Be Excellent To Each Other

I remember mapping out Knightlore, Atic Atac and Robin of the Wood back in the day.
After doing it, I still had no idea how to actually win Robin of the wood, mind.

Nowadays, it seems to be more a case of "when" rather than "if" you complete a game. And mainly if you don't it's because you can't be arsed rather than got completely stuck.

Hello!

I remember my friends and I finishing Sabre Wulf with the help of a rather useful map in some speccy magazine or other. It still took us forever.

I think the ability to save is making a big difference. Checkpoints also. Other than that, I don't think, overall, the gameplay itself is getting "easier" as such. There are always a couple of games every generation, at least, that seem to think that it's fun to be mercilessly hard.

I remember a late game on the Megadrive that was one of the first to use polygons - you were part of a crack team of commandos in a chopper - I'll have to have a look at my list of games on my GP2X, but that was ROCK HARD. Pretty, but unbelievably HARD. Red Zone. That was it.

Last generation, would have to go to Metal Arms: G.L.I.T.C.H. which was very very hard if you made the mistake of attempting to play it on "Normal" first play through. Still one of the best games on the Xbox IMO.

Also, did anybody actually finish Black from Codies? That was an example of old skool hard due to the merciless checkpointing.

Some of the Metroid 3D games were a bit unforgiving with their checkpoints as well.

So, to summarise, I don't think it's possible to say, across the board that games are easier - they're generally more thoroughly play tested and designed to be "accessible" which will inevitably cater for the LCD area of the market - and that, I'm afraid is probably going to get more prevalent with the effect that Nintendo's success in the broader non-gamer market is having on the community.

I don't necessarily mind this as we are currently spoiled for choice nowadays. There ARE more games of a better quality. They might be slightly more linear in as much as they have an end unlike some very early games that just looped with increasing difficulty, so the end might be achievable more readily - but having said all that, I find as I get older the likelihood of me finishing a game at all has nothing to do with it being easy or hard. I seem to buy between 20 and 30 games a year and finish about 6 to 8 of them.

That's a very good point, which ties into what I suspect a lot of us have been alluding to - the nature of the market has changed considerably in the last decade. The question, exactly, of when the arcade lost it's benchmark power is a moot point, but I'd guesstimate that it was pretty much unknowingly dead ten years ago and pretty much heading in that direction a few years prior to that.

However, the more I think about this, I think this effectively boils down to the industry evolving as it grows up - it's still young really. I think the technological advances are starting to level out as they're becoming increasingly incremental with each passing generation. Hopefully, the engine tech SDKs will become increasingly manageable to bypass the need for 100 people working for 3 years to make a blockbuster game.

As I said earlier, we're entering a golden age really - and I for one don't care too much for 100 hour or difficult games, tbh

Flashpoint was more of a simulator, though, hence its more unforgiving nature. I have had my guy (with fucked legs) drag himself for miles to reach a medic or MASH tent. While the "gasp yourself better" system has made things easier, its also made things more enjoyable. I am sure we can all think of a part in an older game (Medal of Honour games in particular were bad for this) where you've exhausted all the health pickups in the level and have no hope of surviving the next fight.

I found that part of the game had a bigger impact on me than the much-feted sniper level.

More than any other soldiery game, Flashpoint made me feel vulnerable. Scrambling desperately for the helicopter or boat in SEAL Team was not nearly as tense. Easing into an IFV or feeling your helicopter lift off the ground prompted a real sense of relief. The AC130 bit was indeed horrible... though, so was THAT BIT with Sgt Jackson.

Yeah, that was pretty gnarly really. Especially after seeing the real life footage it was based on. I'm not for any kind of censorship whatsoever but that wasn't particularly something I'd like to see much more of.

Play COD 4 on the hardest level for a totally different experience. You wont want to be shot on this level...you will die(a lot).

The sniper level pissed me off a bit.

But CoD4 is pissing me off at the moment as I'm playing it through a second time and not doing rather well. On 'Normal' difficulty.

I need to go back to the 1 Player Campaign at some point. I'm playing on the hardest difficulty, and am on the level with the SAS when you go from house to house looking for someone, at night. I got to the first house, but if I leave the place for even a second, I get machine gunned to hell and back. I've not even gotten halfway there yet. Your mates are little help, and everyone seems to respawn within two seconds of you killing them. There's even a row of them at one point. I killed the entire row, but by the time I had nailed the last guy the first one was back up and shooting! Bah humbug!

...but I will defeat it... oh yes.

Also, in 'All Ghillied Up', how did everyone else get past the enemy soldiers? Did you

I tried it your way about 10 times, but they spotted me every time. Did it the 'proper' way in the end.

I'm annoyed I didn't get the achievement for not being spotted first time around due to my effing mentor getting spotted whilst I was hiding in a crate.

I'm not really sure how I did the hunt through the houses, apart from constantly having to rush forwards to stop the enemies respawning and I think I may have tried indirect routes or flanking too.

Back on topic, I've completed more games in the last few years than I ever did when I had my NES or Amiga, and when I go back to my old games they mock me for getting soft. I've changed too though, some games that I found impossible in the past are now a lot easier, others remain rock solid and made out of hate.

Same here. I found it quite unpleasant, to tell you the truth. The small irony being that it was probably the most realistic part of the whole game - possibly any game.

Next time you play it, just imagine for a second that there's been some hideous trick, and your actions are being replicated by some remote-controlled helicopter circling over a Georgian village. Brr.

I found parts of CoD 4 very annoying because of the respawning thing. That bit quite late on where you've got to break through enemy lines and fight down to the hill you've just come up, for example. I tried being clever and tactical and just shooting everything, and eventually just gave up and charged blindly the whole way and hoped for the best, without firing a shot. The latter strategy is too often the only thing that will work, because you trip over the magical boundary so quickly.

The AC130 bit was brilliant! KABOOM! DAKKA DAKKA!

I did, on the PS2. When it first came out I could barely play it but a year of GRAW on the 360 gave me sufficient skills to get through the game (although I pretty much suck ass at FPS games).

It was tense but Project IGI was far harder and more merciless. It was also better, at least the first five levels were. Never got any further. bah!

On the pentultimate level of CoD4 (where you're up against the clock), apparently the checkpoints stop working if you're too slow and don't have a hope of getting to the end before the timer runs out.

Which is nice, except of course if you are wasting hours in futile attempts to advance only to be guaranteed death.

COD2 wasn't averse to fucked checkpoints either.

I remember getting to the end of one level (starts with a truck ambush, ends with you taking control of an AA gun) and just not having enough time to beat it. Tried for hours. Eventually restarted that prick of a level and got back to it and had loads of time. grrrrr.

Man, I really liked Black but I got to the level on the bridge, and the checkpoints being half a bloody hour apart coupled with easy gameplay followed by spikes and cheap deaths just made me give up.

Also: Criterion should be selling their engine to Wii Developers.

Doubtful, it's more the art and design part of it which ensures it takes that long. More of the programming effort is in support of A&D than you'd expect (Tools developers, shaders, all that and more). There's no real shortcut to creating art assets beyond skill. Better SDKs wouldn't decrease the project time overly much, they'd just decrease the lead time.

Neither was the first Rainbow Six Vegas. Can't comment on the sequel - not played it, but the first game would make you fight an entire room packed full of 30 terrorists, with no checkpoint until you got to the end of the sequence.

Then, the next checkpoint would be just after you turn a corner after slotting a single guy in the head from a distance.

It was still relatively obvious where the checkpoints were going to be though, which is a good thing I guess.

What's idiotic is that, unlike every other level in the game, you retain your equipment from the previous battle. Which meant I entered a close-quarters battle with a Dragunov and an RPG-7.

Still, according to a FAQ I have reached the next section in about the right amount of time, it's just a matter of somehow getting across it in 90 seconds without being killed that's holding me up.

Veteran isn't so bad, so long as you remember the point isn't to fight, but rather to get to your objective. Once you start just running for the waypoint and only shooting enemies who pose a risk, you progress a lot faster. You also spot little areas where you can hide during some bits (there's a place you can hide during the Pripyat Ferris Wheel bit where the enemy cannot get you)

Vegas 6 2 is brilliant, but it's still a little annoying on checkpoint placement.

I enjoyed Vegas 2, nothing makes you feel as badass as when a room clearing goes like clockwork.

It's one of the Officially Bezzie Snubbed Games.

Like much of my collection, to be honest. Buy some good games, you cunts!

I can't help but be pulled out of the game realism-wise in Vegas 1 though. I mean, with the number of terrorists they have inside those places they must have turned up by the busload. Seems strange that no-one noticed

What bothers me more is that they have so many terrorists united under their banner... and yet their whole campaign has absolutely no point whatsoever.

"What do you want?"

"To be a whinging cunt!"

"But.. how did you get all these people to support you?"

"Stop telling me what to do! I have serious father issues! Waaah! I kill you now!"

"But... oh, forget it. Tango down, etc."

Moral: TRRRRSTS are evil, because TRRRRRSTS are evil. All armed resistance groups want nothing but pointless death and carnage. Eh, founding fathers? EH?

Speaking of checkpoints, The Darkness keeps sending me back about sixteen years of gameplay because the slightly wonky aiming meant I was quick enough homing in on a goon. Did anyone else find the checkpointing a bit brutal?

I'll say. Especially if it threw you back because you were quick enough.

the only spectrum game i ever completed was Rogue trooper, i remember it so well. I also remember very well the 1st amiga game i finished, Sly Spy.

You couldn't even line up your gun on Harry Secombe? Man, you suck.

The challenge in the games I'm really into (mostly 2D shoot-yer-mums) generally hasn't gone anywhere, but it does sadden me that a lot of the 'big' franchises like Zelda are wussing out left, right and center. It's pathetic that some of the bosses in Twilight Princess don't even take off a full heart per hit. There's a reasonably robust combat system in place in the 3D Zeldas now; players should be encouraged to use it well, and be kept on their toes a bit. I can't see Nintendo keeping the non-gamers "on board" for very long if they don't start treating them like human beings with brains, instead of amoebas, and halfway introducing them to what videogames are actually about.

The more difficult Zeldas like Link's Awakening are never that frustrating, but these days even the really well balanced ALttP seems to be talked about as though it's an infuriatingly capricious game that doesn't want to be played. I sometimes wonder if certain developers have started taking internet forum huffing to heart a bit too much, too. A person who seems frustrated that they can't get past a certain level in a game isn't necessarily implying he wouldn't touch a sequel in a million years, or that he isn't finding the experience rewarding...

PS - Speaking of Robotron, I'm currently rediscovering it on XBLAH, and am quite, quite hooked. I have a feeling that if I bought Geometry Wars 2 right now, I wouldn't actually get around to spending more than five minutes with it any time soon. Ol' Robo absolutely epitomizes the "one more go factor"; I'm constantly starting new games without even actually thinking about it. Dangerously addictive.

Link's Awakening is rubbish. I hit a bug a long way in to the game that meant I couldn't finish it, because I needed a key - and the only remaining key in the dungeon was behind a lock door. (There was a door you were meant to need a new item to reach, but you didn't, so you could go through the door and break the game completely.) Rubbish.

A Link to the Past three or four years ago or so. Whenever the GBA version came out. I gave up on it in the second dungeon, because it was too annoying. I can't remember exactly why, but it involved get stuck. Something about having to kill enemies that took several hits to kill but without any feedback when you hit them, meaning I thought you couldn't kill them. Only found out they were killable a while later, when the game was already dead to me.

Ocarina of Time I gave up on in some fire dungeon because if you missed a jump you fell right back down and had to spend five minutes climbing back up, only to fail the jump again. Life's too fucking short.

Zelda games are rubbish, generally.

How are you finding FF 12 hard, Shin?

Have you got any Mist thingys yet? They really, really help. (Both the Mist combo you'll get, and the double sized MP bar.) As soon as I had two Mist thingys, I could slice through anything (if I felt like interrupting my ACE PROGRAMMER-POWER GAMBITS to trigger the Mist combo screen).

I remember playing ALttP it back in 1994 or 1995, and after hearing it was quite difficult and seeing the little emergency hint leaflet sealed with a sticker that was enclosed in the box (which I never opened) was quite disappointed when the game DIDN'T drive me to the brink of madness through sheer frustration. It wasn't overly easy I don't , but there was nothing that couldn't be solved with a little effort.

It's not shite, but it's not what I'd consider a real FF game. I'm about 50% in so far.