There seems to be a pretty low standard for what constitutes hardcore these days. It seems to have absolutely nothing to do with how deep the game-play is and everything to do with how well shadows are rendered.

What's depth? In a word: planning. You don't need to plan while playing Halo, CoD4, or BioShock anymore than you would playing Zelda or Guitar Hero.

Play X-Com without a plan. You won't get very far. Same with the first Rainbow Six-- you'll run out of good agents pretty fast.

There still are games with depth being made. Most sports games offer quite a bit of depth, especially if you're playing an owner mode where you are in charge of a teams success financially as well as win-loss record. Constantly tweaking your lineup and keeping an eye out for budding talent across the league pays off. Strategy games lend themselves to some depth, naturally, but tend not to build off your decisions. Your tech tree is often uprooted after a mission and your resources don't carry over.

I feel that RPGs come off as so desperate to tell you a story that actual gameplay takes a back seat to anything else that might get in the way of you being force fed story elements. There might be some choices that stick with you but I always feel that no combat situation is a fair fight. I'm either going to overpower the enemy or they will easily spank me.

All in all, I don't see the trend in making games shallow and more casual stopping. Games like Halo and Cod4, that shoe-horn you through the single player campaign, sell in great numbers. Maybe easy games that hand you your success are hardcore.

righthanded:

What's depth? In a word: planning. You don't need to plan while playing Halo, CoD4, or BioShock anymore than you would playing Zelda or Guitar Hero.

So how do twitch-gmaes like UT fit with that? They're not based around any foresighted planning, but there's no questioning that they're hardcore... or is there?

Is there actually a definition for a hardcore game? A casual game would be one that you can drop into instatnly - most of the Wii mini games fit that bill - but I'm stumped if I know what hardcore is. Is it just difficult to get started? Most modern console games are, but because the control schemes are relatively complicated.

Much of right-handed's post was dedicated to how games are becoming more shallow; I'm not sure they are. Compare the AI of Halo 3 with that of System Shock 2 (the Holy grail of deep games, apparently). SS2 is a minnow in comparison. I think we expect something more because online multiplayer is so commonplace now, and we're more used to competing against intelligent humans, not daft processors. The multiplayer options of RH's two whipping boys (Halo and COD4) are pretty deep, and they're not for the uninitiated, for better or worse.

And finally, don't forget the rose tinted view that seems so prevalent at the Escapist, with it's hordes of PC-loving, "console-tard" hating gamers. The PC and "deep" games of the past have been rare; for every complex, strategy demanding game there's another dozen that are run and shoot, and I think in the rush to criticise the modern market and console games that's forgotten. Does no-one else remember the layers of complexity, strategy and cunning present in barely any of the FPS games relased for the PC since Doom first reared it's head?

dan_the_manatee:
Is there actually a definition for a hardcore game?

It is hard to define, but I personally think the difference is whether the game requires you to either be familiar with the genre conventions in order to be successful at it, or at least presents a level of difficulty requiring hours to become good at. Basically, a casual game is one where you could give it to someone that has little experience with games and could nevertheless be playing it enjoyably in minutes.

dan_the_manatee:
Does no-one else remember the layers of complexity, strategy and cunning present in barely any of the FPS games released for the PC since Doom first reared it's head?

hmmm...The Orange Box aka Half-Life 2 had a lot more depth and was a lot more slow paced than most shooters. Also when rushing inside a room on R6:Vegas, 80% of time you'd end up dead.Same with GRAW(just change it to 200%.)

Maybe that's not exactly full of "layers of complexity, strategy and cunning" but that's the best there is considering how casualised the games had become.

And while I own a few consoles, I still pity "console tards" who think that Halo/CoD4/Gun n' Run 678 is better than masterpiece games such as The Orange Box.People who can't appreciate the beauty of some games, being too busy pw0ning t3h n0()8s 0n_H4L0 3

dan_the_manatee:
So how do twitch-gmaes like UT fit with that? They're not based around any foresighted planning, but there's no questioning that they're hardcore... or is there?

...

That was kind of the point of my post. Whether a game is labeled hardcore or not seems to have nothing to do with game-play. I personally think it's just a marketing term that says nothing about how much its game-play will actually challenge your twitch or thinking skills.

You kill the AI in halo 3 with direct combat the same way you can in DX (didn't play SS2). In DX, you can hack a terminal to deactivate enemies or turn them on each other, you can sneak by them, or you can attack them head on-- like in Halo 3. Do enemies in Halo 3 challenge your twitch-skills more than DX? Sure. But it's your only game-play option in Halo. That's not the case with DX.

You say that the multi-player options of Cod4 and Halo 3 are deep and aren't for the uninitiated. Regardless of the options though, the game-play rests entirely on the mechanics of twitch-shooting. Mastery of twitch shooting takes time and practice (although it transfers from game to game pretty well) but it's still the only thing you're doing. There's nothing wrong with that, fun is fun, it just tends to be the shallow game-play variety.

As far as PC v Console, I didn't mention anything of the sort. Most FPS games have been mighty shallow and on PC. Most sports games are pretty deep and flourish on the consoles. Hardcore seems to be just another buzzword of the industry, like non-linear, that has no concrete meaning and seems to get applied to everything.

I guess hardcore is kind of a nebulous quality. I certainly don't think it necessarily relates to depth - look at the shoot em up scene. I wouldn't call most of them deep - they tend to be either either twitch based or memory based - but some of them at least I would definitely call hardcore.

I don't know if it's skill based, or about repetition, or what. I think it's like when you feel perfectly happy using a particular word in context, but if somebody asks you to define it you go "Um, well it's, er, kinda, you know..."

You can't explain what it is, you just know.

JakubK666:
[quote=dan_the_manatee]And while I own a few consoles, I still pity "console tards" who think that Halo/CoD4/Gun n' Run 678 is better than masterpiece games such as The Orange Box.People who can't appreciate the beauty of some games, being too busy pw0ning t3h n0()8s 0n_H4L0 3

Mate you have it all wrong. The people who act like h@10 iz 1337 are obviously idiots, thats it. But just because people only play Halo 3 or other more simple shooters dosn't make them retarded it makes them a casual gamer who just plays for the fun of beating up little kids with a gravity hammer. they don't want the deep experience that half Life or other games can offer. Why? Because they don't find the game fun. They don't want to play these games.

Would you call people who don't play RPG's retarded because they don't like the complex nature of RPG's?

I think that Hardcore and casual is determined by the player and not by the game. The games encourage you to play the Hardcore or casually but anyone can pick up peggle and play it for an insane amount of hours and post on the forum and have a peggle t-shirt etc etc. Or you could pick up the orange box in a discount bin and play it for 30 minutes a day and while playing constantly wonder what black messa is. Ofcourse these are extremes and not many play this way.

Here is a question I always ask when playing a game:

AM I WASTING MY TIME?

Q: What is a casual game?
A: A time sink.

Ever wonder why X-box instituted the achievement system?
What exactly are you achieving?

I do not like the term hardcore vrs casual because the words are not polar opposites.
Hardcore conjures up the image of someone with a bag of 20-sided dice, while a casual game is just your standard Wii title.

So can we just say strategic/rewarding games instead of hardcore.
How is not wanting to waste my time make me hardcore?

How about if we just split-it to Proper and Casual Video Games? I know that "Proper" isn't exactly a good definition but at least it would be a lot easier to group them, instead of trying to work out what "Hardcore" means.

What about experimental games? Indie games (are they seperate from casual and hardcore?)?

Is Doom a casual fps in today's climate?

Is portal a casual puzzle game?

Does peggle's level of addictiveness (which I don;t get personally) make it hardcore?

Is WoW hardcore or casual - surely 100bazillion people can't be playing 12 hours a day each on it?

Boundaries are blurring. (Or, rather, it's clear they were artificial all along) - welcome to the heterogenous multiplicities of gaming assemblages which are becomming increasingly embodied, enacted and embedded in everyday performativities.

In money terms (which oils most of the development of games), there are various markets. And they all (increasingly) overlap. The casual market is growing in the west. We may see a decline in 'traditional' games. or we may see greater interest from those who spent 200 spuids on a Wii and want more than Wii sports.

Eventually, we might just reach a Japanese model - whereby computer games are not a seperate 'culture' as such, not a-normal. But eveyone plays and buys games, in different amounts and over a vast variety of genres - the same way most people buy music or films in different quantities and over different genres.

To me a hardcore gamer is someone that you can give one of those TIGER handheld games to and that person won't let go until he or she gets the highest score possible. A hardcore gamer doesn't care if it's a shooter, an RPG, an RTS, a puzzle game, etc. He or she will play ANYTHING that presents a challenge and will try to beat it (when I say beat it I mean 100% beat it) or set a record score that nobody in the next 200 years could even think of shattering.