You die...
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq] (n)
"killed by a soldier ant"

The My Little Pony Killer: Dimensio: The My Little Pony Killer: On a side note, I've been playing through Kid Icarus since it's on the virtual console and I decided a good name for it would be "Unfair: The Game."

I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

The Legend of Zelda's Second Quest is "difficult". Kid Icarus and Metroid are "challenging".

Disturbingly, I have likely spent more hours playing those three games using my PSP than I have playing actual PSP games.

I get it, you're unnaturally good at video games. Kid Icarus is still tedious, if for nothing else than because I'm doing all these maps blind and have to memorize as I go along.

I always called it Kid Cartographer.

justtray: Really the reason games are so much easier is because you actually have control over your charactes now.

Before - Jump in the air - "oh crap, that guy is moving right where I'm going to land" *dead*

Now - Jump in the air - "oh crap that guy is moving right where I'm going to land" *moves in mid air the other direction to avoid death*

Simplistic, but that's the basic jist of why games are easier. Controls are more fluid and semi-realistic (moving in the air isn't exactly real)

Now?? There's a reason mid-air direction changes are called "Marioing".

It's because the games aren't trying to milk you for quarters anymore. Also, we are much better at games nowadays then we were as kids. even games that are difficult become quite manageable or easy once you get the patterns and such down.

Lumbar Puncture: Capcom, Rare, and Konami developed those games.

Right. But Nintendo "brought them to you", in the sense that the publishers had to buy the Seal of Quality and CIC lockout chips and time on the cartridge fabrication lines before you could buy the game to play on your NES.

And then later Nintendo bought into Rare, but that's a different story.

Fano: Dimensio: The My Little Pony Killer: On a side note, I've been playing through Kid Icarus since it's on the virtual console and I decided a good name for it would be "Unfair: The Game."

I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

The Legend of Zelda's Second Quest is "difficult". Kid Icarus and Metroid are "challenging".

Disturbingly, I have likely spent more hours playing those three games using my PSP than I have playing actual PSP games.

Zelda Second quest is really only difficult because it requires you to make unintuitive leaps in order to advance, such as having to push on walls to walk through them. Until you do it for the first time by accident, you'll be stuck after the first dungeon.

Don't forget the last dungeon in Zelda 2; one small section of fake floor you're supposed to fall down to get to the final boss. Whoever came up w/ that was a dick. I finally beat that game a couple of years ago b/c of that stupid fake floor crap.

Oh look it's this thread again!

I play super easy games with my friends and coworkers because they aren't really gamers, and it's a way to group with them. (like The Old Republic, while the community holds). I can fly through that game like it's no problem, it's a different experience than my usual hardcore games.

I also play masochistic games like Super Meat Boy. I love platformers, and it's a great new indie title that challenges you, but does not make you want to quit. Presenting it's levels in :30-:60 second bursts of speed, reaction time and determination makes you always know what you did wrong when you died, and it's usually your fault. But it makes you want it. It makes you want to get that A+

//100% Super Meat Boy on PC, working on 100% on my Xbox.

Games have maintained their difficulty, if not increased since my youth. There is simply more "easy" games out there comparatively. It's just a matter of perception.

Quit biatching that the same old franchises keep getting easier. If you really want / need a challenge, finding one is a lot easier than complaining about not being challenged. Expand your horizons, go Indie, try a new game. You might find a new favorite.

SkunkWerks: I was expecting this to be another insipid rant about casual gamers. Then I read this:

This thread however seems to be compensating for that particular lack of insipidness rather capably...

DanZero: Since Warren Spector was also in TFA -

[img.photobucket.com image 640x512]

DAMN YOU!!! i just found my copy too.

Just for that here

poot_rootbeer: Lumbar Puncture: Capcom, Rare, and Konami developed those games.

Right. But Nintendo "brought them to you", in the sense that the publishers had to buy the Seal of Quality and CIC lockout chips and time on the cartridge fabrication lines before you could buy the game to play on your NES.

And then later Nintendo bought into Rare, but that's a different story.

Battletoads was also on the SEGA Mega Drive. Nintendo had nothing to do with the difficulty or lack of in the games he mentioned and serve as bad examples when he's comparing them to a recent game that they did develop.

Best difficulty selector ever.

Owangotang: The My Little Pony Killer: Dimensio: The My Little Pony Killer: On a side note, I've been playing through Kid Icarus since it's on the virtual console and I decided a good name for it would be "Unfair: The Game."

I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

The Legend of Zelda's Second Quest is "difficult". Kid Icarus and Metroid are "challenging".

Disturbingly, I have likely spent more hours playing those three games using my PSP than I have playing actual PSP games.

I get it, you're unnaturally good at video games. Kid Icarus is still tedious, if for nothing else than because I'm doing all these maps blind and have to memorize as I go along.

I always called it Kid Cartographer.

It took me until my fourth or fifth playthrough of the third dungeon before I figured out what the pencil and torch were for. By then, I'd already had the route to the boss memorized.

Hand Banana: No one has mentioned World of Warcraft yet? If they dumb it down anymore it will play itself.

It's half the reason I quit. It's why I ditched D&D 4 for Pathfinder. It's why I played X-Com - yes, I spent a lot of time loading saved games, but when I made just a tiny bit of progress, it was so worth it.

The My Little Pony Killer: Because they have people actually testing games nowadays?

On a side note, I've been playing through Kid Icarus since it's on the virtual console and I decided a good name for it would be "Unfair: The Game."

Games are easier because people would like to finish their level and then sit down and have dinner sometime in the next few hours.

/spent all day in the third world boss level
//still haven't beat it

Farking shiat took me 2 monkey freaking years to beat that game! I beat it at 4 am on a saturday morning. I almost freaked out that I won. The original Metroid pissed me off a lot too.

I've been gaming since the NES, I discuss video games on the internet frequently, and I have never once heard or read the term, "Nintendo Hard".

Also, just because this douche bag discovered something Nintendo has been doing for several years now (die enough, get the free pass), so the younger audiences can enjoy their games, that doesn't mean it's an industry-wide trend. As far as I know, no one else besides Nintendo offers such a feature in their games. But yes, a lot of games do have casual settings that make them easier nowadays. But those games also always have a "hardcore" or "insane" difficulty as well. Amazingly, this means some gamers can play games to enjoy the story, and others can enjoy a challenge, and the game can appeal to a wider range of people.

And not all Nintendo games are a piece of cake. Try collecting all of the stars in Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. Try beating Metroid Prime 3 on hyper mode. There are plenty of games out there for people who want a challenge. You just have to know what you're looking for, which the author of this article clearly does not. "Why are games becoming too easy"? Short answer, they aren't. You just don't know what the fark you're talking about. A better title: "Why are games catering to larger audiences these days?" And if you can't figure that one out, you're retarded.

Telos: I get it, you're unnaturally good at video games. Kid Icarus is still tedious, if for nothing else than because I'm doing all these maps blind and have to memorize as I go along.

None of Kid Icarus' dungeons are so complex that "memorization" should be an issue.

Maybe it's not that he's unnaturally good... maybe it's that you're just not very good. :P

Maybe it's also my first time playing this game, I'm going at it blind, and you have little to no reading comprehension :P

Dimensio: I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

Kid Icarus had a really poor learning curve, in that the first levels you play are vertical-scrollers where falling off the bottom of the screen kills you, and your character has enough inertia that you can easily overshoot the end of a short platform. And also there are flying enemies coming at you from all directions but you can only shoot left, right, and up.

Once you're past the fortress and into the side-scrolling Overworld stages, the game gets much easier to manage.

I was recently playing Gears of War 3 on Hardcore difficulty (to unlock Insane mode). I was playing co-op, but my friend and I weren't able to kill much because the two computer controlled guys in our squad, Baird and Cole, were unstoppable killing machines. They'd just run right into a crowd, melee everyone, then run back to us and wonder why we're still crouching behind chest high walls.

"Nice head shot on that sniper!"
"That was Baird again."
"Goddammit."

The game is no fun if the computer does all the work.

As you get older, TheOriginalEd: Because back in the day hellish difficulties were something we tolerated rather than something we wanted. Games made up for a lack of content by making it so difficult that you would never see half the content. Nowadays the average person playing games doesnt have the time to beat their head against a brick wall for entertainment, especially when a game can provide something more than that difficulty in the way of content. So a subsect of gamers has romanticized the difficult games of their youth into something they want.

dnrtfa

Moral of the story. Some companies still make hard games. Players that want those games will seek them out. theres no need to make all games hard.

Thank you, this says exactly what I wanted to say, but better.

It's easy to find hard games these days.

When a game has 64KB of content, in order to stretch that to hours worth of gameplay, a developer has to make it hard to complete.

When a game has gigabytes of content, a developer doesn't have to ramp up the difficulty as quickly in order to deliver the same amount of gameplay. So, games don't have to be as hard as they used to be in order to be entertaining.

I can't think of many games that are memorable in the last 10-12 years. Maybe Plants vs Zombies and Dragon Quest IX, and Disgaea. Those are the only ones I can recall at this moment.

Apart from that - nearly every game I remember fondly/replay was on the SNES, NES, or PC pre 2000.

/Some of those games I played for the first time in the last couple of years - so you can't say I'm 'blinded by nostalga'.
//Still play Starcraft

poot_rootbeer: Dimensio: I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

Kid Icarus had a really poor learning curve, in that the first levels you play are vertical-scrollers where falling off the bottom of the screen kills you, and your character has enough inertia that you can easily overshoot the end of a short platform. And also there are flying enemies coming at you from all directions but you can only shoot left, right, and up.

Once you're past the fortress and into the side-scrolling Overworld stages, the game gets much easier to manage.

Well yeah, you've also got a slightly bigger health bar by then too.

Sure, nowadays you have 45,000 extra buttons to memorize, but you also have an in-game "helper" who will be more than happy to talk you through every. single. aspect. of gameplay.

The My Little Pony Killer: Telos: I get it, you're unnaturally good at video games. Kid Icarus is still tedious, if for nothing else than because I'm doing all these maps blind and have to memorize as I go along.

None of Kid Icarus' dungeons are so complex that "memorization" should be an issue.

Maybe it's not that he's unnaturally good... maybe it's that you're just not very good. :P

Maybe it's also my first time playing this game, I'm going at it blind, and you have little to no reading comprehension :P

Yeah, it took me 3 days to beat it the first time I played it. It's one of my favorite games...

poot_rootbeer: Dimensio: I have never understood the classification of the original Kid Icarus as "difficult".

Kid Icarus had a really poor learning curve, in that the first levels you play are vertical-scrollers where falling off the bottom of the screen kills you, and your character has enough inertia that you can easily overshoot the end of a short platform. And also there are flying enemies coming at you from all directions but you can only shoot left, right, and up.

Once you're past the fortress and into the side-scrolling Overworld stages, the game gets much easier to manage.


The last stage is by far the easiest. But don't forget that after the overworld stages there's more vertical ones that are even tougher.

The My Little Pony Killer: Because they have people actually testing games nowadays?

On a side note, I've been playing through Kid Icarus since it's on the virtual console and I decided a good name for it would be "Unfair: The Game."

Games are easier because people would like to finish their level and then sit down and have dinner sometime in the next few hours.

/spent all day in the third world boss level
//still haven't beat it

Kid Icarus isn't any more difficult than most of the games in that genre on the NES. I find Kid Icarus much easier than Metroid or Castlevania.

If you want a hard game, grab Contra 4 for the DS. It's a fantastic game that is not only true to the spirit of Contra, but it is tough. I refuse to play on easy mode or use any cheats because I am going to beat this game the old fashioned way: die a lot until I figure it out.

These days a hard game is pretty newsworthy, since most are designed to be played through and beaten. It's more about the experience than challenge, and I can respect that. I have plenty of those games as well. With more advanced technology, you don't have to only make short games that keep killing you.

I recently played through Limbo (thanks Humble Bundle!) and it's a short but fantastic game. It's easy because every time you die, and you die a lot, you restart almost right where you left off. It's still fun because you have to figure out how to survive all these challenges, including a giant spider that will haunt your dreams.

If there had been a limit on lives, if we had to keep starting over, the game would have been a lot harder and more akin to these short games back on the NES. But it would have ruined the experience. So sometimes the experience is the playthrough, sometimes it's the challenge of beating it. Both types of games can be fun.

Passive Aggressive Larry: I've been gaming since the NES, I discuss video games on the internet frequently, and I have never once heard or read the term, "Nintendo Hard".

Really? I hear it a lot. It's a common term in all kinds of forums. But maybe I'm the anomaly.

LonghornRob: The game is no fun if the computer does all the work.

I actually enjoyed Gears 3 the least out of the entire series. I just felt like the storyline dragged on and on, and the levels all ran together by the end of it.

kukukupo: I can't think of many games that are memorable in the last 10-12 years. Maybe Plants vs Zombies and Dragon Quest IX, and Disgaea. Those are the only ones I can recall at this moment.

Apart from that - nearly every game I remember fondly/replay was on the SNES, NES, or PC pre 2000.

/Some of those games I played for the first time in the last couple of years - so you can't say I'm 'blinded by nostalga'.
//Still play Starcraft

You sound like you've never played Borderlands or Minecraft.

While many games are really easy nowadays, every once in a while one will come out that kicks your ass. Getting the Catherine platinum trophy was really difficult. Levels 9-1, 9-5 and 9-6 are really really hard on hard difficulty if you have to clear it at the gold level. The third babel level was really hard as well.

Joining the thread for the megaman love.

If you have a PS2 or GC laying around (or a wii since it plays them) look around for the Megaman Anniversary Collection and the Megaman X Collection. i'ts each whole series on 1 disc.

I play through most of them once a year. My favorite will always be 3, though I'm the best at 4, and can speedrun it under 50 minutes. I always found 6 to be underappreciated.

Wily in both 7 and 8 is obscenely hard, even though the rest of the game for each is not.

Never really had much love for the X series after game X3. X5 and 6 just started getting way too difficult/backtracky to get all the requisite armors.

Games used to punish you more severely for failure (3 lives, less frequent save points, etc...) but then they took an arrow in the knee

kukukupo:
Kid Icarus isn't any more difficult than most of the games in that genre on the NES. I find Kid Icarus much easier than Metroid or Castlevania.


Exactly (well, not Metroid really.) But games like Contra, Ninja Gaiden, Gradius, Top Gun, Ghosts 'n Goblins...

There are a ton of games that are much, much harder than Kid Icarus.

asciibaron: i'm still trying to beat this on my C64. it's only been 25 years! if only i had the instructions (thanks Bandit Boy)


[edenindustries.ca image 500x313]

oh my god!

I KNEW I DIDN'T MAKE UP THAT GAMES EXSISTANCE!

HA!

All I have to say is, thank the gaming gods that Diablo 3 has Hardcore Mode.

King Something: kukukupo: I can't think of many games that are memorable in the last 10-12 years. Maybe Plants vs Zombies and Dragon Quest IX, and Disgaea. Those are the only ones I can recall at this moment.

Apart from that - nearly every game I remember fondly/replay was on the SNES, NES, or PC pre 2000.

/Some of those games I played for the first time in the last couple of years - so you can't say I'm 'blinded by nostalga'.
//Still play Starcraft

You sound like you've never played Borderlands or Minecraft.

I'd add Minecraft to that list. Not Borderlands thoug.

I agree with many of the comments upthread. I played a lot of too-hard games growing up because that was the only new game I was going to get for a while, and there were some franchises that I just wanted to play through. I beat a lot of the old fashioned Mega Man and Dragon Warriors, but nowadays my threshold for cheese and time wasting is much lower.

Someone mentioned cheap deaths- I played through Dragon Quest 9(?) on the PS2 and got through to the dungeon after the final boss and after a couple of random fights I got 2 undead priests. They both got double turns and used both of them to cast insta-kill on everyone. Half my party died the first turn, then they got everyone else the second turn. I never played it again. Big fun there.

I also never liked RPGs that had a 30 minute unskippable cutscene leading into a boss fight that was lengthy so if you died, you had lost an hour or more of your time.

I love how the writer goes ahead and takes the super wings in super mario 3d land.

They are optional, and only appear if you are failing way too much, if you take them you lose special bonus. Nintendo did really come up with a perfect solution for everyone with that one.

Dayz mod to ARMA II

You spawn on a shore. You have a flashlight and a bandage. No gun, no map, during the night you can't see your hand in front of your face. The map is 225 square kilometers. hordes of zombies. players killing players for a can of beans. Average lifespan 38 minutes.

The developer lives on the tears of the players.

www.dayzmod.com

mainstreet62: All I have to say is, thank the gaming gods that Diablo 3 has Hardcore Mode.

Yeah once I beat Inferno, gonna make a HCC. Haven't decided which class though yet. Any suggestions?

delathi: Back in the day, the focus was on the zombie killing and the puzzles, now it is more on the overall story and you don't want the obstacle elements to bog down the experience.

Which is why I'm loving "Limbo" right now. There's no dialogue, and no story to speak of. There's just you, a black and white world, and puzzles that WILL kill you in messy ways. I'm a bit less than halfway through, and so far, I've only had to resort to the internet once to solve a puzzle. The designers did an amazing job using sound and light cues to draw attention to solutions.

Fano: IrateShadow: I'm fine with quicksaves and all that, but how about we get rid of regenerating health? It's the worst thing that's ever happened to the FPS genre.

Agreed. I liked the tension of trying to survive the last tough firefight you know is coming up and manage health packs.

Great point. This is why I always liked the Rainbow Six series. If you get shot in the leg, you hobble around for a while and are mildly useful to your team, but one shot to the head or chest and you were done. No re-spawning until the match is over.

This was a good article overall. I definitely remember leaving the Atari or NES on pause overnight, since the game didn't allow for saves. And the part about drawing our own maps and taking notes - absolutely. My friends and I all kept notebooks for our games. I honestly don't know remember how I learned a lot of game tips/cheats (SMB 99 1-ups, Konami Code, etc) though. Probably 1 part Nintendo Power Magazine and 6 parts word-of-mouth from the video arcade. The Warp Whistle from SMB3 I learned by watching The Wizard, of course.

I've beaten Mike Tyson plenty, yet NEVER beat this guy:



/On the other hand, I beat the Kingdom Hearts version of Sephiroth on Expert using only 2 elixirs.