Poll: Do you believe games today are too easy?

[Callex]

Dragon Age is a brutally hard game. I'm too damn stubborn to turn the difficulty down, so I'm kinda stuck in a limbo with it at the moment where I can't be bothered playing for fear of making no progress and wasting the evening... Its been about 4 days since I last went on it.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Again, games have not gotten too easy..
You just have more freedom in them to make decisions.

In the olden days of yore, the only "moves" you had were the preset moves..
Jump.. move forward.. shoot button.. shield button.. duck..
You moved across a 2D linear landscape where little to nothing changed and in many cases it was the limitation of your character that made the games difficult.

Now you have so much freedom, you can attack a situation based on your own play style.

Still depending on how you PLAY a game, it's difficulty can vary..

For example, Demon Souls, Devil May Cry, and Ninja Gaiden will absolutely PUNISH any gamer who just goes into every situation with a "devil may care" attitude, guns blazing, and screaming incoherent gibberish about the lamentations of women. In those games, assessing a situation and using your environment, skills, and the knowledge of your opponents help you advance and if you are good at that, the game tends to be easier.

On the flip side, games like Halo and Killzone require quick trigger fingers and battle-honed reflexes. Think too much about situation and you'll quickly find your lap filled with grenades. Only the quick and the dead survive in those areas and people who like to spend time carefully considering how to best decimate their opponent often find themselves hitting the "Start Over" button after the "you are dead" screen.

So really, it's about differences in play styles and the abilities of your game character. GTA IV is a prime example... Some missions can be easy or super hard depending upon how you approach them, your prep work, or your reflexes.

Freedom makes games seem easier.

 

[Urgh76]

DUH yes!!! how can anyone say no?!!?! like Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2. 2 is WAAAAAay too easy.
Also, Crash Bandicoot, back then you couldn't die once or you wouldnt get the gem and today its all flashy battle crap that doesnt even correctly ILLUSTRATE THE FORMER GAMING EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 *PANTS HEAVILY*

EDIT: i feel the same about Spyro

 

[Jazzyluv2]

most games are incredibly easy, meh i play online most of the time, so who gives a fuck what i think

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Hell no. There are plenty of challenging games available in today's gaming market, like Left 4 Dead 2.

Old games like Fallout 2 are hard, but sometime it's for stupid reasons. For example right from the beginning Fallout 2 looks insanely hard, but that's because you've been forced to fight bugs with your fists when you specialized in small guns instead. The game also lets you wander into danger blissfully unaware, rather than warning you about the gang of fire geckos that can rape you if you go the wrong way on the world map. Plus your AI partners are incredibly incompetent and weak towards to end of the game, taking away the support you will most likely need.

I guess.
But, then again, most games for the NES and the other older consoles were too hard.
It's really all a matter of opinion.

A lot of those games were to hard because you could die far to easily and many sent you back to the beginning of the game if you perished. Save systems have made modern games a lot more fair.

I dunno. If I gave sulik a bozar he was fairly competent in gibbing me instantly if I stood in front of him. Or remotely close. It was hard because of how its played, you had to at least have a small amount of skill and know how to manage your inventory. It was quite enjoyable in my opinion if it wasn't for the start which was so annoying each and every time. Though, great for a playthrough seeing as it;s only about 5USD now.

A game that is flawed that makes it hard is Dragon age origions.. The boss is ridiculous hard because the AI are fucking stupid. The tank when on defense would constantly be an idiot and go and attack something else minor while the dragon eats someones brains out, the healer practically spews lyrium everywhere and then lets the tank die, the ranger stands in one spot and gets hit by the dragon and you get killed no matter what because all the other ai die.

 

[ItsAPaul]

No, unless you play on easy mode and whine about it being easy. DAO on Nightmare has to be some kind of new hell I've not seen before.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

God no in my personal opinion games are just as hard as they use to be.

Anyone played Ninja gaiden? Or try to complete Devil May Cry 4 on heaven and hell mode. Oh and who could forget Mile High Club on Call of duty 4. Yeah games are still hard, if you look at those examples.

Also I am still stuck on the Wardriving spec ops level in Modern Warfare 2. But I'm getting closer and closer each time.

I gave up on Ninja Gaiden, and Mile High Club was tough but I finally beat that one. But all in all I think games today are way too easy. Beating a game on the hardest difficulty used to be an achievement, now everyone and their brother can do it. (See MW2 on Veteran)

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Basically, game companies are trying to appeal to broader and broader audiences these days, and as such, they tend to make games easier, or they have a wide range of difficulty levels to pick from. Considering the time and effort it requires to make many games it's understandable.

Personally, I do think that there are plenty of modern games that are frustratingly difficult. However, less of them are hard for the same reasons old Nintendo games were hard.

 

[Jekken6]

They're difficult in a different way, A game like CoD requires actual quick thinking and reflexes, whereas a game from the eighties requires you to just memorize the shit out of sequences and patterns.

I beat MW2 on Veteran, some parts were frustrating, BUT, some parts were memorizing the shit out of patterns, especially the assault on Makharov's safehouse.

Yeah, but the enemies are unpredictable, you don't know if they'll try to flank you, charge you, or just grenade spam you, whereas a game from the Eighties was just something like "This guy shoots, and this guy doesn't. If you don't avoid them, you die." Also, that level was a *****!

Actually, for me, they did all those things. I used flashbangs and got a chokepoint, got the DSM, then jumped out a window and ran around.

 

[Fidelias]

Maybe games today are too easy, but... I think if you want a more challenging game, just turn up the difficulty. Almost every game nowadays lets you choose between easy normal and hard. I, personally, don't want to sit down and play a game where you die 12 times in 1 level on easy difficulty. I want to be able to beat a game without trying too hard, cause i kinda suck at them...

 

[Carlston]

Most games are all on graphics....no meat in the play.

Hell Fallout 1 was pretty killer if you were foolish enough to be unarmed speced outa the vault

 

[achilleas.k]

you know i was exaggerating for the sake of comedy, right?
geez i can play and win lots of games, i was trying to make a joke..you guys laugh when yahtzee says it, you ingrates *grumble mumble*

It's hard to pick up sarcasm from text, especially when you don't know the other person.
Plus, there's always the default opinion that everyone else on the internet is a moron so you can see where all this doesn't help.

 

[TZer0]

CoD4:MW, Mile High Club on veteran. I dare you call that easy.

Also, anything multi-player if you play against competent opponents can't be regarded as easy.

Yes I would say that mission is easy there is nothing wrong with that mission they give a P90 which does make it easy even without cheats although with cheats it actually kinda takes the piss with slow mo.

Wrong. They give you a MP5 (which isn't a good weapon in the SP-campaign). You might find a P90 there, but you don't have time to pick it up unless you're running over it on the way to the next area.

 

[Jirlond]

Not enough platformers! Platformers were the epitome of skill! FPS with regenerating health - Pants easy. Psychic Acrobats flying through a meat circus while your father throws exploding bowling pins at you - annoying but hard. Platformers had a very consistent difficulty curve and usually the last level forced you to use every skill you learned. Not just one button superpowers.

 

[PolitikiL]

Also I am still stuck on the Wardriving spec ops level in Modern Warfare 2. But I'm getting closer and closer each time.

I beat every spec ops mission on Vet
Try going around and clearing out every house before you start any downloads. That way you'll have all 3 turrets and can just bring them around with you from house to house. Greatly lowering the amount of enemies. Also laze every house your in when the downloads start and keep re-lazing everytime Badger stops shooting.

 

[GodofDisaster]

God no in my personal opinion games are just as hard as they use to be.

Anyone played Ninja gaiden? Or try to complete Devil May Cry 4 on heaven and hell mode. Oh and who could forget Mile High Club on Call of duty 4. Yeah games are still hard, if you look at those examples.

Also I am still stuck on the Wardriving spec ops level in Modern Warfare 2. But I'm getting closer and closer each time.

I gave up on Ninja Gaiden, and Mile High Club was tough but I finally beat that one. But all in all I think games today are way too easy. Beating a game on the hardest difficulty used to be an achievement, now everyone and their brother can do it. (See MW2 on Veteran)

I understand why you give up on Ninja Gaiden, I mean so did I. But yeah your right about single player Veteran mode on MW2, it was easy.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I like the fact that you can change the difficulty of almost every game now: I wish I could've changed the difficulty of Caslevania and Ninja Gaiden (the NES originals) back in the day.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

CoD4:MW, Mile High Club on veteran. I dare you call that easy.

Also, anything multi-player if you play against competent opponents can't be regarded as easy.

Yes I would say that mission is easy there is nothing wrong with that mission they give a P90 which does make it easy even without cheats although with cheats it actually kinda takes the piss with slow mo.

Wrong. They give you a MP5 (which isn't a good weapon in the SP-campaign). You might find a P90 there, but you don't have time to pick it up unless you're running over it on the way to the next area.

In practically the first group there are 2 P90s so yes they do basically give you to P90 which isn't a challenge to stop and press pick up weapon then reload to then have the most overpowered main weapon in the game.

 

[Phyroxis]

I think there is more of an opportunity for games to be easy. Either through lame development choices, ie spawn more bad guys rather than make them intelligent.. Or give them more hp rather than make them intelligent.


I don't think playing against an extremely high health boss results in a challenging experience so much as bashing your head into a wall does. I think playing a game with some serious puzzles or enemy tactics does result in a hard game.

Developers, it seems, go for the path of least resistance. Why create a challenging game with interesting puzzles and the like, when you can just spawn x amount of monster 32 and let them beat on the player for a while until a) the player kills them all dead or b) gets tired and 1) cheats or 2) quits.

Eh.