Forums

Topic: Making games challenging again...

Posts 101 to 120 of 152

Ravage

DanteSolablood wrote:

This was my point, yes they may be popular... but amongst a very small group. Whereas older more competitive games are still going strong. And don't think it's ONLY because they're well established, there have been several brand new competitive boardgames that HAVE made mainstream popularity such as Don't Laugh, The Logo Boardgame & Destination... Destination taking Hamley's coveted 2004's top selling game title.

I have to say, I have never heard of these games, 'nor have seen them in any stores. May be because I live in Canada, but most games i see that rapidly come to critical acclaim and things don't last very long and get forgotten (such as the many my aunt has gotten me for Christmas over the years).

DanteSolablood wrote:

Anyway - my post was not to knock them as I've played and enjoyed a few of them, but only point out that the post listing the games was written in a way that made them sound like they'd each joined Scrabble & Articulate on the shelves at Toys R Us... which as you agree Polka, is not the case.

Carrying on, I must say that while some of these games are not quite as popular as Scrabble throughout all generation, they are very popular in the "younger" crowd (teenager to people in their 30's kind of thing). This is largely due to prominence in University settings and I wouldn't be surprised if they became almost as classic as Scrabble years from now.

In fact, I have seen a very large increase in the popularity of board games in general, which is very promising for this particular industry. Board games are really quite fun, but can be hard to get people to play with, which is unfortunate. I also quite like this style of game that our German friends have brought to focus.

Anyhow, what somehow got lost in my rather aimless sentences (I find the board game industry itself rather curious) is that I must respectfully disagree. These games are indeed very popular within a market that itself is quite large; just not as large as the market that Monopoly and co. finds itself in.
I am ending it there because I will just keep talking otherwise.

Sean Aaron ~ "The secret is out: I'm really an American cat-girl."
Q: How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two, one to hold the light bulb, the other to rotate the universe.

SaKo

everyones going off-topic! We started with how modern games aren't really challenging and ended up talking about board games...

SaKo

Nintendo Network ID: jibberldd5 | Twitter:

Kaeobais

To be fair, it's not specified as "video games" and it IS in other gaming, and board/card/etc games do count as gaming

But now I'm just being a smart a**

The best strategy in the game: go up stairs and pause balls.

Zero123

Ahem Try to finish Dead Space 2 on Hardcore mode where you can only save three times plus all the things a harder difficulty comes withit may be impossible but the reward is amazing

'We accidentally replaced your heart with a baked potato. You have about three seconds to live.' - South Park : Bigger Longer and Uncut.

3DS FC 4382 - 2004 - 8859
I Own SM3DL, LOZOOT,MK7, Freakyforms and Pullblox

warioswoods

@PolkaDotChocobo

I have a few disputes with your linear history of design and unwavering faith in progress.

On the Board Game Analogy

Two points: (A) Some of the greatest board games ever created were designed quite a long time ago, so this idea of progress in design is a bit more complicated. (B) Randomness is not something to be left in the past, but can still be an element in the finest games.

I'll start with 2 examples: chess and Scrabble. The former is design at is best, even though it is one of the oldest games in existence. It begins exactly the same every time, has infinite possibilities, and only deepens in strategy the more you play. To this day, it takes one hell of a computer to even compete with a master player. Scrabble is a different example in that it hails from the "golden era" of board games in the United States, yet is once again designed so well that it stands the test of time. It does use randomness in the letters you draw, but is so well devised that the best player will win. Gather a crowd of literary types and you'll have a challenging, wonderful time with Scrabble. I still regard it as one of the best options anytime a board game evening comes up, and I do play Euro games.

On those Euro games: the best of them, in my mind, still include elements of chance, albeit used well in the overall scheme. A recent favorite of mine is Galaxy Trucker, and another we often play is Neuroshima Hex. In both cases, the order in which the tiles appear is random (like Scrabble), but your skill in using them will decide the game in every instance. Randomness is quite okay when used to create variation in a game and to give the players something to react to and manage; even Mario Kart uses this well, by forcing you to account for any number of scenarios at any moment, regardless of your lead.

On the Film Analogy

Film is a tricky one to take apart in terms of history and progress. You seem to have brought it up in order to suggest that it is a medium, like video games, in which techniques and concepts have evolved to the point where the oldest examples are interesting only to the historian and not as well-made in themselves as more modern examples.

It is true that a language of cinema has evolved over time, taking the medium into a very different set of forms that make more recent films look like quite a different kind of thing from early films. But you make it sound like narrative design in film was uniformly pushed forward by Citizen Kane to such an extent that films prior to it would always compare unfavorably to the era that followed it. "Before then, narrative in film was a raw and rough thing, at best." That's simply a bizzarre assertion.

Prior to Citizen Kane you had quite a few films with very well developed narratives. Gone with the Wind preceded it, for one, and that is a sweeping film with a narrative structure and character development (see: Scarlett in the two halves) that rivals any film, and in fact exceeds the vast majority of our current films in many aspects. I also name this example in particular insofar as it certainly does not only interest the film historian, for audiences today can derive great enjoyment from this one. Hitchcock also made quite a few films prior to Kane that were narratively brilliant and watchable by contemporary audiences.

But even further back in cinema's earliest days, narrative was hardly lacking, it was simply handled in a very different fashion. The medium was new, the capabilities technically were limited, and the approach taken therefore often did not follow what we've come to expect; but the design, even narrative design, was often quite brilliant. Take Metropolis or Nosferatu, from that earlier German era. These films will seem simplistic to the modern eye, sure, but that's only if you don't know how to read them and see the manner in which they used images in broad strokes and more exaggerated, stage-style acting to set the scene. A modern eye might be looking for the wrong elements (realism in acting, etc) and may miss where the real development is happening.

Now this gets to be a complicated point, but I want to be clear that yes, some of the earliest films can be difficult to watch for modern eyes at first, yet at the same time that does not mean that they are of interest only to the historian. They simply require the viewer to bracket contemporary expectations and enjoy how the film solves its problems and presents its vision in a different filmic language. You can actually enjoy the fundamentals of cinema all the most strikingly in some of these cases, for the bare elements are right there in front of you, often solved in the most clever of manners that make contemporary recycling of film imagery (or reliance on special effects) look lazy to say the least.

Back to Games

Early game design is similar to films on that last point: it might take some modern audiences a moment to relate to the game without imposing their current expectations, but when they manage to do so, the brilliance of the design will be apparent. In fact, the level design is often all the more brilliant than contemporary games insofar as there is so little to work with, so you can see creative and surprising solutions to so many design problems posed by the basic elements of player interaction. Many current games simply blow away the player with the sheer force of visuals and flashiness, but their level design has in many cases only become more simplified underneath.

Given so few colors in an 8-bit game and a very, very low count of different sprites you can keep in memory at once, the placement of every pixel matters immensely, and the level design was certainly up to the task in the greatest games of that era. People didn't keep playing Mario games for hours on end simply because it was new tech or it was all they had; the level design in 8-bit Mario games manages to engage the player continuously even while sticking to so few elements. There is sufficient openness and a range of different solutions for the player, along with developing difficulty and locations that continue to feel fresh even using the same assets in new stages.

Zelda is perhaps the pinnacle of 8-bit design in my mind, and still stands at the top of the gaming medium alongside today's games. Again, one must approach the game openly on its own ground and not impose misplaced expectations of contemporary form, but when you do so, it will greatly reward you. It takes its limited memory and palette and manages to create a world that invites exploration and challenges your skills at every turn, not in a cheap way.

Lastly, I feel that gaming should be approached more like a set of digital toys and less like a general entertainment medium. The subject of level design is simply how that toy uses its elements to engage, challenge, and surprise the player as he or she navigates its world. The cleverness of design in these toys was often all the more brilliant in the early days, before it became an extravaganza of visuals and other popcorn elements borrowed from the box office, and many of us keep returning to the 8-bit era in order to experience that ingenuity of design in all its unadulterated glory.

Untitled

Twitter is a good place to throw your nonsense.
Wii FC: 8378 9716 1696 8633 || "How can mushrooms give you extra life? Get the green ones." -

ejamer

Re: Board games
My Toys R Us has carried Catan, Carcassonne, Dominion, and a couple of the other "big names" in recent Eurogames. They always carry far fewer than the classic American games (Monopoly, Scrabble, etc) but they do still carry them. Also, I have to agree that stating you are awesome at CCGs and familiar with RPGs and mini games means nothing about your knowledge
of boardgames, and if you aren't familiar with the games listed earlier then you really don't know much about the hobby. It's like saying I'm an Atari fan so can comment on the current state of gaming, or that I own a PS3 so can intelligently discuss retro-gaming. Those things might be related, but they certainly aren't the same.

Re: Level design
There is often just as much padding in games now, but instead of making things very difficult so that players would have to start over and make repeated attempts games choose to extend gameplay with menial but time-consuming tasks. Collecting irrelevant items and requiring needless back-tracking are still seen far too often as ways to extend the overall playing time in modern games. That's not saying modern level design is bad - just that not every developer nor every game gets it right.

Personally, I'd rather play a game where there is challenge and a risk of losing based on my decisions and skill level than to be railroaded into an interactive story that is hours long. For me, gaming should be about skill, excitement, and maybe a sense of exploration/adventure; if I want overblown story-telling then I'll turn to movies and TV (or better yet, a book) which usually provide far better writing than your average video game.

Also, Super Meat Boy. Dang... that game must be GARBAGE to make people die so often.

ejamer

Nintendo Network ID: ejamer

LordTendoboy

warioswoods wrote:

@PolkaDotChocobo

Early game design is similar to films on that last point: it might take some modern audiences a moment to relate to the game without imposing their current expectations, but when they manage to do so, the brilliance of the design will be apparent. In fact, the level design is often all the more brilliant than contemporary games insofar as there is so little to work with, so you can see creative and surprising solutions to so many design problems posed by the basic elements of player interaction. Many current games simply blow away the player with the sheer force of visuals and flashiness, but their level design has in many cases only become more simplified underneath.

Given so few colors in an 8-bit game and a very, very low count of different sprites you can keep in memory at once, the placement of every pixel matters immensely, and the level design was certainly up to the task in the greatest games of that era. People didn't keep playing Mario games for hours on end simply because it was new tech or it was all they had; the level design in 8-bit Mario games manages to engage the player continuously even while sticking to so few elements. There is sufficient openness and a range of different solutions for the player, along with developing difficulty and locations that continue to feel fresh even using the same assets in new stages.

Zelda is perhaps the pinnacle of 8-bit design in my mind, and still stands at the top of the gaming medium alongside today's games. Again, one must approach the game openly on its own ground and not impose misplaced expectations of contemporary form, but when you do so, it will greatly reward you. It takes its limited memory and palette and manages to create a world that invites exploration and challenges your skills at every turn, not in a cheap way.

Lastly, I feel that gaming should be approached more like a set of digital toys and less like a general entertainment medium. The subject of level design is simply how that toy uses its elements to engage, challenge, and surprise the player as he or she navigates its world. The cleverness of design in these toys was often all the more brilliant in the early days, before it became an extravaganza of visuals and other popcorn elements borrowed from the box office, and many of us keep returning to the 8-bit era in order to experience that ingenuity of design in all its unadulterated glory.

Untitled

This. All of this.

Don't forget about the 16-bit era, games during that period expanded on the concepts that had been successfully implemented during the 8-bit era. The 16-bit era was full of innovative ideas that 8-bit games simply couldn't accomplish.

Edited on by LordTendoboy

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

Slapshot

Did I hear some Ninja Gaiden 3 love in here? Oh, I'm more excited for Ninja Gaiden III then I am for getting my Vita next week. I LOVE Ninja Gaiden!!!

@Viewtiful_Joe The Tester pits a whole bunch of folks against each other in gaming related events, but the only actual competitive gaming has been in the final event... and last time it showed off Killzone 3 gameplay before we'd ever gotten to see it. It's a great show that's FREE to download. The first episode will be available to download tomorrow on PSN, or SEN...whatever it's now called.

3DS FC: 4382-2029-8015
All my News and Reviews in One convenient place!

My Nintendo: Slapshot82 | Nintendo Network ID: Slapshot82 | Twitter:

LordTendoboy

Slapshot wrote:

Did I hear some Ninja Gaiden 3 love in here? Oh, I'm more excited for Ninja Gaiden III then I am for getting my Vita next week. I LOVE Ninja Gaiden!!!

@Viewtiful_Joe The Tester pits a whole bunch of folks against each other in gaming related events, but the only actual competitive gaming has been in the final event... and last time it showed off Killzone 3 gameplay before we'd ever gotten to see it. It's a great show that's FREE to download. The first episode will be available to download tomorrow on PSN, or SEN...whatever it's now called.

Ugh, I hate that new name for Sony's network. I get that they want to unify all their services under one banner (similar to iTunes), but that will just confuse people.

Imagine a kid gets a brand new PS3 for his birthday, and he asks his mom for a PSN card. The mom goes to the store and can't find one, cause PSN has been renamed to SEN. She could obviously ask the store clerk, but still that's too much hassle over a lousy name change.

That being said, will PSN cards all be renamed SEN cards?

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

Vincent294

Well, the name's stupid. Do it at the start. Oh, and backwards: SEN & NES

Edited on by Vincent294

Vincent294

My Nintendo: Vincent294 | Nintendo Network ID: Vincent294

zezhyrule

Well this is completely off-topic but...

@tendo: As far as I know from the email I received (and from a helpful comment on PushSquare), it's only the accounts themselves that are being renamed and joined together. The PlayStation Network will still be the PSN, but you'll access it with your SEN account. So pretty much, nothing changes. At all.

Also from the email, it seems like the reason they're doing this is so all your account on Sony products will be the same, under one 'SEN' network.

Users will be required to use their Sony Entertainment Network Accounts to log into the PlayStation Network.

Edited on by zezhyrule

[15:36] Corbs: Vita rules - 3DS drools!

zezloggery | i haz youtube | PSN ID: zezhyrule

[23:11] Phoen...

LordTendoboy

zezhyrule wrote:

Well this is completely off-topic but...

@tendo: As far as I know from the email I received (and from a helpful comment on PushSquare), it's only the accounts themselves that are being renamed and joined together. The PlayStation Network will still be the PSN, but you'll access it with your SEN account. So pretty much, nothing changes. At all.

Also from the email, it seems like the reason they're doing this is so all your account on Sony products will be the same, under one 'SEN' network.

Users will be required to use their Sony Entertainment Network Accounts to log into the PlayStation Network.

That's not what I read all over the 'Net. According to the various gaming blogs and websites, PSN will be completely rebranded under the SEN name, meaning Sony will no longer be using the acronym "PSN".

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57372110-1/playstation-ne...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399863,00.asp

http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/06/sony-entertainment-network/

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

Bankai

Ugh, I hate that new name for Sony's network. I get that they want to unify all their services under one banner (similar to iTunes), but that will just confuse people.

I'm pretty sure no one is confused by the fact they can get music, movies and games through iTunes.

No one is going to get confused by the SEN. There will be a brief period of transition, and then everything will be fine.

Sony had to do it, too, so criticising it for this move is just silly.

zezhyrule

That's nice. Notice most of those have the email as their source. Even when quoting the email, they even left in the 'account' part as seen here:

This helps us get closer to our goal of establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account,

So yeah... think what you want I guess. The words of some random sites that misunderstood the email or the actual words from Sony themselves.

If they are rebranding the service itself, they certainly didn't clarify in the email sent out. And there hasn't been anything on the US PlayStation Blog yet. You'd think they'd be one of the first people to report on the matter.

Edit: Did you even read the third link you gave me? They clearly stated that it was only the accounts being renamed at the time, and there was mere speculation for the reaming of the entire service :/

Edited on by zezhyrule

[15:36] Corbs: Vita rules - 3DS drools!

zezloggery | i haz youtube | PSN ID: zezhyrule

[23:11] Phoen...

LordTendoboy

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

Ugh, I hate that new name for Sony's network. I get that they want to unify all their services under one banner (similar to iTunes), but that will just confuse people.

I'm pretty sure no one is confused by the fact they can get music, movies and games through iTunes.

No one is going to get confused by the SEN. There will be a brief period of transition, and then everything will be fine.

Sony had to do it, too, so criticising it for this move is just silly.

I'm criticizing the name. The new company is called Sony Network Entertainment, and the new network is called "Sony Entertainment Network". They could have been a little more creative there...

Also SEN is just NES backwards...

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

LordTendoboy

Retro_on_theGo wrote:

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

Let's not go back to having no checkpoints. Bad game design is bad game design, even if you do like your Mega Mans and stuff.

Yes.
You clearly haven't played VVVVVV if you seriously want games to go back to no check points.
Megaman and Mario both had check points even back then btw, Tendoboy.

Yes they did, but they didn't have 10 checkpoints per level...

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

Bankai

LordTendoboy wrote:

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

Ugh, I hate that new name for Sony's network. I get that they want to unify all their services under one banner (similar to iTunes), but that will just confuse people.

I'm pretty sure no one is confused by the fact they can get music, movies and games through iTunes.

No one is going to get confused by the SEN. There will be a brief period of transition, and then everything will be fine.

Sony had to do it, too, so criticising it for this move is just silly.

I'm criticizing the name. The new company is called Sony Network Entertainment, and the new network is called "Sony Entertainment Network". They could have been a little more creative there...

Also SEN is just NES backwards...

Oh yeah, Sony totally decided to copy Nintendo and reverse the acronym. Then they just made up three words to hide their devious ploy.

Also: branding is not about being creative. It's about creating an instant association between words and graphics, and a product or service.

Sony Entertainment Network does that just fine. It's Sony, it's Entertaining, and it's a Network.

LordTendoboy

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

Also

Games back then were designed around good level design,

No way in hell is this true. Games back then were designed around being cheap. They were cheap because they were also incredibly short in real content, thanks to limitations at the time - to make people feel like they were getting their money's worth, developers had to come up with other ways to force people to play for weeks at a time.

Pixel-perfect jumping isn't good level design. It's cheap. It takes skill to master, but it's also incredibly frustrating. Having enemies fly in from off screen and not give you a chance to duck out of the way before they hit you? Cheap, but you're right, memorising where they came from means you'll miss them next time.

Let's look at the old JRPGs next. Obscene levels of random encounters and massive difficulty spikes before bosses? Check and Check. Rip those elements out and you'll find games that, without exception, are as straightforward as games come. Dungeons are obvious, basic layouts.

Level design has become almost infinitely better in recent years. Difficulty doesn't need to be sacrificed as a result, but what you're calling out for here is cheap deaths and unfair level design. Which I am glad we'll never see again.

Being skilled at a difficult game is considered cheap? Skill =/= cheap level design.

Games like Mega Man and Mario had good level design because that's all they had to work with back then. Memorization of enemy patterns and placement is what a platformer is all about. Platformers are just obstacle courses, they take skill to truly master.

Many modern games don't require skill, especially shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. All you do is aim, shoot, dodge, move forward a bit. Rinse and repeat. Shooters are about as formulaic as they come.

Edited on by LordTendoboy

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

Noire

Mario is just run right, jump, run right, jump, run right, jump...

Lieutenant Commander of the Lesbian Love Brigade
There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left, because that was the point.

LordTendoboy

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

LordTendoboy wrote:

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

Ugh, I hate that new name for Sony's network. I get that they want to unify all their services under one banner (similar to iTunes), but that will just confuse people.

I'm pretty sure no one is confused by the fact they can get music, movies and games through iTunes.

No one is going to get confused by the SEN. There will be a brief period of transition, and then everything will be fine.

Sony had to do it, too, so criticising it for this move is just silly.

I'm criticizing the name. The new company is called Sony Network Entertainment, and the new network is called "Sony Entertainment Network". They could have been a little more creative there...

Also SEN is just NES backwards...

Oh yeah, Sony totally decided to copy Nintendo and reverse the acronym. Then they just made up three words to hide their devious ploy.

Also: branding is not about being creative. It's about creating an instant association between words and graphics, and a product or service.

Sony Entertainment Network does that just fine. It's Sony, it's Entertaining, and it's a Network.

I get your point, but why did they have to use the exact same name for both the company and the network?

Sony Entertainment Network = network
Sony Network Entertainment = company

3DS Friend Code (NEW) 4597-0176-3500
Minis March Again (NEW) 2323-0441-2739
Mini-Land Mayhem (NEW) 5071-8232-0670
Wii Friend Code 5519-8046-0668-6068
Smash Bros. Brawl 1893-2412-4594
[...

This topic has been archived, no further posts can be added.