Are Video Games getting easier?

[Lowbreed]

I'm sorry but this discussion has been done to death, and then someone dug it up, 'mishandled' it and buried it again.
Retro games are harder because they were unforgiving due to the nature of arcades. This having evolved over time meant that games don't need to eat all those tasty nickels or whatever you American people call your money. Games were already a lot easier in the PS / N64 / dreamcast and whatnot era.

Oh, if you take casual games (see 90% of wii games) into this discussion, then really they can't even be classed as easy as any form of challenge is non-existent.

 

[NBSRDan]

Games aren't getting easier so much as polarized. Most games nowadays are either insultingly easy or insultingly hard, as developers pigeonhole their market into either "casual" or "hardcore".

 

[Ultra Man30]

Bionic Commando was pretty tough on the higher difficulties.

However, most games today are much easier than those in the past.

 

[Niracas]

as gamers we evolve.puzzles become less puzzling the more they repeat in seprate games.we expect ambushes in FPS and RPG games to the point of which we can almost see it coming.we are evolving and becoming more skilled but the games are staying the same.

I agree completely with this statement. I can remember as a kid, just getting started with my gaming life, I didnt see anything coming when playing RPG's and the like. Though after years of gaming I can now guess the best strategies in most RPGs. Example "Oh, look! A Giant Robot boss!I must have to use lightning or water magic on it!" or "Oh! A fire demon! Throw Ice at it!"

And as someone said before about a glowing spot, that too, after awhile you sort of instinctively know that's probably the weak spot. And finally we'll go by the usual "Three hits you win" rule. When fighting a boss 9/10 out of ten if you hit it's weak point three times it'll die (Or go on to the next phase. If so repeat)

 

[Gralian]

Games are getting easier. I will use the typical Goldeneye 007 rule. Back then, you had no regenerating health, only a life bar and that's it. Maybe armour if you can find it. Now you have your halos and call of duties where your health just pops back up if you hide like you're some kind of superhero.

There are a few exceptions though. Lost Planet 2 is ball crunchingly hard, especially if you play it on your own, as is Demon's Souls.

As a side note, i found ME2's Insane difficulty to be relatively easy, especially compared to ME1's insane mode. The only tough part for me was...

Spoiler: Mass Effect 2 Spoiler Ahead

When i was in the Reaper vessel, on that stupid hovering platform, while other platforms with collectors hovered over to you. If they overwhelmed you you had nowhere to run to, just your useless one piece of cover. NOT helpful when the Harbinger decides to come up close and personal.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Yes games are definitely getting easier. I remember how unforgiving Mario was and now we have regenerating health.

1) Mario's actually pretty easy by platformer standards. You should be able to rack up 17 or so spare lives in, say, Super Mario 3 without too much difficulty. Though I'm sure it's harder when you're a little kid. Compare Mario to something like the Ghouls 'n Ghosts series.

2) Mario's a platformer, not a shooter. The mechanics of the two genres are so different that any difficulty comparison would simply be inappropriate. Is a jig-saw puzzle harder than solitaire? Health regeneration doesn't do anything for you when it takes 1 or 2 hits to kill you, and you can die by falling in bottomless pits. FPSes and platformers are entirely different things that are only both under the banner of "video games" because they both have the player press buttons to make things on the screen move. That's pretty much all they have in common.

I would argue that we are getting more games that try to take players through a complete experience, rather than, "oh man, I only got to level four.

No one shall speak the name of Ghouls And Ghosts...that game made me nearly cry in frustration as a child because the game wanted you to have a 100% lightning fast reflex that no human, or god, will ever have....Also there are some rather difficult F.P.S's *glares at rainbow six*....and there are some F.P.S's with platforming in it, such as Far Cry in a way, and Call Of Juarez...once again...in a way

Didn't say that FPSes were easier than platformers. Just that they're different beasts.

 

[D_987]

Games aren't getting easier - players are just getting used to them - all games are so similar in overall core design that you're already skilled, somewhat, at the vast majority of games before you play them.

f you've never played a genre before you'll think it's difficult, but if you've played any third-person action game, regardless of sub-genre, you'll find the next game easier because you understand the fundamental design.

 

[Draithx]

Would anyone here play any modern game if you couldn't get past the prologue without being a god of reflexes and multitasking?

Yes, hard games can be extremely fun as long as you mix it with some easy games to prevent yourself from going insane.

 

[unoleian]

It's silly to compare living room games to classic coin-op games. Those were designed (almost) expressly to kill you as often as possible to keep you feeding quarters to the machine.
Games on the earliest consoles needed to do a lot, with very little. Obscene difficulty and limited lives were answers to games that, without such challenge, would be beaten not even in an afternoon, but in, say, an hour. If you could play, say, the first Mega Man or Contra with regenerating health, you'd finish it in, literally, minutes to an hour. Now, despite the various "concessions" developers now make to playability, a modern game with said regenerating health and infinite lives can take upwards of several days to complete. They don't need to obfuscate things with obscene levels of challenge for the consumer to appreciate the perceived value of what they are playing.
(and this doesn't even touch on stodgy or slippery controls or baddies that, quite literally, move faster than the player's character can respond without memory-test training, and what-not, all the stuff that earns games failing grades in today's market)

I don't think that it's really that games are any easier, by and large, it still takes highly trained and adapted hand-eye coordination to even play modern games.

The problem is, is that this is a place comprised largely of a bunch of dedicated gamers who have grown up around games, along with all of their evolution, or are younger gamers who hardly know any alternative to the modern game. It's easy to say that for most of us, our opinion is heavily biased.

When you've been around modern gameplay your entire life, or were able to evolve into it, it intrinsically seems easier-- In much the same way those of the "Baby-Boomer" generation are repeatedly baffled by PC's and modern portable technology, but your average elementary school kid these days probably knew how to use a computer (and troubleshoot, too!) as soon as they could walk and talk!

It's all a matter of perspective.

 

[archvile93]

I don't think so. I used to have a hard time with Super Mario Bros, but I just played that game today and beat it easily. It might've been because I was playing as Bill and blew everything away with the spread gun though.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Much easier. Find any old 2D game, Sonic, Mario, Contra, etc. Count the amount of times you died. Put in God of War or something similar, count the times you die. Much less isn't it?

Yes and it affects my abilities..when I was young I'd complete Sonic 2 no problem, now Sonic 2 no saves is really hard

When three deaths means you get to see the title screen, you BET you learned not to die.

 

[zehydra]

yeah, you can cite the Zelda series as proof. Compare WindWaker with Link's awakening and you'll understand.

 

[AMMO Kid]

Games are getting easier, but in a good way. For example, I don't want to have to avoid every enemy in Fallout 3 because they can kill me in one hit.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

I direct you to:
MW2 veteren,

Yeah, it's hard, but mostly because it just takes cheap shots at you in the favela sections... This must be my at least 5th favela level hating post this week...

Another question - is it a bad thing if games are getting easier? There's certainly less frustration nowadays, and the medium is expanding rapidly with regards to number of users. This makes video gaming less of the socially stigmatic hobby it was once seen as being, which can only be a good thing!

 

[Revolutionary]

Definitley, games are getting so easy....Finished COD2, COD4 , and MW2 on veteran, finished RSV2 on realistic, finished HAlo3 on legendary, got to level 50 in border lands in like 3 weeks.
Finished Splinter cell DA in hardest difficulty (cant remember what ist called). Finished portal in a day, Finished End war on medium by spamming tanks....ugh!

 

[experiment0789]

Yes.....and no. I'd like to think it's all pure skill, and I'm an awesome game who can easily beat any game on the hardest difficulty,but it's a little bit of both. Even if I have come along way as a gamer,I have to admit games are easier then they use to be.

Video games now are more forgiving,longer,better quality,harder to make,and most importantly to make money$!$(not that they weren't before). By these I mean the following.....

Forgiving: We have saves now,lots,and lots,of saves,Heck if we don't fell like saving,the game will do it for us. Also Regenerating health

Longer:

better quality: you can't get away with a game that doesn't look like It was made by an famous
artist.

harder to make: As each "good" game comes out,it also raises the expectation of what a "good game should be.

to make money$!$: if you can't make a good game,at least you can milk all the money making gimmicks you can with it.

 

[Fightgarr]

Here's the thing, games back in the day were hard for the wrong reasons. Back when the sidescroller was popular mechanics didn't allow for dodging 3 dimensions and so you had the bullets hells of Contra and the like. Games had punishing difficulty curves and to add on to that they had lives. What this was meant to do was extend the games rather short life to a reasonable amount. Take a look at some longer old school titles. Earthbound, Final Fantasy VI, Donkey Kong Country and even Super Metroid aren't particularly hard, but are all longer games with save mechanics. The thing about the 16-bit era and before is that games (if you could beat them) could be beaten in an hour or half an hour if done well. The punishing difficulty made up for the shortness of the game and increases replay value in the most frustrating way possible.

Now, games have the potential as a storytelling medium. People want to hear the entire story, not just the beginning of it. Games have to be an accessible difficulty so that they can tell their story. Now, with game potential where it is, games have the option to do more and more, but in order to make that salable, they have to make it easy enough for anyone to access that content. I'm one who believes that "games are getting shorter" is a bullshit statement, and it's part of this that makes that punishing difficulty of games of old totally obsolete.

 

[Mr.logic]

*Plays Mainstream Title #245*

I believe they are getting easier...

*Plays Demon's Souls*

Games are hard man, really hard.

name 5 other titles besides demon souls, that have come out in the last 3 months that are hard.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Just reinstalled Giants: Citizen Kabuto from around 1999. Now, I remember it being quite difficult, but I sure didn't remember instakill snipers already in the beginning. Actually just about anything in that game is almost instakill. And no quicksaves and no checkpoints. Next I'm going to dig out Oni and compare the difficulty to CoD on Veteran. But I already know the result (i.e. CoD being generally much easier except of the cheap dick moves).

Well go back even more and you'll find games which are impossible to beat by today's standards.

Instakill snipers aren't a cheap dick move?

snip

Your post says what I was trying to say, but in a much better way than me. I agree wholeheartedly

 

[Marter]

*Plays Mainstream Title #245*

I believe they are getting easier...

*Plays Demon's Souls*

Games are hard man, really hard.

name 5 other titles besides demon souls, that have come out in the last 3 months that are hard.

I can't. I was trying to make a point that some hard games do come out, while the majority are very easy.