Are Video Games getting easier?

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Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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Yeah, and I say "so what?"

It's more about the experience now, less about the 3-lives-across-a-20-hour-game-challenge.
 

crazypsyko666

I AM A GOD
Apr 8, 2010
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In general, yes. Play MW1/2 on veteran, then play COD1 on veteran. The difference is obvious. RPGs are a mixed bag, some are getting dumber and easier (ME1 vs. ME2, Shepard dies when getting smacked by a geth prime, in ME2 he dies from about four or five rockets to the face.)
 

Crops

Probably more bored than you
Aug 16, 2009
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Games are more forgiving.

-Saving around every corner and before/after every challenge.
-You can take more hits before you die.
-3D makes platform jumping a bit easier to fail at, they compensate with bigger platforms and characters latching onto edges.
-If you die, you just need to replay 5 minutes or so, rather than the entire game.
-Hit the glowing spot.
-If you can't figure the above out, the game tells you to hit the glowing spot.

Other than that, access to the internet has made games a lot easier;

-If you're stuck, there's youtube.
-If you're still stuck, google for a guide.
-Before the game is even out, people will post every possible glitch and exploit for invincibility or an extremely easy time online.

And of course there are a lot of games that "rely heavily on/are designed for multiplayer". Those games only have a singleplayer campaign to kill some time when your internet is down.


...

Achievements and Trophies were added to give replay value to games that have no replay value of their own. If you really need a 'locked' Icon to tell you to go challenge yourself, it means the game isn't challenging you.
And there are plenty of achievement/trophy guides as well.
 

Jesus Phish

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Jan 28, 2010
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I gave up playing Dead Space on the hard mode about two hours in when I had 4 shots left and two necromorphs to kill. I realized, if the rest of the game is like this I haven't got a hope.

Maybe I'll go back once I beat it on normal. MW2 on vetern was hard and tiresome at some parts. It's a good thing that games might have easier settings though. It means they sell more, the people who make them get more money and make more games. Demon Souls isn't going to start a trend of stupidly hard games, nor streamline it into mainstream.
 

Sylveria

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Nov 15, 2009
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xbeaker said:
Quite true. We aren't getting better at games, we aren't really getting worse at them. They are just designed differantly. As I said above, most of the sense of games being easier is due to the save function. A game is seen as harder when it is more frustrating. When death means a minor inconveniance, it doesn't seem as hard as when death sends you back the the very begining of the game. If you consider difficulty as a function of complexity, then modern games are WAY more difficult then older games.
Oh I'll definitely concede games are more complicated/complex now. Like I said, the average current gen controller has 10x the buttons of what I started on, a NES. But the game holds your hand more now. If you die, you go back to a save, which even that has become rather "harsh". Just look at my favorite example shitty game design, FF XIII. If you die in that game, you don't even go back to a save. You get reset to like 50yards away from the monster that just killed you and you can either try again or run away. Compare that to Mario 3 which I oddly enough was playing yesterday. If the boss of the castle stomps on your face, you start the whole level over and God forbid you used a cloud to skip a level and didn't enter a pipe or something.
 

The Night Shade

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Oct 15, 2009
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yes they are getting easier but maybe is because of the save-estates and the overall gameplay of the new games comparing them to the old ones
 

Lamppenkeyboard

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Jun 3, 2009
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Yeah. But to be completely honest I enjoy them more than the "Hard Core Classic" games.

I think the best level of difficulty was around the Super Metroid era.
 

ThrobbingEgo

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Nov 17, 2008
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TheJwalkR said:
Yes games are definitely getting easier. I remember how unforgiving Mario was and now we have regenerating health.
1) Mario's actually pretty easy by platformer standards. You should be able to rack up 17 or so spare lives in, say, Super Mario 3 without too much difficulty. Though I'm sure it's harder when you're a little kid. Compare Mario to something like the Ghouls 'n Ghosts series.

2) Mario's a platformer, not a shooter. The mechanics of the two genres are so different that any difficulty comparison would simply be inappropriate. Is a jig-saw puzzle harder than solitaire? Health regeneration doesn't do anything for you when it takes 1 or 2 hits to kill you, and you can die by falling in bottomless pits. FPSes and platformers are entirely different things that are only both under the banner of "video games" because they both have the player press buttons to make things on the screen move. That's pretty much all they have in common.

I would argue that we are getting more games that try to take players through a complete experience, rather than, "oh man, I only got to level four.
 

alucard1997

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Feb 5, 2010
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it seems to me like it's US that are getting smarter. If we want a real challenge, we need to start upping the difficulty
 

ThrobbingEgo

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Nov 17, 2008
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AC10 said:
marter said:
*Plays Mainstream Title #245*

I believe they are getting easier...

*Plays Demon's Souls*

Games are hard man, really hard.
Demon's souls isn't that hard.
As far as roguelike RPGs go it's fairly forgiving.
I still have nightmares of that time I tried to play nethack.
 

ottenni

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Aug 13, 2009
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I don;t know about that. I friend and i have been going back and playing some of the shooters from out childhood, and holy crap they are easy. Even on the highest difficulty they are a walk in the park. All you need to do to clear a room is fire a shot and walk around a corner and wait for the AI to walk around it one by one. These days the AI at least has some self preservation instincts, and that makes for a huge difference.
 

Dexiro

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Dec 23, 2009
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On first thought, yes. On second thought, hell no!

Games HAVE gotten easier but we're not slipping further down the scale. Round about the N64 generation we switched from "nintendo-hard" to the more fair difficulties we know today.

Since then they aren't getting much easier though, i actually can't remember any ps1/n64 games that are harder than games I've played recently.
 

Darzen

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Aug 27, 2009
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as gamers we evolve.puzzles become less puzzling the more they repeat in seprate games.we expect ambushes in FPS and RPG games to the point of which we can almost see it coming.we are evolving and becoming more skilled but the games are staying the same.
 

Weaver

Overcaffeinated
Apr 28, 2008
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ThrobbingEgo said:
AC10 said:
marter said:
*Plays Mainstream Title #245*

I believe they are getting easier...

*Plays Demon's Souls*

Games are hard man, really hard.
Demon's souls isn't that hard.
As far as roguelike RPGs go it's fairly forgiving.
I still have nightmares of that time I tried to play nethack.
haha, I remember the advanced graphics labs at my University had nethack installed on them.
Good times.
 

xbeaker

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Sep 11, 2007
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Ok, consider this.. I can't really get my girlfriend to play anything on the 360. These games have all been pretty much universally too difficult for her. So much so that she is reluctant to even try a new game. But she will happily pick up any NES game... "Because they are easier"

Older games may be harder to get to the end of, but modern games are more difficult to just play. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but taken as a whole I think this is true.
 

Nick Holmgren

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Feb 13, 2010
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*trys to beat LoZ but fails to find first dungeon* *beats wind waker in about 5 hours minus the sailing* Yeah, newer games are easy as shit.Also CoD MW VS Half Life. Normal in HL was about as hard as vet in CoD cause of reneging health.