The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
After reading many complaints about games being too hard and how computers cheat, I decided to investigate.
There are many problems with games either being too hard for people to complete or the computer cheating, these both annoy me and many other people. But the question is:
Does it make the game better?
Whenever you play a game, you expect it to be fun, be playable for ages, and be just the right difficulty. A lot of these games offer all three of these aspects to you and therefore there are very good games. Perfect Dark for example was a great game, once you had done the first set of levels, which was very easy. You could go back and start the next difficulty of levels. This would involve more skill than before and it wouldn't be boring as all the levels are bigger, have more tasks to do and the enemies are more skilled as well.
That was an example of a game that uses difficulty levels to it's best and is fun for all gamers to play, even if they are amazingly good or totally rubbish. There are also though games that use difficulty against them. South Park was lined up to be one of the best games of the year before it came out but soon reviews started saying that it was too big and too hard and the novelty of the game was lost quickly. When I finally got hold of a copy of this game, the first level was very easy and quite fun. But after that, the levels just got bigger and bigger and harder and harder. The game just lost all of its fun by the end of the second level. The third level just took the micky, it was impossible to get anywhere because the game was so hard. The fun had just been ripped out of the game by boringly hard levels. By the time you reached the final boss, it was literally impossible to get a hit to the boss, let alone kill him. Even with the cheats on, I found this boss stupidly hard and it took me nearly 30 minutes with cheats on to kill this boss!
The game was just too hard and there was no fun. Unlike Perfect Dark when a level was hard, you could try over and over again to win and it would always be a challenge. South Park was just boring!
I've also noticed these days that games are starting to cheat more and more, but what's everybody moaning about? We cheat at games all the time, can't they cheat back a little some time? MarioKart 64 was a classic example of cheating computers, you would be on the final stretch of the road and on course to win the championship, but suddenly Bowser would shoot past you, win and take the title. This cheating really used to annoy me and I always used to wonder why they programmed the game to cheat in the first place. The thing is, if the computer didn't cheat to keep up with me, there wouldn't be a challenge. The game would just be boring and too easy. I'd bet that everybody agrees with me that although it was hard to win some of the 150cc cups, you eventually did it by beating the computer even when it cheats at it's worst. A difficult game is usually more fun than an easy game, but only when it is the right difficulty. Too hard and it just loses your interest, too easy and you will only play it once. By making computers cheat to always match your level of skill, you always have a good match against you.
So next time you play a game and moan about the computer cheating, just think, 'It could actually be making the games better,' but in South Park's case, it just makes the game worse!
There are many problems with games either being too hard for people to complete or the computer cheating, these both annoy me and many other people. But the question is:
Does it make the game better?
Whenever you play a game, you expect it to be fun, be playable for ages, and be just the right difficulty. A lot of these games offer all three of these aspects to you and therefore there are very good games. Perfect Dark for example was a great game, once you had done the first set of levels, which was very easy. You could go back and start the next difficulty of levels. This would involve more skill than before and it wouldn't be boring as all the levels are bigger, have more tasks to do and the enemies are more skilled as well.
That was an example of a game that uses difficulty levels to it's best and is fun for all gamers to play, even if they are amazingly good or totally rubbish. There are also though games that use difficulty against them. South Park was lined up to be one of the best games of the year before it came out but soon reviews started saying that it was too big and too hard and the novelty of the game was lost quickly. When I finally got hold of a copy of this game, the first level was very easy and quite fun. But after that, the levels just got bigger and bigger and harder and harder. The game just lost all of its fun by the end of the second level. The third level just took the micky, it was impossible to get anywhere because the game was so hard. The fun had just been ripped out of the game by boringly hard levels. By the time you reached the final boss, it was literally impossible to get a hit to the boss, let alone kill him. Even with the cheats on, I found this boss stupidly hard and it took me nearly 30 minutes with cheats on to kill this boss!
The game was just too hard and there was no fun. Unlike Perfect Dark when a level was hard, you could try over and over again to win and it would always be a challenge. South Park was just boring!
I've also noticed these days that games are starting to cheat more and more, but what's everybody moaning about? We cheat at games all the time, can't they cheat back a little some time? MarioKart 64 was a classic example of cheating computers, you would be on the final stretch of the road and on course to win the championship, but suddenly Bowser would shoot past you, win and take the title. This cheating really used to annoy me and I always used to wonder why they programmed the game to cheat in the first place. The thing is, if the computer didn't cheat to keep up with me, there wouldn't be a challenge. The game would just be boring and too easy. I'd bet that everybody agrees with me that although it was hard to win some of the 150cc cups, you eventually did it by beating the computer even when it cheats at it's worst. A difficult game is usually more fun than an easy game, but only when it is the right difficulty. Too hard and it just loses your interest, too easy and you will only play it once. By making computers cheat to always match your level of skill, you always have a good match against you.
So next time you play a game and moan about the computer cheating, just think, 'It could actually be making the games better,' but in South Park's case, it just makes the game worse!
South park was also boring because there was only one type of enemy on each level (and one tank)
T....T.....T.....Turkeys!!
The next time I see a turkey I'm gonna scream and kick it as hard as I can!
The next time I see a turkey I'm gonna scream and kick it as hard as I can!
South park was a stupidly hard game. The levels were just too disorganised and there were too many damn turkeys!
After reading many complaints about games being too hard and how computers cheat, I decided to investigate.
There are many problems with games either being too hard for people to complete or the computer cheating, these both annoy me and many other people. But the question is:
Does it make the game better?
Whenever you play a game, you expect it to be fun, be playable for ages, and be just the right difficulty. A lot of these games offer all three of these aspects to you and therefore there are very good games. Perfect Dark for example was a great game, once you had done the first set of levels, which was very easy. You could go back and start the next difficulty of levels. This would involve more skill than before and it wouldn't be boring as all the levels are bigger, have more tasks to do and the enemies are more skilled as well.
That was an example of a game that uses difficulty levels to it's best and is fun for all gamers to play, even if they are amazingly good or totally rubbish. There are also though games that use difficulty against them. South Park was lined up to be one of the best games of the year before it came out but soon reviews started saying that it was too big and too hard and the novelty of the game was lost quickly. When I finally got hold of a copy of this game, the first level was very easy and quite fun. But after that, the levels just got bigger and bigger and harder and harder. The game just lost all of its fun by the end of the second level. The third level just took the micky, it was impossible to get anywhere because the game was so hard. The fun had just been ripped out of the game by boringly hard levels. By the time you reached the final boss, it was literally impossible to get a hit to the boss, let alone kill him. Even with the cheats on, I found this boss stupidly hard and it took me nearly 30 minutes with cheats on to kill this boss!
The game was just too hard and there was no fun. Unlike Perfect Dark when a level was hard, you could try over and over again to win and it would always be a challenge. South Park was just boring!
I've also noticed these days that games are starting to cheat more and more, but what's everybody moaning about? We cheat at games all the time, can't they cheat back a little some time? MarioKart 64 was a classic example of cheating computers, you would be on the final stretch of the road and on course to win the championship, but suddenly Bowser would shoot past you, win and take the title. This cheating really used to annoy me and I always used to wonder why they programmed the game to cheat in the first place. The thing is, if the computer didn't cheat to keep up with me, there wouldn't be a challenge. The game would just be boring and too easy. I'd bet that everybody agrees with me that although it was hard to win some of the 150cc cups, you eventually did it by beating the computer even when it cheats at it's worst. A difficult game is usually more fun than an easy game, but only when it is the right difficulty. Too hard and it just loses your interest, too easy and you will only play it once. By making computers cheat to always match your level of skill, you always have a good match against you.
So next time you play a game and moan about the computer cheating, just think, 'It could actually be making the games better,' but in South Park's case, it just makes the game worse!
There are many problems with games either being too hard for people to complete or the computer cheating, these both annoy me and many other people. But the question is:
Does it make the game better?
Whenever you play a game, you expect it to be fun, be playable for ages, and be just the right difficulty. A lot of these games offer all three of these aspects to you and therefore there are very good games. Perfect Dark for example was a great game, once you had done the first set of levels, which was very easy. You could go back and start the next difficulty of levels. This would involve more skill than before and it wouldn't be boring as all the levels are bigger, have more tasks to do and the enemies are more skilled as well.
That was an example of a game that uses difficulty levels to it's best and is fun for all gamers to play, even if they are amazingly good or totally rubbish. There are also though games that use difficulty against them. South Park was lined up to be one of the best games of the year before it came out but soon reviews started saying that it was too big and too hard and the novelty of the game was lost quickly. When I finally got hold of a copy of this game, the first level was very easy and quite fun. But after that, the levels just got bigger and bigger and harder and harder. The game just lost all of its fun by the end of the second level. The third level just took the micky, it was impossible to get anywhere because the game was so hard. The fun had just been ripped out of the game by boringly hard levels. By the time you reached the final boss, it was literally impossible to get a hit to the boss, let alone kill him. Even with the cheats on, I found this boss stupidly hard and it took me nearly 30 minutes with cheats on to kill this boss!
The game was just too hard and there was no fun. Unlike Perfect Dark when a level was hard, you could try over and over again to win and it would always be a challenge. South Park was just boring!
I've also noticed these days that games are starting to cheat more and more, but what's everybody moaning about? We cheat at games all the time, can't they cheat back a little some time? MarioKart 64 was a classic example of cheating computers, you would be on the final stretch of the road and on course to win the championship, but suddenly Bowser would shoot past you, win and take the title. This cheating really used to annoy me and I always used to wonder why they programmed the game to cheat in the first place. The thing is, if the computer didn't cheat to keep up with me, there wouldn't be a challenge. The game would just be boring and too easy. I'd bet that everybody agrees with me that although it was hard to win some of the 150cc cups, you eventually did it by beating the computer even when it cheats at it's worst. A difficult game is usually more fun than an easy game, but only when it is the right difficulty. Too hard and it just loses your interest, too easy and you will only play it once. By making computers cheat to always match your level of skill, you always have a good match against you.
So next time you play a game and moan about the computer cheating, just think, 'It could actually be making the games better,' but in South Park's case, it just makes the game worse!