It might just be me, but aren't videogames WAY too tough nowadays??? (1 Viewer)

[Javier_Huerta]

Let's see...
Pikmin: It might be easy for many, but I was only able to find 6 pieces of the ship. And I love the game.
Rogue Leader: Got to mission 6. Not even with cheats can I advance.
Resident Evil: If I don't have my FAQ with me, I simply can't do anything in it. What's with the weird controls?
Metroid Prime: Don't have a clue about what to do. And either I remember about my GF's birthday and phone number or try to remember the controls for it.
Now, about the games, I dig:
Burnout: It's so simple! accelerate, brake, turn!
Mario Party 4: So simple, even my friends can play it.
Super Monkey Ball: Point and move. It's that simple.
Unreal Torunament: Don't come near me or I'll frag you. In no time flat.
My point is, I might be completely alone in thinking games are TOO TOUGH! Hey, I remember Pac-Man, Battlezone and Tron Deadly Discs. Those games used one joystick and one button to do their thing, and they did it right. Hey, Unreal Tournament is pretty easy too - point, click, shoot, change weapons. The big deal is in the strategy you follow - not in how many buttons you can memorize (or sequences of buttons, as in Street Fighter).
Bottom line - I guess I'm too old for the new videogame craze. But, hey! At least the Gamecube now caters to my taste of simple, yet fun games. You can't believe the fun to be had with MP4, SMB or Tennis 2K2 and a bunch of your best friends... even when we are all approaching or exceeding 30 years old.

 

[Rob Speicher]

Re: Resident Evil: I've always hated those controls. They've never quite perfected them, and I'll probably never play another Resident Evil game.
Metroid Prime: That problem, I think, is on your end Most find the controls very good once you get used to them.
Basically it depends what you mean by tough. Tough to play is bad, tough to beat is good. My last piece of advice to you: Don't try Shinobi, you might break something

 

[Jordan_E]

I've never understood the problems people cite with the RE controls. I have never had a problem with them. I'll whip through an RE game easier than some FPS like HALO.

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Maybe my point didn't come across. I tried to say that games are too complex for me nowadays. Ever since the old days of Street Fighter, when I simply couldn't learn the movements I needed to perform in order to win, I seem to think games are more a collection of skills to be learned than good ol' strategy.
Case in point: Combat. Just you, another guy, and a randomly created map. You only needed to know when to hit, where to hide, and a bit of forethought. Take chess. Only need to learn how pieces move, and that's it.
Compare that to the controls of most modern games, for example, SMB. To hit, press A, to hit harder, twice A, to hit even harder, pull the lever, twice A, and to do a combo swing the stick, press A and B, time it, then press R, L, R, L, A, B, up, down, right, left, down, up...
OK, I'm exaggerating, but you get my idea. Games shouldn't be *that* complicated! They are starting to look like work to me.

 

[Mark Evans]

Well, I think it's pretty easy to deduce the reason behind the complexity.

Donkey Kong = run and jump. Required: One joystick, a jumping button.

Half-Life = weapons switching, jumps, crouches, flashlight, crosshair zoom toggle, reload button, environment interaction, yadda yadda.

Games aren't simple anymore. And they're not going to get simpler. While it'd be nice to think that we can get away with easy control schemes, the fact is that the more you dumb it down the more people complain (and sometimes rightfully so) that you're taking too much out of their hands. I mean, what fun would an adventure game be if you just clicked on things and automatically the right item was chosen for you and away you went?

If I'm playing Donkey Kong: Stealth Assassin and I have to snip the wires and redirect the power to shut down the security in K. Rool's penthouse loft, then I want to be as involved with that as I can be, down to a simple mini-game if need be.

Simple played fine when games had three screens, but these days most people want the control. As for toughness in general, no. Complex yes, tough no. Most games are so freakin' easy to solve that we barely get our money's worth these days. That's my opinion though.

And no, the Res Evil control scheme is cumbersome, but you can get a handle on it if you try enough. And if it's that bad, use control scheme C. Control C is the best way to play Res Evil (GC remake only).

I like a challenge though, so just my humble opinion of course. I'm glad Res Evil has puzzles in it (wonky though they may be). At least it doesn't go the Metal Gear Solid route and make you feel like the world's most incompetent superspy (Ok Snake, here's how you work a LADDER!).

 

[Lee M T]

Yeah, games are definately more complex now-a-days, but I find beating them a little too easy. It's hard to find a real good challenge. Games from way back you had to play a million times to finally beat them. Now you can finish a lot of games in a matter of a few weeks.

 

[Chris Bardon]

I see what you mean about controls getting complex, but I think that the best games find ways to ease you into the complexity. There are some games where the control learning curve is higher than it used to be, but this is a small price to pay for being able to have an unprecedented level of interactions with the environment. Something like Metroid Prime or Zelda was a little cumbersome at first, but as I played I found that the interface became very intuitive. Halo was familiar from the start, and just got smoother as I went through.

As for the toughness of the games themselves, I'm going to have to disagree in most cases. Games like the original Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden are still tougher than most stuff out today. Rogue Leader is just a tough game to start with though, and Monkey Ball is bloody impossible, but for the most part things have become pretty straightforward. I think back to being stuck in things like the old Sierra adventure games etc (or even the original Zelda) and having no idea where to go next. Nowadays though, you just have to go through the motions in most games (e.g the "hint" feature in MP-which should be turned OFF to really enjoy the game).

 

[Chris Bardon]

I see what you mean about controls getting complex, but I think that the best games find ways to ease you into the complexity. There are some games where the control learning curve is higher than it used to be, but this is a small price to pay for being able to have an unprecedented level of interactions with the environment. Something like Metroid Prime or Zelda was a little cumbersome at first, but as I played I found that the interface became very intuitive. Halo was familiar from the start, and just got smoother as I went through.

As for the toughness of the games themselves, I'm going to have to disagree in most cases. Games like the original Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden are still tougher than most stuff out today. Rogue Leader is just a tough game to start with though, and Monkey Ball is bloody impossible, but for the most part things have become pretty straightforward. I think back to being stuck in things like the old Sierra adventure games etc (or even the original Zelda or Metroid) and having no idea where to go next. Nowadays though, you just have to go through the motions in most games (e.g the "hint" feature in MP-which should be turned OFF to really enjoy the game).

 

[Jason Ly]

If you thinks games today are more tough that the games of yester year you must be forgetting some liitle gems like Defender and Robotron 2084.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The controls get complex because they're better once you get used to them. That's the best way I can describe it.

Resident Evil has weird controls, but if you get used to it they're good enough. Full 3-D controls can cause some problems though when the camera changes angles, so pressing "up" to move forward can give you less headaches in a way.

I've been playing games since I was 5, so I can pick up a game, get used to the controls, and then play pretty well. We had an X-Box (two actually, and linked together) with Halo at my house last summer for a party and it took me a while to get used to the controls. The last game of the night was a free-for-all Deathmatch and I won. It just comes with time.

And some games are just plain difficult.

 

[JamesH]

Games are too easy these days, many to the point of being insultingly easy. There is a good reason for this though. Anytime a game with moderate difficulty comes out that requires you to die a few times along the way to completing a level, certain reviewers take this as an insult to their gaming skills, score the game lower, and reduced sales result.
Some recent examples of this are Enclave, Splinter Cell, Gunvalkyrie, and Contra, none of which are overly difficult. Project Ikaruga and Devil May Cry have a solid difficulty level, yet reviewers raved about how impossibly hard they are. Devil May Cry avoided lower scores by adding an easy difficulty level that even a monkey could play through. Maybe Gamespot would have scored Splinter Cell a bit higher if it was like Max Payne and let you save every time you shot an enemy?
I think the main problem these days is not with difficult games, but with sissy gamers who want to slog their way through a game by attrition instead of improving their skills. Many people now do not want to try a level several times to master it before being able to beat it, instead they want to play it once and be done with it.

 

[Mark Evans]

Heh, funny you should mention Devil May Cry, James, as I'm one of the apparently few people who really didn't care for the game.

Yeah, it's fun, it has its moments, but the controls for that were so annoying (way, way beyond anything Res Evil ever cooked up) that I kept getting my butt handed to me.

Res Evil doesn't require super-de-duper controls because most enemies move slowly or predictably enough that you can easily take minimal to moderate damage. But in Devil May Cry, the constantly shifting angles kept throwing off the damn movement.

Example of Devil May Cry's internal thought process during these camera angle shifts: oops, your angle changed and you let up on the up key? Sorry, that's down now! Boss coming for you? Too bad! HA HA HA!

I remember when everybody lauded the DMC controls as leagues beyond Resident Evil, but at least in RE when I press up on the controller I bloody well know where I'm heading :p)

 

[Damien]

I think it's about even....GC and Xbox(the one i own) have a slew of hard games....gc's monkey balls, rouge leader, sms, sfa, and other games i don't know about. Xbox games, from the ones i have played/rented, seem above average in terms of difficulty....splinter cell, deathrow, blinx, dead to rights, halo on legendary, buffy, project gotham racing, rallisport challenge.....amped, moto gp(again higher difficulties), genma onimusha....all are hard as hell....the problem I see with some of these games.....i'd say a couple survival horror games that I've played have less than challenging final legs...

 

[Joe Szott]

Javier,

If anyone ever mentions Steel Battalion to you, just stop, drop, and roll buddy. That thing is the Great Cthulu of control schemes, it can drive people mad just from seeing it.

I agree though, games are much more complex than they used to be. I really like it, when they used to port arcade games like Street Fighter to the SNES and such it was always a huge hassle that you lost like 2-3 buttons. Some games still keep it simple, but the times they are a changin'. What really pisses me off is that good old interactive and text adventure type games are all but dead.

 

[MattSG]

Try Falcon 4.0 on computer, the manual comes in a 3 ring binder and there are 30 something tutorial missions that I spent over 20 hours on and only got to 18th one before I got in over my head and gave up... and that was released years ago.

 

[Jeff_Standley]

I love that games are getting tougher than they used to be. But some games are just throwing almost impossible targets rather than tough well thought out game play. I would have to say that Dead to rights is one of the hardest games ive played in a while but not in a good way. This game is pretty fun with lots of really cool moves to do with the character but I think there are just to many guys coming at you at one time to really enjoy the game. There are points in the game where you feel like your killing about a hundred guys coming from around the street corner, and you are flipping from human shield to slow mo jump to weapon to weapon so quick it takes away from enjoying the neckbraking fun of the moves.

 

[Bill Eberhardt]

I know what you mean about complex controls. I like to have a few simple to learn games around for friends to play when they come over to visit. Most of the easy ones are in the racing genre. SSX Tricky is about the most complex game that I can teach someone in a short enough time span for them to be able to enjoy it.

 

[Mark Evans]

Bill, that's one thing I like about the Cube. If I have friends over to game, it's easy to have something dead simple like Bomberman, Mario Party 4, or Super Smash Bros. on hand that doesn't require two hours of struggling to get the controls.

Though I admit I can kick some serious ass while people learn the controls in Smash Bros...

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Some games really are insanely difficult, but you get better at them over time. Look at Frequency. I thought some of the Level 2 songs were hard when I got it, but now I can breeze through some of the Level 5 songs on Extreme.

, rouge leader, sms, sfa, and other games i don't know about

Sorry, I had to.

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Mark & Bill - what can I say? You just said in one paragraph each what might have taken me lots of posts to say. Thanks.