Does anyone remember when games were actually hard?

sickfuck_diablo

It Wandered In From the Wastes
When you would go insane with frustration after wandering around aimlessly wondering what the hell to do next?

Before online FAQs, or blatant map pointers in the game that tell you EXACTLY WHERE TO GO, you just kept playing until you figured it out. Is this an improvement in time economy? Or does it take away from the game?

I use Gamefly to play new games now, and they don't come with instructions (which sucks) so I go online to look up basic controls if they weren't covered in the mandatory 'memorize a bunch of buttons and menu systems' mission. Or I just forget. Either way, there's a million FAQs up for every game and it seems so pointless to wander around and get pissed off. But I can't bring myself to look at them, because then it's like.... pointless. No discovery.

Any body have thoughts on this?
 
I mean, specifically to the ambiguity of some/most/all games way back when, there's to sides to that coin. On the one hand, you have a game like Fallout. Now, Fallout I was given, along with a shitton of other 90s games, by an older gamer looking to free up some shelf space. I got only the jewel case, but after days where I'd do nothing but play it on my old COMPAQ PC, I knew the game pretty well. Learning how to play was fun.
On the other hand, you have some games which were made by less intelligent people, and simply aren't as well plotted out, and figuring out what to do leads you to trial and error marathons, and the answer is illogical. And there are a lot more of these than there are Fallouts.

However, I catch your meaning. Yes, I miss Fallout's generation. I don't mind playing more Grand Theft Auto IVs, though.
 
Wandering around aimlessly and not knowing what the fuck to do is difficulty instilled by bad design decisions. That sort of thing has been removed from AAA titles because it just isn't fun.

Difficulty from mind-crushing puzzles (adventure games), epic shootouts against brutal AI (first person shooters), or lengthy battles against that secret 'omega' boss (rpgs) is very much alive and well in today's games.
 
Oldschool RPG developers were neurotic assholes who didn't understand the meaning of play balance beyond the statistics.
Not that I'm complaining, I actually enjoyed the frustration the Krynn series caused me, the satisfaction of completing the games is unparalleled.
 
Well it's been said already, but I believe frustration stemming from not knowing where to go is usually bad game design. Sometimes it just requires some thinking, but often the game is just being a dick about it and laughing at you.
 
Compared to nowadays, games used to be hardcore. I've recently played some Contra, Super Mario Bros, and Earthworm Jim for NES and they kicked my ass. I forgot just how hardcore those games were. You got 3 lives or so and once you died, that's it, Game Over. No saves, no retries, just some limited continues, and maybe level codes, if you're lucky.

Those used to be games, in full sense of the word. Nowadays, games are like interactive movies, since you really can't fail. You will get from the beginning to the end of pretty much any game, as long as you play.
 
Well the reason for the three lives and you die thing was because they were made for arcades originally and were made to suck you and your parents dry of change.

When I think of the now doubt thousands of god damn quarters I wasted on Metal Slug...

I think that most games are trying too hard to be interactive movies, even in how they present themselves. Look at Gears of War, a game where everything is shown in a very cinematic way, with speed lines as you're walking across the battlefield and the over the shoulder view so you can see your character. I wish games would just be games again...
 
Their was a coinslot on the Nintendo? I didn't notice..
I think the regeneration in first person shooters is the worst that could ever happen. That makes all of them so damn easy..
 
I mean a lot of older games were developed for arcades so lives were there so you had to keep pouring money into the machine. So a lot of early console games had lives and no continues and stuff since it carried over from arcades.
 
Hah, I remember those JA2 iron man sessions...

Awesome times.

One of the only times I ever lost a game: an iron man session with the 1.13 UC mod on expert... I got spammed by 'bout 80 elite soldiers in one battle in the first city - and I was armed by nothing but pistols and flash grenades.

Was probably the most awesome battle I ever had, though. I managed to wittle it down to about ten enemies left, but then my last remaining merc (Thor, IIRC) got surprised by an enemy that had crawled up the roof behind him...

A tear of joy just came to my eye.
 
JA2 + 1.13 mod is so incredibly hard at times it's not funny anymore. I love it. And I'm one of those guys who never let's a merc die. I don't know how long the first epic battle took me. The first time it totally took me by surprise, the second time I was better prepared.
Plus the game runs flawlessly on linux with wine. <3

I like games that are a challenge. But I can see that easy games please a lot of people.
 
I haven't played Ninja Gaiden 2, but Ninja Gaiden Black for Xbox is pretty damn hard.
 
Buxbaum666 said:
JA2 + 1.13 mod is so incredibly hard at times it's not funny anymore. I love it. And I'm one of those guys who never let's a merc die. I don't know how long the first epic battle took me. The first time it totally took me by surprise, the second time I was better prepared.
Plus the game runs flawlessly on linux with wine. <3

They so much raped me. I think, I needed at least one hour for the hole battle and at the end, my mercs needed a break for some ingame days because all of them nearly died. THIS was a cinematic battle. One guy from left, two guys from right, then two new guys from left, they are shooting at your mercs, you shoot back and everytime you think "now I got em!" you see five new enemys moving slowly behind your back.

I think, I killed more than 100 bad guys this day. Rambo would be pleased. Or not because I reloaded so often that I can not count it anymore.
 
I think when Amiga (R.I.P.) was alive and well, the games were infernally hard, but sometimes the wrong way, for example The Secret Of Monkey Island's ship level's only puzzle was to mix everything you've found so far in the correct order to continue.
 
Left 4 Dead on Expert does a pretty swell job at whipping up me and my fellow team mates as we try to innocently fight for our own goddamned survival.

It can be best summarized as thus:

20081121.jpg
 
I just loaded up the good old Diablo 2, just for the hell of it, and saw the Hardcore option where you get an actual Game Over after you die. That's a pretty good idea. I wouldn't play a game like Diablo 2 that way because I'd explode if I built up a character to level 40 and then lost him in some unimportant dungeon crawl but I dig that option. More games should have one, it could potentially make me want to replay some games to see if I could make it without dying.
 
Well I would definitely put that option in my RPG if I ever made it.
 
i loved harder games. i loved the SSI games and fo 1+2 and the ultima games...

if you thought it out and knew what the hell you were doing, you could make it. all the controls other than the spells in bards tale were great but ultima had a shitload of them.

the last game i had that i had to cheat on to win was the damn hunger thing in MOTB... coldnt figure out how to kill a guy with hunger strike to fill up the bar....

original halo for the pc was hard as hell on the hard settings... and cod 4 with the hardest setting was fucking hard due to endlessly spawning enemies but once i hit one of those time based shits with like 50-60 guys comming at me with sniper accuracy at like 100 yards with machine guns... i quit that game fast.

and there were some levels that gave me a problem in crysis probably because i tried to play too smart rather than being a dumbass charging in...

but then again i suck at FPS games.

the last rpg style game that pissed me off so much i stopped playing was dungeon lords because the interface and controls were so fucked up, i couldnt take it.

oh and i bought resident evil 4 for the pc, after about 5-10 mins i got sick of the no mouse control shit and uninstalled that piece of crap.
 
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