a new Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda game comes out, and I look forward to spending hundreds of hours with them exploring all of their intricacies. That being said, the same things that attract me to these games might repel others who are casual gamers or non-Gamers. The importance of the 'pick-up and play' style of games, for me, lies not only in the nostalgia that I feel for them, but also in the importance of having games that are accessible to everyone."
Why that's nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Two words: (Score:2, Interesting)
ignoring new users (Score:3, Interesting)
As a new user I'm not even going to try to learn the 37 finger twisting combos that you use to move. The game looked good, got great reviews, but it's going to get me some credit at the game store next week now.
There's only so many ideas (Score:3, Interesting)
This week's obligatory "games are too long" (Score:3, Interesting)
Where were these arguments during the Playstation 2, Playstation 1, or even the Super NES days? Certainly it wasn't a rare sight then to see a company like Square make a game dozens of times longer than the norm. While numeric hours of gameplay have gone up, I don't think that's the problem at all. Personally, I think that the problem now is that there are just too many games.
With that in mind, making games that are un-fun will just shrink the market and solve this, right?
jumping puzzles (Score:2, Interesting)
Old School (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll say! (Score:5, Interesting)
It reminds me of when I tried my wife's copy of The Sims once. I friggin' live my life already. I don't have time to help a bunch of digital homunculi work, sleep, pay bills, and indulge their neuroses. Despite the popularity of it, I lasted three days with it and was done forever.
My favorite PS/2 game in the past year was Simpson's Hit & Run. Just silly mindless fun. I'm old (old enough anyway) and I like to play games to unwind a bit, not to get wound up. If I want to engage my mind in something deep and complex, I look for a game of Go or a good book.
With FPS... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the game has a sniper rifle, there better be plenty of long distance targets to make it fun in single player, or have multiple camping... uh, hiding spots... in multiplayer.
Having zombies in the game is always fun when you can blow them up in different ways. If you don't blow yourself up [megatokyo.com] instead. And don't forget the nail gun.
Re:Ok ok ok, this is what I want... (Score:2, Interesting)
Once you install Live Arcade, Bejeweled is available as an online purchase for $14.99.
They also have games like Zuma ($14.99), Mutant Storm ($9.99) - and Ms. Pac-Man is bundled free on the Live Arcade installation disk. Demos of most games are also available to download and try for free before you buy the full version.
Re:Two Words (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The difficulty can make a lot of people get frustrated and abandon a game even if the learning curve was ok.
2. More importantly and more on topic, difficulty levels can in fact ease the learning curve. A game, let's say an RPG, that a master can beat on Hard by min-maxing their char and knowing the exact best combination of spells, potions and attacks, becomes manageable on "Very Easy" even if you didn't learn all that. Lower the difficulty enough and a newbie can just run around poking things with a wooden sword, and not worry (or even bother knowing) that he was really supposed to use some complicated combination of spells, skills and special equipment there.
The problem is that most of the industry can't seem to get their head out of their ass^H^H^H mentality that "waah, but a challenge is all we can offer the players! without a challenge a game is nothing!"
Well, no, they need to get over it. Something can be entertaining without requiring more skill than operating a remote control. See the hordes of people who find it perfectly entertaining to watch football on TV or a movie on DVD without needing to learn arcane button combinations or overcome heroic challenges.
_The_ most sold PC game ever was The Sims. Funny thing is: it's a game with _zero_ challenge. You have to actively try hard to "lose" the game. Otherwise you could pretty much do what you wanted, take it at your own pace (e.g., if you wanted to give a party instead of making Bob Newbie learn for a promotion, go ahead and do just that) and the negative consequences would range between non-existent and mild/short-term.
Think of other games that sold well. Diablo? It was really one of the least challenging games of that era, and you could win pretty much no matter how you built your character. Max Payne? If you died often enough, the game basically automatically put you in God mode.
On consoles, you know what sells remarkably well? "Cheat" programs like GameShark, Xploder or such. A helluva lot of people are willing to even fork over cash to be spared from a challenge they don't want.
But, no, most game designers are still locked in a mentality that "nooo, it must be challenging and difficult!" So even when they do offer a difficulty setting, they just have to over-balance it to discourage people from using it.
For example half the RPGs actually get it backwards: it's actually _more_ difficult to finish the game on the "very easy" setting. Because they also cut your XP in half, so by the end of the game you're 2-3 levels lower than the enemies, your status effect spells (e.g., "turn undead") don't stick, your warrior can't actually hit the enemies (3 points of THAC0 can make a helluva lot of difference), etc.
Congrats, they've just kicked someone in the nuts when that someone basically chose "I'm a newbie, I don't want a challenge." Is that stupid, or what?
And again, this affects the learning curve too. Because that kind of game starts easier, but becomes harder than normal by the end, the learning curve actually becomes more abrupt in that mode. Someone who played on "very easy" will have to do _much_ more advanced tricks to be able to survive by the end, and will have to learn them very very fast.
Re:Ok ok ok, this is what I want... (Score:2, Interesting)
What about choose-your-own-complexity? (Score:3, Interesting)
I had always found subsim games interesting, but was always put off by the fact that they often required you to have an existing knowledge of submarine terms, the mechanics and so on, and given the complexity of submarine combat, this would result in me not playing the game again due to fustration. Enter Silent Hunter III which allows a player like myself to choose how realistic I wish to play the game. At first I played at the most unrealistic level with unlimited oxygen, unlimited fuel, automatic targeting, etc etc, and let the game AI deal with most of the ship management. This allowed me to focus on ship interception strategy & get a firmer grip on whats important when playing. Then slowly, I enabled the realism options as I became more confident & knowledgable about the gameplay. I still do not play at a true realism level as I do not personally find it too incredibly fun, especially since I am not quite that good yet, but the game succeeds wonderfully at scaling to a player's level of knowledge. As well, if I find the motions of sighting, configuring, etc a torpedo attack, I can relegate the task to the AI, and focus just on navigation, ever having to deal with torpedo details. Same for sonar, radar, deck guns, and so on. You can play the game the way you like.
It is this type of choose-your-own-complexity-and-gameplay-style that I'd like to see more in games beyond just 'Easy, Medium, Hard' (though most games need only this), especially in the more complex games that require micromanagement. Rome Total War was great in this aspect; you could let the AI manage your cities building queues & recruitment and just focus on combat. Or you could do the opposite purely manage resources & territory aquisition and just let the AI fight the battles for you. In this manner, both a Civ fan and a Command & Conquer fan would both enjoy the game in a seperate way.
Both of these games, Rome Total War, and Silent Hunter III are fairly complex games but each is great in that I do not have to be a Roman historian or a U-Boat expert to play & enjoy the games; and better still, those experts can play the game and love it too in their own way.