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"Are Games Getting Harder?!"

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Fri 21/12/01 at 00:28
Regular
Posts: 787
Back in the days of old, when the old SR MD still had a decent head of hair, The Mega-Drive and SNES brought to us some of the finest games seen or played to-date. But as well as bringing us the next-generation of Sonic and Mario titles and a plethora of superb other games the 16-Bit era was the last era to have predominantly 2D games!

Yes... gone were the days of multiple scrolling backgrounds and characters limited to 3 animations each We were subsequentially introduced to full 3D gaming! Which, besides being harder to code... was a real git to get the hang of!

For years i'd been used to going right... you know... at the start of almost every Mario level, you'd go right... same for Sonic... even Aladdin and Jurassic Park games bore this attribute! I was quite happy with it... I mean, as long as Nintendo kept churning out Mario games, I was laughing! Sonic was just as good, and there were quite a few third party titles that brought some serious competition to the fray!

But then came this mainstram console... a Sega Saturn thingy... which, although turned out to be a flop, also turned heads when it was first released... I thought Sonic Racing was good... was I the only one? Oh... well, anyway... I suppose the PlayStation bought 3D gaming to the masses... Wipeout and Tekken were great, for what they were, but still... it was no longer a case of holding left (or right, up or down) and holding down the 'A' button... to complete the level... you had to do all this weird stuff, like change gear in cars, and move in 3 on 3 axis in fighing games, not just 2!

Now, take everything i've just said... all that basic stuff, and apply it to the indusrty as a whole... gaming is getting harder... it isn't just about being able to go in 360 degrees instead of 8, it's everything... the fact that you can move in any direction you want is truly amazing... and clearing a goal , winning a match, or completing a level has never bee harder!

I suppose harder games were only to be expected with the transformation from 2D to 3D, but regardless, you now have to turn around, to see what's where, and 3D scenes limit the camera to which part of a puzzle you can see.

These are all a few examples of many things that have made gaming harder. We can still determine the difficulty of games, by comparing and contrasting, but being a child who wants to get into gaming now, is much more trying than it was in the good old days... there are loads more factors in making a game, and despite the fancy graphics and cool sound, it's the gameplay that counts, and if games are that much harder to pick up and play now compared to then, we might see the gaming industry slow down just a bit...

It isn't likely to, but still... the lack of 2D all genre games could very well mean we see the average age of gamers increase quite a bit!

Just a thought....


Game
Fri 21/12/01 at 20:35
Regular
Posts: 23,216
Ask him if he reads books without pictures now he's grown up and all.
Fri 21/12/01 at 22:40
Regular
Posts: 9,848
lol
Fri 21/12/01 at 23:04
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
It's half and half. Games now are hard or easy, depending on what game you get. The balance has to be right for the audience though. One drop too hard and people will give up, too easy and they will complete the game and start complaining. It's always been the same though, read any old 8-bit reviews magazine and there will be people complaining that a game was too hard or easy to complete.

You can't please all of the people all of the time...too true!

Oh, and I loved Sonic R as well.
Fri 21/12/01 at 23:13
Regular
Posts: 23,216
Yup, the easiest way to make money is to make something specifically for a certain market.

Look at Microsoft. They aim their products at the stupid, and look how much money they've got!

(Says the man who uses Windows.)

I'm being humourous, leave me alone.

(Talk to me, leave me alone... make up your mind.)
Fri 21/12/01 at 23:29
Regular
Posts: 9,848
There's an easy solution you know.

Difficulty settings.

Easy (for beginners and newbies. Starts the learning curve)
Medium (for the average gamer. Continues the learning curve)
Hard (the the hardcore crew. Learning curve finally hits the roof.)

I only just managed to finish Perfect Dark on Perfect Agent, but I'm still hoping for an even bigger (only very slightly bigger, but bigger none the less) challenge on the Gamecube.
Fri 21/12/01 at 23:37
Regular
"Peace Respect Punk"
Posts: 8,069
I think games should have diffivculty settings where appropriate. eg. it isn't appropriate in most RPGs, as you cannot change these sufficiently except make enemies do more damage, or have a few extra enemies in an area. Same goes for some FPS. Half-Life really didn't need difficulty settings, as they didn't do much for the game. Games like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark which really use the difficulty settings by adding new objectives, opening up new areas of a level, and even starting you in different places really work.
Sat 22/12/01 at 12:49
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
Too many "3D" games still use 2D gameplay anyway!

I think the one game that really put 3D gameplay accross was Mario 64... pure genius.

Oh, and the Saturn had some great titles- "NiGHTS! In to Dreams" has got to be my all time fave game ever. It was released with its own pad that had an analogue stick (and actually became the Standard saturn pad just as the dual shock is the standard PS pad), over a year before the N64 was released with its "revolutionary" pad.

Sonic
Sat 22/12/01 at 13:28
Regular
Posts: 9,848
===SONICRAV---> wrote:
> Too many "3D" games still use 2D gameplay anyway!

People still refer to Tekken as a 3D fighter...

I bet that it sold much more than Capcoms cartoony "Streetfighter/Marvel" series, just because it's 3D graphics LOOKED more advanced than the sprites in Capcoms games.
Sat 22/12/01 at 13:54
Regular
"Excommunicated"
Posts: 23,284
Well as the games improve in grpahics, gameplay etc they are going to become harder.

They just will :)

Or have or something

Not worth replying to, its only Game's topic ;)
Sat 22/12/01 at 19:00
Regular
"Sally On Weekdays!"
Posts: 378
I agree with SHEEPY, games will get more difficult, as more and more new things are invented - it's just an obvious fact - well, to me anyway!

I was playing on my SNES today and I remember playing them 5 or 6 years ago and finding them fiendishly difficult, but now they were a walkover! As said on a different topic in Chat, if you shell out £40+ for a game, you don't expect to complete it in a matter of hours - you expect at least a week from it, and even that's quite pathetic for a game of alledgedly this calibur. People buy immersive games - not boring ones!

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