i have discovered why we remember older games to be so hard
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Dpads were never really that big of a handicap for games, sure they didn't have the precision of the analog stick but they worked just fine.
Besides games from the PSX era weren't really that hard, at least not compared to the early NES and Atari games
And I'm not just being all nostalgic on this. That period of game design came fresh off of the Arcade designs where the entire idea of the game was to impose limitations and challenges so as to force you to spend more money. It actually took quite some time to shake the idea that an enjoyable game on a home console shouldn't actively try to defeat the player.
In those days "Game Over" meant Game fucking over and now you have to start again from the beginning. If you were lucky a game might have a password system or something but for the vast majority of games it was 3 lives and then you were boned.
Add to this the fact that sometimes those games just flat out didn't control very well. For example sometimes your character couldn't duck to avoid incoming fire which left you making wild jumps as the only form of evasion add to that the fact that a lot of games hadn't stumbled upon the idea of allowing you to make changes to your path in mid jump. Mix those two elements together and I guarantee there's an NES controller shaped indentation in the wall of the house you grew up in.
Besides games from the PSX era weren't really that hard, at least not compared to the early NES and Atari games
And I'm not just being all nostalgic on this. That period of game design came fresh off of the Arcade designs where the entire idea of the game was to impose limitations and challenges so as to force you to spend more money. It actually took quite some time to shake the idea that an enjoyable game on a home console shouldn't actively try to defeat the player.
In those days "Game Over" meant Game fucking over and now you have to start again from the beginning. If you were lucky a game might have a password system or something but for the vast majority of games it was 3 lives and then you were boned.
Add to this the fact that sometimes those games just flat out didn't control very well. For example sometimes your character couldn't duck to avoid incoming fire which left you making wild jumps as the only form of evasion add to that the fact that a lot of games hadn't stumbled upon the idea of allowing you to make changes to your path in mid jump. Mix those two elements together and I guarantee there's an NES controller shaped indentation in the wall of the house you grew up in.
Lol... old games hard because they had D-pads instead of analogue sticks.
I grew up on joysticks. I remember when the D-pad was a fresh new idea (well OK the NES had it in the early 80s, but we didn't see many of them - it was 8-way microswitched, autofire-capable sticks all the way). That and the analogue joystick the PC provided.
I've found that each type of controller seems suited to different games, or at least play styles and control layouts, and the games are made to take best advantage of that. Lazy ports, of course, don't. Which is why things like SF2 were proportionally much harder to play well on some systems vs others. Unless you had a proper arcade-style joystick, a pad was better for the combos because a normal home computer stick just couldn't hack the pace. But it was better for platformers and the like because you had a much better idea of just when your guy was going to start moving, letting you time some pretty fine jumps.
They were hard because they were hard. Also because we were kids and actually quite hyper and unco-ordinated.
Stunt Car Racer always seemed Nintendo Hard to me and my brother, and getting far enough into Gauntlet (with two friends also helping via a printer port multitap) to battle the dragon was a serious achievement. I try those now on my laptop, using keys mapped to the joy directions (arguably much harder than joy, analogue stick or d-pad) and I pwn them quite easily. The flight simulators (peaceful or combat) are a whole lot harder, mind, using a trackpad/keys instead of mouse/stick. Maybe they actually benefitted more from youthful twitch reactions also.
I grew up on joysticks. I remember when the D-pad was a fresh new idea (well OK the NES had it in the early 80s, but we didn't see many of them - it was 8-way microswitched, autofire-capable sticks all the way). That and the analogue joystick the PC provided.
I've found that each type of controller seems suited to different games, or at least play styles and control layouts, and the games are made to take best advantage of that. Lazy ports, of course, don't. Which is why things like SF2 were proportionally much harder to play well on some systems vs others. Unless you had a proper arcade-style joystick, a pad was better for the combos because a normal home computer stick just couldn't hack the pace. But it was better for platformers and the like because you had a much better idea of just when your guy was going to start moving, letting you time some pretty fine jumps.
They were hard because they were hard. Also because we were kids and actually quite hyper and unco-ordinated.
Stunt Car Racer always seemed Nintendo Hard to me and my brother, and getting far enough into Gauntlet (with two friends also helping via a printer port multitap) to battle the dragon was a serious achievement. I try those now on my laptop, using keys mapped to the joy directions (arguably much harder than joy, analogue stick or d-pad) and I pwn them quite easily. The flight simulators (peaceful or combat) are a whole lot harder, mind, using a trackpad/keys instead of mouse/stick. Maybe they actually benefitted more from youthful twitch reactions also.
damn you ninja. It seems the majority of commenters on here aren't talking about old games at all. The d-pad on the NES was a massive improvement in accuracy over the earlier joysticks that everything used. Playing a game made with d-pad in mind is usually harder with an analogue joypad as they needed that digital instant response.tahrey said:
Games were harder because everyone was trying to get picked up for coin-op machines where the real money was and making the player lose lots while feeling they could do better was the key to financial gain.
Games had to grow from that culture, they were still something you picked up for a few minutes and then played another or turned your console off you needed instant reward and challenge for that style of playing. For most players getting killed every couple of minutes is a bit stressful and irritating so as long as it was the de-facto style of play then games were still toys.
If there was a difference between Japanese and western versions of games then maybe it was because Japanese players spent more time with their games and considered them less as toys. Rentals seems marginaly plausible as a reason but I could buy significantly differing cultural perceptions far more easily.
Later games eased off a bit as you were intended to play for longer you got the challenge and reward more slowly to encourage you to stay and allow a narrative to be built up without having your suspension of disbelief taking a battering.
The game that only let you play on beginner mode and was ridiculously hard to lose?octafish said:
Okay so that was a (fairly serious) bug but a lot of people never noticed superhuman was the same.
Even at high difficulties (after being patched) it's no more difficult than a game of civ.
Strategy games have to present a challenge every time and losing has to be an option otherwise they would be utterly unrewarding, the random elements give it that edge that keeps you playing. Unlike a campaign based realtime strategy game. Also... best game ever, raiding a floater base as I type.
My 9 year old self is 1000 times better than I am right now at Super Mario World. =(Eduku said:
Yea, ps1 era games weren't that hard compared to NES era games.Savagezion said:
Games like Ninja Gaiden 1, Caslevania 1, and Megaman 1 kicked my ass on a daily basis. Demon Souls got nothing on those titles.
As to why, yea, lives, continues, and lack of saves played a part but mostly it was finding the formula to the stage/boss and executing it perfectly.
Haha. Battletoads I forgot about that one. It ranks right up there with contra. (Impossible to beat IMO without Game Genie. If it weren't for the freakin motorcycle parts.CK76 said:
Seriously? OK, you may have a point with the horrendous floppy pieces of crap that the VCS and Atari 400/800 had - when I tried one of those, even Donkey Kong was a major challenge - but not vs the sweet, responsive microswitched ones that me & the brat got through a pile of. (Just ruined them to death). You knew exactly where it would click from centred to registering a direction, and it would do so reliably and very quickly. Plus, just try playing some track and field type game with a pad instead of a stick.Unrulyhandbag said:
They were definitely better than the fairly thin, low travel, low feel thing on the 8-bit nintendos and segas. 16 bits and portables, a bit better. Playstation ones were a bit like Fiats, it depended what day they were made as to whether they were responsive or dead-flesh. Kinda like the difference between a clicky keyboard and a membrane-based Spectrum (or a phone with buttons and a touchscreen, boom).
I stand by my claim that some controllers suit certain games more, basically.
By analogue joypad, do you mean the sticks, or the analogue buttons on PS2 dualshock?
In a strange turnabout, I far prefer the latter. They're highly responsive when digital-esque control is required, but sensitive and intuitive enough to allow very fine analogue control, e.g. on the steering and throttle in a racing game.
Hell, I even used to use the digital pad pulse-width style on the PS1 a lot of the time instead of dealing with those floppy, imprecise mini-sticks. About the only time I really ever used them was for the more twitchy cars on GT2, and for spinning tricks on Tony Hawks or SSX (yes, on ps2... analogue buttons still aren't good for rapidly alternating the direction).
Swings & roundabouts again.
Thinking of mini sticks, have you ever seen an old D-pad with the optional mini joystick thing in place? I haven't but it would be an interesting sight.
OK, now you're tripping. I want five examples of games that started on home consoles and then ended up in the arcades, rather than the other way round. From what I remember of being on the ground at the time, stuff started life in the arcades (where big, powerful machines with heavy duty sticks and multiple buttons that cost several grand apiece made sense when they could earn that back in a couple months) with uber (and selectable) hardness, then easier, graphically-inferior, worse sounding, less controllable, and crucially riskier and less profitable per-unit (but much better selling) versions were produced for home players.
Yes, like a lot of flash and PS/XB arcade games in fact.
But not all in either case.
Explain to me Dungeon Master, Mega lo mania, Mercenary, Elite (yes, there was a NES version), any racing game with multiple tracks, Gauntlet (as you could effectively have infinite coins if you wanted), Adventure (VCS!), any long-form platformer or beat 'em up (mario, megaman, sonic, streets of rage, double dragon) etc etc etc. Or even tetris, if you're any good at it.
A lot of quick-burst games were around, true, and that format works well even now for party games and social gaming with a large number of people about (epic Mariokart tournament houseparties etc), but the whole scene wasn't limited to that, and developers were VERY quick to capitalise on the unique abilties of home machines - despite their comparitively terrible AV capabilities - to hold the player's attention a lot longer than one machines out of dozens of brightly lit, noisy cabinets in a dingy arcade, all designed to screw you out of as much money as possible.
(for a good example of that, go to the Prince of Wales pub, Newgale, South Wales, get a £5 note changed into a few rolls of 10p's, and see how long it takes you to end up with no change left when playing their classic Galaxian coffee-table machine. It's fun, and easy to learn the right techniques, but even when you kick ass it's over in about 3-4 minutes).
They still are, aren't they? I mean, it does nothing useful, and it's designed for entertainment. That says "toy" to me. Even a chessboard counts. (And I suppose, a DVD movie)
Very sophisticated, adult-oriented toys that hold the attention for massive amounts of time, but toys nontheless.
?!?! Erm. You've lost me. I know some games simply didn't cross borders, and there were some translation or censorship issues, but wholescale changes to gameplay?
Game rentals are a pretty new idea as far as I'm aware, but then again I am from a home computer background, not console, so our retailers may have been more averse to the possibility of someone renting a disk or tape game, copying it in an afternoon (and writing out any security materials), then bringing it back having paid a fraction of the purchase price but still got the full thing. I don't see them having influenced game design for any reason. You can rent stuff on a Shenmue/Final Fantasy kinda level after all, just as much as you can Mario Party.
Define "later"? Sorry, I mean, which year out of 1980 thru 90 do you mean?
Must say I never experienced that. Maybe I had a "fixed" version? Me, my brother, and our respective friends couldn't ALL have sucked THAT badly at it. Getting wiped out at a ridiculously early point, or suffering a massive alien attack two minutes before our defensive superweapon was ready to install were more common. It was on bastard-hard mode continually.
Unless we're talking about a different X-Com?
(In fact I'm meaning both X-Com and UFO here... er... I think)
I guess you failed to notice that civilisation itself has difficulty levels, and it can be pretty challenging.
Particularly if you're playing a pirate copy and have no idea what the advanced city controls - the key to staying on top of the harder levels, so you can actually get stuff built to counter the never ending attacks - actually do or how to activate them
Well yeah - without the risk of loss there is no victory.
I'd also put Command & Conquer and it's descendants (well OK, Dune II & its descs) in that category... and maybe the early Warcrafts, Settlers etc... even though they're RTS rather than turn based. It ups the challenge level because you have to deal with the same issues, but juggling them all at once (more realistic?) and without neat little boxes to put things in.
I seem to have the opposite problem. Me and my brother handily beat all the mega mans, castlevanias, and battletoads on the NES and SNES when I was 8. Now, at 25, I get one level in and rage quit. The only exception to that rule are RTS games like Warcraft 2 and command and Conquer. C&C kicked my ASS when I first got it, and I couldn't beat wc2 without cheats.
There were plenty of good sticks around but the ones that came with most machines were easily broken and a bit vague in my experience; I will qualify that most joysticks I've got were bought used and years after the consoles were obsolete. But even in the mid eighties I remember everything, bar one fantastic arcade style stick, being pretty naff particularly the BBC's thing. But again I should qualify I was pretty young, perhaps you simply had a better view of things than me.tahrey said:
Got a mini stick with a dpad around somewhere for an old sega machine it spent much of it's life with the stick out, good for fighting games and the odd simulation mind .
Okay, bad wording on my part. Publisher focus was on Arcade style games, they were proven business and rapidly developing new game types. Of course different and slower games were around and people buying them showed that games could be something other than a quick blast; a lot of those game are much loved classics. The NES era had plenty of these ( I quite liked the NES version of elite it had some enhancements from my BBC disc copy and even a tutorial).tahrey said:
Of course there are still games around that are just fun thing to pick up and play, and rightly so who can deny the value of fun? However we have games that are engaging and interesting without necessarily being fun, I like to believe they are an interactive computer based art-form. But then I wouldn't count chess as a toy either, more of a uniquely complex collaborative puzzle. Toy says frivolous, unworthy of consideration, childish. Art something that is produced by imagination and skill having no purpose other than it's ability to engage humans. The difference between a sculpture and a hand made toy is simply who it's intended for. As for the prince of wales - I may just take the trip from Lampeter to see what they've got.tahrey said:
That was someone elses theory further up the thread; Not mine. I don't believe there was a real difference but their explanation that rentals were to blame seemed pretty off to me too.tahrey said:
All DOS versions of UFO:enemy unknown have the bug, even the steam dos version still isn't fixed as it's the 1.4 version. The windows version was fixed but the sound got borked a little. Xcomutil can fix both windows sound and DOS's bugs.
Separating out X-Com was all I objected to, especially thanks to it's bug. I love most turn based strategy games they ultimately present different challenges and you need to take the time to figure strategies and tactics to consistently beat them. Unless of course the game has one easily found overpowered feature like MOO2's creative.
Most other games have specialised skill sets you can only gain from playing those sorts of games from platforming twitch skills to FPS control they have their own internal language even teh most puzzle based platformer need good reactions. Strategy games are just complex logic puzzles, examine the patterns and wrack your brain for a solution to solve it.
I dis'ed RTS's because replaying a campaign is really dull it's almost always the same as last time and it's very difficult to learn anything new if you limit yourself they often become dull rush tactic games. I gained most from x-com during an attempt to beat it with none lethal weapons and proxy grenades; the game played out very differently than most previous attempts but it was still possible to beat.
I think that post is more than long enough.
I think I started gaming when the transition between the D-Pad at joysticks began. I remember when games offered both methods to control. I also remember finding the joysticks more difficult to use. Weird, huh?
You have not discovered anything, if anything, you rediscovered the D-pad. Games were actually a challenge back then. Some WOULD say "They're not as hard now because you're older and blah blah blah.."
I say BS to that, I remember popping in an old Sega game from my childhood and I wondered just how in the heck I beat it when I was younger and less patient.
I say BS to that, I remember popping in an old Sega game from my childhood and I wondered just how in the heck I beat it when I was younger and less patient.
DUDE!.... i totaly understand the D-Pad problems.. but i would suggest over gameplay mechanics to be the main focus of hardships in oldschool vids
take for example, Super Mario Bros for the NES or even the WII emulation... there is no such thing as "pin point accuracy" in that old mare... double jumps?...whats that!?... dude... i remember getting my first NES in 1990 and being blown away when i pulled off the contra controller code for the first time and then beating the game an hour later... now.. i can take a modern game like Modern Warfare 2 on the hardests difficulty and walk through it pretty fast.. but for somereason?...i cant beat Super Mario Bros. ...at all...
i want you all the try something for me (if you own a 360 and have a gold subscription)
Try the Trial or even buy the arcade version of Samurai Showdown 2, and try to beat it on easy.... i DARE YOU.... it's a classic NEOGEO game from way back when! and brother...i think i had about 42 strokes, was posessed by satan and then destroyed the death star before i beat it.... no lies...
take for example, Super Mario Bros for the NES or even the WII emulation... there is no such thing as "pin point accuracy" in that old mare... double jumps?...whats that!?... dude... i remember getting my first NES in 1990 and being blown away when i pulled off the contra controller code for the first time and then beating the game an hour later... now.. i can take a modern game like Modern Warfare 2 on the hardests difficulty and walk through it pretty fast.. but for somereason?...i cant beat Super Mario Bros. ...at all...
i want you all the try something for me
(if you own a 360 and have a gold subscription)Try the Trial or even buy the arcade version of Samurai Showdown 2, and try to beat it on easy.... i DARE YOU.... it's a classic NEOGEO game from way back when! and brother...i think i had about 42 strokes, was posessed by satan and then destroyed the death star before i beat it.... no lies...
This.dathwampeer said:
I did a similar thing two years ago with some old Playstation games and Luigi's Mansion. I never beat Luigi's Mansion as a kid, I ended up beating it in about 6 hours. Every game seemed to have this pattern, except Frogger for the PS. That still kicked my ass quite well in the further levels.