Are current video games too easy?

[glynnahab]

I've been playing the Wii for a while, along with several Gamecube games which I missed out on, and I am amazed at the general lack of difficulty in most of the games I've been playing.
I understand the need for simplicity at times in order to keep up with a good storyline and such, but it almost feels like the game developers are holding your hand throughout the way. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for another ass-raping like the first Ninja Gaiden gave me back in the day. (I still have the scars to prove it.) It's just disappointing to drop 50 dollars on something that can be completed in the course of a couple days.
Does anyone else feel this way? It seems like this would be a pretty common topic, so excuse me if this kind of thread has already been posted.

[Mozgus]

This is asked everywhere. Most games these days are indeed too easy, but what can you do about it? Usually if you want any real fast-paced action that will challenge your reflexes, you have to play an online FPS or a shmup.

[Niode]

Thats progression of medium into mainstream. Challenge has to be diluted otherwise people just aren't interested in playing.

It's how the developers decide to use that to their advantage which is the decided factor. I think Bethesda were on the right track with Oblivion regarding the scalable difficulty level. I think they should have automatically increased the difficulty depending on the skill of the player. However that is not always a foolproof plan as glitches can occur and ramp the difficulty up unfairly.

Same can be seen in all mainstream media, films, music etc. They're all diluted for the masses to be a success generally if the consumer has to work to enjoy something it's generally not worth the effort.

I also think the cinematic elements of games is also lending to this problem. The more games have extended dialog utimately the shorter they will be due to the limited storage capacity of DVD9 media. I know this doesn't apply to PS3 but even Hideo Kojima has expressed worries about the 'limited' capacity of BD-ROMs. This leads to games being shorter (therefore 'easier' to complete). I mean some games that take 15~ hours to complete are considered lengthy these days! I remember plowing months of play into Link To The Past when it was first released same goes for Ocarina of Time which would last easily well over 120~ hours until you've done absolutely everything.

Also due to the cinematic nature of modern games they have a tendency to shephard the gamer through the game, therefore making the game seem shorter than it is. Exploration at least gives the gamer the ability to 'waste' time experiencing the game world.

I also want to note that i'm not a fan of artificially lengthening games through unfair game mechanics such as the horrid save system in Dead Rising for example or extended backtracking a la metroid prime 2. It's cheap and a pain in the arse.

[Mucx]

This was a complaint during the GC heyday, especially titles coming from Nintendo themselves (e.g. Luidi's Mansion). I do think that theres a lot more quick pick up and play type games now-a-days but I actually like that. The demographic of gamers has changed in the last 10 years. When I was 16 (10 years ago) I could invest a good amount of time in a single game but that isn't the case anymore. I think a lot of developers recognise that themselves now. A lot of people dont really have the time anymore to invest week after week on a game anymore and I think many games purposely target that demographic or niche. Games aren't made 'for kids' like they were in the past...those days are over and games have a wider audience and demographic.

There is still a place for the Zelda's and WoW and other very time consuming in depth games but there is also equal place for quick simple games now. I think the gamecube had a good amount of the latter though.

[Niode]

That is proven with the success of xbla and psn games. I love games that are pick and playable as well. I guess it's the balance between easy to play and difficult to master that appeals to me anyway. I loved crazy taxi and that takes me about 45 mins to get a Crazy licence but thats not the point. It's the skill mechanic that keeps me playing that game.

I guess i'd take playability over longevity any day. When games get both thats when you're on to a winner!

[gradualmeltdown]

I'm fine with some games becoming easier. Games like Gears of War or Bioshock are examples of games that I really enjoyed but were not too difficult. For me this makes a game that takes more than say 15 hours to complete possible to play. Music and work only allow so much time for games, and I'd rather not repeat a single area of any level for an hour if thats all the time I have for games. I want to mash through that game, have fun and check out another.

It really is an effort to retain the interest of people who don't have time for that type of challenge. That said I love pick up and play games that are hard as hell. Racing, puzzle,fighters, shmups are awesome, because the challenge doesn't generally stagnate the game as often. If I suck at a racing game, the next race can be another course and a completely different challenge. Those genre's are still out there for people who need there ass kicked by a game. I like spending a little more time on kicking life in the ass now though. Just a little.

[Intangir]

I'm mostly reiterating what's already been stated by now, but difficulty in older games via limited lives and game over screens (etc) were just ways to artificially extend the length of the game. Or to get more quarters out of you. As I get older (or perhaps just more accustomed to this evolution), I find it's not something I really miss all too much.

For instance, I played Diablo 2 for the first time not too long ago. For some reason I had played just about all the major Diablo clones (Sacred, Dungeon Siege, Titan Quest, Divine Divinity) but never Diablo itself. But I basically just ditched the game once I died in the last dungeon of the first act because in that game when you die the penalty is pretty severe (at least in regards to other, newer clones): you lose all your possessions and gold and the only way to reclaim them is to travel all the way back to your body and pick them up again. Which doesn't seem too bad on paper, but when you die in the tail end of the dungeon you have to pick up some decent enough armor and weapons just to survive the depths of the dungeon to even get to your body. I did finally manage to reclaim my stuff and get past the first act, but when I (glitched) died again in another dungeon shortly after in act 2, I decided I was done with Diablo 2. I just don't have that type of patience anymore.

Same way with RPGs (mostly JRPGs). If I were to get to a boss fight and get blown out of the water a few times before realizing the only way I'm liable to get past it is if I mindlessly grind away 5 or so more levels on random encounters and try again--no thanks. Similarly I remember Jeff Green bitching about the first major boss in The Witcher being too hard (and compared to the rest of the bosses, it was) and it caused him to stop playing the game altogether. I don't think that's so much as a reason for him not being skilled enough to keep trying and eventually beat it in the same way that I wasn't good enough at Diablo 2 to go reclaim my body; I think we just don't want to get bogged down in shit like that anymore would rather have an hour's worth of progress be through the content of the game itself and not in replaying a boss over and over again.

Not that I'm completely opposed to difficult games like the old days. I just think they're being more niche than anything else and I understand the reasoning. You can still get your difficulty fix, though, if you look around for it.

[cloudrat7]

I don't think current games are easy at all, it seems that way being that you can just use a save state on fps or action games or just about any new game for that matter, and come back whenever you want and just polish up a few more levels till your done. Back in the day, When video game systems and cartridges had no saves or passwords (except for later rpgs) you had to memorize everything and finish it thru one sitting, it took alot of brain power and possible exhaustion..lol. It's a mental thing, trust me, when i used to finish a game for let's say (nes) i used to yell out loud and give the dying boss the finger. It's more rewarding when your sitting there for 4 hours straight sweating and you have 1 continue left. New games are indeed hard, you cannot finish any new game thru one sitting, the majority require about 15 to 20 hours of gameplay. And i don't think that i have that much time to commit to a game when i can just save and come back later. I don't think anyone can sit thru 15, 20 hours, i've sat thru about 10 hours personally, but that was when i didn't have much going on.

[Ivo]

But I basically just ditched the game once I died in the last dungeon of the first act because in that game when you die the penalty is pretty severe (at least in regards to other, newer clones): you lose all your possessions and gold and the only way to reclaim them is to travel all the way back to your body and pick them up again. Which doesn't seem too bad on paper, but when you die in the tail end of the dungeon you have to pick up some decent enough armor and weapons just to survive the depths of the dungeon to even get to your body. I did finally manage to reclaim my stuff and get past the first act, but when I (glitched) died again in another dungeon shortly after in act 2, I decided I was done with Diablo 2. I just don't have that type of patience anymore.

Give D2 another try, then, because I vaguely remember that at least in multiplayer you can just exit the game and re-join and your "corpse" will be in town with all your stuff (maybe not the gold, but the chest gets increased in capacity as you progress for gold). In single player I think you can "save & exit" and the same happens when you restart... If not, then in single player you can save at anytime as well, can't you (I may be confusing with D1 though, where I'm sure you can save at any time in single player)?

I'm pretty sure you can get around that "problem" you have with D2; however, in higher difficulty levels, death gives you a real penalty, by docking a % of your current experience towards the next char level. In normal difficulty (the lowest) you get to lev 30 or 40, all classes and most skills are very well balanced, and have no penalty on exp when you die. When you get to NM and Hell difficulty, the balance isn't so well tested some skills are useless and so on (at least it wasn't when I played it, Blizzard patched it and I haven't played since they put "synergies" in).

Ivo.

[aaron]

I don't think current games are easy at all, it seems that way being that you can just use a save state on fps or action games or just about any new game for that matter, and come back whenever you want and just polish up a few more levels till your done. Back in the day, When video game systems and cartridges had no saves or passwords (except for later rpgs) you had to memorize everything and finish it thru one sitting, it took alot of brain power and possible exhaustion..lol. It's a mental thing, trust me, when i used to finish a game for let's say (nes) i used to yell out loud and give the dying boss the finger. It's more rewarding when your sitting there for 4 hours straight sweating and you have 1 continue left. New games are indeed hard, you cannot finish any new game thru one sitting, the majority require about 15 to 20 hours of gameplay. And i don't think that i have that much time to commit to a game when i can just save and come back later. I don't think anyone can sit thru 15, 20 hours, i've sat thru about 10 hours personally, but that was when i didn't have much going on.

TOTALLY TRUE! i would do the same thing. i broke many genesis controllers on this notion. eventually i learned to play guitar because i'd get so frustrated after a while it'd be like "fuck this, i'm going and doing something else."