Ridge Racer Producer: Too Much "Handholding" in Modern Games

[Andy Chalk]

Ridge Racer Producer: Too Much "Handholding" in Modern Games

Bugbear Entertainment Producer Joonas Laakso thinks gamers are tired of all the "handholding" in modern games and have begun to yearn for some of the challenge that games of yore used to serve up on a daily basis.

You may not recognize the Bugbear Entertainment name but you'll surely recognize its work, which includes the [http://www.amazon.com/Flatout-Ultimate-Carnage-Xbox-360/dp/B000V7KLL0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305661767&sr=8-2], the next chapter in Namco's storied racing series that's due out sometime next year. In other words, it's fair to say that the people there have some idea what they're talking about when they talk about videogames and what Laakso is talking about is that people are getting a bit tired of coasting.

"I think games in general used to be a little bit simpler, but also a little bit more demanding. I'm not sure if consumers actually want all of this handholding we're offering them now," he told CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/301720/features/gamers-dont-want-hand-holding-anymore-give-them-a-challenge/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS].

"I think that maybe there's a demand for more in-depth gameplay experiences than what have been catered to lately. Maybe we've been doing too much automation," he continued. "For example, our previous games in the Flatout franchise were really difficult games - I couldn't finish Flatout 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Out-2-Playstation/dp/B000E9T7L0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305662007&sr=8-2]. There have been some really difficult games in the past but the fans seem to like it and we get fan mail weekly about it. People really seem to like those old titles and they want something like that."

I've been playing videogames for an awfully long time and I can attest to the fact that games then were a lot tougher than games now. We muddled through somehow [although I never did manage to finish Crescent Hawk's Revenge [http://www.amazon.com/Battletech-Crescent-Hawks-Revenge-pc/dp/B00080FLZQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1305662064&sr=8-1]] and enjoyed some great experiences but, on the other side of the coin, the audience in that era was much more focused, dedicated and willing to invest huge amounts of time into individual games. What's needed, according to Laakso, is "balance."

"I think that studios really have to find a balance between offering more spectacle and higher production values," he said. "But I think maybe as an industry we've gone too far in that direction - for all spectacle and too little gameplay, and games become disposable experiences instead of games which you keep playing for years and years."


Permalink

 

[Smeagol150]

Racing games aren't really equated to other games in terms of difficulty... At least I think. I never played FlatOut 2, but Super Mario Kart on the SNES was damn tough.

 

[Dired]

Too many old-school games were hard just to be hard, because otherwise there was really no game there. Cheap attacks, impossible-to-predict-so-you-have-to-play-though-multiple-times-regardless-of-skill scenarios and the like were dropped for a reason. Once players had the option of declining masochism, nearly all made that easy choice and never looked back. We all love nostalgia, but sometimes things change for a reason. Yes, some really hard games might be nice as a departure, but only if they earn that difficulty with legitimate challenge and not BS.

 

[Iron Lightning]

I completely agree. Although perhaps the best solution is to make games which have more variable difficulty. Some games, of course, can't really have difficulty setting (such as platformers) and those game need to be made more difficult. Dired, good point insofar as that difficulty needs to be actual difficulty and not just cheap unpredictable tricks.

I am a proud patriot of the allikti nation.

 

[Ne1butme]

I never could finish the expert tracks in F-zero GX. I'm constantly annoyed there are unlockable tracks from the AX version that i can't (and will never) access.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Riiiiiiiiidge RACER!

......I couldn't resist.

OT:

I agree. Rockstar is the worst. The first hour of GTA 4 and RDR was tutorial. Letting the player just figure stuff out is a fine.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

No, the worst is Bowser's Inside Story. Made it nearly unplayable for me.

 

[SageRuffin]

Too many old-school games were hard just to be hard, because otherwise there was really no game there. Cheap attacks, impossible-to-predict-so-you-have-to-play-though-multiple-times-regardless-of-skill scenarios and the like were dropped for a reason. Once players had the option of declining masochism, nearly all made that easy choice and never looked back. We all love nostalgia, but sometimes things change for a reason. Yes, some really hard games might be nice as a departure, but only if they earn that difficulty with legitimate challenge and not BS.

Sounds like Ninja Gaiden 2 (current gen, not the original for the NES). I'm one who's damn near managed to see and do all, but the game is so broken it's almost unplayable without breaking something.

I.e.: instant explosions, random explosions, innumerable off-screen projectiles, unblockable attacks that track, throws that track, said throws taking an excess of a month for the animation to finish and are unbreakable to boot, ridiculous damage modifiers in higher difficulties... and then there the whole fact that the game devolves from "what attack do I want to use here" to "what attack gives me the most invincibility".

Oops, I think I derailed the message a little, but in short, I agree.

 

[Scrustle]

Oh cool I didn't know Bugbear were making this game! Perhaps this new Ridge Racer might be worth paying attention to after all.

And he's right. I still haven't finished Flatout Ultimate Carnage, despite having got it on release. But I love that game, it's much more enjoyable than plenty of games that are designed in a more modern way. I guess it has a good balance between the good parts of modern game design (great graphics and physics engine) along with the good parts of older game design (actual challenge and simple focused goals)

 

[Grunt_Man11]

I do agree that there is too much "hand-holding" in today's games. I mean tutorials are fine just as long as they don't make up half the game, (there are exceptions), and as long as they still require the players to fill-in the obvious blanks.

It's one of the reasons Zelda games are so revered. They have brief tutorials, and the rest of the game is about presenting challenges and saying, "figure it out."

Unfortunately, there are too many gamers who will literally nerd rage over hearing that. Hell, recently Blizzard put portals back into Shattrath and Dalaran because a number of morons couldn't figure out how to get from point A to point B. /facedesk

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Too many old-school games were hard just to be hard, because otherwise there was really no game there. Cheap attacks, impossible-to-predict-so-you-have-to-play-though-multiple-times-regardless-of-skill scenarios and the like were dropped for a reason. Once players had the option of declining masochism, nearly all made that easy choice and never looked back. We all love nostalgia, but sometimes things change for a reason. Yes, some really hard games might be nice as a departure, but only if they earn that difficulty with legitimate challenge and not BS.

"Nintendo hard" isn't the only way games used to be hard. Generally just dumping you in the game with all your abilities active and leaving you to figure out the mechanics and combinations was the normal way of things.
Or presenting you with situations that required logic (or map making. You know, as painstakingly stop-start a game experience it may have made, it was always satisfying the get a functional map finished.)

What would be nice is a middle ground. Give us a surface layer tutorial that hands us the major mechanics and then bugger off and leave the player to figure out the specifics.

Unfortunately, there are too many gamers who will literally nerd rage over hearing that. Hell, recently Blizzard put portals back into Shattrath and Dalaran because a number of morons couldn't figure out how to get from point A to point B. /facedesk

Really? (It's been a while since I played) If it had been me I would have made a web page giving instructions on getting from A-B and anyone who complains gets the link. There are plenty of legitimate complaints to be made about the state of WoW at any given time but the lack of portals wasn't one of them.

 

[Grunt_Man11]

Unfortunately, there are too many gamers who will literally nerd rage over hearing that. Hell, recently Blizzard put portals back into Shattrath and Dalaran because a number of morons couldn't figure out how to get from point A to point B. /facedesk

Really? (It's been a while since I played) If it had been me I would have made a web page giving instructions on getting from A-B and anyone who complains gets the link. There are plenty of legitimate complaints to be made about the state of WoW at any given time but the lack of portals wasn't one of them.

Really they put them back in, (the ones to Orgrimmar and Stormwind anyway), and then stated the reason was that "some players were having difficulty finding their way back to Stormwind/Orgrimmar." That is the reason they put them back in, because some morons couldn't perform a basic task that almost every game ever made has had. Again, /facedesk!

Frankly, if it was me I would of just said, "figure it out you ing dumbs." Also, that web page with the instructions wouldn't have help because you would of just gotten the same old "I have a job and don't have time to do research on a game" excuse these morons are so fond of.

Every time I hear them say that it makes me wish I could magically phase a .357 through my monitor and shoot them in the goddamn throat.

Sorry, I'm just venting. Plus, I'm currently watching Zero Punctuation videos so that might be influencing how I'm wording my posts a little.

 

[Frotality]

alot of recent games have done away with cheap AI and blatantly unfair challenge, but without ever really finding a replacement. cheap as some old games might of been, it was necessary to present the average player with a decent challenge...take that away, and you get the above mentioned idiots who cant navigate WoW's many many means of travel because the game did it for them with portals.

difficulty levels are a good solution, but there are alot of games that work best (or cant work without) a single "catch all" difficulty, which leads to the classic assumption by devs/publishers that the average gamers are morons and these types of games should be as easy as possible. of course thats a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, as once you get gamers used to such simple challenges, they become less attentive to challenges presented in games and can overlook even the most basic of clues/strategies/combos that would be child's play in older games.

i can personally attest to plenty of outright BAD games holding my attention longer and being quite memorable simply because the sheer amount of effort required to overcome their badly designed and cheap challenges. modern games are asking less and less of gamers, and consequently many are putting less and less into playing through games (like not bothering to figure out the dozen different ways one can get from shattrah to orgrimmar).