Challenge In Games Is Not A Dirty Word 109
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."
Adjustable difficulty levels (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Adjustable difficulty levels (Score:2)
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.
Re:Adjustable difficulty levels (Score:3, Insightful)
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 is a great examlple (Score:1)
Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
If F-ZeroGX is as hard as that GBA F-Zero, count me out. That thing kicks my ass.
Re:Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:1)
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.
Re:Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:1)
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
Re:Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:1)
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
Re:Ok, I've got to ask... (Score:1)
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)
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.
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:1)
You need to learn how to play the game, it is very different than Civ 2 and should not be approached the same way. Good pointers here. [civfanatics.com]
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:1)
That's entirely the point of the more difficult levels of play in Civ
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Realistic AI (Score:2)
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
Re:Realistic AI (Score:1)
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
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
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
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
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
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
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
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
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
Re:On a Slight Tangent (Score:2)
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 --
article was very one sided (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:article was very one sided (Score:1)
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
Re:article was very one sided (Score:2)
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
Re:article was very one sided (Score:1)
Re:article was very one sided (Score:1)
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)
Young wippersnappers, no skills I tell ya. (Score:1)
Re:Young wippersnappers, no skills I tell ya. (Score:1)
[ http://www.shmups.com/reviews/ikaruga/index.html ]
Hard but not frustrating.. (Score:2)
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)
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.
the problem with F-ZERO.... (Score:2)
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
Re:the problem with F-ZERO.... (Score:1)
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
Re:the problem with F-ZERO.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:the problem with F-ZERO.... (Score:1)
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
Re:the problem with F-ZERO....[controls] (Score:1)
The original F-zero let you just press the gas and focus on the turning, instead of this new annoyance.
Re:the problem with F-ZERO....[controls] (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:YES! (Score:1)
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
Re: (Score:2)
Re:YES! (Score:1)
Re:YES! (Score:1)
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)
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
Re:YES! (Score:1)
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.
Maybe you need to get over yourself. (Score:2)
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
"Nintendo hard" is right! (Score:1)
It's the mentality of kids now (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:It's the mentality of kids now (Score:2)
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
Re:It's the mentality of kids now (Score:1)
Re:It's the mentality of kids now (Score:1)
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)
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...)
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:2)
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
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:2)
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
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:1)
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
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:2)
Even in Easy Mode (PSX remake) this pissed me off to no end.
Re:Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Score:1)
I found the packs of 5 wind elementals in the sky palace the most difficult part of the game though.
Games are only getting easier (Score:1)
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
Difficulty is one thing... (Score:2)
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)
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.
Update (Score:1)
Try to master all the jumps and the last curve before the finish line.
Hard games are bad and good... (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Disagree (Score:2)
It's not the difficulty, it's the lack of curve (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
SpaceCowbo
Heh (Score:1)
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)
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.
Confusing the issue (Score:1)
Re:Confusing the issue (Score:1)
Video Games are too easy? (Score:1)
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)
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.
Re:Depends on what makes it difficult (Score:2)
666) Having a very easy puzzle in a dungeon, but jacking up the encounter rate to just shy of "KILL ME NOW AND END THE TORMENT" for that room alone.
Deus Ex (Score:1)
User-selected vs. Progressive Difficulty (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:User-selected vs. Progressive Difficulty (Score:1)
+1, Choplifter (Score:2)
Whatever happened to variable difficulty? (Score:2)
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
Re:Whatever happened to variable difficulty? (Score:2)
Charging for Challenge (Score:1)
F-Zero GX vs. Jet Moto 2 vs. NFS:HP2 (Score:2)
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
The definition of motivation (Score:2)
Any more and it's boring - less and it's frustrating.
My favourite... (Score:2)