<![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty - Kotaku Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty - Kotaku Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @FhnuZoag: Games are getting easier.

The Commissar

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> The game's difficulty should fit the purpose and target audience of the game, simple. Take a look at a single series and you can see how the difficulty can be moved when the audience changes. If any of you are old enough to remember the original rainbow six, you then remember how damn difficult it was. It was never cheap, it just demanded perfection and patience. But the game was designed to simulate counter terrorist scenarios, and in that regard many of the original gamers loved it. As the game evolved and the audience grew however, the difficulty had to change in order to appeal to a much broader audience who expected more Hollywood and less reality. That meant placing more importance on the player than his team, more over the top scenarios, and a general toning down of the overall strategic difficulty. The main thing that was lost was the preplanning, which worked great on the PC and made the game have strategic depth, but was lost in favor of a more "accessible" console version. In short, hardcore games demand a hardcore audience, and only certain games under the wing of certain developers can truly make a game that makes a player want to come back over and over again to tackle something extremely difficult.

knyghtryda

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> One reason that games are not difficult is that the gamers have too much familiarity with the genres before picking up the controller. I am glad that developers are not in an arms race to make the most difficult games because I like the emphasis on the experience of the game. Some people play games for challenge or test of skill or competition, but I play for fun. Like others have said, there was a reason why 2D games were generally so difficult, so that you would keep pumping in the quarters and so that you would feel that you got your money's worth out of a cartridge that had less than a half hour of gameplay.

I can appreciate that there are still people that are into gaming for those reasons, but it all comes back to the enjoyment of the game and if a game isn't enjoyable because it takes too much time to get past a certain area, I stop caring about that game.

kingofallcosmos

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Ninja Gaiden was cool not because it was fair or unfair (boss grab attacks had ridiculous range and could take out half your health), but because for every moment that felt cheap there was an "aha" moment where you found a way to make it easier. I felt so proud when I found out that you could dodge second form Alma's grab by rolling 'towards' her instead of away. What makes a game challenging rather than cheap is when a game's success is based as much on how you play as how well you play.

To me, games are a chance to prove my skill to myself. My college roommate never understood why I would beat a boss in a game, then hit reset and try to do it again without taking damage (or less damage if I'm not feeling that patient).

One feature I would add to games is to give enemies on harder difficulties new attacks. This adds replay value and makes playing again on a harder difficulty a little more surprising and fresh.

Tiber

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I love it when games have universal difficulty, like GTA and many others, that also gets you the feeling that you and anyone else who have completed the game have gone through the similar experience.

Reetesh

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Zerozaki Ishiki:

As well as blooming those trees, watch a Youtube video of someone racing and learn their shortcuts. Your opponent takes the long way around everything - learning the shortcuts is vital.

helyxzero

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I prefer games that are hard but can be beaten; I just don´t have the time or patience to try extreme difficulties, so i guess i´ll never finish Gears of War in Madness...@mcderek3000: You have spoken al the truth in the world; I haven´t finished FFX because Seymour is an asshole; It´s a great game but my patience it´s not that great...

Daisuash

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I used to whine about games no longer being challenging, but I guess now I get easily annoyed with a game that's so difficult it's no longer fun. Maybe it comes with adulthood and less time for gaming.

MPSai

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I don't mind hard games but they need to be fair. Ex. cheap shots in fighting games (like the computer walking forward and unleashing a charge back move).

I should not have to fight the camera or controls and 1 hit kill shots should be a no-no.

An example of a hard but fair game are the Megaman Zero series on the GBA, especially the later ones. Those were hard but fair, as in you never had to fight against the game system itself.
In other words, the move you wanted to pull always comes out. It may not have been the right move but it does come out.

angry_gamer

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I think what's really important is the flow of difficulty within the game.

If you cruise through most of the levels and then get ass-raped repeatedly at some point, and despite all your efforts, can't manage to beat that part, there's something wrong with either the parts you beat so easily, or that really hard new stage.

I like games that give you an opportunity to get better gradually.

Mokona

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I've grown to loathe boss battles and can't say exactly why. Doom3 pushed me over the edge maybe..

Long difficult levels with many normal and heavy powered enemies are fun. Super mega bosses that need 95 hits on a tiny area suck and are not the 'reward' a player deserves for playing your game.. I'm looking at you Undying end boss hydra thing..

Worst 'balancing' done to up the difficulty level I've ever seen was courtesy of the Mechwarrior4 team.. Normal level play was fun but play on EXPERT and for some reason your very center breastplate armor piece was replaced with a piece of glass with a bulls eye on it.. they nerfed the armor and so you could only take half the damage you used to on normal.

Don't remove capabilities the player has grown used to to increase difficulty, that's dumb. add something..

railskins

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like the occassional difficult game. There is enough room in this world for a few Ninja Gaiden: Blacks and Kid Icarus'. Still, most of the time I want the game to be pretty easy, and just present me with situations that I can go through and say "That was really impressive," or "That was clever and interesting." If you do that by being absurdly difficult (Mario Lost Levels has a few moments where the level design in pure genius in its cruelty), then more power to you.

However, I think the advent of online gaming removed a lot of the need for difficulty in games. Honestly, if you want a challenge, you can always try to be competitive in a game with a very strong competitive community. Few games are harder, for example, than Super Smash Bros Melee against a truly skilled opponent.

therationalpi

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Good riddance, I say.

If I had my money back for every time that I have almost reached the end of a game, only to find an incredibly difficult and cheap boss at the end, I would have probably retired on the proceedings from console-game bundles.

My notable hates include the final bosses from the Onimusha series, the Snipers-from-nowhere sections of FPSes and the "whoops, you'll have to grind for ten more hours first" RPGs. The worst part about all of these is that, when I buy a game, I'll never know whether I can finish it or whether I will be stuck at the final boss forever because I didn't conserve every single health potion along the 30-hour way and now have no way of buying new ones.

Difficulty is the lazy man's version of size and variety. So your game is less than 6 hours long and you can't be bothered to include new levels? Just bring in an incredibly cheap final boss and you're done.

If you look at some of the best-reviewed games in history - the Mario and Zelda franchises, the Half-Life series, Okami, Psychonauts, Res Evil 4 etc, all of them were incredibly easy. However, they were so much fun, none of the reviewers noticed, and they made up for the rate at which players would burn through the missions with old-fashioned size and variety.

Remember: games are made to entertain us, not the other way round.

mcderek3000

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> If it's too easy I'll lose interest but if it's too hard and I have to constantly replay it, it's not good. Somewhere in the middle is good. GTA IV has a good difficulty, as does God of War and the later Tomb Raider games.

kylo4

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I personally dislike difficulty settings. It's too much effort on the developer to establish difficulty standards, and it's generally ignored by the user unless they really suck at the game. I always select the Normal setting, because I assume that is the way in which the designer intended.

As for game difficulty in general, it bothers me when a game is automatically difficult as opposed to intentionally difficult. Like JRPGs, for instance; taking 5 steps and going into battle mode is an example of automatic difficulty -- It's been created simply to slow down your progression (don't get me started on instant kill encounters). Intentionally difficult games, like Siren, are designed to challenge. You have to invest time to understand the gameplay in order to progress in it.

I don't see the decrease in difficulty as a design decision as much as it is the result of lazy design. For instance, Bioshock touted itself as a "thinking man's FPS," but it fell into the rocket launcher hunt that has plagued FPSs since Doom. The game would have been much better if each Big Daddy had a different weakness, which had to be discovered through investigating the area.

boopadoo

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> the problem nowadays, is not that people are making games too easy, it's that they aren't putting enough thought into making things "challenging". this is mostly because of a flaw with 3d enemies, as they are limited as to what they can do competently. take first person shooters as an example. how do difficulty levels differ from one another. do they lower the amount of damage the player can take? or do they increase the accuracy or rate of fire of the enemies you face? few games choose to actually add additional behavior to the a.i.. I also completly agree with what Powerlurker had to say, i think he's right on target as well. games seem a lot easier not because they're less challenging. it's because they're less tedious and cheap. There are exceptions though, and games that manage to be hard, yet not archaic, tend to be EXCEPTIONAL games.

mightyg

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> As some of the commenters have touched on, I think that the nature of "difficulty" in a difficult game has greatly changed since the 8-bit/arcade era. Back then, difficulty was mainly caused by attrition. Each subsequent level would have more/faster/stronger enemies until the point where they'd overwhelm you and you'd have to put in another quarter. Nowadays, difficulty seems to be more in the mastery of technical systems, and depending on how quickly you pick it up, the game can either be trivially easy or painfully difficult. Compare NES era Ninja Gaiden with Xbox era Ninja Gaiden. The first beat you by constantly throwing enemies at you and a number of "unfair" methods of ramping up the difficulty, while its more modern incarnation stresses mastery of the combat system while never coming across as arbitrary, unfair, or cheap. With regards to JRPGs part of the reason why many of them seem easier is because they are far better designed. 8-bit era games tended to be poorly paced and required excessive grinding to be "on level" (which I would place in the category of "cheap" difficulty). Now contrast with modern JRPGs (particularly NIS strategy RPGs and MegaTen games) understanding and mastering the underlying mechanics and systems of the games can make for much easier progression.

Powerlurker

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I agree a hundo. All games should have adjustable difficulty. Well said.

eviltower01

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> When playing online with a friend(s) in a co-op game I prefer playing on the harrder difficulties. However, by my self I prefer an easier affair.

eviltower01

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Ahh, great topic here. I believe that all games should have an adjustable difficulty. Some of the comments here are absolutely ignorant such as "if it's too hard, don't play it". No, that alienates gamers who may enjoy the experience but do not want to be forced to repeat their actions until perfection. Let them scrape by, and if they want a challenge in the future, by all means let them crank up the difficulty.

As I child I beat some insane shit, like most other people here I presume, because I could devote myself to beating games. Nowadays, my love of gaming has not waned, but my ability to cope with repetition has. There are so many things going on in life that I can't be stressed out over things like gaming, I'd rather just relax, drive some laps or shoot some stuff or what have you, and move on with my day. Let me focus on real life challenges while having fun in my hobbies, not challenge around every bloody corner! And let there be high difficulties for those who still have the ability to devote themselves to these things. Simple concept.

Developers, I know you want to target specific audiences with your games sometimes, but please make your games accessible for all types of gamers.

jiSh

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like a game that is challenging, forces me to sweat a little. I might loose once or twice but then I pull ahead of the curve and vault over it. A good curve rather then something that is just 100% pattern memory recognition where you need to memorize one pattern and use it to a timed second. I find that boring~ I think games like devil may cry find the balance between pattern toughness, game toughness but also allowing you to get ahead. There are also different difficulty levels in that game based on how you like to play it.

I used to play some of those games back in the old NES and SNES days and they were fun to a level, the transition from 2d games to 3d games definitely lowered the difficulty ten-fold.

ninjikiran

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like a game that is challenging, forces me to sweat a little. I might loose once or twice but then I pull ahead of the curve and vault over it. A good curve rather then something that is just 100% pattern memory recognition where you need to memorize one pattern and use it to a timed second. I find that boring~ I think games like devil may cry find the balance between pattern toughness, game toughness but also allowing you to get ahead. There are also different difficulty levels in that game based on how you like to play it.

ninjikiran

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> God Power keeps his pimp hand strong.

I loooove God Hand. Best game ever made. I don't care who you are z- that game was hard, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it. Especially on hard mode. But what's great about it is when you do finally manage to beat it and go back to the first level, you just breeze through it.
...until you try a Kick Me Sign run on Hard mode. At that point, the game earns it's crown for Hardest Game Ever.

But don't take my word for it!:


+ Watch video




Huh? Oh, right. Hard games. I like hard games. I prefer them hard, usually. When I was a kid, I HATED it when they were hard, but since I've gotten older, I've really come to appreciate a game that's hard.
...assuming, of course, that it's fair (like God Hand or Ikaruga). That way it feels like an actual test of skills, rather than some unfair, rigged against you match.

Monsieur Fap★Fap!

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I choose normal cause I consider myself normal.

If I really really enjoy the game I will play through it again on a harder difficulty, but before I finish I usually stop caring or have bought a new game. I've still yet to pick up RE4 to finish on Pro. Got to that last little island but havn't played it in ages, probably won't pick it up for ages either.

juliopalio

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for a game to be either a "competitor" or a game to be "beaten". Each direction has its strengths, weaknesses, and purposes. Some games are supposed to be experienced and, in the process, amaze and instill wonder in their player. Others are meant for the challenge - they're directed at the competitive types who want to hone their skills at something. Now the trick would be to somehow combine the two while not alienating either audience.

Blah8

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Personally I like to be challenged when I play a video game otherwise I'll get bored and stop playing. But I think it's important to have different difficulty settings for each game.

This is mostly because sometimes developers have no idea wtf they're doing when they create harder difficulties. A good example of this is PuzzleQuest. Great game, but when you put the difficulty to hard it takes the fun out of the game because it goes from being a game of skill to being a game of luck. This is because the computer gets consecutive skeletons skulls and perfect item drops where you don't.

But for reasons like the one above I think it's important to have several difficulties on the same game.

NeoAkira

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @NitrousO: Seconded.

phnord

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> (Additionally, games-as-movies mean you need to get to the end to experience the game. There's no need to make the game harder to extend play time.)

hegemonyhog

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Game difficulty is all economic.

It made more sense for games to be more difficult when arcades were popular and the motivation was to earn money quarter by quarter. When your best programmers and best technology were focused on making shiny new games that could get sugar-addled kids and machine-obsessed arcade savants to pump dollars upon dollars into your newest masterpieces, games had to be difficult in order to earn money.

Now, you buy a game all at once. You don't stop paying when you don't feel like playing anymore - you buy the beginning, the juicy middle, and the slightly burnt but still oddly delicious end. From an economic perspective, the way to ensure that people keep giving you $60 (that new quarter, folks) is to ensure that they get the sort of value that ensures they come back - an ending, or damn close to it.

We'd oddly enough probably get harder games if they were cheaper, with less impetus on justifying the purchase.

hegemonyhog

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I played COD2 and 4 on Veteran for the achievements, and I'm damn glad I did. Maybe it's just the type of game, but it felt so much more satisfying to beat a mission when I actually had to take care not to get shot 20 times before I could pass it...

Demaar

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> The most comprehensive solution for game difficulty is different difficulty modes, but that requires extra testing and development time. Accomplishments, scoring systems, or medals can be set up, but again require development time. Not only that, but high difficulty must be well balanced between figuring out a solution, time/reaction execution for real time games, the degree of perfection that the player needs to execute their commands, and the penalties for failure.

Look at the following factors regarding game difficulty in todays video games:

1. Only a small segment of the gaming population wants a challenging difficulty - most gamers play single player games to relax, have fun, or experience a story. Most of the competition has moved into the realm of PvP.
2. It takes extra development and testing time plus talented developers and designers who are experienced with implementing balanced and quality levels of difficulty in a game. Niether of these are in ample supply.
3. When a game is released that is difficult without offering easier modes, it is usually penalized heavily for it, even if the game is considered easy by experienced gamers, or if the difficulty is fairly implemented but requires some brain power investment in learning how the game system works in order to overcome it.

Combine 1,2, and 3 and you see why most games are pathetically easy these days. The only games that have gotten away with both a high score in gaming press and a high game difficulty are games where the difficulty is completely optional.

mjemirzian

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Ugh, this reminds me of Jak 2. It wasn't really difficult, it was artificially difficult. Fall off a moving platform jump sequence a good ways into a level? Back to the beginning you go! Oh of course, because I really need to waste 15 minutes going through easy shit again just for another shot at that jumping sequence. Absolutely infuriating. I don't mind a difficult game at all, but if I have to repeat more than a few minutes over and over each time I fail, the game will end up getting shelved very quickly.

FFX made me watch a long cinematic before one of the bosses, and it was a boss with a gimmick that if you cured your conditions, you'd automatically die. I don't know how anybody would see that coming the first time, so I'm guessing nearly everyone had to watch that 5 or whatever minute unskippable cinematic twice. This isn't difficulty, this is piss poor game design.

Like many others have said, it's not the difficulty that's bothersome, it's having to replay 10-15 minutes every time you fail. I don't have the tolerance to play them anymore.

Wolfers

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Little bit off topic, but is there a hi-res version of the pic for this article? I need myself a new desktop.

ChunkOFunk

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @JocktheMotie: @jihadjoe343: CoD4 might have had scripted AI, but going to veteran sucked. I play all my games on the hardest difficulty possible from the get-go. CoD4 pissed me off with their stupid hard method of difficulty. Making enemies endless until you cross a point does not equal difficult, just annoying. Besides those hang ups, the only time I've needed help on a difficult/hardcore setting was the absolute end of Gears. The AI against raam was awful. I just could not do it on my own:(
But as to the article, Games have been getting easier as the years go on, and the ways they make them challenging is getting dumber. Boo infinate enemy spawns :(


Darascon

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Xiedo: The analog control for movement was rather iffy, now I admit it may be arguable that DMC is actually worse in this regard, but then again, DMC (any in the PS2 trilogy, didn't play 4 yet) didn't really need the pinpoint accuracy as much as Shinobi did, your comparison is like comparing Tomb Raider to Uncharted. Uncharted is very loose but the platforming is forgiving and more creative where as Tomb raider (any in the PSone trilogy, never tried anything else in the series) controls like a very pecise tank but the platforming is precise that the controls ceases to be adequate.

ban_hammer

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Cris_Spiegel: Yes, you're right, that type of "reward" is most important. It's the primary reason for all multiplayer FPS games and all arcade/KOF-like games, after all :D.
That game "the hardest game in the world" just shouldn't have provided negative reward, and clunky collision-detection, to be interesting/long-lasting.

somarix

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like difficult games along as they are based on skill with little luck and ample save features. Take Ninja Gaiden for example. The game is hard and you get your ass handed to you often, but you don't have to repeat a whole level if you mess up.

Although while I love DMC4, I hate how they have those luck levels. I spent over 45 minutes on stage 19 going in circles because I couldn't get my piece to land on the right place, which made the game frustrating since if I messed up, I had to go all the way back to the beginning. <.<

As long as I don't have to repeat a long level to only get repeatly served at the same place I would like games to be harder. I don't miss the days where you would play for two hours, make it to the last level and die and have to start ALL OVER AGAIN...save features are god send.

ShinjiKinomoto

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I usually like to make the game extremely hard for myself my first play through (for some crazy reason) like when I play zelda, I try my best to only use 3 hearts (but I end up getting more to continue on XD) but sometimes I make it too hard on myself and I don't even finish the game (ff12, star ocean:tteof,and ff8 are a few examples ;_;)I think that's the reason why I liked Shadow of the colossus, it was seeminly hard but really wasnt that difficult :D make me feel invinciable!

hrabbit

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Ninja Gaiden FTW. No game I've played in my life has challenged me better while never leaving me with the feeling that it was "unfair."

Also, see: Ikaruga.

Fitz Rhapsody

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @ban_hammer: I have to ask, where did you find a problem in Shinobi's game mechanic that wasn't in DMC? You mentioned controls, but Shinobi and DMC have almost identical controls, right down to the lock-on contextual moves.

Xiedo

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> The World Ends With You has an interesting system. You are able to, anytime, change the games difficulty AND lower your level. Harder difficulty means you you get better stuff you don't really need if you keep playing on easy, lower level means you get MORE of the stuff. You can also chain battles - you can "select" up to 4 enemies to fight in succession, instead of taking them on one at a time. You get better stuff from this, and save time, BUT the enemies get tougher with each round.

This system works PERFECTLY. When I'm farming, I choose hard difficulty. When I just mess around, I choose something easier and just lower my level so I still get some loot. When I want a challenge, I just choose to fight a tough enemy four times in a row with no healing inbetween (you are healed after each fight usually - no boring after-fight-healing in this game).

Renoistic

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Depends on how you define hard. There s a cheap hard and a true challeng. Shinobi fighting mechanic and Super Mario Galaxy's camera made it hard in a cheap since it made things more difficult by removing intuitivity where as games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden were hard because you have to be quick and skillful, not because the controls were not top notch. I was able to beat DMC3 and Ninja Gaiden on hard easily, Super Mario, one level only required help from a second player but I finished that too. Shinobi is just broken hard, it reminded me why Uncharted is so fun and why Tomb Raider sucks.

ban_hammer

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> The excerpt brings to mind a classic Itagaki quote: "In other action games, the enemies are there for you to kill. In Ninja Gaiden, the enemies are there to kill you."

I love my games hard. It's engaging and rewarding.

TheContender: NG2 (both the demo and the retail game) will have all difficulties unlocked from the start. And Itagaki said Master Ninja will be harder than it was in Black. "Easy" will also be easier, so it should satisfy all kinds of gamers.

By the way, kudos to you! "No game is impossible" is right.

Xiedo

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> If you want difficult games, consider imports. There plenty entertaining and also give a challenge. Or maybe try the hard mode on games first and they will be more hard, essentially difficult in technique.

bird1988

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @PatMan33: Was it because you weren't allowed to save the game when you pleased?

The game became very easy as soon as you beat the ice dungeon. As soon as you did that you could get the razor sharp sword, you also you would get the big bombs which opened up Lon Lon Ranch.Once you got the Lon Lon Ranch Mask you didn't have to worry about replenishing your magic meter. (vintage milk always kept the magic meter full) Then all you had to do is keep 1 fairy in a bottle just in case.

2SBs

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Roto13: really? i thought the purple coins were absurdly easy. The one on the luigi board was going to be awesomely insane i thought...until i realized there were more than 100 coins on the level. There should've only been 100 so you had to get every single one :D

Quine

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Most games these days are way too easy. Games shouldn't be cheap (like lvl 9 comps in SSBM would be if they weren't horribly stupid, but constantly shield reflecting type stuff is cheap).

The difficulty curve of both half life games were excellent, providing challenge but not cheapness. Portal was great but too easy imho, though just barely. The flash portal map pack was perfect though, especially at the time based parts.

A lot of games that have come out recently in franchises that used to be challenging (like mario) have just been absurdly easy. Mario galaxy, even as luigi, is a cakewalk 95% of the time. If every level in that game was as intense as the last level, I'd pay hundreds for it.

What we need, I think, are more games that are challenging but dont make you go back a lot when you die, such as the new prince of persias, where its difficult but you can quickly go back if you make a mistake.

Quine

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @2SBs: It was still harder than the other Zelda games.

PatMan33

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> When a game is reportedly easy, I turn up the difficulty. While I enjoy being able to get through a game, I'm generally pretty good at these things, and I like a little challenge. Kingdom Hearts 2, for instance... Turned it straight to Hard. This made the earlier fights hella hard, and later fights challenging, and I enjoyed it. Plus, I didn't have to do a freakin' 100% completion in order to get the speshul ending.

Yeah, ridiculous collection demands = also bad.

MrPerson

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> And then God created multiple difficulty levels and he saw that the people were pleased.

One of my favorite games is/was Crash Bandicoot Warped. I have a lot of fun starting over and going through all the levels and the bosses and whatnot but one sapect of it always got to me.

Le Difficulty

The game was designed for children and I played crash games as a child, but now I'm 18 and Crash Warped is way too easy for me. Oh sure I could go for gold relic and all the gems but those are only difficult because they are annoying. I really wish there were some ultra-hard levels even if the barely netted you anything.

Oh and there are two types of hardness I know of (minds out of the gutter). There's a difficulty that comes from you not knowing the controls or not knowing what you're suppsoed to do (which I HATE) and the other one where it's geuninely difficult.

I want a game where I know what the hell I'm doing and so do my opponents (unless it's a hitman game, in which case it becomes impossible) but oh well perhaps that's why they have 6 star wanted levels in grand theft auto.

Father-Time

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Well, from what I've read in the comments here, everyone has their own views on what is "difficult." But, I think I can boil down what's been discussed in one thought:

As long as the game allows you to progress using skill, then difficulty shouldn't be an issue, since skills can be honed. If luck is all you can hope for, a game can get frustating quickly (especially for the unlucky).

cringer8

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I dunno, but too hard a game makes it difficult for me to immerse into, though some difficulty is appreciated.

Lyner

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Well, it's true, back at the 8-bit era pretty much every game was insanely hard, you died from the first hit, game forced you to start from the beginning after few deaths and so on. It was fun back then, but I also had tons of time to waste. Nowdays, not so much. These days I generally look for story and enjoy challenge only on puzzles. Playing Myst IV at the moment.... I tend to set the challenge lower if I hit a wall because of some reflex battle. I just don't have the time to waste on replaying same boss fight 50 times untill I know all it's moves by heart. This is not without exceptions, sometimes I enjoy insane challenge, but that's rare.

Interesting trend though, games are really moving towards movies, in most of the latest AAA titles production values are through the roof and challenge bar lays on the floor.

ara

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Wasn't this the topic of one of those comics with Hsu&Chan at the end of EGM several months ago? Basically they were trying to create a game difficult enough for the hardcore gamer and didn't stop until the guy was actually being dismembered or something. Some of the commenters here remind me of that guy.

VioletArrows

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Depending on the game, I think the difficulty should differ.

Some sort of games (FPS, fighters) I believe should have selectable difficulty levels, but the game still gets increasingly harder as you progress. By the end of the game, Easy should be similar to the start of Normal, Normal similar to the start of Hard, and Hard similar to the start of Extreme (if there is one)

Adventure/Exploration games (e.g Zelda) should have just a curved difficulty with enemies. Early enemies are easy and small in number, and as you progress, they harden and increase in number. If they have puzzles in the game, they should become harder as you go on. Also, no puzzle should be used more than 3 times. Once you work out how to do a puzzle the first time, the next is no longer an enigma to solve, but a simple hurdle.

A game should never be too easy to cater to the 'casual crowd' (LoZ:TP comes to mind) but a game also shouldn't be too difficult and punish gamers who just can't do extreme difficulties (Ikaruga etc.)

I consider myself a good gamer, not great, but I can play well, and I jsut don't have fun when it comes to an incredebly difficult moment. I know that they are possible, but if I have to go through it 50 times + then passing it is more of a relief than an achievment.

Dr_Pie

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like selectable levels of difficulty. Some games I play, like the Zelda series, I don't expect to be challenging, but would appreciate the option to make them harder so all the running around getting the best gear and whatever doesn't amount to being pointless when the final boss is so easy you don't even need to use a potion.

I also like it when games let you change the level of difficulty at any point in the game. Some games I find too easy for the most part but then get too hard for me to want to bother with towards the end. Being able to shift down the level of difficulty means I can enjoy the entire game at the level of difficulty I can enjoy

Similarly, I like how you can crank up the difficulty in Oblivion. My character ended up being so powerful that the game was a bit boring, so the option to make it harder was appreciated.

Chintz

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc: He is talking about the second time through, it becomes a race after you clear the place and you win a bead if you beat her.
It´s not that hard though, it took me 3 or 4 tries thats true, but each time, i did it faster and eventually got her with a very good margin.
Just go once to cure all the trees first, then use the brush to pass fire on the snow balls.
When the brush is on the game is paused, so she won´t be able to catch you.

About games these days... just observing the amount of different opinions here makes it clear that being a game dev these days is hell. Theres absolutely no chance of an agreement, so i guess games end up being something in between.
And yes i also think that games mostly evolved since we can play online now. The real dificulty in games these days, is playing another human player, so they don´t care about a really over the top challenging game, its just not worth the bitching they wold get afterwards.

Krumm

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> My main concern with difficulty, as has been mentioned repeatedly, is cheap hard vs. justly hard. Giving someone thrice his normal hitpoints isn't making it harder in any meaningful way, it's just an endurance test (Either literally, or in game terms eg having more potions). Enemies which are smarter are preferable.

I don't like games so hard I can't finish them. I also don't like games so easy I can't lose. One of my favorite genres, RPGs, fall into the latter too often. You have to go well out of your way to find a really challenging fight in, say, Final Fantasy. (X was better than most though, there were occasionally tough story bosses there)

Mister Adequate

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> The range between challenging and unfair is going to vary from game to game for everyone. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn can be blisteringly challenging, even on the Normal difficulty setting. The first time I beat the game, I just could not make it past the last two battles without keeping all of my units alive. The next time I play, I'll hopefully be better prepared for that part of the game, but I'm willing to give it all I've got.

On the other hand, I know people that would throw the controller through the wall because of Fire Emblem's permanent death rules by the midpoint of the game and refuse to play it anymore. It's the same reason that I absolutely couldn't stand playing Devil May Cry 3 for more than a couple of stages. The game's difficulty is just too vexing for me.

Lezard

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Some games are meant to be that way. Ninja Gaiden is a hardcore game. It's supposed to be a hardcore game. It's not the fault of the game that you don't have the skills to complete it. The game gives you every opportunity to elevate your gameplay. For christ sake, it's NINJA GAIDEN. It'd be uncharacteristic of the series to be easy. (I'm looking at you nuetered EA Timesplitters!)

On the other hand, I don't hate easy games. They're just easy; they can still be enjoyed by the hardcore (Knytt is a good example, even though I personally don't like that game).

I just get pissy when softcores complain that a hardcore game is too hard. If you can't swim that well, don't be jumping in the deep end.

Shabadage

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Zerozaki Ishiki: You mean the one against Kai in Kamui? You don't need to beat her, you just need to beat the clock.

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Games have moved on from being competitors because we can now compete against other gamers long-distance via the Internet ... they have just evolved. Nothing wrong with that. I don't want to fight against a game, I want to enjoy it.

jayntampa

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> A lot of people these days seem to be afraid of dying/failing/getting a game over.
Like reloading every time you get busted or wasted in GTA.

It's OK people, you won't die in real life if you die in the game.

Hassun

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Wipeout is perfect for this, anything but perfect laps on Phantom is a complete waste of time, but the Zone mode and unlocking of speed classes serves as near perfect preparation for the vision bending Phantom class.

Accordion

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @JocktheMotie:
You hit on something really important there. I love Ninja Gaiden for the same reason. By the same token, I hate bosses that blatantly cheat.

I don't mind rubber band AI in racers as long as it's done well, but if the difficulty feels unfair there's just no drive to retry it.

And ultimately, if you get to a point where you die no matter how many times you try it... the game is over unless beating your head against a wall sounds fun. I'd tend to give a game more tries if I'm just facing a very skilled opponent instead of an unblockable one shot kill move or enemy with 800% of my HP, and I can only do 790 damage before dying.


fuchikoma

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> And I think one feature would help a lot - the ability to change the difficulty levels during play. That way, you can turn down the difficulty if you are finding it hard.

FhnuZoag

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I would agree, I haven't played anything decently hard since 1998, or something. The only thing which was has been hard since then was completing NGB, that was truly hard (and I feel good about completing) unlike other games where it feels more like finishing a movie, and getting to see what happens to the hero!

Deyardly

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I don't really think games are getting easier, and am personally quite annoyed with easy modes that turn out to be anything but.

Games should be balanced in the following way:
Easy: An average player should be able to complete the game without dying. A new gamer should die at most 2 or so times per level.
Normal: An average player should die at most 2 times per level.
Hard: An average player should die at most 5 or so times per level.

Assuming that levels are about 1 hour in play length.

FhnuZoag

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @somarix: That's funny, because I think that sometimes the reward comes from the player himself. The fact that you beat a game or a level, this knowledge, this thing that happens in the mind, I think it's wonderful, a great feeling. It's why I still play Tetris, it's why I see people in the arcade beating a Street Fighter-or-KOF-kinda-game and walking away without seeing the ending sequence. It's so Ryu: "the fight is all".

I like "interactive stories" too but I like to really feel why I'm the hero. So I like the three options: the competition, the story and the story-plus-competition. If there were only one of them, I would be sad.

Cris_Spiegel

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I think I'm in the group of people who prefer really difficult games.

It's not because I'm an elitist asshole who considers himself "hardcore," and just wants bragging rights about how easy Ninja Gaiden was for him.

It's just that... When I think back, all of my favorite video game experiences have been moments wherein I triumphed over some great video game evil. When a villain kicked my ass so thoroughly and for such a prolonged period of time, that I actually began to see him as an evil fucking villain. When my motivation, although entirely different, was just as passionate as my character's.

When you just want more than anything for that fucker to die, and after hours of being slaughtered (slightly less severely each time), you finally manage to end his miserable life.. Ah, it's euphoric.

Now, I realize that this could also be accomplished more accessibly with a superb story or a high level of interactivity/non-linearity. But there's something about that video game feel that an incredibly immersive, non-linear, interactive story just can't match for me. I like to feel like I'm playing a game, sometimes. Life bars and continues and impossible boss fights. It gets me nostalgic. It makes me remember why our hobby is the best in the world.

Uzumaki_Kiba

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Old games were more difficult because there wasn't much to them, they were really short usually, and without much story or detail graphically. They had to be hard to be worth their price. I think games like GTA and Final fantasy get away with being incredibly easy because they're a lot longer and have great stories. I don't remember dieing a single time in Final fantasy XII, but there would be a lot of people who did find it hard. Pixeljunk monsters was the opposite, really difficult, but no story and very basic gameplay and graphics.

When games have difficulty settings, I always go with normal, but in fps from now on I may play for a minute then restart on hard if it was too easy. I fear hard because I don't want to get near the end and then give up completing it cos there's one vexing part.

valleyshrew

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like to play through on the harder difficulties to make it a challenge, but tend to leave the hardest alone on my first play through for 2 reasons:
1. It gives me a greater challenge to look forward to.
2. It means I can go through the game at a difficulty that while hard isn't punishing and highly repetitive (thanks to dying a lot).
This isn't always the case as (much like women's dress sizes and hot sauce) the words "Hard" and "Normal don't always mean the same thing. Sometimes "Hard" isn't, and sometimes all that lets up on easy is that the enemies are doing a fraction less damage.
I did play through CoD 4 on Veteran (I think that was what the hardest difficulty was called), simply because I unlocked it via the "Mock-up" time trial test. What made it harder than the other modes was the volume of enemies and the need to get the proper timing down for things. "The Mile High Club" is merely the most extreme example of this, but for any other mission not memorizing the patterns could mean hearing the same dialog a few times.

For a lot of the people I know though, one of the biggest reasons not to go through on the "Hardest" difficulty is that having to repeat things to get through a game can get very time consuming, and the way life is, time is a luxury in and of itself. If you're barely scrapping an hour or two here and there to game, you want to be able to remember an experience and that you time was well spent, not that you kept forgetting about that a-hole with the shotgun behind the third door.

Parsifal

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Games have to be easy otherwise casual gamers would get frustrated. blah blah game is too hard blah blah.

ratix240sx

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> It seems like a design flaw to put a win-lose system in play for what is essentially an interactive story.

Conversely, it seems silly to hide lots of production and story behind what is supposed to be a test of skill.

It's nonsense to me. Unless the two concepts are sufficiently separated, they hinder eachothers purpose.

liquidnumb

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @somarix: Btw, I also sometimes love when a game is too easy (or more correctly, "when I can set it to "very easy"). It's for when I'm bored but tired.

somarix

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Remember that Flash game "The hardest game in the world" ? It lacked the only necessary thing to make it an enjoyable competition: REWARDS. After each level, or during it, there needed to be some rewarding artwork, cheers, whatever. But no, that game had to go out of its way to insult you and your mother. Also, it lacked another thing - stable collision-detection and controls. Every time your circle didn't hit an obstacle when it should have, or vice-versa, you just lost more faith in your reasoning to continue.

Games should just give difficulty options right from the start. And never repeat Doom3's hilarious Nightmare mode - it was easy, while mocking you and taking-out all ingame rewards (healthpack management).

somarix

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @aka Bitter:
Don't know if the same rules apply on 360 as I played on PC, but I felt Vita-Chambers were fairly redundant anyway due to the ability to save anywhere. If I got raped by a monster closet or whatever, then over to the load screen I go, a rule that will see you in good stead for most PC games.
My top tip then is to save, and save often.
(As a side note, I intentionally never used a Vita-Chamber on my first playthrough of Bioshock, they just seemed to be too good to be true, so I avoided them in case it affected the game in any way.)

mrrobsa

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Variable difficulty levels takes care of a lot of the problems - you can breeze through Halo on the easier settings or crank it up to Legendary if you want a challenge. I usually play to be entertained, but it's still fun to tear through Gears on Insane every now and then.

ubiquitous

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> As an older gamer whose skills are not what they used to be, I appreciate the reduced difficulty and generous continue systems of todays games. I just don't have hours to waste trying to beat a difficult section or boss with so much going on in my life.

Example: if Bioshock was old school difficult and the Vita-Chamber system didn't exist. Would it have been as acclaimed if only a small number of people could complete it?

aka Bitter

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Hmm, I tend to side towards the easier of titles, now that I think of it, because I usually pick games, with more story. However, that does not stop me from picking up games that like to kick my ass, because it is rewarding to be able to beat them. lol

SpearXXI

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I don't believe in "difficuly spikes" or a difficulty level being "unfair." If a game has any sort of difficuly setting, I always set it on the hardest as soon as I start it. But games should be as hard as they possibly can be. If you don't like it and the game doesn't have a lesser difficulty setting for you, well tough toenails, don't buy the game.

Someday, I'd like to see some sort of game that is so difficult most players have to resort to hacks to get through it. And then eventually there will be those people that somehow managed to get past a level legitimately and everyone is youtubing their play to see how they did it. That's what I imagine the epitome of a true game should be.

The last game I truly enjoyed the difficulty of was No More Heroes. I went through 9 of the assasins with only the level 2 beam katanna. Multiple times only winning by my last 1/120 life bit. Winning by such small fraction really makes you feel like you accomplished something. After youtubing other people's stradegies out of curiosity, I couldn't find anyone playing it under the circumstances I did, and it made me think I had played the game that way it was truly meant, rather than cruising through the fights effortlessly as others had.

Green-clad Gamer Dude

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> For difficulty I love a challenging game like God Hand over a game I just work easily through. But at the same time it needs to be simple to playthrough.

Like "I wanna be the guy", that game is mind-shatteringly difficult in a single run-through, but constantly punctuating your progress with save-points means it is never THAT bad. You have challenging sections, unbelievably so, but they never force you to do what you know you can do again. Definitely the worst thing about Okami for me was repeated bosses with no increase in difficulty. At least in DMC4 when they reintroduced bosses they were something different, like when Berial unleashed his purple flame on DMD. I like a difficult game but I don't like a difficult experience.

XanderSan

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @TheContender: Yes that's something: people got older, with lots of things to do and games are only one of them. Fiding a pattern in a platformer of 8-bit era in order to go through was a puzzle harder than, say, one from God Of War. But we have to earn living, right? It needs time and stamina.

Well, I talked about movie-like games, but we always had movie-like games. But, I don't know. For example, JRPGs once were real games, now many of them are more like Anime Simulators with input here and there. Still fun, but I would not like to see things going thru a funnel until all is much alike.

It's cool to see genres merging, but if all the games, be they brawl, platformer, adventure, whatever, point you easily to completion like a theatre play script, it's not so good.

Cris_Spiegel

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> It really comes down to hard vs cheap. Playing Mike Tyson's knock out back in the day was the epitome of cheap, because the tiniest error and you had to start over from scratch.

When it feels like no matter how good you play you are being beaten for no sensible reason, then its frustrating. ESPECIALLY when you are then punished severely.

majatt

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Super Mario Galaxy works because you can get through the main game without ever breaking a sweat if you want, but if you want to get all of the stars, you're going to have to face some pretty tough parts. Damn purple coins....

Roto13

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @PatMan33: Majora's Mask was easy, just like the rest of Zelda games which focus on exploration of the world rather than having hard enemies to beat.

Games have been getting easier for like past 10 years now, having said that there are 'hard' games out there with which I run out of patience with Lost Odyssey and the very last level of COD4 on veteran.

2SBs

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> i could never make it past 11-2 on super mario bros. :(

Prometheusxy

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Hmmm...... personally i think making a game too difficult ruins the fun factor and ruins momentum. I think games should just continue to have changeable difficulty levels... so people who want to beaten into submission can be, but those who just want to experience the story can do so too.

scuba2steve

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Nice read. I like a good challenge from a game that makes me think more, react faster and be more careful. What I don't like is when a game is hard just because of uncomfortable controls, bad camera movement or of the fact that the developers wanted to expand the play time of the game by unnecessarily increasing the difficulty at some of stages of the experience.

Xayzer

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I've always felt that two difficulties is enough for any game; normal and hard, with hard being considerably more challenging to make the game last longer for hardcore players. Normal would be beatable by a casual gamer, but if s/he's not very good, it would take a lot of dedication to be able to beat it.

Also, when you make harder difficulties, I've always thought that just decreasing HP/number of hearts/etc. or just raising variables for enemies' damage, is a very lame way to go about it. When you make other difficulties than the normal one, you should put a lot of effort in it, like making bosses' patterns more difficult, or making enemies' AI better, or even more innovative ways.

Knifen

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I'm sick of new games being too easy. I don't want to be able to beat games while barely trying at all. A walk in the park is a walk in the park... I'm sick of games being targeted to casuals in order to gain more $ at the expense of gamers who have been playing for a long time.

Gam3r

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I remember getting so good with practice at games in the days of 8 and 16-bit that my parents stopped buying me games and instead rented one each weekend, because I only needed a weekend to finish them. (Biggest achievement I can recall: Beating Donkey Kong Country 2 with 100% without guides or help in 2.5 days)

If some friend talked to me about Battletoads being too hard I just used my motto: "No game is impossible". I never got angry when I lost, just shrugged it off and tried again, but I was a 9 year old kid with nothing else to do other than get good grades at school back then.

Fast forward 20 years and I'm not so hardcore. I choose the easiest difficulty setting whenever I can, especially in FPS or RPG games. I haven't run out of Hardened gamer blood though: I Love the insane challenges of Contra 4 and Shattered Soldier, or space shooters like the Gradius and Dodonpachi series, I don't find the Megaman games hard since I'm so used to playing them, and I love Ninja Gaiden Black even if I don't beat it on anything harder than Hard.

I guess it depends on the game I play if I want it to be hard or not. I wouldn't enjoy GTAIV if it was any harder but I won't forgive Tecmo if they make Ninja Gaiden 2 easier and make you sleep through the game once to unlock harder difficulties.

TheContender

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I play games to relax, not to frustrate myself. If something is unreasonably hard, it is a flaw in the game.
Right now, for instance, I'm in Okami, trying to race a wolf through the woods, but she is ten times faster than me. It has become clear to me that the only way to beat her is to race flawlessly, which is an exercise in frustration. This is a sequence which should have worked when you think to use your brush technique that slows down time - but it doesn't work on her. Not only is it frustratingly hard, but it doesn't even obey the games own rules.

I do like having an easy mode, and definitely appreciate it when easy mode is actually pitched right - Bioshock on easy mode is exactly the right level of difficulty for the way I want to play the game, and I've yet to actually die.
Games that include an easy mode but penalize you for using it are unacceptable. There are different play styles, and game designers need to realize that we don't all enjoy doing the same things over and over till we scream. They don't penalize people playing on the hard mode, and they shouldn't on easy mode either. I don't mind an extra achievement or unlockable for finishing it on hard; I don't care that much, and there should be a reward for putting yourself through that, but telling me I can't play the final level on easy mode is the equivalent of deleting your save when you die on hard, and pretty much guaranteed to make your game an insulting joke.

Zerozaki Ishiki

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> i like how there is a definate split in what is considered really change in difficulty and what is considered a cheap way to imitate difficulty. one guy says halo is a cheap cop out an another says its a good example. i think both are examples of difficulty being approached in a different way. if you increase the health it doesnt really make you think more about what your doing just have to the dude more, where as if you make the enemies more intelligent makes you consider your moves two and three steps ahead of yourself. i think the increasing health works for halo although i agree that its a cop out but it works for that games demographic where i like more of a chess feel to my gaming where i have to think ahead of myself rather then repeat the same motion many times over.

stryker1800

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I hate hard games. I have Ninja Gaiden for PS3 and I hate it because I get stuck on the same boss for weeks and never get to advance the story.

Make the game challenging, don't make it difficult.

Asurastrike

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> First time I played god Hand, I hardly found it hard, just had to use all the moves you had on the exact momment, and that's something you get to get used in a couple of stages.

Second run, man, I found the game rather easy, and then, using the godly moves and getting a lot of cash with staying on death level. Even hard mode I found it rather easy, but still, I WANT GOD HAND 2!!!!

Now, if we are alking of games that are hard....... RESIDENT EVIL!!! If Capcom had made Devil May Cry withouth the infinite ammount of bullets and make it more like Resident Evil, difficulty Dante Must Die would had been pretty hard, but I found it hard

cjlopez

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I´ll read the guy´s article later. But once games were something you had to master, to gain the skill to go through. Now you just have to learn how to input the commands and with patience you go with the flow.

I still play NES's Ninja Gaiden games and I love bullet hell shmups. I don't care if I die, it's fun to play, it's like a sport and I always come back. But (with the ones) today, I beat a game and say "farewell" (or do some sidequests/alt. modes/excuse to boot it up again). There is the sport-game (meaning skill based, not only soccer or basketball stuff) and the movie-like-game. I can play a sport-game over and over, but I can't see the same movie over and over until end of time.

Both are OK, but I'd like to see more balance in the options available. That's why I miss 2D, but I can't leave the stuff of now either.

I WANT A XBOX 360/WII/GAMECUBE/DREAMCAST (yes, DC) TO PLAY IKARUGA!!

Cris_Spiegel

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> It took months, but I felt a great sense of accomplishment after beating all the Story Mode missions in F-Zero GX on all difficulty levels, and beating Master Grand Prix with all 40 characters.

Nintenboy01

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @JocktheMotie: Wait...are you kidding? CoD doesn't change the way the enemies react at all. Play CoD4 on the Epilogue on Easy and then the hardest difficulty and you'll see no difference, at least I didn't. CoD seems to have no AI whatsoever, it's so heavily scripted that they probably just gave them basic actions and called it a day.

jihadjoe343

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> There are several games that walk a fine line with me. I like a game that I can beat if I practice and work on it for a while. I like it if I have trouble beating it again if I don't play it for a while. I like a game that has a gradual difficulty curve, and that I get better at (on average) the more I play. Many Shmups are like this. Gate of Thunder is an excellent example. I seem to get a little better each time I play, so it keeps me coming back even though I still haven't beaten it.

I agree that there is a problem with difficulty spikes. Especially if the spike is an area that must be completed or passed to continue with the game. There is a part in Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance for the GBA that I cannot get past. Cruised along pretty well, enjoying the game until I got to that one room, and I have navigate a room faster than a large iron ball. If I beat the ball, I get the items I need to continue, if I don't, I have to try again. I cannot seem to get there faster than the ball after probably hundreds of tries and as a result, I gave up on the game. Haven't played it in over a year. Can't get past that, can't go any farther, the game might as well be over.

But I like difficulty spikes if they are not necessary to continue the game. The challenge comets in Super Mario Galaxy are an example of this. If I can't get the star on a comet level, it's okay, there's other levels I can go and complete. I can come back to the comet and try again later if I feel like it. A difficulty spike does not end the game in this case.

Eltigro

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like to play games on hard when I'm playing co-op or something

Normal most of the time (I'm a multiplayer person)

Murderdolls

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I like a game that is difficult but isn't unfair. Legendary on Halo 3 is a good example of where I like the difficulty, as long as I play smart I can win, but if I mess up the game instantly catches me and makes me pay for it.

As for the article's mention of "difficulty spikes" and then seemingly put off, I'm not really sure where they're coming from. A game should ramp up at a consistent pace (albeit at different rates and different times) but a difficulty spike is uncalled for when out of nowhere there's a point in the game that takes you an hour to beat because it's based on luck or perfect timing, or whatever.

jihadjoe343

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> There's a difference between cheap hard, and good hard. Most games just increase the hitpoints of enemies, a la Halo, which is a joke and the game just feels dumb. However games like Ninja Gaiden and Call of Duty increase difficulty not by changing a game mechanic that you've gotten yourself used to in the normal mode, but by simply making the enemies smarter, more aggressive, more accurate, and harder to kill that way without cheapening the experience by giving them ridiculous amounts of hitpoints.

In Call of Duty and NG, I don't mind dieing because I know it's because I wasn't good enough, whereas something like Halo it's frustrating because the developers have to do things to artificially cheapen the experience in order to make it harder.

JocktheMotie

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Oh and for the record, God Hand isn't hard if you have any experience with games that encourage fisticuffs.

mrrobsa

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I don't think there's ever been a change of design intent, games were hard in the past because games had nothign else but being hard. Old games haven't always been the $5 VC purchase they are now, they were full priced products and had to give you value for the money. If the original Castlevania were easier you could blow through it in 15 minutes and nobody's happy buying a game that short. So they made it brutally hard so it'd take you 10 hours of practice before you can take those 15 minutes successfully. Games weren't made with just the intention of being difficult in the past, the difference now is we can fill 10 hours of gameplay with things other than difficulty and repetition.

Nobuyuki

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @NitrousO:
You 'Hate' difficulties beyond normal?
Really?

Not everyone plays at your level so I think it's a good thing if a game can offer multiple difficulties to enable gamers of varying skill to still have a challenging and rewarding experience.

mrrobsa

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I loved God Hand so much, i wish Clover, i mean Capcom make a God Hand 2!

zetopazio

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> thats a lie, God Hand is hard. If you have the patience to get the game and get into the flow you can beat, but to say it isn't challenging in the least? youz a liar!

wheres that pic from, because i love it!

pandafresh

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> It's true, but everyone knows this. games that are any good usually can find a good middle ground. It took me quite a few tries to beat the Strider parts of HL2 on normal. I find that there is a difference between "difficult" and "Hard", hard being like pac-man after 50 or so levels, and difficult being like General RAM in GOW.

Jsp343

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> Zelda could use a touch up in this department. Something along the lines of Majora's Mask's difficulty would be optimal.

PatMan33

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> @Jim Reilly:
The game had it's moments. I had to replay the portion near the beginning when the first demon showed up at least twice until I beat it. There was one boss fight that took me probably more than half a dozen tries, and each time he had a sliver of health left.

def PD

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I wish all games were near impossible. It makes you feel so much more accomplished to beat one level that in todays gaming culture would take 20 mins but 10 years back would take 4-5 hours.

Neocorey

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> God Hand isn't hard.

Jim Reilly

]]> <![CDATA[The Difficulty of (Games') Difficulty]]> I hate difficulty beyond normal. Im there to play the game, watch the story unfold, and have fun. Not get beatup by the same guy for 2 hours.

NitrousO

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