Irridium said:
Complex console games have sold well.
These are the people who find ways to make sense of the Resident Evil plotline, and people who make sense of all of the systems in Final Fantasy. Trust me, if you can junction materia in Final Fantasy 7 or 8 or whatever that game was, you can deal with complex systems in other games. These are people who came up with a Legend of Zelda timeline despite Nintendo saying there isn't one.
Perhaps the "dumbed down" games sell well because thats all the publishers/developers fucking offer.
The idea that anyone would find the materia system of Final Fantasy 7 complex is somewhat mind boggling.
As for making sense of the Resident Evil plot line, not really sure that pertains to the discussion, story has nothing to do with gameplay mechanics.
Your point is not without merit, but I find it amusing you have to go back over a decade for your examples.
Console gaming in its infancy was far more difficult than it is these day. So many NES games felt damn near impossible to beat, and actually gave you a sense of accomplishment when you beat them. The more gaming becomes mainstream the more the games become watered-down and involve less and less (if any) skill. For every game that's truly difficult, like Ninja Gaiden or DMC3, there are countless others that are laughably easy.
That aside, entire genres have been redefined in general to suit consoles. The best example would be FPSs which require barely even a splinter of the skill they once did. We went from hyper fast, all out insta-gibfests to slow paced games that require little more than half decent timing. Twitch is all but gone in modern FPSs because they had to fit console controls.
C95J said:
really? so is the fact that one minded people think that PC gaming is so much better, when they didn't think about the reasons why consoles are better, not just PC's.
Not really sure I've ever found a reason why console gaming is better, and it's a conversation I've had quite a bit.
By all means, feel free to list a few. I've already got my response typed out, but it made this post way too long.
elvor0 said:
Im a massive PC elitist but this is in no way dumbing down games, essentially what this video means is that your companions are competent enough to fight the enemy(RAGE COMPANION AI IS STUPID. RAGE COMPANION AI IS COMPETENT). This is hardly dumbing down the game, as most of the time he has to sit there and wait for ages, it's not really a good way of playing it. Also this is the first level, which is supposed to be easy anyway, alongside the fact that this would imply you could have the game play through all the levels for you, which I highly doubt.
This is a good point. Though I think there's a line between competent AI and AI that can do everything for you if allowed. Just because I don't want my AI blocking me from being able to take cover, repeatedly jumping over and back into cover for no reason at all, or going all out Rambo and standing in the middle of a fire fight taking hits from every enemy doesn't mean I think they should be able to complete my work for me entirely unaided.
I really don't see myself as a PC elitist at all, but rather someone who has been gaming longer than many gamers have been alive. As such, it's easier to see certain trends in gaming and pinpoint just where things started to sway. I owned just about every major console at one point since the Atari 2600 up until the current generation, I see less and less purpose behind the existence of consoles aside from large companies afraid to lose a hardware market.
