How much "evil" can you tolerate in a game's design?

[Varchld]

You might wanna check out this thread Hardest game ever. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.75419?page=1]

Less then a month old too.

EDIT:
Left4Dead on expert is pretty evil, doable and unlimited continues, but thousands and thousands of evil evil zombies.

 

[gunnnnkjkjkj]

Evil Game design is just .... Evil. I can take any ammount of difficulty but after a certain time i dont realy give-a-damn anymore,although i always come crawling back after a month or two just to fail again.

And also games wich cant explain what im supposed to do clearly enough realy pisses me off.

 

[Susurrus]

I don't mind how hard a game is, as long as its fair.

Medal of Honour: Pacific Assault, on the hardest difficulty, with crosshairs off, healthmetres off, etc etc is impossible. I died at leat ten times in almost every gun fight. But it makes you careful, it means everything matters, and it means, oh how it means that you duck and run, dive into cover, and pick your shots. What I didn't like was that this "realistic" setting also made the enemies harder to kill than you were: that's not fair. If it's realistic, they should die as you do. They shouldn't get back up after SMG bursts to the face.

In contrast, I don't like the "general cam" view in Medieval 2:Total War, not (really) because the camera restriction makes it hard for you to see force disposition and things, but because it makes it almost impossible to give orders to anyone very far away, as you can't tell the difference between setting them up at the end of your line, or two miles away.. That I don't like, and so I never play with this setting on.

On the whole though, particularly in FPSs, I want them to be harder. I've never replayed Bioshock because it was FAR too easy. Ok, ok I could not respawn, but the load times compared to respawn times mean that this isnt a practical option..

 

[almo]

Because of this retro gaming kick I've been on lately I have to say, games have really changed for the better.

Are you comparing to NES games? Those were never very good anyway. I stand by many retro games as being comparable in fun factor to today's games. I know many people whose memories of retro gaming are from the NES; they remember them fondly because they were too young to recognize how bad many of those games were.

Great games that are still playable from 16-bit and before:

Streets of Rage II
Maze Craze
Frogs and Flies
Asteroids (7800)
Ballblazer (7800)
Robotron (arcade)
Defender (arcade)
Joust (arcade)

I'd rather play these than MGS4, GTA IV, or most other big budget titles of today.

 

[whyarecarrots]

N.

N. As in, N. the flash ninja game.

Possibly the nastiest game I've played as there are just some levels that are hugely unforgiving, made worse by the fact that you have to play through the levels in episodes of 5; if you quit the game in the middle of one you have to start from scratch in that episode again.
I once got to one level that I played for several hours straight, and left my laptop on standby overnight so as not to lose my progress in the episode...

*hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate*

 

[Signa]

Because of this retro gaming kick I've been on lately I have to say, games have really changed for the better.

Are you comparing to NES games? Those were never very good anyway. I stand by many retro games as being comparable in fun factor to today's games. I know many people whose memories of retro gaming are from the NES; they remember them fondly because they were too young to recognize how bad many of those games were.

Great games that are still playable from 16-bit and before:

Streets of Rage II
Maze Craze
Frogs and Flies
Asteroids (7800)
Ballblazer (7800)
Robotron (arcade)
Defender (arcade)
Joust (arcade)

I'd rather play these than MGS4, GTA IV, or most other big budget titles of today.

I was speaking on a pretty general basis about games of that era. One arcade game I've been playing a ton is Lode Runner. I swear, this was the first incarnation of a stealth game back in those days. Sure, you never are actually undetected by your enemies, but like all good stealth games, you are much better equipped to run from your enemies than to fight them head-on...

...which is also the other game that inspired me to make this thread. It's such an evil game, and I find myself hating it just about as much as I love it. I also want to give a nod to those who mentioned Ghosts 'n' Goblins. I forgot about that game. That is one that I wouldn't mind trying out again when I'm feeling masochistic. The gameplay mechanics were well done enough that if I could get used to dealing with the abuse the game throws at you, I might have some fun.

One game that I think was bad because it was abusive was Too Human. SOOOO many bad design choices to make the game harder and less fun. Why the hell are some enemies immune to ranged attacks? Why the hell are there some enemies that are immune to ranged attacks AND FUCKING EXPLODE when you attack them with melee!? Oh, and when they explode, they can poison/immolate you for tons more damage. Grrrreat.

 

[almo]

I was speaking on a pretty general basis about games of that era. One arcade game I've been playing a ton is Lode Runner. I swear, this was the first incarnation of a stealth game back in those days. Sure, you never are actually undetected by your enemies, but like all good stealth games, you are much better equipped to run from your enemies than to fight them head-on...

Interestingly Lode Runner was a home computer game that made it into the arcade. Unless you just meant "action" game when you said "arcade" game.

Yeah, I didn't get along with Lode Runner, even at the time. I liked it well enough, till I hit the level with the treasures in a room up top you couldn't get to. A bad guy would spawn up there, he'd pick one up, fall to where you were, you'd kill him and take the treasure. Repeat LOADS of times. I quit right there cause it wasn't fun.

 

[Arsen]

I LOVED the dam level in the original TMNT.
There, I said it.

 

[johnman]

Lol remember the cyber demon form doom that could take over 30 shots from the BFg the most powerful weapon in the game? The entire area was covered in other soldid enenmies that were hard enough to take out, let alone with some giant with missle launchers for arms.
I never got past that part without cheats

 

[Mr_Czar]

The last level on Doom II..I have no idea how anyone managed it without cheats. The Satan Wall AAAAA.

 

[Shotgunbunny]

I've played almost 300 hours of WoW, I think that's enough evil design right there, seeing as the whole game is practically one big fail design.
Apart from the obligatory WoW hate, I could say Outcast probably had the evilest design, basically the game went like this: You start off with the objective to talk to Guy A who is wandering around somewhere in this big ass countryside, they don't tell you where exactly, you just gotta find him, the only thing any character can tell you in which general direction he was last seen.

So it was like "North, ok! I'll head north."
So after 5 minutes of walking north you spot someone in the distance, but it's not the guy, it's a guy who is now going to tell you that you should actually be headed east.
It went on like that for a while because after you talked to Guy A, Guy A would tell you to talk to Guy B. Guess in what way you had to find Guy B?

A good example of evil design parts in a great game is The Witcher, I love it, but each chapter has a few optional grind quests where you need to fetch X amount of whatever from monster Z, frankly after 3 chapters it started getting on my nerves, but I still tried to do 'em, for epix......

 

[Signa]

I was speaking on a pretty general basis about games of that era. One arcade game I've been playing a ton is Lode Runner. I swear, this was the first incarnation of a stealth game back in those days. Sure, you never are actually undetected by your enemies, but like all good stealth games, you are much better equipped to run from your enemies than to fight them head-on...

Interestingly Lode Runner was a home computer game that made it into the arcade. Unless you just meant "action" game when you said "arcade" game.

Yeah, I didn't get along with Lode Runner, even at the time. I liked it well enough, till I hit the level with the treasures in a room up top you couldn't get to. A bad guy would spawn up there, he'd pick one up, fall to where you were, you'd kill him and take the treasure. Repeat LOADS of times. I quit right there cause it wasn't fun.

Sorry about my incorrectness

The game came out the year I was born, so you can't really blame me for not having my facts straight.

Lol remember the cyber demon form doom that could take over 30 shots from the BFg the most powerful weapon in the game? The entire area was covered in other soldid enenmies that were hard enough to take out, let alone with some giant with missle launchers for arms.
I never got past that part without cheats

What difficulty were you in? I personally didn't find the BFG in the second episode, and it took about 30 rockets to kill him, not BFG blasts. Hell, you fight the Cyberdemon a lot as he kinda becomes less of a boss and more of an uncommon enemy the later into the games you get. It usually only took me 5 or 6 BFG shots to kill him then. I also was playing "Hurt me plenty" mode, so it wasn't exactly easy.

The last level on Doom II..I have no idea how anyone managed it without cheats. The Satan Wall AAAAA.

I didn't cheat, but I did have to look at a FAQ. I killed as many enemies as I could before I would die, I attacked the "wall" until I ran out of ammo, and I even played with the multilevel platforms trying to get them to do something special. I got sick of not making progress, so I looked it up. I did have to attack the wall, I just was doing it wrong.

One game series that I have come to hate because of the difficulty is Mario Kart. The game isn't even hard. The game just likes to be evil to you because you are the only one that isn't AI controlled. With the new MKWii, things got even worse as now there are 12 racers who can mercilessly rape you just because they picked up an item a half a lap behind you. On the other hand, F-Zero GX is also retardly hard, but they manage to still make it fun. I hate racing games, but F-Zero and older Mario Karts are still fun for me.

 

[SimuLord]

I recently managed to duplicate a childhood feat thanks to Mega Man Anniversary Collection---playing through Mega Man 2 without dying. It was exhilarating to do it in this day and age because let's face it, by 1990 standards MM2 was actually fairly easy, but by 2008 standards? Different story.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Ninja... Gaiden... Bird.

That is all.

 

[Wargamer]

Evil has to be properly applied.

Doom applies Evil really well. There's a Key to the exit in a room. No traps, no guards, nothing. Just a key. No danger at all.

Yet, you KNOW the INSTANT you touch that key, shit is hitting the fan. Hell, you walk over it BACKWARDS with a rocket launcher drawn because, yes, that wall does indeed come away to reveal a pair of Cacodemons.

But even Doom has rules. One of those rules is "Stupid people get Fragged, asswipe!" If you honestly believe the minions of Hell leave the Satan-Slaying BFG 9,000 where anyone can run off with it, you deserve to get raped in the eye-holes by a Baron of Hell.

One of the things I realised after a while was that I had become good enough on the PSX to play through virtually any level on Nightmare Difficulty. That didn't actually help much; I was still jumpy. Even though I could always gun my way out of any ambush, I always suspected that the game was just toying with me. It WANTED me to think I could gun my way out of any ambush, because then I'd relax and the Barons could partake of the eye-hole raping. Final Doom was worse; I'd go into a corridor KNOWING there was an ambush, where it comes from and what does the ambushing and also knowing I'd chain-gunned the bastards to death every single time (because it was my nth time through), but I was still nervous as hell.

Doom did Evil really well.


A game that doesn't do it so well is the likes of R-Type. I love R-Type, I really do, but sometimes it feels like you're just memorising where to move and when to shoot.

 

[Whobajube]

I LOVED the dam level in the original TMNT.
There, I said it.

Surely you jest! I refuse to believe it!

I hold no love for that level. Electrified seaweed, to this day, remains my biggest fear.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Have you ever played Unfair Platformer? It's name says it all. There are seven levels, and my lowest number of deaths from start to finish was 153.

 

[almo]

Interestingly Lode Runner was a home computer game that made it into the arcade. Unless you just meant "action" game when you said "arcade" game.

Sorry about my incorrectness

The game came out the year I was born, so you can't really blame me for not having my facts straight.

Yeah, I was just being pedantic for the fun of it.