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Games Entertainment

Are Games Getting Easier? 97

Posted by Zonk from the not-what-they-used-to-be dept.
grumpyman writes "A Tom's Hardware article posits that game are getting easier and less satisfying. From the article: 'I've had Super Mario Bros for about 12 years and every time I pass that final Bowser stage, I still get a great sense of satisfaction. In contrast, when I conquer a game from this era, I just feel relieved that it's over.'"
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Are Games Getting Easier? More

Are Games Getting Easier?

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  • Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revmoo ( 652952 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMmeep.ws> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @04:38PM (#13472670) Homepage Journal
    Yes, but who cares? just crank up the difficulty and set your own limits(try playing all the way through saving only at the beginning of each map, for example). People that do speed runs are a good example, you have to become almost godlike at a game in order to do a good speed run, it's challenging and competitive.

    • Re:Yeah (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ToastyKen ( 10169 )
      Exactly. Even in the old days, with a classic like Contra, a lot of people played with 30 lives, but you could choose not to, and the game becomes much harder.

      And people do still care about this today. Witness the endless debates over hard-coded save points (ala Halo) vs. save-any-time. In fact, even in Halo, there's that differentiation in co-op mode between respawning once you're clear of enemies, and starting back at the save point once either player dies.

      I do agree that games are easier in general, t

  • Easier? No. Boring? Yes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MindStalker ( 22827 ) <mindstalker AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @04:40PM (#13472685) Journal
    I've played many difficult modern games. Most of them are simply just difficult, aka tactical shooters. They might be fun after months of practice. While pac-man is fun the first time you play it, and not frustrating like many modern games are.

  • your 24 years old now... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JVert ( 578547 ) <corganbillyNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @04:40PM (#13472691) Journal
    Are you really feeling that excitment from bowser? Or just your 12 year old self from the past.

  • No. One word. (Score:3, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @04:45PM (#13472730)
    Ikuruga.
    • Completely agree. I picked up a gamecube largely for Ikargua. Great game.
    • Don't forget the game your nick is based on ;)
      Radiant Silvergun is also hard.

      Now, if Ikaruga is too easy, try doing dual play. That refers to a single playing playing with 2 controllers in 2p mode. Now _THAT'S_ hard.

      Seriously, there are many hard shmups nowadays. All touhou project (shanghai alice) games, all old and new Cave games.

      As mentioned by another, as for non-shmups, Ninja Gaiden is hard.

      --------
      Release the restrain device. Using the released power may result the possibility of destruction of the sh
      • "Now, if Ikaruga is too easy, try doing dual play. That refers to a single playing playing with 2 controllers in 2p mode. Now _THAT'S_ hard."

        I almost died just reading that sentence, let alone imagining players who can do it. For me, Chapter 4 on Normal is more than enough.
        • I'm really sorry I can't provide a download link to the movie, but it shows the game in the middle and the player's hand on both sides of the screen, with his modded double arcade stick.

          That video is currenlty impossible to get, tho it appeared on the official ikaruga website on Treasure's homepage.

          Some double-play (again, NOT just 2 players), but without the stick views are provided here [ikaruga.co.uk]
          Check out the other videos sections too!
  • Mabye I just like to talk, but I just love talking about Metroid prime, and it's absolutely brillant craftsman ship. It's not what you would call easy at all; and my gameplay time is nearing 30 hours, but this dosn't includes all those times I've died (Than we are talking about 60-80 hours). Reguardless, if this is true, I think the biggest contributer is RPGs, many you don't die, in you just spend several hours whittling away at opponents health.

    • Re:RPG? (Score:2)

      by SB5 ( 165464 )
      Most RPGs, death means the end, and having to go back to the last checkpoint, it would be interesting to see if an RPG took a new twist on this, like death meant being sent to jail, or some other exciting experience, something that a. could be beneficial to your character, but b. also be challenging and not something you want to do often.

      • Re:RPG? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Boogaroo ( 604901 )
        Planescape: Torment sounds like what you're looking for.
        Dying doesn't mean dying and plays and integral part of the game. Dying is it's own experience as you're already dead.

        Soul Reaver has a slight variation on "death" too.

      • Re:RPG? (Score:2)

        by LKM ( 227954 )
        it would be interesting to see if an RPG took a new twist on this, like death meant being sent to jail

        That's what happens in some Zelda dungeons. I guess there are other games which use jails as gameplay mechanics.

        In Monkey Island, there are several cases where you end up in jail, but in those games, it's part of the story.

      • The old Dungeon Digger/RPG Mission: Thunderbolt implemented that idea. If you were 'killed' by a security robot, you were arrested... breaking out of jail is possible, but very very hard. Once you've been arrested once, though, they kill you.

  • Maybe not all that new, but not all that old eithe (Score:3, Informative)

    by PedanticSpellingTrol ( 746300 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @04:57PM (#13472807)
    I defy anyone to play through all the missions in Worms Armageddon and say they didn't get a rush of accomplishment after the 23'rd and final attempt to fly a sheep through that damned maze.

  • bad example (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @05:03PM (#13472841)
    The story has a bad example because Super Mario Brothers is one of the greatest games ever. It's like saying, "I just watched Star Wars again and that movie still gives me the chills, science fiction movies of today aren't as entertaining." I'm willing to bet that if you were to say "an average game from 15 years ago is harder than average game today" I don't think that is true. I can think of some really challenging games that are out now, super monkey ball 2 for the cube is tough, beating the developer ghosts on mario kart dd is hard, etc.
    • Yours is also a bad example, since Star Wars is not science fiction, but a space opera. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a better example.
      • Please tell me you are kidding.

        • Re:bad example (Score:3, Informative)

          by Stormwatch ( 703920 )
          Alright, my bad. Space opera is a sub-genre of science fiction: more light-hearted, action-oriented, almost a fantasy tale. Much like Flash Gordon, and unlike 2001.

        • Re:bad example (Score:5, Insightful)

          by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @06:27PM (#13473274) Homepage
          Please tell me you are kidding.

          He doesn't sound like he's kidding. I have to agree. Star Wars is a very poor example of sci-fi. It's a brilliant example of cliched formulaic opera. You have a swashbuckling hero rescuing the princess from the evil villain. The villain is appropriately dressed in black with a cape; the only thing missing from his attire is the curly moustache. There's a love interest set against the backdrop of a war-torn Europe^Wgalaxy. You have two bumbling sidekicks that make you laugh while also explaining the narrative with their banter. Star Wars could just as easily have been Reluctant Hero Luke using Excalibur to rescue Damsel in Distress Leia from the Black Wizard Vader, riding his Flying Unicorn, with his companions a Dwarf named Artu Deetoo and a homosexual Elf named Seephree. It wouldn't have changed the plot one iota. The science is notably absent from the fiction that is Star Wars. Scientific devices like lasers and battleships are used, but they aren't fundamental to the plot, they are confetti sprinkled over the story.

          Compare this against true sci-fi movies like 2001. It was only because Kubrick wielded so much clout that 2001 made it to the silver screen. Studios are reluctant to fund true sci-fi because audiences HATE the genre. Sci-fi has no need for heroes, villains, explosions, swordfights or punchups. Sci-fi aims to imbue you with a sense of wonder; to amaze you with a fictional world that might possibly exist due to miracle of scientific progress. Sci-fi recreates the feeling of elation that comes from exploration and discovery. Most people couldn't care less; they just want the hero to beat the villain.

          Asimov himself wrote a short story that poked fun at this problem of operas pretending to be sci-fi. In the story, two children are listening to a robot that tells stories. The first child isn't happy that robot only tells fantasy stories. The second child records a new "noun reel" with sci-fi phrases like "battleship" and "laser" and "robot". However the children soon realise that the story-telling robot doesn't tell sci-fi; it's just telling fantasy stories with sci-fi nouns. The children lose interest immediately. I think Asimov was saying something quite profound about the state of sci-fi at the time, which was full of swashbuckling fantasy pretending to be sci-fi.

          50 years later, nothing has changed.

          • Re:bad example (Score:4, Interesting)

            by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @08:12PM (#13473717) Homepage
            Asimov also said that good sci-fi isn't about sci-fi: good sci-fi is about people.

            Battlestar Galactica is a WW2 soap opera pretending to be sci-fi, and is one of the best shows to come out in years. Firefly was an old western serial pretending to be sci-fi, and was also one of the best shows of it's time. They're about the human condition, exploring what it means to be a person under duress. Nightfall, arguably one of Asimov's best short stories / novels, could easily have been set in a fantasy world, or a modern day world in a different culture. The Ender's series was a classic coming-of-age tale. Rendezvous with Rama wasn't about technology, but how different people react when their world is turned upside-down. It is the same story, basically, that was told in the movie "Cube," though with less blood. Hell, you can't get more human than I, Robot (the book).

            Star Wars was an excellent example of sci-fi. It wasn't about technology, it was about people. It really was the personified hero story, a tale that has been told for thousands upon thousands of years. That it had poor writing and moments of Shatner-level acting yet became one of the most popular movies of all time just prove how much the story resonated with people. Just because it was a story older than Jesus, and exactly the same story as told in the Matrix, doesn't make it any less appealing to us as human beings, or any less important to our culture.

            50 years later, we're still the same human beings.

            • Asimov also said that good sci-fi isn't about sci-fi: good sci-fi is about people.

              Your claim that "sci-fi isn't about sci-fi" is a nonsensical statement. Perhaps you meant to say "science fiction isn't about science", which is a popular quote but I doubt Asimov said it, because it would be the direct opposite of his actual opinion.

              From my standpoint, the most common mistake a science fiction writer makes is to downgrade science. Now, these days particularly, many science fiction writers have very l

              • I remember reading in an Asimov's book an argument about the Sci-Fi genre. IIRC, he stated that, for him the movies that where played in theatres could never be Science Fiction, but just Sci-fi and he separated the two generes stating that Sci-Fi was like only "based" on science fiction, because it didnt have the science elements needed for a science fiction writing, and this of course because you can not compress a 300 hundred page galaxy-political-technological description book into just 2 hours of images
              • I'll try not to be too confrontational in my response.

                Your claim that "sci-fi isn't about sci-fi" is a nonsensical statement. Perhaps you meant to say "science fiction isn't about science", which is a popular quote but I doubt Asimov said it, because it would be the direct opposite of his actual opinion.

                If it seems nonsensical to you, re-read it. Sci-fi isn't about Sci-fi any more than writing is about writing. If you forget that, you lose the essence of good writing.

                I don't remember exactly where he said
            • Battlestar Galactica is a WW2 soap opera pretending to be sci-fi, and is one of the best shows to come out in years.

              WW2? Nah, more like a thinly veneered biblical theme with a smattering of greek mythology thrown in. Commander Adama? Leading a sort of Exodus of the last remaining tribe of humans into the wasteland of space; pursued by blatantly Roman-esque oppressors? Humanity destroyed by a "flood" of robot killers, a handful of survivors escaping by ship? Totally biblical, man.

          • I tend to call movies like Star Wars and other modern examples of "sci-fi" by a different name: "Science Fantasy." I call it that, because I understand that real science fiction is what you described, and fantasy stories with technological trappings is what Star Wars is. Interestingly enough, I tend to enjoy "science fantasy" a lot more than "science fiction," because I like the exciting plots and action set pieces, and the fact that the story is about something happening, as opposed to a fictional explor
          • Studios are reluctant to fund true sci-fi because audiences HATE the genre.

            Ironically, the ones that do get made tend to do quite well... 2001, The Abyss (sure, the aliens do magic, but all the human tech is at least plausible), even Gattaca. They make money. Perhaps it's just that only good directors have enough clout to get them made...

          • For those of you who never say Chasing Amy, when Hooper X made the following speech about Star Wars, it struck me deeply. Because some of it(take out the epithets) is exactly how I felt about the original trilogy.

            "It's always some white boy got to invoke the holy trinity. Bust this! Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother-man down--even in a galaxy far far away. Check this shit. You got cracker farmboy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy blond hair blue eyes. Then you got Darth Vader, blackes
          • Sci-fi has no need for heroes, villains, explosions, swordfights or punchups. Sci-fi aims to imbue you with a sense of wonder; to amaze you with a fictional world that might possibly exist due to miracle of scientific progress. Sci-fi recreates the feeling of elation that comes from exploration and discovery.

            I kind of like SF with both the sense of whatever and the action. Works that focus on either extreme tend to be either boring or shallow, respectively.
    • I think the games on the NES, by and large, are more difficult than the games on the PS2. The continual opportunities to save the game are what makes these new games easier. You used to have to get really damned good at the game in order to get to the end of a game like Contra, because you'd die many times on the way to the final level. Nowadays, they have to make the game easier because most players will only be playing through once and will want to see the conclusion.
      There are individual games on the new
    • I would argue that it's not even one of the greatest games ever. It's just a very good game that many people played during their youth, and as such, it's been elevated to the untouchable status it has today. People overlook it's flaws and fondly look back at it and reminisce about the "good ole days". Show the game to people who've grown up with current games, and they'll happily complain about the sluggish controls, and the inconsistent level difficulty.

      The same is true about Star Wars. It's not the

  • I'm definitely no hardcore gamer, but I've found games like those in the Rayman series are not simple games. It was very satisfying to finish those!

    I'd say it's probably hit and miss, depending on the developer. The easy ones just tend to sell more.

  • Games sure get easy as you get older (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jormundgard ( 260749 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @05:11PM (#13472885)
    This reminds me of the poorly-written essays I wrote in high school. Some author gets the idea in their head that, after playing video games for 15 years, they've become "too easy", and sets out to tell you why. I can tell you that while I found Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine to be fun but hardly insurmountable challenges, they are real struggles for my 10 year old, who can barely make his way through them.

    The author needs to remember that he's a grown-up, and I'd prefer that it's reflected in his writing.

    (And how could anyone say that the first Legend of Zelda is some immense challenge compared to any of the later ones?)
    • I been playing wind waker for almost a year now and I still havent finished it. Thats one hard game, I'll bet you money this guy cheats at his games. Looks up FAQ's and walk-throughs.
      • What's hard about Wind Waker? The puzzles are standard fare for Zelda, but the enemies simply don't do any significant amount of damage. It's really damn hard to die once you get past the first level.

        The triforce hunt is long and boring, but not hard...
      • Wind waker is probably the easiest of all the Zelda games. It tells you exactly where to go and what to do next, and the combat is incredibly easy. The puzzles are standard Zelda fare, and none compare to the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, or the difficulty-through-obscurity of the original. The only problem I ever had in Wind Waker was opening up the Nintendo Gallery, I didn't think to bait a seagull to flip that switch for about 20 minutes. And the triforce shard hunting isn't hard, it's just extremely
  • this just doing something for 15 years makes it seem easyer! we will follow this story as it develops!

  • My view... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @05:24PM (#13472956)
    I don't think that gameplay is any easier today, but what makes modern games "easier" is how you can save in the middle of the game. Back in the olden days, if you wanted to beat a game, you had to do it in one sitting. You only had a limited number of lives, and an equally limited number of continues. Use them all up and it's back to level one for you. The Ninja Gaiden games were probably the biggest offender in this catagory. They were freaking hard, and relatively long. Beating them felt like an epic victory because you were mentally and physically exhausted from playing them. That combined with frustration of the several times before that when you made it all the way to the ending boss but fell just short of beating him. Now, I'm not saying that it's plausable for today's 50 hour games to not employ a save feature, but it sometimes just doesn't feel the same when you're allowed to go one level at a time with as many chances as you want until you accomplish the level, and then you can move on. With the older games, you had to do everything perfectly in a row, mess up one link in the chain and you were done. Beating those games truly felt like victory.
    • Even though I play SMW on an emulator with the ability to save at every rough spot, I thoroughly enjoying the game anyway...
    • I agree totally. My example is kinda silly 'cause I never managed to get ANYWHERE in the game, but the original DOS import of THEXDER from Game Arts/Sierra. That was one hard game. I THINK I made it into level 3 after a year or two of playing......That was a game where you had to do everything perfect to get anywhere in, and I loved it. And the sad thing is that I find myself too impatient now, 15 or so years later, to really try that hard at it........and I guess that's the point, I'm not willing to pu

  • Rose-tinted hindsight (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @05:30PM (#13472977) Homepage
    Tom obviously hasn't played Ninja Gaiden for Xbox.

    This article doesn't seem to realize just how bad some of the trends whose passing he laments actually were. A game that forces you to start over doesn't make the endgame sweeter- it just generates a sense of tremendous frustration as several hours of progress is now completely wasted, and makes the earlier segments of the game unbearable as the player sees them over and over and over again. And "determine what you need to do next with very little in-game help" usually meant "Methodically try every single item in your inventory, then every pair of items in combination, until it works for a reason that may not be clear even after the fact". Game designers have realized that their aim is not to defeat the player and force him to give up as Tom seems to think is ideal, but rather to give the player an interactive escapist experience to partake of for a few hours, nothing more.
    • Game designers have realized that their aim is not to defeat the player and force him to give up...

      If only I had a Kewpie doll to send out to you.

      Folks forget that the early console game designers came out of the world of arcades where at least part of the design paradigm was to reduce the playtime per quarter. Videogames had a tendency to ramp up in difficulty quickly, and they would often force situations that were virtually impossible for the average player to surmount. This continued into the cons

      • ikmin had some controller-tossing areas to learn

        Speaking of Pikmin, I really liked their solution to the save / restore making things too easy. The time limit (long as it was) made for at least a little bit of tension, at least the first time I played it. (And that freakin' bird. Forget breaking the controller, I almost broke my damn TV after about the tenth time that stupid thing made me waste a day.)

  • Cookie & Cream for kids? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aafiske ( 243836 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @05:48PM (#13473087)
    You know, for every person who beat Super Mario or whatever, there were half a dozen who just got frustrated and stopped playing because they couldn't make it past a certain point. I think to some extent, game developers have realized this and are targeting people who want to have a bit of a challenge, not drive themselves nuts.

    Compare how many times you've thrown an NES controller in frustration to the number of times you've thrown an XBOX or PS2 ... It _may_ be satisfying when you win, but it's very annoying to get there. Are 15 hours of frustration worth the rush when you win? Games 'back in the day' had a poor balance, often because of technological limitations.

    And sometimes tedious repetition just because you keep flubbing one jump, or the boss uses cheap one-shot-kill tactics detracts from satisfaction. When you finally get past it, you're more irritated than triumphant, and you never, ever want to pick up the game again and have to get through that part.

    Anyhow. Unrelated to the above, but related to my subject, the author has clearly never _played_ The Adventures of Cookie and Cream, if he thinks it's just some kid game. It's an innovative two-player game that requires coordination and a fair amount of puzzle solving and skill. Bosses require thought to figure out how to harm them, and the courses are timed; you can't just dally for an hour figuring out puzzles, or repeating it until you get it right. And it's quite exhilirating to squeak past the finish line before time runs out. If he hadn't dismissed it as a degraded platformer, he might've realized it's more or less everything he'd been looking for.

  • I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hakubi_Washu ( 594267 ) <robert.kostenNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @06:12PM (#13473207)
    Judging from the article I'm a casual gamer (Despite the fact that I can and have played through HL 2 and Doom 3 as soon as the came out. Without cheating. I have also played a lot of very cerebral games. Rarely using a hint guide.).
    I think it's good that most games allow me to save before important fights. I think end bosses are a stupid idea in the first place (Just like I laugh at any Pen&Paper GM who places them at the lowest level of the dungeon. Ridiculous.). I don't think the player needs to be punished when he makes a mstake, rewarding him when he does right is better. etc.
    Well, I thought, he does sound like a very bitter gamer, who knows he's right and can't believe someone might disagree, but I don't think he should be left without games he likes. So maybe I'd suggest again the idea of having difficulty settings for allowing to save. Or hope that more publishers would carry what he called "old-school" games. A sensible compromise, based on the demographic, can surely be reached. Then, I read this:

    "There has to be some kind of compromise that we can reach. We certainly need those casual gamers to add to the mix of the gaming community, but we can't let them dominate the kinds of games that are released."

    Any you know what?
    I think he's an asshole, because he thinks the overwhelming majority of players shouldn't be deciding what games get made in the majority? Don't tell me he believes there are more hardcore players than casual ones either, that would really screw the meaning of hardcore, y'know?

    So, I conclude, choice is good and people like to play their games differently, so there ought to be more of each type + new and experimental ones, but having the hardcore gamers as target audience near exclusively, as he suggests, is dumb (Because it doesn't pay), arrogant (because he is right and the majority would get it wrong, because they like it wrong) and, foremost, insulting.

    • Judging from the article I'm a casual gamer (Despite the fact that I can and have played through HL 2 and Doom 3 as soon as the came out. Without cheating. I have also played a lot of very cerebral games. Rarely using a hint guide.).

      So have I. However, I played the game on "Hard" - with the implementation of gameplay meta-rules, the game usually changed inio a save-reload cycle with no penalty. Remember - savescumming is not cheating unless it is intended to be prohibited.

      If you want to have save-scumm

  • Blah (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @06:38PM (#13473342) Homepage Journal
    I'm having difficulty with the conclusions the author of this story has drawn. He's comparing console games with the quarter swallowers from the 80's. He mentions grief as a result of seeing the words "Game Over". Of course there was grief. "Game Over" means "Not only do I need another quarter, it also means I have to start over from the beginning!" Modern games didn't become easier just for kicks, they became easier because game developers got rid of that frustration. Some game developers even figured out how to guide you through their games by taking giving you little 'exercises' to perform to strengthen your skillset. Super Mario 64 comes to mind. (Good time for this to come up really, as I'm playing it now on my DS.) There was a platform I needed to reach in order to advance in the level. It would have taken a fairly daring jump from another platform to get to it. But then I noticed something a little peculiar. There are a few coins in that level right next to that platform that go straight up! The implication being that I can jump from the ground and get all of them. I worked it out, they were telling me I should do a backflip from there. Wee! It worked! Now the backflip is part of my arsenal and I use it regularly to get to other hard-to-reach areas. I'm pulling off neat little trcks to get through the game, and that's quite satisfying.

    San Andreas is another game that used this idea. Seemingly unimportant little missions rewarded me with techniques to simplify the more complex ones down the line. On the PS2 version of this game, manually aiming your gun is not a great experience with that controller. You end up relying on the targetting system to take care of your foes. One mission, though, was pretty obnoxious. You were standing behind a fence and you had to shoot out a fuse box or something to open it. That was mildly annoying, but not much later in the game I found myself taking advantage of the manual shooting in the game to take out enemy cars. Didn't like that mission, but I did like what I gained from it.

    I don't miss the difficulty of games from earlier eras. They usually felt difficult because the control was clumsy, not because you had to be a master of technique to get through. Not all games fell into this category, though. Super Mario Brothers was a great ride. It was, however, an arcade game, not an adventure like Super Mario 3 was. SMB3's goal wasn't for me to hand over all of my quarters. SMB3 was arguably a much better game.

    Modern games may have lost some of the appeal of older games, but is this really worth the bitching?
    • Exactly. The author seems to forget that games are meant to be fun, not frustrating. A game can be challenging without having to be frustratingly difficult purely because it requires some action to be performed with perfect accuracy - it's the essence of good game making. There's an far better article [gamasutra.com] about the subject on Gamasutra.
    • I don't miss the difficulty of games from earlier eras. They usually felt difficult because the control was clumsy, not because you had to be a master of technique to get through.

      While I thought most of your post was insightful, I must respectfully disagree on this point. I grew up playing many of the arcade games of the early 80's, and one of my favorites, out of many, was Joust. That game was difficult, but not because of clumsy controls. It was challenging in the purest sense. The controls were not on

      • I grew up playing many of the arcade games of the early 80's, and one of my favorites, out of many, was Joust. That game was difficult, but not because of clumsy controls. It was challenging in the purest sense.

        At least to me, the Joust controls were clumsy compared to the controls of Nintendo's clone called Balloon Fight.

    • Any game that doens't penalize you enough for getting killed is boring because there's no tension. When I get to a boss, I want enough on the line that it makes me say "oh shit!" And you got more of that in older games than in newer ones.

      Oh, and of course, since some players are better than others, a good game needs difficulty selection, and it's gotta do more than give you less health and throw more enemies at you.
  • I know Interactive Fiction games have gotten a *lot* easier over the decades. I mean, just compare the hit games from back then, such as Zork, Acheton, to more recent favorites, such as Photopia. Zork was *HARD*. Photopia is interesting, but it barely requires cognitive brain function to figure out the puzzles (err, what pass for puzzles). And the parsers are so much better in modern games... occasionally in a poorly-designed modern game you end up with a guess-the-verb issue, but you almost NEVER end u

    • I mean, just compare the hit games from back then, such as Zork, Acheton, to more recent favorites, such as Photopia

      Actually, that's not a recommended comparison. Zork is considered a large game because of a large dungeon with potentially complex interactions. Phototopia is simply a mini-IF that intends to tell a story (and was designed to be finished in 2 hours as per IF-Comp standards.) These are two completely different approaches.

      It's better to compare Zork with "Sting of the Wasp". If you conside

  • Lots of games are harder at the beginning than at the end because your character isnt all suped up! So by the time you get to the end you have so many tricks you can take out guys left and right, Knights of the old Republic, Halo, many games have tougher mid game bosses than end bosses...the guy the end should be the toughest guy!
  • I think he means on average they are easier, its easy to say one or two games are really hard, but back in NES and Super Nintendo days it was nearly impossible to beat a game without really putting in a lot of time and developing skills for it. Now most of the time I can beat them with out dying more than a hand full of times and there is very little if any penalty for dying, whereas old games had insanely harsh penalties for dying or continuing since they grew out of arcade game sensibilities.
    • but back in NES and Super Nintendo days it was nearly impossible to beat a game without really putting in a lot of time and developing skills for it.

      If by skills you mean "bombing every tile in the entire stupid game to find the entrance to the stupid room that you have to find because apparently giving you actual clues would make things too simple," then yes.
  • Back in my day there was no such thing as beating a game. There was Asteroids. There was no "winning" in Asteroids. You flew your spaceship trying to avoid and destroy chunks of space rock in a desperate attempt to stay alive. You would think to yourself, if I can make it past these, then I'm home free. But no matter how many asteroids you shot, there would be more. And they would move faster too. So you shoot those. And then there would be more. And you kept shooting them and shooting them, and manouvering

  • Dynamic difficulties help a bit (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:58PM (#13474280) Homepage
    Playing Max Payne, I absolutely believe their claim that the game constantly self-adjusted to my skill level. Either that game was programmed for exactly *my* sweet spot, or they had some bad-ass AI going on behind the scenes. I never felt outclassed, and I never felt like I was breezing through. It was awesome.

    The author mentions strategy guides as one source of downfall - specifically, that bumping into a puzzle that's too difficult simply inspires players to go to the guide, so there's no incentive to make tough puzzles. That may be true of puzzles that are statically designed. My question is: is there a class of puzzle where the solution must be dynamically approached, and is therefore different every time based on comprehensible mechanics?

    Maybe the guide can only tell you how to approach the solution while leaving the nuts and bolts of it to the player in his particular instance.

    Not like I could program such a thing myself. Just askin'.

    As for his gripe with RPGs: check the link below.

  • It depends on the age of the genre (Score:3, Informative)

    by Johnno74 ( 252399 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @05:21AM (#13475652)
    FPS games are definitely getting harder, as gamers get more skilled at this type of game (on average).

    Dig out Doom and give it a try again. I did a while back, and it was almost laughably easy.
  • Here's a game I discovered this summer: Doukutsu Monogatari. [romhack.net] Very fun, similar in style, graphics, sound and gameplay to good old NES platform shooters like Metroid. While most of the game isn't really tremendously hard, it was challenging, and the final boss (which you won't meet if you choose a particular ending) is very, very difficult. Still haven't beaten it myself.
  • I think the author (Mark Raby) has over-simplified the issues here. As others have pointed out here, many games still have many of the elements he seems to think are so hard to find. Another reader has already pointed out Ikaruga as an excellent example, but there are many more. Especially among indie developers.

    I think what has really happened here is that Mark has become more skilled, has honed his talents over the years. So naturally the games have become easier. I'm not saying he doesn't have some legit

  • Easier...so what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Skazka ( 600387 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @05:46PM (#13479695)
    The author made many assertions of the form "we ought to do this" and "we should do that", but the reason is largely missing. Why should we? Does a hard game make for fun? A recent counter-example that comes to mind is Donkey Konga: Jungle Beat. I played through this entertaining game, unlocking everything, and don't remember ever "dying" in a single one of the levels. But did I have fun? It was an absolute blast playing from start to finish. I definitely felt satisfied playing this game. Making it more challenging wouldn't have increased my satisfaction level.

    More fundamentally, there's a reason why games today are less challenging. It's more than just catering to casual gamers -- the reason is that games like Pac Man and Asteroids were about introducing novel game play mechanics while games today are often about exploring a world. After playing a single level of a game from 20-30 years ago, you've already experienced practically everything the game has to offer. However, I perceive that game authors love creating new and wonderful worlds for gamers to experience. I'm betting that, having sufficient resources, game authors thirty years ago would have made worlds to experience just like game authors of today. Game creators want the player to *experience* their world, not slough through it. It's trivial to tweak a game's stats to make the play harder. But that doesn't give the player anything new to experience, so there's little motivation.
  • Mario Brothers is a cakewalk. You want a real challenge? Fire up an emulator and play a Williams game. Fetch and play Robotron: 2084 first.

    - IP

  • We see a lot of evolutions in games, some good, some bad. But, the one thing to think about is where do the money come from ?
    The game industry is a business, there are clients who buy goods with earned money. If you don't produce anything who appeals to the ones who have money, you are then a dead company

    The problem, as stated in this article about interstitial gamer http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050809/eilers_ 01.shtml [gamasutra.com] is the gap between the people who buy games and the people who evaluates games

  • Examples:
    * Shinobi for PS2 is one of the hardest games I've ever played. Definite flashbacks of Ninja Gaiden and other such controller smashing games.
    * Painkiller for PC has easy settings, but a siginificant portion of the levels aren't available to you unless you play on the hardest (intitially available) difficulty level. Anyone who claims they beat that game without dying many many many times is lying.
    * The many Mega Man sequels are easily among the hardest games I've ever played, including the GBA an
    • and just how popular are those games? I don't recall any of them hitting a bestseller list at any point. That's not to say they're not great games, Ikaruga for instance is incredibly difficult. At the same time, completing a level is an accomplishment, and it's one of the few games where getting further ahead and breathing that sigh of relief actually means something.

      When one looks at the more popular games that have been released lately though, I think the article's point surely applies. World of Wa
      • If you mean to say that the bestseller lists are populated by easier games than there used to be, I completely agree. As I said before, people don't like to lose, so they play games they don't lose at as much. More gamers mean more people buying the easier games.

        That doesn't mean hard games have gone the way of the dodo. If hard games are your cup of tea, there are plenty to choose from.
  • they tended to be formulaic, AI was next to non exsistant so the only way to make a game challenging and fun was to make everything faster, and put more bad guys on the screen. Once you got the timing down the levels were a doddle. I remember being able to pass the first level of super mario brothers 2 with my eyes closed. Anyway bottom line I think that yes the older games were probably more difficult at least the first time you play them, but they didn'hold my interest as much as the newer games do.

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