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I have difficulty eating spaghetti bolognese. If we are honest we all do, that damn sauce gets everywhere and it is impossible to go through a whole bowl without once making that stupid slurping sound. Anyway people have problems with a lot of things, from crossing the road to climbing mountains, mainly because things are so damn hard. So what about games, does it really matter what difficulty a game has.
I was playing Devil May Cry a few minutes ago and despite being a good gamer, by my own reckoning, I got hacked off with it swore a lot and left. Surely this is not what games are supposed to do? If an experienced gamer whose has been playing games for over 10 years can get thoroughly hacked off then what about someone new to gaming.
Bill wakes up on Christmas morning in a blind panic to get downstairs, ok its because he really needs the toilet, but after that he tears off the wrapping of his present to see a beautiful blue box and a game attached to the side. After persuading his father to set up his PS2 Bill finally gets to play on the machine he has been waiting for. However not all goes to plan and the entertainment machine is far from entertaining.
It is at this point that Bill notices the easy option on the game. However without doing anything, it seems to mock him, mwahahahaha you are so rubbish that you need an easy mode, you are a complete turkey. By January Bill has sold his beloved Christmas present and has been put off games for life. He later buys a pet monkey and has a joyous life in zimbabwe after being deported for chicken molestering, which we are assured had nothing to do with computer games.
Anyway, gaming difficulty. Most of you would say that games are fairly easy or just mainly at a normal difficulty level. How important is the difficulty of games anyway? I think it is one of the most important things in a game. Games are supposed to be a form of entertainment, not a mind numbing quest to find a key for that door that won't open no matter how many rockets you shoot at it. Neither should a game come to a point where you spend nearly an hour trying to jump accross a ravine like a doubly-jointed hungarian gymnast who has just dislocated her pelvis to get that last gem.
Some things like this can completely ruin games. Other times games are way too easy, are completed in a matter of hours and leave the player thinking all the other ways he could have spent that £40. Most really great games have got the difficulty level, as well as all the other ingredients of a game just right. Think about it, would rally games such as Colin McCrae be as successful if it were like doing it in real life? No, because we are not all capable of performing the riverdance on the pedals while carefully perfecting the right amount of oversteer to powerslide around the corner whilst not hurtling into that sheer rock face.
So how should this difficulty level be dealt with. Should we have games with around six difficulty levels ranging from easy to hardcore, or games with a sliding scale difficulty as seen on many platform games with go from being painfully easy to becoming excruitiatingly hard in latter levels.
A better idea that I have is that a game could adapt to your own personal prowess and skill. I don't know whether this could be done at the moment on the present batch of consoles but I am sure that it is a possibility in the future. Imagine a game such as Metal Gear Solid where the characters attributes adapted to your playing skills and style. For instance, if you wanted to treat the game as a run in, shoot everyone, run away type of game then the game would adapt to suit this.
Or if you were having difficulty making long jumps the game could subtly make your character jump further meaning there is less focus on finger agility and the game would flow more smoothly. Maybe this is just a problem I have or maybe this could be a new era for fat stubby fingered gamers all over the planet. :D
I was playing Devil May Cry a few minutes ago and despite being a good gamer, by my own reckoning, I got hacked off with it swore a lot and left. Surely this is not what games are supposed to do? If an experienced gamer whose has been playing games for over 10 years can get thoroughly hacked off then what about someone new to gaming.
Bill wakes up on Christmas morning in a blind panic to get downstairs, ok its because he really needs the toilet, but after that he tears off the wrapping of his present to see a beautiful blue box and a game attached to the side. After persuading his father to set up his PS2 Bill finally gets to play on the machine he has been waiting for. However not all goes to plan and the entertainment machine is far from entertaining.
It is at this point that Bill notices the easy option on the game. However without doing anything, it seems to mock him, mwahahahaha you are so rubbish that you need an easy mode, you are a complete turkey. By January Bill has sold his beloved Christmas present and has been put off games for life. He later buys a pet monkey and has a joyous life in zimbabwe after being deported for chicken molestering, which we are assured had nothing to do with computer games.
Anyway, gaming difficulty. Most of you would say that games are fairly easy or just mainly at a normal difficulty level. How important is the difficulty of games anyway? I think it is one of the most important things in a game. Games are supposed to be a form of entertainment, not a mind numbing quest to find a key for that door that won't open no matter how many rockets you shoot at it. Neither should a game come to a point where you spend nearly an hour trying to jump accross a ravine like a doubly-jointed hungarian gymnast who has just dislocated her pelvis to get that last gem.
Some things like this can completely ruin games. Other times games are way too easy, are completed in a matter of hours and leave the player thinking all the other ways he could have spent that £40. Most really great games have got the difficulty level, as well as all the other ingredients of a game just right. Think about it, would rally games such as Colin McCrae be as successful if it were like doing it in real life? No, because we are not all capable of performing the riverdance on the pedals while carefully perfecting the right amount of oversteer to powerslide around the corner whilst not hurtling into that sheer rock face.
So how should this difficulty level be dealt with. Should we have games with around six difficulty levels ranging from easy to hardcore, or games with a sliding scale difficulty as seen on many platform games with go from being painfully easy to becoming excruitiatingly hard in latter levels.
A better idea that I have is that a game could adapt to your own personal prowess and skill. I don't know whether this could be done at the moment on the present batch of consoles but I am sure that it is a possibility in the future. Imagine a game such as Metal Gear Solid where the characters attributes adapted to your playing skills and style. For instance, if you wanted to treat the game as a run in, shoot everyone, run away type of game then the game would adapt to suit this.
Or if you were having difficulty making long jumps the game could subtly make your character jump further meaning there is less focus on finger agility and the game would flow more smoothly. Maybe this is just a problem I have or maybe this could be a new era for fat stubby fingered gamers all over the planet. :D
You've got look upon it as a challenge.
Without suffering, success would mean nothing.
Without suffering, success would mean nothing.
I have difficulty eating spaghetti bolognese. If we are honest we all do, that damn sauce gets everywhere and it is impossible to go through a whole bowl without once making that stupid slurping sound. Anyway people have problems with a lot of things, from crossing the road to climbing mountains, mainly because things are so damn hard. So what about games, does it really matter what difficulty a game has.
I was playing Devil May Cry a few minutes ago and despite being a good gamer, by my own reckoning, I got hacked off with it swore a lot and left. Surely this is not what games are supposed to do? If an experienced gamer whose has been playing games for over 10 years can get thoroughly hacked off then what about someone new to gaming.
Bill wakes up on Christmas morning in a blind panic to get downstairs, ok its because he really needs the toilet, but after that he tears off the wrapping of his present to see a beautiful blue box and a game attached to the side. After persuading his father to set up his PS2 Bill finally gets to play on the machine he has been waiting for. However not all goes to plan and the entertainment machine is far from entertaining.
It is at this point that Bill notices the easy option on the game. However without doing anything, it seems to mock him, mwahahahaha you are so rubbish that you need an easy mode, you are a complete turkey. By January Bill has sold his beloved Christmas present and has been put off games for life. He later buys a pet monkey and has a joyous life in zimbabwe after being deported for chicken molestering, which we are assured had nothing to do with computer games.
Anyway, gaming difficulty. Most of you would say that games are fairly easy or just mainly at a normal difficulty level. How important is the difficulty of games anyway? I think it is one of the most important things in a game. Games are supposed to be a form of entertainment, not a mind numbing quest to find a key for that door that won't open no matter how many rockets you shoot at it. Neither should a game come to a point where you spend nearly an hour trying to jump accross a ravine like a doubly-jointed hungarian gymnast who has just dislocated her pelvis to get that last gem.
Some things like this can completely ruin games. Other times games are way too easy, are completed in a matter of hours and leave the player thinking all the other ways he could have spent that £40. Most really great games have got the difficulty level, as well as all the other ingredients of a game just right. Think about it, would rally games such as Colin McCrae be as successful if it were like doing it in real life? No, because we are not all capable of performing the riverdance on the pedals while carefully perfecting the right amount of oversteer to powerslide around the corner whilst not hurtling into that sheer rock face.
So how should this difficulty level be dealt with. Should we have games with around six difficulty levels ranging from easy to hardcore, or games with a sliding scale difficulty as seen on many platform games with go from being painfully easy to becoming excruitiatingly hard in latter levels.
A better idea that I have is that a game could adapt to your own personal prowess and skill. I don't know whether this could be done at the moment on the present batch of consoles but I am sure that it is a possibility in the future. Imagine a game such as Metal Gear Solid where the characters attributes adapted to your playing skills and style. For instance, if you wanted to treat the game as a run in, shoot everyone, run away type of game then the game would adapt to suit this.
Or if you were having difficulty making long jumps the game could subtly make your character jump further meaning there is less focus on finger agility and the game would flow more smoothly. Maybe this is just a problem I have or maybe this could be a new era for fat stubby fingered gamers all over the planet. :D
I was playing Devil May Cry a few minutes ago and despite being a good gamer, by my own reckoning, I got hacked off with it swore a lot and left. Surely this is not what games are supposed to do? If an experienced gamer whose has been playing games for over 10 years can get thoroughly hacked off then what about someone new to gaming.
Bill wakes up on Christmas morning in a blind panic to get downstairs, ok its because he really needs the toilet, but after that he tears off the wrapping of his present to see a beautiful blue box and a game attached to the side. After persuading his father to set up his PS2 Bill finally gets to play on the machine he has been waiting for. However not all goes to plan and the entertainment machine is far from entertaining.
It is at this point that Bill notices the easy option on the game. However without doing anything, it seems to mock him, mwahahahaha you are so rubbish that you need an easy mode, you are a complete turkey. By January Bill has sold his beloved Christmas present and has been put off games for life. He later buys a pet monkey and has a joyous life in zimbabwe after being deported for chicken molestering, which we are assured had nothing to do with computer games.
Anyway, gaming difficulty. Most of you would say that games are fairly easy or just mainly at a normal difficulty level. How important is the difficulty of games anyway? I think it is one of the most important things in a game. Games are supposed to be a form of entertainment, not a mind numbing quest to find a key for that door that won't open no matter how many rockets you shoot at it. Neither should a game come to a point where you spend nearly an hour trying to jump accross a ravine like a doubly-jointed hungarian gymnast who has just dislocated her pelvis to get that last gem.
Some things like this can completely ruin games. Other times games are way too easy, are completed in a matter of hours and leave the player thinking all the other ways he could have spent that £40. Most really great games have got the difficulty level, as well as all the other ingredients of a game just right. Think about it, would rally games such as Colin McCrae be as successful if it were like doing it in real life? No, because we are not all capable of performing the riverdance on the pedals while carefully perfecting the right amount of oversteer to powerslide around the corner whilst not hurtling into that sheer rock face.
So how should this difficulty level be dealt with. Should we have games with around six difficulty levels ranging from easy to hardcore, or games with a sliding scale difficulty as seen on many platform games with go from being painfully easy to becoming excruitiatingly hard in latter levels.
A better idea that I have is that a game could adapt to your own personal prowess and skill. I don't know whether this could be done at the moment on the present batch of consoles but I am sure that it is a possibility in the future. Imagine a game such as Metal Gear Solid where the characters attributes adapted to your playing skills and style. For instance, if you wanted to treat the game as a run in, shoot everyone, run away type of game then the game would adapt to suit this.
Or if you were having difficulty making long jumps the game could subtly make your character jump further meaning there is less focus on finger agility and the game would flow more smoothly. Maybe this is just a problem I have or maybe this could be a new era for fat stubby fingered gamers all over the planet. :D