Rant about difficulty in modern video games

[Kripto]

What I hate even more are games which are playable and easily understood until you suddenly hit some obstacle or objective which seems designed specifically to make you need to go buy a strategy guide for the game.

 

 

I love the way that early arcade games have the basics understood in a minute and fully engage the player, versus having them perform mild interaction in-between cut scenes.

[joeybastard]

I don't think modern games are any easier or harder but the controls are definitely more complex which irritates me most of the time. All games should adhere to easy to learn, difficult to master but many modern games are not easy to learn without serious amounts of play time first.

Edited April 17, 2008 by joeybastard

[Mot]

My issue with modern games is that some levels are too easy and others absolutely kick my but for days.

 

Half Life 2 had a sand lion (or whatever they are called) level where I got stomped no matter what I did and then without doing anything different than before... I suddenly killed the #$%*($*&*#&*#@ beast just as I thought I was going to die yet again. I don't mind having to try and try to get past a boss or section of a game but when it's for days and winning appears almost random???? Grrrrrrr....

 

This sounds like rubberband AI! So what sucks is the game becomes easier because you can't beat it in a couple of tries, instead of letting you play until you get better. The advantage is you don't have to play as long and then you might buy a new game (I guess is what they are hoping).

 

What I hate is the steep change in difficulty. In Guitar Hero III for Wii the first level was fine but then the next level add a new button AND increased the speed. I don't want to play it anymore.

[kroogur]

Add me to the "too many buttons/goofy controller" crowd, i think they should have stopped at the NES controller one button for shoot/action one for jump and left it at that. When i play a fightin' game for example it really grieves me to have press AAA,T,CC,RRR,E,WW,UU,UL,RD,and move the control pad in a half semi-circle while holding it at a 45 degree angle to throw any kinda punch other than a simple jab.

[sukotsu9]

I agree that modern games are a little too challenging from a straightforward standpoint. I'm still boggled by controllers, but the real challenge is that there's usually a "trick" (notsomuch a cheat) to get through a certain event. Note: I NEVER beat the AT-AT in N64s Rogue Squadron just because I never figured out the catch. Then I gave up on the game.

 

For the folks that say new games are easier, I'll agree that save points are much easier to come by than past generations of gaming. Remember the smoldering anger and frustration of dying only to start at the beginning again? And the Internet has made finding those "chance" events in modern games easier. I watched a friend of mine sit down with a stack of printouts for GTA: San Andreas like he was ready for a physics exam. Too bad the kid doesn't study as hard for school!

[Ransom]

Add me to the "too many buttons/goofy controller" crowd, i think they should have stopped at the NES controller one button for shoot/action one for jump and left it at that. When i play a fightin' game for example it really grieves me to have press AAA,T,CC,RRR,E,WW,UU,UL,RD,and move the control pad in a half semi-circle while holding it at a 45 degree angle to throw any kinda punch other than a simple jab.

 

I agree that modern controllers are often used poorly in games, but in some cases it's a godsend to have so many buttons available. It makes it possible to play a more complex game on a console rather than a computer, without dumbing it down or requiring the user to jump through hoops. For example, the Baldur's Gate/Champions of Norrath/etc. games make great use of the Playstation controller, IMO. Every button is used, and there are clear distinctions between the types of buttons so it's easy to keep their functions straight in your head.

 

But, yeah, for most games a 2- or 3-button controller would be more than enough, yet the designers seem to feel that if they don't use all the buttons in their games, then they've done something wrong.

[Kripto]

Believe it or not, game developers at least APPEAR to be aware of these issues. From what I've read over at Gamasutra, there are needs felt for more 'instant action' games.

 

I think a huge problem is how far away current games have gotten from being one-man or small-team productions. Corporate 'group think' is poison for any creative work and it can truly spoil a game as well as originate true crap.

[n8littlefield]

I don't think modern games have gotten any harder - but I do think they have become overly complex. Even just in the past few years, stuff like Grand Theft Auto went from a pretty straight forward action game to having RPG tendencies in San Andreas. And as the game became more complex, it became less fun (for me at least).

 

Also, current games seem to incorrectly assume longer = more difficult and instead of presenting a real challenge, the challenge is simply to play through the game's repetitive chores over and over again.

[Lord Helmet]

The controller issue just makes the learning curve a little steeper for some games, which can be frustrating...but an NES controller would NEVER work effectively for a fighting game of even the SNES era. Sports games need multiple buttons as well...how else could you have independent controls for hurdle, spin, stiffarm, lateral, speed?

 

I agree that some games don't need to be that complex, but many absolutely would suffer without all those buttons. There's plenty of room for all kinds of games.

[AtticGamer]

I think games nowadays are too difficult to finish 100% or on the hardest setting.

Games shouldn't have difficulty settings and just a practice mode specially for Contra games and rankings because it's painful to give your best and get a shit ranking in the end.

 

Checkpoints, saves and not-cheap kills are a very good addition nowadays, I can't understand how that's a bad thing. If it wasn't for checkpoints, I would have quit RE4 way before I finished it.

 

It is easy nowadays to beat the main game, but finishing 100% should be like SMW, Zelda ALTTP and NSMB, just requiring dedication and patience, not a walkthrough or uber skills.

[2600Lives]

I'm glad someone else thinks today's games are too hard. For someone like me who has lost a lot of dexterity in his fingers, it's doubly so (broken every finger at least once).

 

Take Guitar Hero for example. The first one was difficult, but I eventually got past BAtM on Expert (though it was FUGLY, I still did it). Now, GH2? I've passed Freebird on Expert exactly once, and haven't even attempted Jordan. GH3? Fuggedaboudit. There's some songs on HARD that are damn near impossible for me. You can almost see the developer's shit-eating grins as they're designing the new songs. "Oooh, oooh, let's put that one in! It'll be impossible! Nobody will be able to complete it! We're SO cool!!!".

 

I really, REALLY hate super difficult games, personally, especially those games that you can't finish completely unless you play on the hardest level. Thank gawd the GameShark let's us flip the bird to some of those damned arrogant developers.

[albinoMithos]

Add me to the "modern games are too easy" group. I gotta be honest here, I can't remember the last time I've struggled to beat any game. I remember the age when beating a game felt like the gaming gods just came down from the heavens to invite you to join their Parthenon of awesomeness for completing what they thought would be impossible. I've played Super Mario Galaxy and Yoshi's Island 2 and when I beat them I felt empty like I hadn't done anything. I mean case in point when I played Twilight Princess on the Wii when it first came out I can remember dying once while fighting the boss of the Sky Temple. That was because I had 2 hearts and was wearing the Zora's Tunic and I took double damamge from getting hit with fire. If I compare that with the original Zelda on the NES I can't even count the number of time I died from something or another. Come to think of it the hardest modern game I've played was Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox where the normal difficulty was hard. I do think some of the controls have gotten a bit complex but I don't think that's made the games any harder. Maybe I'm alone here but I think they need to bump up the normal level of games, put an easy mode for people who want it, and if it bothers enough people implement a simpler control scheme.

[Video]

My biggest complaint is that so many games either

 

A) have the desire to use every button on the controller (that's what? 12 buttons, and 3 sticks?) and still somehow need insane combos just to pull off even the simplest of functions (think any fighting game)

 

B) At the opposite end o fthe spectrum, you got all those buttons and sticks, and they still manage to put every single function in the game on only one or two buttons somehow (think most the older Spyderman games)

[liveinabin]

I'd say that modern games are generally easier than they used to be, mainly due to the demise of the old device of limited lives. There are better ways, I think, to pad a game experience out now (though it depends on the genre - shmups aren't much fun on infinite continues).

However, I do feel a lot of games now require way too much time devoted to them. The surface complexity of most titles just winds me up (especially when I've gone away from a game for a few months and my vague memory of the control system causes me to just get hammered when I come back to it, mid-game)

[cimerians]

I think games are too hard these days as well but its getting better. I have finished most "modern" 360\PS3\Wii games without too much trouble although there are still games out there that are just too hard and I agree, many because of the controls.

 

One game that I stuck with that actually made me better at action games, is Ninja Gaiden for the original Xbox.

 

Also, being able to save anywhere in the game, IMO should be mandatory.

[vdub_bobby]

I dunno. I think some of this is nostalgia, and comparing the entirety of the present to the best of the past.

 

Plenty of old games have major difficulty curve issues: Donkey Kong (2600), Journey Escape (2600), Duck Hunt (NES), Battletoads (NES), etc.

 

But the best old games had almost-perfectly tweaked difficulty curves and...so do some of the best modern games. I've found the Halo games, the Tony Hawk games, the modern Zelda games, to have difficulty levels that are just right.