if they made games like that today, theyd get slated for being "unforgiving" and "forcing you to play levels over and over" to avoid "cheap deaths" - critics, in all their nostalgia talk about games of yesterday, hate the idea of games of yesterday
The decline of *Hardcore* gaming
- Thread starter OnceandFutureGamer
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The more people you have playing games, the less difficult they are going to get.
It's called the lowest common denominator.
Developers just want any old one-armed half-blind guy to be able to enjoy their games, but it tends to alienate the people who liked games when they were still a bit hard.
The problem is that the harder difficulties in games don't really change anything, they just give the baddies more health, and it's not much more challenging.
It's called the lowest common denominator.
Developers just want any old one-armed half-blind guy to be able to enjoy their games, but it tends to alienate the people who liked games when they were still a bit hard.
The problem is that the harder difficulties in games don't really change anything, they just give the baddies more health, and it's not much more challenging.
We can all be a bit critical of what we like and don't like, critics are hypocrits half the time and cynics the other half, Idc what they have to say and gamers who love thier games will defend it to thier dying breath. People tend to roll with the opinions of others to much anyway
I haven't played many of the old console games but I believe that each generation of consoles has it's own definition of a 'hardcore' gamer, it all depends on what generation your part of.
In my eyes a hardcore gamer is someone who plays a game hours on end and is ridiculously good at it, I mean REALLY good at it.
In my eyes a hardcore gamer is someone who plays a game hours on end and is ridiculously good at it, I mean REALLY good at it.
It's not like there aren't any hard games anymore, it's just that difficulty has become optional in games nowadays, so that people who don't like frustration can just play the game and have fun.
You want a more modern hard game? God Hand on Hard Mode. DMC3 Dante Must Die. King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match on the most difficult setting. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict on the highest difficulty. Serious Sam. Gradius V on the hardest setting. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter in the optional dungeon. Castle Shikigami 2 on the hardest setting. Viewtiful Joe on Ultra V-Rated.
Yeah, they're still making hard games, it's just that the masses aren't buying them. Sure, most of those games aren't Battletoads, but that's because today's games tend to have legitimate difficulty as opposed to cheap deaths and bottomless pits.
You want a more modern hard game? God Hand on Hard Mode. DMC3 Dante Must Die. King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match on the most difficult setting. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict on the highest difficulty. Serious Sam. Gradius V on the hardest setting. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter in the optional dungeon. Castle Shikigami 2 on the hardest setting. Viewtiful Joe on Ultra V-Rated.
Yeah, they're still making hard games, it's just that the masses aren't buying them. Sure, most of those games aren't Battletoads, but that's because today's games tend to have legitimate difficulty as opposed to cheap deaths and bottomless pits.
The fun is when you actually end up beating it.
I get bored pretty quickly with games that are too easy (I hate finishing a shooter in 6 hours without even dying once, there's just no accomplishment), but I rarely get frustrated by a game that is extremely hard.
That's why nowadays I barely finish any game.
I get bored pretty quickly with games that are too easy (I hate finishing a shooter in 6 hours without even dying once, there's just no accomplishment), but I rarely get frustrated by a game that is extremely hard.
That's why nowadays I barely finish any game.
It feels better at the end than spending 5 hours beating 100 brain dead levels. And it's more stimulating when you are doing it.quack35 said:
I mostly agree with the OP, but for one thing;
I tend to find it harder to play games these days, as they piss me off for lack of invention, storyline, or even fun gameplay, so i can't bring myself to actually complete the game. (I think i'm on about mission 4/5 of COD4 now, yay so far).
I tend to find it harder to play games these days, as they piss me off for lack of invention, storyline, or even fun gameplay, so i can't bring myself to actually complete the game. (I think i'm on about mission 4/5 of COD4 now, yay so far).
That's like saying drinking coffee is a real pick me up but you only like decaffeinated.quack35 said:
old school games are usualy harder because of the grafical limitation ... creators used to put a lot of work on the actual game ... nowadays more emphasis is put on the game design and we end upp with less chalaging games ....
I grew up with megaman 1 and 2 after all those years i tried my hands on megaman 9 and sadly discovered that my skill actualy went down it took me way to long to finish a single stage
I grew up with megaman 1 and 2 after all those years i tried my hands on megaman 9 and sadly discovered that my skill actualy went down it took me way to long to finish a single stage
This is a subject in which I have much interest. I grew up playing the Commodore 64 and the Mega Drive/Genesis and played every generation from there. I have to agree that games have gotton easier and the reason is simple, the industry has grown.
In the early nineties gaming was still an extremely fringe activity. Those were the days when a couple of guys living on Pot Noodle could code a game and have it be a massive success relative to what the market was at the time. It was a different world entirely from the kind of companies and development teams that produce games for what is now very much a mainstream activity.
What is regarded as the "hardcore" crowd now were the sole audience for games in the past precisely because they had such a niche appeal. Now that "casual gaming" is common, the industry had grown and indeed changed to reflect this. The casual gamer who works a 9-5 job and who has kids to look after simply doesn't have time to sink endless hours into an epic nor does he/she generally desire to spend hours on end trying to get past a difficult section. They want to play a game and they want to finish it.
I used to resent this intensely. I'm as "hardcore" a gamer as you can find and if a game doesn't offer a challenge then as far as I'm concerned it offers nothing at all and this is the case with most games in the present day.
However I no longer resent the casual gamer for this. I resent the developers themselves for the simple reason that it is in fact incredibly easy to accomodate for both the casual and hardcore crowd.
You see there is such a thing called a difficulty level and if only developers would respect the fact that "easy" should mean "easy" and "hard" should mean "hard" then there should be no issue. Unfortunately, they often do not and in many cases don't even bother with the option to change difficulty at all. I can seriously see it going the same way as points systems (something else I miss).
So the bottom line is that the industry has developed to accommodate what is now a wide customer base and yes, this has resulted in games becoming easier because it's what that audience wants.
In the early nineties gaming was still an extremely fringe activity. Those were the days when a couple of guys living on Pot Noodle could code a game and have it be a massive success relative to what the market was at the time. It was a different world entirely from the kind of companies and development teams that produce games for what is now very much a mainstream activity.
What is regarded as the "hardcore" crowd now were the sole audience for games in the past precisely because they had such a niche appeal. Now that "casual gaming" is common, the industry had grown and indeed changed to reflect this. The casual gamer who works a 9-5 job and who has kids to look after simply doesn't have time to sink endless hours into an epic nor does he/she generally desire to spend hours on end trying to get past a difficult section. They want to play a game and they want to finish it.
I used to resent this intensely. I'm as "hardcore" a gamer as you can find and if a game doesn't offer a challenge then as far as I'm concerned it offers nothing at all and this is the case with most games in the present day.
However I no longer resent the casual gamer for this. I resent the developers themselves for the simple reason that it is in fact incredibly easy to accomodate for both the casual and hardcore crowd.
You see there is such a thing called a difficulty level and if only developers would respect the fact that "easy" should mean "easy" and "hard" should mean "hard" then there should be no issue. Unfortunately, they often do not and in many cases don't even bother with the option to change difficulty at all. I can seriously see it going the same way as points systems (something else I miss).
So the bottom line is that the industry has developed to accommodate what is now a wide customer base and yes, this has resulted in games becoming easier because it's what that audience wants.
But is it honestly what ppl want, I can't really fathom anyone giving themselves a pat on the back for beating halo...
I think ppl just accept whats happening bc they don't know any better.
I think ppl just accept whats happening bc they don't know any better.
you seem to have missed how i said that this wasn't a barren wasteland of hard games but a massive decline in them, one that i see getting much much worse, I hate to see games at 60 bucks a pop that i can beat in less time it took for me to decide what game to actually getSamurai Goomba said:
Well no, casual gamers will never know the joys of getting hopelessly lost in Ultima 7, getting killed instantly and having to start all over again in Treasure Island Dizzy or spending hundreds of hours developing nations in Civilization.OnceandFutureGamer said:
I'm well aware that the average person and average gamer is not an obsessive like me but if they had the time in their lives to invest in such endeavours perhaps they would. They just don't have that time and unlike myself and other gamers wouldn't sacrifice to obtain it.
