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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'."
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)
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*
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?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
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**.
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.