MSX on 6/11/2008 at 23:26

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I'm in the hardcore crowd. I admit it. Denying it wouldn't do me much good, because I play CS:S everyday. I enjoy the visceral feel of defeating a final boss that you have to defeat six times. I've beaten megaman one through five(on nintendo, none of that save state crap). I used to walk and not use fast travel in daggerfall. I live for the sheer steel bliss that is beating a single mission with friends in R6. I prefer Silent Hill one over two because there is way more to do. I always start a game out on its hardest difficulty to see how bad its going to kick my ass. Though about six years ago, the hardest level would rarely be difficult enough. A disturbing trend.

Now that we know what kind of gamer I am, I can't help but share with you that I'm not a viable market. I spend ungodly amounts of time actually playing my games. However if I'm spending so much time playing a game I'm not out there buying the sequel because its literally an addon pack for a game that was already too short to begin with or insert different series here. So designers don't like gamers like me unless I make mods to give the product more legs and ensure more sales in the future... if they are in for more than just the first weekend cash crop anyway. EA's recent stance of limited installs says quite loudly to me that they want me to play it once and throw it away.

I mean I like the arcade experience and all, but at least with the arcade they would make the game hard so you kept feeding it quarters. Ha! Quarters! I'm showing my age. I sit down to play a game I blew sixty to eighty bucks on, plus the thousands in hardware, to play your game that is perhaps going to last me for ten hours. Thats one night of insomnia. I get insomnia, a lot.

So, back to my earlier point. Games, are being dumbed down. Not just in... target markets, but also in how much they are willing to say: "hey we have a hard mode for you hardcore guys." Would it be so bad to include an AI which is practically cheating for us crazy hardcore gamers? Or would little jimmy be sad that he cant play on help me I am in hell? This is not simply rubbed off with semantics, like I'm a niche market, it is something that is easily added to any game. Where is the pressure of having 3 health, no ammo down in engineering? When my ten year old kid can play Fallout three and not die even once. Or worse yet in bioshock show me that dying has no consequence. I feel sad for him. Yeah, I know, I'm going with the think of the children response. That's how bad its getting. A future where only the online arena can offer any challenge. Thats great, if there are people actually playing new games. Most of the hardcore crowd is still playing CS:S and UT2003/2004.

I'm getting away from myself though. The stalker series is hard, same with ARMA, call of cthulu even offered some difficulty. For PC FPS's thats it for the truly challenging in recent years. RTS's that have shown challenge have been the addon for Lotr:BFME and the C&C3 addon. Addons that were so badly designed they screw up balance(but manage to make the games more interesting as a result by making old strategies useless). RPG's... uh no. If its not D&D(of which I can design a character to crush the game regardless of ruleset) its like fallout three, baby's first RPG. No real challenge... or even character customization there. Sure you can make him look different, but where is there any sort of replay value in a game where you can excel so easily in all areas as a jack of all trades? Why even bother making it an RPG at all?

Why don't I just play old games? I have too good a memory to actually rediscover a game. Playing a lot of SP games would simply be going through the motions and mp well, if your still playing tribes when serria closes down its server service the future looks a little bleak.

So, please you folks that can't take the pressure of games being hard:


Get the fuck out of my hobby.


I would like to think we can co-exist, but games designers think you need to grow your xbox dickhat by playing a game on impossible, when quite frankly, you suck.

It's okay to die and start over. Failure is necessary to grow as a human being. Climb that mountain, swim that ocean. You will never know happiness if all challenges in life are hollow. With games you can always start over, thats why they are perfect for this purpose. Challenges to defeat without actually worrying about being shot and spending six months in a hospital, or be dead. War without all the death and stuff. Alien battle grounds, fantasy, whatever. The experience can be infinitely more engaging if it requires skill/strategy on your part.

The virtual playground is becoming just that. For six year olds. Hey game designers, six year olds are not supposed to be playing games rated mature. Hell, they can have fun with transformers, dinky cars or whatever. If you want to get this market, make easy easy, but ramp up the difficulty for us vets.

Scots Taffer on 6/11/2008 at 23:47

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Edit the curseword out of the thread title before a mod does, you rebel.

EvaUnit02 on 7/11/2008 at 00:30

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So why were you playing BiA:RtH30 on easy then?

EvaUnit02 on 7/11/2008 at 00:35

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There are still plenty of games being made where the Hard modes are genuinely unforgiving, games developed for consoles in fact, not our fault that you have tunnel vision. Eg Ninja Gaiden, Call of Duty (2+) on Veteran difficulty, Resistance: Fall of Man on Hard, MoH:Airborne on Hard, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2 on Realistic.

MSX on 7/11/2008 at 00:39

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Thank you.

Wish this board had a heart icon.



Yeah, I suppose I haven't played Resistance yet. I'm not willing to buy a game system who everyone just buys because its the cheapest blueray player out on the market. Ninja gadien's alright. The first(remake/new game whatever) I played to death, and the second was too much of the same, but honestly I only played a bit. I'll give it another shot when I'm in for ninja action.

Vegas... I guess. Though even comparing it to GRAW its easy. The AI was really predictable. Vegas two's AI was better and surprised me a few times, but still, compared to old school R6 its not very hard at all.

I'd never say any of the call of duty games were really hard. Two was pretty hard when you were playing the Russian and needed to take out the tanks in the square, but the rest of the game was pretty fluid. Four was really heavy on the waves of enemies. Not very smart enemies, and your health recharges. Too many enemies to kill? Rush right into the objective and they all just magically vanish. You really just need to get good at dodging stuff in COD games.