Man, dem video games

Have sure come a long way.


...Still I kinda wouldn't mind playing this for novelty.

 

i don't play video games that came out before 2004

 

Spoiler

 

get that filth away from me

 

I DONT GIVE A ****

 

Why does this game have a life bar AND a life counter?

People say games are too easy these days, but it's just their better designed. Good the controls of games like this, terrible.

 

Are you saying a life bar is poor design?

 

In some ways yes. The HUD display in games is an old design feature and has been done away with in most games.

Like the screening turning redder and redder with the more damage you take, indicating your health.
Bullet type and amount shown on screen displays on the guns themselves.

Look at Dead Space, the health was displayed clearly on the back of the MC, in segments, would show blue for majority health, yellow for moderate and red for critical. The guns have holographic images of the amount of ammo in the gun. The menu is displayed in game on a holographic interface, the guns too. Even the quick time events are implemented in game.

Realism in games merits eliminating the HUD to immerse you more, so better implemented features into the actual games world is appreciated. Generally means better designed game.

 

Weren't famously difficult games like Ninja Gaiden and Battletoads deliberately made to be tough as balls though?

 

Oh true, i'm saying the statement of games dumbing down and being easier is all bull. The reasons those games were hard back in the day was because they were poorly designed. The recent Ducktales HD release shows this in spades, the game is hard, not because it offers you a challenge that can be overcome with skill but with a repetitive pattern, like those Impossible Games, you need to jump and dodge at the right time or be killed. Worst of all, you only have limited lives, if you get lose them all you have to restart the whole game again. It's aged badly, it's basically an arcade machine game.

Properly designed games that are hard, like Ninja Gaiden or Dark Souls, base themselves around using your skills as a gamer to tackle fights appropriately, like predicting enemy moves after learning their attack patterns and preparing for them, knowing when to dodge or when to attack to maximise your damage and defence output, stuff like that.
And namely, you get rewarded for doing them.

 

Mm I somewhat disagree here; I feel like some games need the HUD to show you an accurate depiction of how you're doing. I hate it when I'm playing a game and I have only a vague idea of how close I am to death, when I need a precise one. Further, not all games need to be realistic... Health bars are still an integral part of some games, like fighters. And as for the example of the ammo display, I'd say that's less an example of removing the HUD and more an example of integrating it better into the game world.

I'd say it depends a lot from game to game.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused; DuckTales is poorly designed because it forces you to memorize patterns... But Ninja Gaiden is an example of good difficult design, for necessitating the same thing? @__@ I think I interpreted that wrong lmao, can you elaborate?

 

True, I couldn't imagine playing Civ 5 or Total War without a HUD, but in a lot of games the HUD display just kind of blocks the view of the environment, especially in lovely looking ones. The HUD in Dynasty Warriors 8 is appalling, the mini map takes up about 1/5 of the screen, I swear. I was generally talking about Action or Adventure games, because of the OP vid.

Oh god no, you can't repeat the same button sequences to defeat and enemy in a game like Ninja Gaidan. DuckTales HD and the Impossible Game both rely on the player pressing the right button at the right time, if not you have to restart and have to repeat the sequence over and over until you know the right sequence to win. It's like playing Bop It! or any sequence based game. It's hard not because it requires skills you use to win, but simply remembering what buttons to press when.

In Ninja Gaidan, you can't just bash the buttons in a sequence and win, you'd get killed very quickly. Enemies won't constantly attack you in the same order over and over again, you have to adapt your play style to the enemy over the course of the battle. What I meant by memorising in these games is learning your enemy and adapting to fight them. You see the enemy's arm glowing, at first you have no clue what it will do, until it unleashes a blow that kills you in one. Alright, second attempt in the fight, the enemy's arm glows, you dodge and it misses you, till you realise it has a follow up attack that homes onto you. Ok attempt 3, arm glows, you dodge, now to block the follow up attack, nice the enemy staggers and you can attack, etc. You learn how to tackle each opponent differently, i'm probably not explaining this well, but it's basically centred around difficulty based on player's skill that can improve. You can't improve memorise jumping patterns in a game, but you can improve how you fight an enemy.

 

games ARE too easy these days

they might as well be hand holding simulators

 

...

You really aren't.

Not to mention you're just plain wrong :v Pattern recognition is a perfectly acceptable, malleable, and entertaining form of difficulty, and nearly every game is fundamentally based on it in some way, including the two you're attempting to contrast. You learn what actions lead to what reactions, you are faced with a situation where certain reactions are desirable and certain others are not, and you use your knowledge to achieve the desired reaction. Where skill enters the equation is in actions which must be practiced to be executed precisely, which includes fighting, platforming, and plenty of other things.

tl;dr a ninja slicing dudes in half is a lot more similar to a duck jumping on platforms than you seem to think

 

I play games to have fun and enjoy myself. It's not like the harder the game, the better the game is a correlation.

 

Jump + Y/Trianlge on repeat. Game won.[DOUBLEPOST=1376865013][/DOUBLEPOST]

People still seem to think it's about difficulty, even the person arguing against you, when it comes to "games being too easy." It's not, because a lot of old games were easy as piss. The thing is, it's about how much info the game gives you to work with. Games today never really stop reminding you you're playing a video game. Hours into Assassin's Creed II, I was being taught basic mechanics I learned by playing on my own. That's handholding and being afraid to develop your game too far. It's a problem.

Tl;dr- It's not about how many times I die trying to beat the game, it's about the game shutting up and letting me beat it without an automatic event or a tutorial or being afraid to be difficult.

 

of course not but i have fun when games challenge me and provide some kind of difficulty. without that i just feel bored. the fable games for instance bore me to tears because they're so goddamn hand holdy and easy. if i recall correctly there's not even any kind of real punishment for dying in fable 2

 

You lose experience. Most people don't see it because it's easy.

That in mind, I love Fable. It's just relaxing. And at least it only has ONE tutorial instead of HEY HEY HEY HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT HOW TO SHOP YET?

 

Ah okay, then we're in complete agreement there haha. Clunky and unnecessary HUDs don't help a game experience, yeah.

No worries, I get what you're saying, but I'd still argue that this isn't entirely fair design. Your example requires getting the player killed multiple times until they learn the enemy's different methods of attack well enough to get through. To me that still sounds like it's killing you repeatedly until you get a pattern right (or in this case, properly respond to a pattern), it's just a randomly cycled set of patterns instead of the same one every time (as in DuckTales). Without having played Ninja Gaiden I can't speak on this well, but in my opinion putting a player in a situation where they don't have adequate time to respond with their reflexes alone (however unlikely that may be) -- like a sudden homing attack that gets them instantly killed -- isn't fair. The player needs to be introduced to the situation in a manner that gives them a chance to fight back.

 

Games are about making you feel like you've achieved something, which makes you feel good and enjoy the game. Defeating a difficult enemy is certainly like that, but some challenges are propped up and made to look fancy when it's smoke and mirrors. Really depends on what the player sees as a champion.

The reason for the tutorials is to appeal to a wider, less experienced gamer audience, selling more.

Myth. Flying Swallow is only good in big environments, useless against some bosses and makes you extremely vulnerable if the enemy dodges. Literally just tried this on my PSV to test since I've been playing my PS+ copy.

Hahaha, no it was just an example off the top of my head. Battles in action games go way too dynamic because of the AI response that makes it hard for me to even accurately describe the possibilities. I was attempting to illustrate learning overtime how to overcome a problem, a lot like real life problems, though with less ninjas.