The fine line between challenging and enraging
So I spent a fair amount of my weekend failing. I failed at Super Paper Mario. I failed at Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Several times, actually. I will GET YOU, TWILIGHT PRINCESS! *cough* ahem… I failed at being a good, attentive healer for my Significant Other’s warrior in WoW.
So here’s my trouble: games these days are impossible. No, I don’t mean they’re hard. The first Mario Brothers game was hard. The original Legend of Zelda was hard. I still beat them. No, I mean that lately, games seem to have been designed to irritate and confound more than challenge. The fact is that in order to get anywhere in these newer games I HAVE to read a strategy guide or a walkthrough, or I will never find the dungeon key or the special power up that I have to have in order to hit an obscure and un-obvious weak spot on the stage boss.
Back in the Old Days of games (Why in my day we had to walk up hill both ways in the SNOW to get our gaming in!) games were hard. Sometimes unbelievably hard. I know that it took my folks working in concert to get through Zork. My brother and I teamed up on several games on that first Nintendo. The difference is that if you thought about what you were doing for a little while, you could figure out how to time your jumps or solve that puzzle. Today I actually made myself (AND my S.O.) sick trying to hit baddies riding warthogs while steering my horse and shooting birds. Oh and putting out a wagon on fire with a boomerang. That’s not a challenge- that’s a dare not to throw your Wiimote through your TV on PURPOSE.
While I am sure that someone thinks that this is a great idea, I would like to remind that person that even with a controller in each hand humans still only have one brain. Games are meant to be fun, not irritating. I’d prefer the good old days of the merely challenging, and I would trade the advanced graphics for the 8 bits of pure fun of the Old Days any time.
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Sonic Spinball, the only game i own and have never completed. Actually broke it out of storage a year or two ago…got to within 7 hits on the last boss…and…died *grits teeth*
Some things are just meant to be left unfinished.
Something to consider tho, did we play/seem to play the older games so much because they we’re awesome or because we didn’t have anything better?
November 19th, 2007 at 4:26 am
hey =D me n ma friends all miss the good old days of 16 bit snes and the like (and were only 16) but i did enjoy shooting off the back of teh horse…. sorry….. but games are stupidly anoying now, mostly games that are adaptions of movies (which more often than not are released before the film, WTF!?) yeah so heres to mario- zelda- and good old ice climbers, CHEERS
~Dee~
November 19th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Well, here’s my opinion on this one.
Yes and no.
Yes, games have changed in their difficulty. Yes, I would agree with the way that they’ve changed. No, I would not agree that they’re necessarily infuriating at this point.
Lets face a fact. Back then, things were significantly simpler. You could look at a boss and tell his weak point by the big flashing panel on him. Just shoot there, and you’re set. Now though, we’re encouraged to think. We look at a huge rock elemental creature and think “hrm, well, the scan visor said that it’s core in vulnerable to energy attacks, while it’s shell is susceptible to concussive blasts. So, missiles, then energy beams quickly before the shell regrows.”
Standard metriod boss 101. It worked then, it works now. It’s just shinier now and harder to do. This comes to my second concern. Games back then couldn’t afford to be that complicated. There were two buttons to work with. We didn’t have triggers, or motion sensitive controllers.
Hell, for the most part, people hadn’t been accustomed to doing multiple things at once beyond “move” and “shoot” with Gradius.
There are lots of games that still give such an old school challenge though. Metroid Prime 3 seems to be a good example of this. Likewise most Mario games. Likewise alot of Zelda games. One of my friends recently completed Twilight Princess having only looking at a guide once (what is up with that fishing?). He fought the bosses on his wit alone – beating them by stalling for time until he found the weakness.
It was a hell of a time, I assure you.
Myself? Well, I’ll be headed back to WoWing. Need to go and farm the 5000 gold for a new mount.
-groans-
November 19th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Pick up any prince of persia game. try not crying after lvl 1. Still my faorite game of all time. But it still does not change the fact that half the challenges you die on at least twice the first time. Perserverence has become a new dimension to gameplay. The same puzzle over and over does not sell new games. The same puzzle with a finger breaking twist does.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Hear hear! I miss the old days of the simple, yet exciting and challenging games. The days when it was about the story, the gameplay. Now it’s more about who can make the prettier sparkles or straightest lines.
I gotta give kudos to the devs of Team Fortress 2, however. They went with simple graphics (I swear I keep expecting to see Tweety and Sylvester pop out somewhere) and focused on gameplay. And it’s FUN!
But yes, I agree, I miss the old days a lot lately.
~Squib the Kit
November 20th, 2007 at 9:41 am
… Games have actually gotten *significantly* easier over the years. Massively, hugely easier. Fighting moblins on warthogs while putting out fires on a wagon while steering your horse? Cake.
A roomful of those bastard Armos knights in the original Zelda, so jam-packed even *they* can barely move? urrgh…
The ridiculous amount of hand-holding certainly helps to make things easier. Back in the day, if you had something like the Metroid boss someone mentioned above, you were stuck with Trial and Error to figure out blasting the shell with missiles, then zapping his core with lasers. Now you have a scan visor. Or in a different game, you’d have something else. A fairy. A creepy child-looking thing that’s totally hot for you hiding in your shadow. Something.
Rare exceptions, like Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry, buck this trend by just expecting you to figure things out (hint: Hit it. anywhere will do. Don’t let it hit you), and throwing things at you ruthlessly … just like the good old days.
Except for the ninjas that spawned on top of one of the save points in Ninja Gaiden. Every time you loaded it up there. That was more than a little cheap.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
If that wagon thing is cake than I’d hate to see what you call tough. It’s been nearly a week now and I still can’t get past it. Even my boyfriend can’t get through it, and he’s got much better aim. I’m about to call it undoable.
There is a real difference between putting something in the game that is challenging- even really hard- and something that is there merely to irritate and delay. Or show off. I really hate the puzzles that are only about showing off the graphics and how clever the game developers are.
Azhrei: Never played Ninja Gaiden, but that save point thing sounds obnoxious.
Sadrach: Most of the Twilight Princess has been reletively simple to figure out myself. I have only had to double check that I got everything once or twice, but several times I have cursed the game for putting too much in at once simply for the sake of showing off the Wii. I suspect that having a new addition to the Zelda franchise was only a small part of the point of this game.
The games of today are made far more often to show off hardware, processor speed, graphics, or the designers clever tricks than to make a good solid game. The games of yesteryear, limited as they were, HAD to be more challenging-yet-doable than games today, which can be any sort of interactive cartoon that a designer can think of. Even if it means the players fail.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
The wagon thing from Twilight Princess IS indeed cake… if you’re playing the gamecube version. :3
I have to agree though, games are way too expansive these days for the working class and the overall busy people. If you can’t save your progress at your lesiure, then you’d best clear your schedule.
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Hey! to all people who can’t get by that wagon part guess what I did it and it’s not that hard I found it really easy. And I’m 14 HAH! my brother also finished the game but if you found the wagon hard, try the final boss. ugh… But I’m only at the zoras so I can’t complain. But I love the new games but I find it annoying how everything is practaclly the same thing just new characters and story lines. Oh have you tried the golfing game for wii now thats fun I even had my brother playing it and he hates golf. I can’t really complain about the change in tecnollagy because I love the change.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
the same thing with different story lines and characters? that means its completely different you do realise? =D
anyhoo, theres no need to be so braggy about it….. i also did it and i didnt find it to much of a trouble but i can understand why these people do, as for next consoles, i really am disapointed in them, they arent captivating, the game i play most right now is probably gates of thunder on the wii’s vertual console… great fun! and cod4 on pc,…xbox 360 is ok…..no great (wii beats its ass) and the ps3 doesnt even enter the equation……i hate sony no offence to those sony fans bound to be around…well actually, great offence.. sorry