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Judge_Death

Too Easy?

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The other night I was sitting down with my dad when we began debating why his generation of video games were better than mine. It ended up being the usual argument of age and culture difference, but one of his answers really struck me. He pointed out that his generation of games were much more difficult that any of ours, and I realised that he's right.

 

When I talk about his generation, i don't mean pac-man, im talking about cannon fodder, chaos engine, syndicate and worms. Each of those games required hours of attention untill your hands bled to advance through even half of the game. They required jedi-gaming skills and hours of your time to find the correct wepons, stratagies and locations.

 

Taking this into mind, I looked at my 360's collection of games. Gears of War, Dead Rising and even Battle for Middle Earth. Each of which can be completed in under a day if you just sit down long enough. The skills no longer require careful thought as much as holding down the trigger button long enough to leave nothing left in your way. Rather than fighting and shooting being there to slow people along their way, games now focus totaly arround killing. Even Battle for middle Earth revolves arround building as many men as possible untill your opponents are overwhelmed. Where has the exploration and the thinking gone?

 

The other consoles have little better in this respect. PS3's endless line of racing games and hack em ups ask nothing more than button mashing, and the wii's pick up and play formula has left the console with an endless stream of brainless party games. Im not saying there are no exception to this new rule. Viewtiful Joe and F-zero GX were both two of the hardest games ever created, but again these are exceptions to the trend.

 

So what do you think, Are games just too easy today? Is it the developers or the gamers to blame? Has graphics over gameplay already set in without realising?

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More difficult being a good thing? Fuck off. You're playing a game, getting immersed in it, the story and understanding the way it works, and 2 minutes into it, you're dead, and you have to keep playing in this shitty trial and error way. It's not better, it's not fun. It's shit, and it's boring. Viewtiful Joe and F-Zero would both have been better if they were a little less difficult. F-Zero was just unfair at times.

 

If you want a game that is difficult but fair, play Ikaruga. Best shooter ever.

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So what do you think, Are games just too easy today? Is it the developers or the gamers to blame? Has graphics over gameplay already set in without realising?

 

 

Personally I don't think its to do with developers or gamers, but the times we live in and progressing throuh a game so its enjoyable for the couple of hours you may have to game per night.

 

I also don't think graphics have overtaken gameplay, but are probably in equilibrium(sp??) given that most gamers don't want to play a game with horrible assets. Neither do gamers want to play games with poor gameplay.

 

So in a simple word games have got easier, so that they are more enjoyable.

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If you want a game that is difficult but fair, play Ikaruga. Best shooter ever.

 

I loved Ikaruga, but me and my bro got scarily good at it. I think my best was about 5 lives lost throughout the whole game, but 4 of those were on the last boss, who is nigh on impossible to complete without losing a life.

 

Strangely, my bro now lives with somebody in the top 20 people in the world on the Ikaruga scoreboard. Weird coincidences...

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Difficulty has to managed. If you die and feel, oh damn, that was a dumb mistake by me, its fine and you will try again. If you die and think WTF that was totally unfair, I can see no reason why I deserved to die then the difficulty or whole game is somewhat off.

 

I find that shmups can be punishingly hard but becuase I never feel wronged by my death I can put up with it. It was my error. Whereas games like Tony Hawks, I find the difficulty frustrating. Why this is I do not know.

 

Also, when I buy a game, difficulty factors into value for money. If I'm buying a full price game I want to be experience all of it, not just the first couple of levels.

 

 

I want Ikaruga on XBLA.

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Difficulty has to managed. If you die and feel, oh damn, that was a dumb mistake by me, its fine and you will try again. If you die and think WTF that was totally unfair, I can see no reason why I deserved to die then the difficulty or whole game is somewhat off.

 

I agree with this. I was playing DiRT yesterday. Twice I failed the race. But I didn't mind, it was my fault. The third time I was stopped short by a disc read error. I immediately hit the power button and stormed out the room.

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More difficult being a good thing? Fuck off. You're playing a game, getting immersed in it, the story and understanding the way it works, and 2 minutes into it, you're dead, and you have to keep playing in this shitty trial and error way. It's not better, it's not fun. It's shit, and it's boring. Viewtiful Joe and F-Zero would both have been better if they were a little less difficult. F-Zero was just unfair at times.

 

If you want a game that is difficult but fair, play Ikaruga. Best shooter ever.

 

Spot on there. I hate really difficult games, and just can't be arsed with them. I'll usually play through games on easy just to get the story and experience, and then play through on harder difficulties if I enjoyed it and want to play through again.

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I agree that games shouldn't alienate the player immediately through sheer difficulty, but there should at least be some challenge, or it's just not fun. In my opinion, if it takes you more than 5 attempts, it's going to annoy you, if you can complete it with your eyes closed, it's boring.

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I love hard games, unless they're just unfairly hard like Ninja Gaiden.

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My only thing to say is some older games are harder , depending on your skill at games...Me sonic the hedgehog 2 sega mum could do it with ease i couldn't back then no continue button it was ok back to the start

 

i thought Viewtiful joe was a easy game when i got into it second one was not that bad from what i saw , dead rising i like , completed hated dieing that was reload last save

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Before my Amiga 500 broke a couple of years ago I thought I'd play a few really old games that I could never do when I was younger as I found them REALLY difficult!

I thought that around 15 years on I must be able to complete them... turns out I was wrong!!

 

Rick Dangerous, how you annoy me!!

 

thumb-rick_dangerous.PNG

 

However, I look back on such games with really fond memories!

 

I definately think there need to be more games nowadays that offer a real challenge!

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