Maybe a lot of them are relatively easy, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Many of us have lives and work to deal with, so we have less spare time. I don't know about you guys, but in this case, I like my games short. Some games take up so much time that it's almost impossible to continue, and thus ever finish the game (if you have a job). Take for example Company Of Heroes... that second Hill mission, where you have to defend the Hill and counter attack the Germans. That mission is ridiculously difficult especially because you're heavily outnumbered ~ 20 to 1, but it's also just not fun to play for points in that one mission. This results in my losing interest because I haven't advanced into that game for weeks, and every time I do try, I fail. And there's not even a "skip level" cheat (if there is, let me know).

Don't get me wrong, I prefer challenge in my games. But if anything prevents me from advancing into the game, be it bad gameplay design or bugs or whatever, I just want to uninstall that shit.

Don't start the "some of us have lives" crap. I have a more-then-full-time job. A life outside of work, and lots of other things that take up time. There is no reason to make games simple just so people who feel they don't have a lot of time to play them can beat them fast. If your schedule limits your playtime, it is up to you to manage your gaming in a way that fits your life. Sorry, but that line of defense always irritates the hell out of me.

/rant off

If you are having a hard time with a game, or are not having fun with it: move on to something else. I have dropped plenty of games mid way through because something else has come along that I would rather play. I was maybe 1/3 of the way through Overlord when a few other things came out and I just never went back to it. That doesn't mean it was too hard, or too long. It just means I wanted to play something else.

I think the main theme of this thread is the idea that games as a whole have gotten simplified, and there are people out there looking for more serious challenges. There are plenty of easier games. I am not referring to the 'causal' market either. I am going to assume anyone who is in this forum is more then just a causal player. There is no shame in playing a game on the easier settings. Most of the time when I talk to a friend who is stuck on some level because it is too hard, they are missing something that will get them by it. "I can't kill the snake boss at the end of the water level. He is just too damn strong." "You are using the crystal sword right? You know it takes him down in like 3 hits." "Oh.. no, I never picked it up." Also, I find that when I am having a really hard time with a give level/boss/puzzle if I walk away for a while, like a day to a week, it is a lot easier when I come back. I spent 3 hours fighting Ares at the end of God of War and couldn't get past the fight for my family. I went to bed frustrated, but the next day when I played I beat it all on the first try.

xbeaker:
Don't start the "some of us have lives" crap. I have a more-then-full-time job. A life outside of work, and lots of other things that take up time. There is no reason to make games simple just so people who feel they don't have a lot of time to play them can beat them fast. If your schedule limits your playtime, it is up to you to manage your gaming in a way that fits your life. Sorry, but that line of defense always irritates the hell out of me.

/rant off

If you are having a hard time with a game, or are not having fun with it: move on to something else. I have dropped plenty of games mid way through because something else has come along that I would rather play. I was maybe 1/3 of the way through Overlord when a few other things came out and I just never went back to it. That doesn't mean it was too hard, or too long. It just means I wanted to play something else.

I think the main theme of this thread is the idea that games as a whole have gotten simplified, and there are people out there looking for more serious challenges. There are plenty of easier games. I am not referring to the 'causal' market either. I am going to assume anyone who is in this forum is more then just a causal player. There is no shame in playing a game on the easier settings. Most of the time when I talk to a friend who is stuck on some level because it is too hard, they are missing something that will get them by it. "I can't kill the snake boss at the end of the water level. He is just too damn strong." "You are using the crystal sword right? You know it takes him down in like 3 hits." "Oh.. no, I never picked it up." Also, I find that when I am having a really hard time with a give level/boss/puzzle if I walk away for a while, like a day to a week, it is a lot easier when I come back. I spent 3 hours fighting Ares at the end of God of War and couldn't get past the fight for my family. I went to bed frustrated, but the next day when I played I beat it all on the first try.

What's your problem dude? You're saying that you're really busy all the time, but apparantly you still find time to really sit down for a game. Because some games simply are like that; you really have to sit down and spend time with them. Company Of Heroes is one of those games. You can't just play a quick game of CoH, not the singleplayer campaign at least. Right now I'm playing through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and even though that game is LONG and has tons of replay value, you can still complete a few missions in just an hour. You get that feeling of accomplishment and you didn't even have to sit down for hours planning out your strats or something.

Please don't look down on people who prefer those kinds of games. I could buy Silent Hunter IV now, undoubtedly a great game, but I'd need to put in a lot of time to get that feeling of accomplishment. I like challenge, but challenge can be found in games that require less time as well.

I'm not looking down on you. As I said in my above post. I really hate when people pull out the "Well I have a life" line. It come across as very holier then thou. Which is to say, you looking down on the rest of us, because anyone who likes difficult games must be some loser with no life who sits in his mom's basement and plays teh hardcorz gamez all day. Whether you intended that way of not, that is how it reads.

I have no problem with easier games, or the people who play them. I don't exclusively play difficult, long term commitment games. In fact most of my posts in this thread have been about ways to add challenge to games if people are finding them too easy, and defending the modern games. I just wish they would change up how they are made more difficult some times. And I have no problem with you, in fact I find most of your posts to be very intelligent.

Just out of curiosity which version of Castlevania are you playing xbeaker? I've only just recently tried it really through Xbox Live.

I was talking about the first one. I loved that game, but I don't think I ever made it past Death. A good friend of mine has the Japanese version of Dracula X for the TurboDuo. If you really want a punishingly difficult game, see if you can get you hands on that. I think the best of the series was Symphony of the Night, which I believe is the one they have on XBL.

Force Feedback Codpiece:
Maybe a lot of them are relatively easy, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Many of us have lives and work to deal with, so we have less spare time. I don't know about you guys, but in this case, I like my games short. Some games take up so much time that it's almost impossible to continue, and thus ever finish the game (if you have a job). Take for example Company Of Heroes... that second Hill mission, where you have to defend the Hill and counter attack the Germans. That mission is ridiculously difficult especially because you're heavily outnumbered ~ 20 to 1, but it's also just not fun to play for points in that one mission. This results in my losing interest because I haven't advanced into that game for weeks, and every time I do try, I fail. And there's not even a "skip level" cheat (if there is, let me know).

Don't get me wrong, I prefer challenge in my games. But if anything prevents me from advancing into the game, be it bad gameplay design or bugs or whatever, I just want to uninstall that shit.

Not to jump on the band wagon here, but you do kind of put across that because you have a life you are too 'Cool' or busy to spend time on games.

Not all gamers who consider themselves to be serious about playing games are lonely, elitist losers who have no other commitments in life and therefore call everyone 'Noobs', (Like a guy I encountered in Zombie Master a mod for HL2)I for one have a fairly active social life, a steady girlfriend, a house to keep up to, a dog, a guinea pig and not to mention my job and my housemate who leaves dirty dishes everywhere!

I still find time to play plenty of games, because it's my main hobby really. I choose to put my spare time into it because it's something I enjoy. You can't comnplain when you find a game too time consuming if you choose to play it in the first place. Plus most games nowadays have save features where you can save wherever you want, I know CoH does.

By the way if you didn't mean it in any derogatory way then fine, sorry for the rant. But do you honestly prefer shorter games? Don't you feel like your wasting your money?

I think FFC's point was that an easier game allows to move through the game faster, which is good when you don't have much time to spend on them.

Harder games are just more demanding, and if you play only one hour, you won't advance as much as you will with an easier game.

I don't think one needs to look farther than that.

Besides, most games can be set to different difficulty levels, based on a middle difficulty level that is more or less universally found nowadays.

An exception would be Ghouls. That one has a middle difficulty level that is really worth the hardest levels in modern games, and the top difficulty is really on for dedicated players (no lifes lolz) or very talented ones.

I think there is no reason for this thread to exist. The application of variable difficulty levels selectable by the player has removed all forms of "easy" and "hard" - as long as you can play at a basic level, "easy" should be enough, while "normal" for people who play often and "hard" for those wanting to go the extra mile.

And how hard is Contra, etc., once the game has been played often? Not very hard.

Matters of perception (and rose tinted glasses) show up a lot in the posts here, I'd say difficulty levels go a lot more towards pleasing everyone. Some games still don't include them however, which is a shame.

And anything can be made more difficult. Give the player 1 health unit, and have all the enemies have 1000 health and perfect accuracy. Not much fun though.

Difficulty in games varies, which is the idea. As for the advancing A.I., that takes longer then multipliers or such which is the idea that you can flip something and it suddenly becomes just a lot harder. I do like the Crysis examples though, if only because it is different. Here's a thought, do 'modern' games seem more inconsistent in difficult levels? As mentioned in various other places the difficulty curves seem to be really odd in a lot of games lately. While yes, books for instance have the climax then an ending/epilogue it seems some games are attempting to mimic the idea with having the hardiest parts in the middle areas instead of the end which is rather weird. Others are just completely random as far as I can tell, Halo 3 in some areas is a fairly good example. If you don't have a guide then the skulls turn it into a game of 'what just happened?' as it can do anything from make the difficulty shoot up to the point of an exercise of mind-melting hatred and frustration to the 'grunt birthday party' which has their heads exploding with confetti if I remember correctly.

Now if it was just making the A.I. more intelligent, then that would be more of a fun challenge, rather than a frustrating challenge, and even if it didn't increase an enemy's health, attack, defense, or speed, it could still be an interesting trail fighting against a computer that is about as intelligent as you are.

This has been my major and pretty much only gripe in any game. I don't want the computer to suddenly get a health, economic, AND A.I. increase over me. I'd like the playing field to be level in all ways EXCEPT having the PC use more A.I. power.
when I play Rise of Nations, it's impossible to really get ahead on the highest difficulty, it just becomes a "survive while you can" until you at most get a force to 'finally' start causing some damage.
All I wish for, and it's what I just stated above - do not let the PC "cheat". just give them stronger algorithms to process their decisions and perhaps give them better path-finding abilities but DON'T decrease the handicap for them or make their resources so unbalanced they might as well have infinite.

xbeaker:
I'm not looking down on you. As I said in my above post. I really hate when people pull out the "Well I have a life" line. It come across as very holier then thou. Which is to say, you looking down on the rest of us, because anyone who likes difficult games must be some loser with no life who sits in his mom's basement and plays teh hardcorz gamez all day. Whether you intended that way of not, that is how it reads.

I have no problem with easier games, or the people who play them. I don't exclusively play difficult, long term commitment games. In fact most of my posts in this thread have been about ways to add challenge to games if people are finding them too easy, and defending the modern games. I just wish they would change up how they are made more difficult some times. And I have no problem with you, in fact I find most of your posts to be very intelligent.

No, I didn't intend it that way. English isn't my first language so I apologize if it came across as me looking down on people who prefer difficult games. I don't view those people who play those kind of games as nerds at all. In fact, I consider myself a nerd myself as well, lol.

I was just saying that some people prefer shorter games, nothing more. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with people sitting down for hours with their more "difficult" games either.

Your posts are intelligent too.

Are modern games to easy? No, not really. The reason they put in a difficulty setting is so that people who think it's too easy can get up and make the game interesting. Some modern games are hard, some are easy. It really comes down to how much effort you put into playing that judges the games difficulty.

Andrew Armstrong:
I think there is no reason for this thread to exist. The application of variable difficulty levels selectable by the player has removed all forms of "easy" and "hard" - as long as you can play at a basic level, "easy" should be enough, while "normal" for people who play often and "hard" for those wanting to go the extra mile.

And how hard is Contra, etc., once the game has been played often? Not very hard.

Matters of perception (and rose tinted glasses) show up a lot in the posts here, I'd say difficulty levels go a lot more towards pleasing everyone. Some games still don't include them however, which is a shame.

And anything can be made more difficult. Give the player 1 health unit, and have all the enemies have 1000 health and perfect accuracy. Not much fun though.

The application of variable difficulty levels is what were actually talking about here. I.E the A.I etc. There's no need to come in and say this thread is pointless just because you dont want to talk about it or whatever.

If it was pointless then I wouldn't have got some many people giving their own views would I?

Furthermore it seems we've come to the conclusion here that 'Variable' difficulty as you call it is'nt enough.

Meh I don't think modern games easier than the older ones. I just think that as we get older we can apply different tactics to various games.

I have to disagree with you there shadow skill. Simple test.. go play one of the old games on the nes. Something you have not mastered from before. Even with all of the skill, tactics, and co-ordination most of us have developed over the years I doubt most people could make it through even half of the first Super Mario Bros. on their first try (literally, first try. As in never-played-it-before) Forget about the true killers of the day like Kid Icirus. Where as most people can make it through any modern game in about 15 hours of casual play.

That is the crux if this topic, the overall reduction in difficulty in seeing those end credits.

xbeaker:
I have to disagree with you there shadow skill. Simple test.. go play one of the old games on the nes. Something you have not mastered from before. Even with all of the skill, tactics, and co-ordination most of us have developed over the years I doubt most people could make it through even half of the first Super Mario Bros. on their first try (literally, first try. As in never-played-it-before) Forget about the true killers of the day like Kid Icirus. Where as most people can make it through any modern game in about 15 hours of casual play.

That is the crux if this topic, the overall reduction in difficulty in seeing those end credits.

Thank you, again you summed it up for me. :)

Firstly, you spelt they're wrong in the poll, twice (you put 'there', as in 'there he is').

Secondly, I have to say that some games are total cakewalk, but others are really quite challenging, but the point doesn't really matter, as long as the game is fun. Are you really having fun when you have to repeat the same f***ing level 20 times before you finally manage to pull it off? I don't personally think so. Remember God of War and its 'blades of Hades' level (or something like that)? What a horrible piece of level design that was.

Xbreaker what you just said is total bull, what you are telling me is that having played had maybe a decade worth of experience would have no effect on a player's ability to get through a game like smb 1? Do you really think that people don't die in modern games even if they take 15 hours to finish? If you have never played a certain type of game before and therefore have no real pre-existing knowledge of how the game probably works it is going to be much more difficult than if you have decades worth of prior experience to draw upon.

The Super Mario Brothers games were some of the first games of their kind if not the first, so how the hell are you as a seven or eight year old kid who is experiencing videogames for the first time going to be able to just blow through the game as though it was not even there?

I used to think Devil May Cry was harder than it really is until I played Ninja Gaiden and finally figured out how to play in NGS, when I picked up DMC again I found it to be a much easier game because I applied modified NGS tactics to DMC and while I still do get rocked I am able to get through the game far more readily than ever before.

Oh and let me bring up halo 3 I put that game on Heroic and I died quite a bit however I can't say that the game was hard, it was more cheap than anything else what with all the endurance matches one has to go through in that game. So really me dying ten or fifteen times in a given spot was not a sign of increased difficulty as it was a sin of increased fatigue since there was a seemingly endless number of enemy waves to deal with and a limited supply of ammo.

Did anyone else notice how the really large flood creatures could take like three or four clips and keep coming but clubbing one that had not be otherwise damaged seemed to kill them instantly?

Shadow Skill you clearly have missed the point of what I said. No where in my post did I say half a decade of experience would have no effect on a player's skill. I simply refute your claim that modern games are no harder then older games. I stand by that. You use Halo 3 as an example. Give that game to anyone who has some gaming experience and they could beat the entire campaign in a weekend. Where by the same note if you put an older nes game in front of that same player and it would probably take weeks to get though it.

Yes, as you gain skill in playing games in general are going to get easier. But this is not a question of them getting easier for an individual player. This is about the games getting a bit easier overall. I'm not passing judgment as to whether it is a good or bad thing. Those of you who like the trend towards easier game see to take it as an insult that others think games are getting easier as a whole.

Is Ninja Gaiden Black hard? Hell yeah. But even that cannot compare to the difficulty of some of the controller killers of the past. Save games and infinite lives are a big part of the reason. Yes, people die in modern games. They die a lot. But you just respawn and try it again. It makes for a much easier experience when death's penalty is a quick load screen and losing 10 minutes of progression. Again, I am not condemning you for liking the more forgiving trend of modern games. But don't fool yourself into thinking that games today are just as hard as they were in the 80's

People are asking why anyone would want games to be more difficult. Simple, it is for the sense of accomplishment you get when you conquer it. It used to be a lot of fun to see who could beat what games. When you could knock out Mike Tyson in Punch out you got a certain level of bragging rights. Now days I never asked my friends "Can you beat...?" it is now a question of "have you beaten...?" And even when you aren't just showing off on the playground there it feels great when you finally click with a game and beat it for the first time. Yeah, it will frustrate a lot of people. It will turn some people off of the game entirely. Some people like that challenge though, and there are very few games that provide it.

I'd have to think you guys are just more selective about the games you play then you let on, either that or you're focusing more on current gen games. I can think of several games off the top of my head from last generation that were rather tough, you just had to look for them. An obscure little platformer called Vexx made me want to break my controller, Godhand, the Otogi series, etc. In Ninja Gaiden Black's higher difficulty levels they actually introduced completely different enemies on top of old ones, with better A.I., more health, and multiple boss fights happening simultaneously. As for current gen games, I will admit that many major releases seem a bit easier on default difficulty levels, but there is usually always a way to ramp up the difficulty.

I say: Games grow easier as we age and continue playing them.

You say:

xbeaker:
I have to disagree with you there shadow skill. Simple test.. go play one of the old games on the nes. Something you have not mastered from before. Even with all of the skill, tactics, and co-ordination most of us have developed over the years I doubt most people could make it through even half of the first Super Mario Bros. on their first try (literally, first try. As in never-played-it-before) Forget about the true killers of the day like Kid Icirus. Where as most people can make it through any modern game in about 15 hours of casual play.

That is the crux if this topic, the overall reduction in difficulty in seeing those end credits.

Yet somehow you magically do not discount the fact that you have a wealth of experience playing games of various types and magically I am offended by your flat out ridiculous suggestion that overall difficulty levels have dropped when compared to the bad old days where developers could only have very small environments and had to find a way to make their product last, and therefore resorted to techniques that really only alter the length of the game rather than increase its difficulty. If a game has ten levels and each takes about thirty minutes to finish and you use a no save system and say you die on level four and have to start all over again the only thing that has happened is that the amount of time it will take to finish the game has increased.

If you play MGS games properly the game will be over in about three hours, and by play properly I mean don't get spotted once, don't use health items, don't kill anyone save bosses, don't die/save. Sure its possible to just run through the game getting spotted everywhere etc and beat it, but just because you can does not mean the game is remotely easy.

Your arguments sound like those that people who don't understand how to play Tenchu correctly use to complain about that series of games. Sure the AI isn't exactly genius level but I would love to see people get a perfect score on every level and I do mean every one. Chances are that task won't be very easy for the overwhelming majority of people even with the AI being as "dumb" as it is.

You clearly do not understand what difficulty actually is and believe that how fast you can get to the credits is an indication of the difficulty of a game, yet you want to preach to me about fooling myself, please stop breathing your own air.

ShmenonPie:
Firstly, you spelt they're wrong in the poll, twice (you put 'there', as in 'there he is').

No actually I didn't.

'There' is common slang from the part of the country I'm from for 'They are' or 'They're' so no I never even intended to type what you put. It's how I'd talk normal through speech so it's how I typed it, sorry if this offended you greatly.

Shadow Skill why do you insist on trying to cause an argument when all xbeaker and everyone else did was give an opinion?

Oh so I'm the bad guy even though Xbreaker has deided to start preaching about the "good old days" implying that I and anyone else who doesn't agree with him is deluding themselves into believing that the games of today are really no easier than the games of twenty years ago.

Xbreaker:
But don't fool yourself into thinking that games today are just as hard as they were in the 80's

But oh I am starting a fight.... and you did use the wrong word though it is spelled properly.

shadow skill:
But oh I am starting a fight.... and you did use the wrong word though it is spelled properly.

Wow I really didn't think people like you came on here. Whatever, I guess there will always be people who just gain some weird pleasure out of being able to argue with anyone and everyone.

Thanks to everybody who has actually contributed to this thread!

Are you serious go back and actually read the accusations that Xbreaker said, and your own accusations towarsds me and then come and tell me who is picking a fight. How is claiming someone is deluding themselves not picking a fight but saying that current games are easier than the older ones is bull is? Fact of the matter is no one is picking a fight other thhan possibly you. Read the posts in your own thread before you start trying to label people.

Shadow Skill you clearly have missed the point of what I said. No where in my post did I say half a decade of experience would have no effect on a player's skill. I simply refute your claim that modern games are no harder then older games. I stand by that. You use Halo 3 as an example. Give that game to anyone who has some gaming experience and they could beat the entire campaign in a weekend. Where by the same note if you put an older nes game in front of that same player and it would probably take weeks to get though it.

Yes, as you gain skill in playing games in general are going to get easier. But this is not a question of them getting easier for an individual player. This is about the games getting a bit easier overall. I'm not passing judgment as to whether it is a good or bad thing. Those of you who like the trend towards easier game see to take it as an insult that others think games are getting easier as a whole.

Is Ninja Gaiden Black hard? Hell yeah. But even that cannot compare to the difficulty of some of the controller killers of the past. Save games and infinite lives are a big part of the reason. Yes, people die in modern games. They die a lot. But you just respawn and try it again. It makes for a much easier experience when death's penalty is a quick load screen and losing 10 minutes of progression. Again, I am not condemning you for liking the more forgiving trend of modern games. But don't fool yourself into thinking that games today are just as hard as they were in the 80's

People are asking why anyone would want games to be more difficult. Simple, it is for the sense of accomplishment you get when you conquer it. It used to be a lot of fun to see who could beat what games. When you could knock out Mike Tyson in Punch out you got a certain level of bragging rights. Now days I never asked my friends "Can you beat...?" it is now a question of "have you beaten...?" And even when you aren't just showing off on the playground there it feels great when you finally click with a game and beat it for the first time. Yeah, it will frustrate a lot of people. It will turn some people off of the game entirely. Some people like that challenge though, and there are very few games that provide it.

Emphasis is mine.

I usually prefer difficulty to be in the area of creativity and intelligence- if a game of any kind presents you with a puzzle, I think it should be something for you to ponder.

I'm not a big fan of hyper-reflexes, and any game that depends on it makes me hate it very quickly. I'm also not a fan of frustration- if I die in the middle of a game without being able to restart to a recent (not as recent as in Bioshock...) spot.

A good example of what I'm talking about would be the Monkey Island series (you don't even die there), Commandos (1,2,3, they were all challenging and fun), Rome: Total War with the Europa Barbarorum mod (where your enemies, including the rebels, are extremely aggressive and cruel).

For me, Half-Life 1 was just about perfect. It was by no means easy, but it was not frustratingly difficult. If something was hard it took around 4 or 5 tries, but usually not more than that.

You might enjoy the newer Prince of Persia games then they have some neat platforming puzzles.

Well shadow, you clearly don't want to see anything beside your own opinion. I am not preaching about the "good old days." There were a lot of really bad games back in the good old days. But we aren't talking about quality of the games. We are talking about difficulty. As a whole the old 80's games were harder. I have tried every example to get through to you but you still seem to want to go back to the idea that 5 or 10 years ago games felt harder to you because you were a new player and now they feel easier to you because you have experience. Even with all of your skill I think you would have a hard time with a lot of the twitch games from back in the day. The reason for that difficulty is not the issue, only that it is harder.

You say:

shadow skill:
Yet somehow you magically do not discount the fact that you have a wealth of experience playing games of various types and magically I am offended by your flat out ridiculous suggestion that overall difficulty levels have dropped when compared to the bad old days where developers could only have very small environments and had to find a way to make their product last, and therefore resorted to techniques that really only alter the length of the game rather than increase its difficulty. If a game has ten levels and each takes about thirty minutes to finish and you use a no save system and say you die on level four and have to start all over again the only thing that has happened is that the amount of time it will take to finish the game has increased.

My very point is experience doesn't come into the equation. We are not talking about if the games are harder for you or me. We are talking about if games are more difficult in general. The player doesn't enter into it. If you want to contend that they are only more difficult because developers had to use cheap tactics to drag out the life span of the game by killing you off and limiting your restarts, that is fine. It still means they were more difficult. You are trying to back your argument by putting in conditions until the only outcome is the one you have decided. You can't say that games of today are just as difficult as days gone by if you don't count your ability to save your games and if you play within the strict guideline of how you think the creators intended. If you can play MGS by running and gunning, then that is an acceptable way to play. Will it add more challenge to play with stealth and care? Yes. But you don't need to play that way.

I really think you just don't understand what people mean when they say the games have gotten easier. It means they are more forgiving. It means they are less frustrating. It has nothing to do with the length of the game total, your skill at playing, the quality of the game or anything else. It also can't factor in personal skill.

shadow skill:
Are you serious go back and actually read the accusations that Xbreaker said, and your own accusations towarsds me and then come and tell me who is picking a fight. How is claiming someone is deluding themselves not picking a fight but saying that current games are easier than the older ones is bull is? Fact of the matter is no one is picking a fight other thhan possibly you. Read the posts in your own thread before you start trying to label people.

Where did these "accusations" come from? I didn't realize we had put you on trial. I certainly have not accused you of anything. What are you defending? This is an opinion / poll thread. "Are modern games too easy?" I have not once seen someone ask "Is Shadow Skill wrong for thinking modem games are not too easy?" I am not picking a fight with you either. If you really want to trace this back to the first verbal blow though.. how about "Xbreaker what you just said is total bull" You really have to learn to relax a little. (and my name is xbeaker btw)

Are modern games too easy? Yes. No. It depends. Do you count if the AI enemies have perfect aim but get exploitably stuck on the level geometry?

I like challenging games. I don't like frustrating games. Good designers give me a check box to enable "iron man" mode (and then it's my own fault when I lose repeatedly). Bad designers make me do timed jumping puzzles during insta-fail stealth missions.

- Alan

Why claim that I and by extension others who don't agree with you are fooling themselves? What do you call it when someone says you are insisting on pickin a fight? What else do you call that but an accussation? The whole premise you use fails to take into account the simple fact that the majority of the good games over this period of time have simply shifted away from the ending credits as the goal of the game, fails to recognize that the continue systems that were used back then had no real bearing on the difficulty of any game, what they changed was the play time. They had to be in games becuase overall there was not that much content that could be fit into the games because of size and memory limitations. The premise in effect requires that the focus of games remain constant which they clearly have not. Now you are trying to change what you are even talking about from the difficulty in seeing the end credits to some tripe about the developers allowing different types of play styles instead of demanding one or two types translating into an easier game.

My very point is experience doesn't come into the equation. We are not talking about if the games are harder for you or me. We are talking about if games are more difficult in general. The player doesn't enter into it. If you want to contend that they are only more difficult because developers had to use cheap tactics to drag out the life span of the game by killing you off and limiting your restarts, that is fine. It still means they were more difficult. You are trying to back your argument by putting in conditions until the only outcome is the one you have decided. You can't say that games of today are just as difficult as days gone by if you don't count your ability to save your games and if you play within the strict guideline of how you think the creators intended. If you can play MGS by running and gunning, then that is an acceptable way to play. Will it add more challenge to play with stealth and care? Yes. But you don't need to play that way.

By this logic the ability to use cheat codes automatically means that the game is "easier" because you are no longer locked into the parameters that the developers have setup for you by default. It's quite obvious that the existence of cheat codes has no bearing on the difficulty or lack thereof in any game at any time. (Has anyone noticed how cheat code type stuff has sort of vanished from console games of late?) You have to shoe-horn reality in order to make your own premise work in the first place because it has to ignore all of the things that I have mentioned previously.

Let me repeat myself:
If you are going to say games today are more forgiving than they were twenty years ago you cannot ignore all of the other changes to the nature of game design that have occured within that time frame. Once you define "easier" as "How long it takes you to get to the credits." you must also recognize that the credits are no longer the real focus of some of the best games out there right now. Otherwise you've got nothing.

It's a matter of playtime, as far as I can tell. If you want your game to provide 10 hours of play to an average player, you can either make 10 hours worth of content that the average player, or you can make 30 minutes of content but make it difficult enough that the average player will need to play each section an average of 20 times. One of these requires significantly less disk/cartridge space and to an extent less development time than the other, and if your audience doesn't mind, why not do it that way?

So yes, I would say that modern games are easier, but they're also longer.

It helps, or hurts depending on your point of view, that modern games tend to at least make attempts at a story, and if the player can't actually make it through the game, that's a lot of storyline that they don't see. Contra didn't have what I would call a "deep story". Quicksave is also one reason you might consider a game less difficult: if you screw up, you lose 5 minutes of gameplay time as opposed to "GAME OVER" and back to level 1.

Shadow, I am simply done with you. You seem unwilling, or unable to view anything as a pure black and white where the person either totally agrees with you, or you assume they refutes everything you have said. Your main point so far seems to have been games seem easier only because people are getting better at playing, which I disagree with.

shadow skill:
Meh I don't think modern games easier than the older ones. I just think that as we get older we can apply different tactics to various games.

shadow skill:
Xbreaker what you just said is total bull, what you are telling me is that having played had maybe a decade worth of experience would have no effect on a player's ability to get through a game like smb 1? Do you really think that people don't die in modern games even if they take 15 hours to finish? If you have never played a certain type of game before and therefore have no real pre-existing knowledge of how the game probably works it is going to be much more difficult than if you have decades worth of prior experience to draw upon.

shadow skill:
Yet somehow you magically do not discount the fact that you have a wealth of experience playing games of various types and magically I am offended by your flat out ridiculous suggestion that overall difficulty levels have dropped when compared to the bad old days (...)

So, tell me.. where is this:

shadow skill:
Let me repeat myself:
If you are going to say games today are more forgiving than they were twenty years ago you cannot ignore all of the other changes to the nature of game design that have occured within that time frame. Once you define "easier" as "How long it takes you to get to the credits." you must also recognize that the credits are no longer the real focus of some of the best games out there right now. Otherwise you've got nothing.

Repeating anything you have said before? Yet you claim I am the one changing my argument.

If this is a fight, and I hardly think it is, you are the one who picked it. You have relentlessly attacked me, and yes, you came after me first with the "Xbreaker what you just said is total bull" line.

I am not denying they design philosophy has changed quite a bit in the last 30 years. I agree completely with incoherent above me. And yes, since the first code that let you fire 2 bullets at a time in Space Invaders, cheat codes are, in fact, a way to make games easier.

And for the last time, we aren't discussing the focus, the quality, the age, the preference, or the play style of these games. Just the difficulty.

But if it makes you feel better, just for you Shadow, you are right, games are no easier then they were years ago. Can we stop the petty bickering now?

You still have not addressed

But don't fool yourself into thinking that games today are just as hard as they were in the 80's

which basically states as fact that games of today are easier than games of two decades prior. Its disengenuous really to then say I am unable to see any other view points.

I have to disagree with you there shadow skill. Simple test.. go play one of the old games on the nes. Something you have not mastered from before. Even with all of the skill, tactics, and co-ordination most of us have developed over the years I doubt most people could make it through even half of the first Super Mario Bros. on their first try (literally, first try. As in never-played-it-before) Forget about the true killers of the day like Kid Icirus. Where as most people can make it through any modern game in about 15 hours of casual play.

That is the crux if this topic, the overall reduction in difficulty in seeing those end credits

This quote actually states that prior human experience in other games of the same type is all but irrelevant. That's why I said it was bull, prior experience in simillar situations will affect the difficulty of any task. That is not an attack at all nor can you conviniently try to turn it into one.

You then go on to state that the crux of the topic is the overall ease of seeing the end credits. However the end credits are not nessecarily the focus of many games right now so how can it be used as a measure of the ease or lack thereof in games in general? It's a general statement that does not make any real sense at all because its being applied to all games.

I really think you just don't understand what people mean when they say the games have gotten easier. It means they are more forgiving. It means they are less frustrating. It has nothing to do with the length of the game total, your skill at playing, the quality of the game or anything else. It also can't factor in personal skill.

Here you now back pedal from your previous statement where the skill of the player is not relevant at all to games are less frustrating, and that games are more forgiving in spite of the fact that I can name entire franchises of gamees where achieving perfection is most certainly not an easy task.

Is it really more forgiving to allow players to save progress because the games in existence now have orders of magnitude more content than they did twenty years ago? Is it really more forgiving when you think about the fact that the lack of save points in a game has no effect on the difficulty of the task itself, what it does effect is the ability for you to complete the task because you have a limit to your own endurance? The difficulty in a game like Super Ghouls and Ghosts never came from the lack of save points because the overall difficulty of any of the levels remains constant what does change however is the amount of energy and cognitive ability that you have during the course of your play session. The game itself does not actually get harder at all, you as the player just get physically and mentally weaker over time until almost inevitably you do in fact fail at a level and have to start from the first level again.

Games have begun to resemble books and movies in the sense that the point of games moved away from simply getting to the end into beinng about the experiencce itself. The challege has predictably moved away from "getting to the end" to finding all the secrets, getting all the achievements, getting the highest ranking etc.

Repeating anything you have said before? Yet you claim I am the one changing my argument.

If you read the first paragraph in my last post you will see that I already stated what I then repeated in that quote block you have there.

The whole premise you use fails to take into account the simple fact that the majority of the good games over this period of time have simply shifted away from the ending credits as the goal of the game, fails to recognize that the continue systems that were used back then had no real bearing on the difficulty of any game, what they changed was the play time. They had to be in games becuase overall there was not that much content that could be fit into the games because of size and memory limitations. The premise in effect requires that the focus of games remain constant which they clearly have not. Now you are trying to change what you are even talking about from the difficulty in seeing the end credits to some tripe about the developers allowing different types of play styles instead of demanding one or two types translating into an easier game.

Anyone who thinks that games aren't easier nowadays should pick up, oh...let's say Any of the Ghouls 'n Ghosts (or Ghosts and Goblins, or Gaggles of Gorgons, or whatever they're all named) games. Now play it. And play it through until you win.
...done yet? Holy smokes, did that take a lot of hours to get through or what?
Now do the same to Halo 3. Any difficulty, doesn't matter.
...wow, you say it only took how long? Seriously?

Someone, too lazy to check who, got it on the head. Saves and checkpoints, baby. You messed up in Ghouls 'n Ghosts one too many times, you go all the way over again. From scratch. And no, you can't pick the special weapon up yet, you have to complete the game once more first.
While in Halo 3...not only is it HARDER to die in Halo than in Contra, or Ghouls, or whatever, but when you die, you pop up five minutes back, ready to try try and try again until you win!
In Contra, even if you have the first three levels down to an artform, every time it's game over, you need to do them over again, and messing up early means less room to mess up later.

Games today ARE too easy. Sad but very true. And I don't think there's a way to change that, people moaned and whined about Dead Rising being too hard because, good lord on a pogo stick, there were checkpoints, and they weren't every two feet! How dare some people do that to you?!

And you CAN have a full-time job, a family AND a hobby at the same time. Ask anyone who does it, they'll tell you that it IS possible to find an hour or two (on a busy day, at that!) to just do what you want.
If you use your free time on something aside videogames, then you can't complain that you don't have free time to play videogames.