Do these situations sound familiar?

You wake up on a table in an underground bunker, before you've had so much as a coffee and a fag you're sent to talk to a scary looking Eastern European bloke. He then gives you a pistol with all the stopping power of a BB gun and sends you off to kill a large group of scarier looking bandits.

You are released from jail with only the clothes you stand up in, a rusty knife that you nicked on the way out and a note telling you to find some bloke named Caius. You spend the next few hours being killed by things that look like pterodactyls every time you get lost.

You are a counter terrorist agent and it's your first day on the job. You're armed with only a pistol and a cattle prod. Your brother shows up and breaks the news that your first assignment is to get past hordes of terrorists who've invaded the Statue of Liberty. He also asks if you'd be so kind as to not kill any of the terrorists. He does give you a sniper rifle but, since you appear to have Parkinson's disease, it's not much use.

Obviously these are the opening stages of Stalker, Morrowind and Deus Ex respectively. The three games are linked because: a) They start off sadistically hard and b) I gave up on each one of them before returning months later, determined to get my moneys worth, and found them to be some of the most rewarding games I've ever played. So here are my questions;

Are games more addictive if you have to work hard at the beginning? When does a game become so hard that it stops being fun?

With some games, the reward comes from slogging through pools of your enemies blood, picking up health packs and blasting holes in the universe. Those games are great. Other games make you plan every little move you're going to make. Those are great, too. I've been wanting to play the new Ninja Gaiden games because I remember not being able to get past level one as a kid. I loved it when I'd save during Half-Life 2 with barely any health or ammo because I knew I'd feel like such the bad ass when I finally made it through. Games should, more or less, make you feel bad ass. Whether it's because you're a god, John Mclane or MacGuyver doesn't matter, as long as it makes you feel good.

I don't mind games that are so very hard at the beginning as long as there's something compelling about it.

I'd say the difficulty jump from Heroic to Legendary in any of the Halo games is Too Hard. Enemies in Legendary have ESP, and can sense when they are being targeted by a zoom-able weapon like a sniper or battle rifle, especially in Halo 3. They can also do a blind-fire and get all head shots. That is such Bull.

I really like the controller-shatteringly difficult games, In fact, I'm looking for some good ones.
I've never found games too hard, I've never just given up on a game, but some have taken me longer than most
doom 3 on nightmare was a pain in the ass, but a fun one.
I've finished morrowind, ninja gaiden, just about anything anyone thinks is too hard. any suggestions?

I think there's a need to differentiate between intentional, and unintentional difficulty. Not to mention well done, versus poorly done difficulty. I Wanna Be The Guy is ridiculously difficult, on purpose, and thus despite its unforgiving difficulty, can be quite fun. Other games are hard because they are inherently broken, and while some people enjoy beating broken games (see people playing past the "last" level in Pac-man) that's where a lot of people would draw the line. What I mean by well versus poorly done would be along the lines of allowing the AI access to information that is not in line with the universe (non-superman-thugs that see through 4 foot thick, concrete walls, mayhaps?). This is often referred to as "cheating", but oftentimes, good AI is accused of cheating by less experienced players (in much the same way that very good online players are sometimes accused of "hax"). Knowing the difference requires a certain level of comprehension of the game and the universe.

I always imagine things as graphs, and then try to describe the graphs to get my point across, and it always goes horribly, but here I go again: Let's say intent is the X axis (from completely unintentional on the left, to intentional on the right), and execution is the Y axis (from the worst implementation on the bottom, to the best on the top). (Assume that the entire plane X,Y consists of Hard games. We could make the space 3 dimensional, with Z being a scale of how difficult the game actually is, but what I'm saying should be true for any value of Z) Anything in the (+X,+Y) quadrant will probably be good, even with very, very high values of X, so long as the value of Y is similarly high. Things in the (+X,-Y) and (-X,+Y) quadrants are going to be of varying quality, and not likely to be as tolerable. Things in the (-X,-Y) quadrant are going to be the worst, with the odd outlier which is "so bad it's good."

So really, to the question of "How Hard is too Hard?" To me, given my framework, so long as X and Y are sufficiently positive values, there is no limit to a value of Z which can still be enjoyable. The question becomes, then: Is there a value of Z where it is no longer possible to do it well, to make it rewarding? An inherent limit to the system? I don't know. I don't think anyone's hit it yet.

Usualy when a game's to hard for me, i put it away for a week or so, come back, and play it again. I usualy beat the hard part i couldn't get across before. Weird. And i usualy start on the lower levels of difficulty, beat the game, then move up on to the next difficulty.

So really, it all depends if the player is willing to put in that extra effort to beat that nigh-impossible level. Why do you think we have achievment whores?

knumpify:
I really like the controller-shatteringly difficult games, In fact, I'm looking for some good ones.
I've never found games too hard, I've never just given up on a game, but some have taken me longer than most
doom 3 on nightmare was a pain in the ass, but a fun one.
I've finished morrowind, ninja gaiden, just about anything anyone thinks is too hard. any suggestions?

Go back to the classics. Bionic Commando, Contra without the Konami Code...

I love it when games are stingy with ammo and good weapons, the desperation of being pinned down by an overwhelming force knowing you have to make your last few rounds count are usually some of the most memorable moments of games.

I personally don't mind games that are very, very hard, so long as they are consistent. I'm more annoyed by games that are too damn easy (sorry, but Bioshock is much worse in my book than in a lot of people's), or games that have a controller-throwing, keyboard-slamming, profanity-inducing difficulty curve. Killzone: Liberation makes me scream at my PSP every time I play it and get to a boss, because the bosses are leaps and bounds beyond everything else in terms of difficulty. Mechassault 2 had a smooth, gradually increasing level of difficulty until the last battle, at which point I actually threw my controller at my TV. The one genuine escort mission in Far Cry Instincts actually sent me scrambling for cheat codes, because it was probably the single most unforgiving part of any game I can remember playing.

If these parts were consistent with the rest of the game, I would not mind them nearly as much.

The only game I can think of that struck me as 'too hard' was Abe's Oddysey, but that's because I suck at both platformers and side-scrollers... so... a side-scrolling platformer? No thanks.

I don't understand the question.
Hard is never too hard unless it's hard for the wrong reasons.

Right type of Hard: Challenging, intentionally so.
Wrong type of Hard: The computer is cheating and/or the game is glitchy.

Fuck, I think the Devil May Cry games could use taking up a notch in difficulty. But I also found FarCry to be stunningly, annoyingly hard because the computer is a cheating bastard who knows exactly where you are and can snipe you with a goddamned Minimi!

I always liked the games that adapted their difficulty to the player. 'Max Payne' would adjust the difficulty of aiming and damage ratio of bad guys depending on how good of a player you were. It seems like a good game shouldn't need difficulty selections, just "play the game" mode and maybe a "Make my Day" mode.

As for a game that starts off too hard...I always thought playing 'Viewtiful Joe' was like being smacked into a brick wall over and over again.

propertyofcobra:
I don't understand the question.
Hard is never too hard unless it's hard for the wrong reasons.

Right type of Hard: Challenging, intentionally so.
Wrong type of Hard: The computer is cheating and/or the game is glitchy.

Fuck, I think the Devil May Cry games could use taking up a notch in difficulty. But I also found FarCry to be stunningly, annoyingly hard because the computer is a cheating bastard who knows exactly where you are and can snipe you with a goddamned Minimi!

You forgot abot the monkeys and their half-mile long melee attack.
Or the Psychic dudes with the rocket launchers (small glimmer on the horizon, "wait a second, its that Carver git, I'll just point my rpg over there and...")

As long as a game is fair, I don't think they can ever be too hard (see System Shock 2, Metroid Prime).

If a game is hard because its full of Glitches, or the enemies can do/see/hear things you can't, or if the enemies are so good the only way to survive is to play until you know every enemy's position by memory (Halo2-Legendary), that's wrong.
These things can make a game too hard, there's nothing worse than entering a section with the knowledge that you can't win first time, no matter how good you are.

@propertyofcobra
I mean that when a game is hard you get a sense of achievment, like in Stalker when you manage to take down a guy with a machine gun. First you feel like a badass for winning a mismatched fight, second the game gets easier because you've got a better gun. However in the original Splinter Cell I gave up on the first level because the guy in the house always spotted me. That game wasn't bugged and I don't know if it cheated but for me it was much too hard to be enjoyable. Maybe I suck but that game ended up in the bin. However Double Agent is a piece of piss compared to that and got pretty boring because of it.

Ps. How do I qoute peoples posts? Never mind just saw the big qoute button.

I think that alot of games these days have the difficulty level too low. Stalker had it about right, you start out rubbish, but as you progress; the game gets easier to deal with enemies.

Crysis on the other hand was a massive disappointment.

I was really psyched up about the game, looking forward to it for a long time. Got it. Then spent the subsequent couple of days playing it in between lectures and doing work for uni. I should mention I was playing it on Delta (read Hardest) level (hoping that it would mean it was stretched out a bit more), it took me 3 days to do the entire game. I was like. What the hell... I didnt really find the game challenging at all, I cant imagine how bored I would have been if i played it on normal mode.

I think that developers are scared of making a game too hard, which is a shame. because having a challenging game makes you feel really good when you beat it. but all they do is make it easy for you so they can concentrate on the story. Bioshock is another example of this. Dying in that game didnt really have a penalty, which is rubbish, because that meant there was literally no way you could lose the game. sucky.

Beating Halo on Legenday = Hard

Beating Ghosts and Goblins without a Game Genie = Too Hard

No such thing as too hard! Didn't think Deus Ex was particularly hard either, except when I got stuck nearer then end with no ammo and little health.
Actually, Halo 2 Legendary might have been too hard, sometimes I wonder if there's actually enough ammo to kill everything....

MOD airborne on hard= death

A game is to hard when you replay the same section about a hundred time and cant get passed it or it takes acouple of hours ie cod 4 no fighting in the war room and mile high on vet admittly mile high is possible but the idea in war room of hiv three hallways all shooting at you is jut gay

I guess it's nice to know that the challenge is still there though. People have completed CoD4 on Veteran so it's not impossible. I'd rather have the option to fail on the hardest difficulty than so find the game too easy. *cough* Halo 3 *cough*

thebobmaster:

Go back to the classics. Bionic Commando, Contra without the Konami Code...

done it, done it, and did battletoads, and did ghosts n goblins,

You know, it's interesting that Morrowind's been brought up, because it was both too hard and too easy.

At the beginning you're broke and defenseless and everyone hates you. Those pterodactyl things will chase you all the way across the map until a friendly town guard helps out. It takes hours - well, it took me hours - to get to the point where I was even remotely confident when entering a fight.

Then you hit level 10 or so, and suddenly nothing on Vvardenfell can touch you. You're a god among insects. All those insects still hate you, but hey, that's just Vvardenfell. You didn't go there to make friends.

Stalker, on the other hand, did a pretty nice job staying challenging - hardest at the beginning and then comparatively rough throughout. I was almost always injured and out of ammo, and usually being chased by wild dogs to boot.

To answer your question, Philios, I don't necessarily think games are more rewarding or addictive if they're hard. The difference between the games you describe and the mountains of games we've all doubtless abandoned because we were frustrated by the difficulty is that you DID return to them - there was something that brought you back. I'm not certain the difficulty was really the cause of that.

knumpify:
and did ghosts n goblins

If you beat Battletoads and G&G, you owe yourself two big pats on the back. I never beat either, though I did beat Mega Man, Top Gun and Ninja Turtles, which are regarded as some of the harder games for the NES.

I hear that 'Silver Surfer' was regarded by some as the hardest game for the NES, but I never played it, thankfully.

I really hate when people complain about legendary on Halo being too hard. It's more or less a go straight in and shoot them game. Based on how good you are at doing that, you choose a difficulty. Halo 2 had the best difficulty system ever. Your mom would think easy was too easy, and legendary keeps even the best players occupied. Complaining about it seems like you're just being a crybaby because the game's telling you that you aren't good enough for the hardest mode. And then those same people say games are way too easy now. You can only say a game is too hard if it gives you no option to make it easier.

mitsoxfan:

knumpify:
and did ghosts n goblins

If you beat Battletoads and G&G, you owe yourself two big pats on the back. I never beat either, though I did beat Mega Man, Top Gun and Ninja Turtles, which are regarded as some of the harder games for the NES.

I hear that 'Silver Surfer' was regarded by some as the hardest game for the NES, but I never played it, thankfully.

Silver Surfer is a classic example of too hard for the wrong reasons. See the AVGN review.

knumpify:

thebobmaster:

Go back to the classics. Bionic Commando, Contra without the Konami Code...

done it, done it, and did battletoads, and did ghosts n goblins,

Did you beat the original Ninja Gaiden trilogy?

I was just about to post about this. Actually, to tell you the truth, compared to most games nowadays, games really aren't that hard, but rather cheap. Hard is when you need to think your way around or use your skills to overcome something, whereas cheap is just like bad level design/item placement/AI.

What I was about to ask, though, is what is everyone's last GOOD hard game that they've played? I'm either talking about something that is genuinely hard, or there's a distinction between "normal" and "hard" difficulties that goes beyond "enemies 2x health/damage/etc." It doesn't necessarily have to be uber-challenging, just difficult enough to enjoy.

About suggestions for games, I would say "rogue-like"'s and SHMUPs. The DS recently got a GOOD rogue-like game called Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (it's the only thing I've been playing this week), and coming up is Bangai-O Spirits. It would help to say which systems you have for suggestions, though.

msakey:
To answer your question, Philios, I don't necessarily think games are more rewarding or addictive if they're hard. The difference between the games you describe and the mountains of games we've all doubtless abandoned because we were frustrated by the difficulty is that you DID return to them - there was something that brought you back. I'm not certain the difficulty was really the cause of that.

You make an excellent point. But Compare Morrowind with Oblivion, as you say it takes an age in Morrowind before you can even think about getting into the main quest. For a low level character it's just not possible, however in Oblivion I was knee deep in Demon guts not long after leaving the sewers. I lost interest in Oblivion because I didn't have to work to achieve anything, in Morrowind I felt a real sense of achievment by the time I felt comfortable fighting even low level enemies because of the effort and difficulty in getting to that point.

philios82:

You make an excellent point. But Compare Morrowind with Oblivion, as you say it takes an age in Morrowind before you can even think about getting into the main quest. For a low level character it's just not possible, however in Oblivion I was knee deep in Demon guts not long after leaving the sewers. I lost interest in Oblivion because I didn't have to work to achieve anything, in Morrowind I felt a real sense of achievment by the time I felt comfortable fighting even low level enemies because of the effort and difficulty in getting to that point.

Morrowind gave you a good reason to grind, which is what I love in RPGs. Oblivion was as easy at level 1 as it was at whatever level was max.

Oblivion I felt I could beat the game no matter what my skill set/level was. Morrowind, I never felt that way. But I wouldn't consider either game 'hard', especially when we're talking classic gaming.

Maybe for today's gamers, hard has a different meaning. But the first and last time I made it through round 1 of Ghosts and Goblins, and then threw the game into the woods, sort of defined 'too hard' for me. Maybe I'm just desensitized.

philios82:
I lost interest in Oblivion because I didn't have to work to achieve anything, in Morrowind I felt a real sense of achievment by the time I felt comfortable fighting even low level enemies because of the effort and difficulty in getting to that point.

I was very disappointed by Oblivion, but I had difficulty saying why; actually it was the hardest review I've ever written. You sum it up very well there - it had no sense of accomplishment. It also had no sense of epic... ness.

Morrowind, difficulty imbalances aside, was Epic. Here you are in some remote backwater (ever looked at a map of Tamriel? Vvardenfell is the very definition of "insignificant"), dealing with what's essentially a local problem, and somehow you felt caught up in something huge and magnificent - that sense of accomplishment you mention was palpable. In Oblivion you're literally trying to save the world from Hell itself and I for one just didn't care.

Hard is when, after the first try due to inexperience, after the second time due to lack of refinement, after the third time due to bad luck, getting to the fourth time and being unable to do it, it is too hard.

In the scenarios you just listed Philios are games that are controller breaking frustrating at the begginning but are snorefests at the end becuase the amount of power, guns, health are usually tripled at the end of your campaign that nothing becomes scary anymore unless you start to fight back when your in critical condition. The only time those games are fun is just that, the begginning.

Games that are too hard are usually games that developers either put the bar too high to progress or are just horribly designed or unbalanced that it becomes a game of pure trial and error every 5 seconds with no way to make any sort of comeback.

While I do like games that offer some sort of in game challenge with reward for the player(or easter egg) I can at least understand why the developer would make said reward so hard to achieve. An investment to really master said game and have fun unlocking the reward. I also like it when the player can come up with ingenious ways to get around content outside the developers method.

hmmm not sure if KOTOR boss fight counts but killing Malak without drain life( it allowed you to full heal off dead Jedi's too) seemed impossible(I only had a bunch of stimulants, twelve med packs and five life supports). Then again if you chose talents with the boss battle in mind( Force Resists and Drain Life among most important skills) the actual battle was a walk in the park.

To me it seems like the most broken boss battle ever.

JakubK666:
hmmm not sure if KOTOR boss fight counts but killing Malak without drain life( it allowed you to full heal off dead Jedi's too) seemed impossible(I only had a bunch of stimulants, twelve med packs and five life supports). Then again if you chose talents with the boss battle in mind( Force Resists and Drain Life among most important skills) the actual battle was a walk in the park.

To me it seems like the most broken boss battle ever.

I did it without Drain Life or Force Resist.

i might just go jump off a bridge for saying this but gituar hero *jumps off bridge*. Ow