Games of the past vs games of today

DiscostewSM · Feb 26, 2011

Agree or disagree if you want.

After doing some Youtube surfing, I came across this video...

..and I began to think about those kind of games from years back, and about games now, and I came to a personal conclusion.

Games of the past were simplistic, yet hard because of their simplicity.
Games of today are more complex, but that complexity brought about easier games.

What do you all think?

Nathan Drake · Feb 26, 2011

Pretty much hit the nail right on the head there.

Older games seemed very difficult, as their simplicity left them with not much to do if the game was too easy. Even hard games could be beaten fairly quickly if you knew what you were doing. This was primarily on the NES though. By the time of the SNES, the difficulty was starting to die down for more story lead adventures that weren't all that easy to pull off on the NES. The difficulty was still ever present, just not in nearly every title.

By the time of the Sega Systems, N64, PSX, etc., difficulty was almost completely replaced with story and such for many games. It also started becoming more about the game play to try to appeal to a new generation. Try to get somebody who has never experienced, harsh, unrelenting, old school gaming to play, say, Demon's Souls on the PS3. They will never make it. Ever. That type of game has started to die out, although Demon's Souls was a rousing success all things considered.

People just don't want a hard game. People want a game they can beat without exerting too much time and effort overall.

I like an old school feeling game every now and again. An actual difficult RPG, a difficult game, anything to kind of give me a break from the easy games of today. That's not to say it's all bad though. Games like Uncharted 2 on the PS3 focus entirely on the game play and story without too much consideration being given to difficulty (making the hardest difficulty hard as all hell and the other difficulties not that hard), but the game is downright incredible.

I dunno. Either way, trying to compare the games of today to the games of the past is like trying to compare apples to elephants anymore. You just can't really do it. They're too different.

Sausage Head · Feb 27, 2011

Games like SimEarth and SimLife are a bit hard :

Ikki · Feb 27, 2011

Yeah, easy games like Super Meat Boy.

Stevetry · Feb 27, 2011

i still play Battlefield 1942 a 10 year old game the newer one gameplay feels wrong

Guild McCommunist · Feb 27, 2011

There are games nowadays that are balls hard but still thoroughly complex.

Personally I believe games are improving. Not just from a tech standpoint, but from a gameplay standpoint as well. Although some games from back then can be treasured for their simplicity, I still enjoy having games nowadays being more complex and deeper.

Cuelhu · Feb 27, 2011

Zelda is a good example on this. When I played Twilight Princess, I instantly loved it, but it felt too easy in comparison with older titles.

Sausage Head · Feb 27, 2011

I just started playing Counter-Strike 1.6 after stopping with Source 3 months ago. It's much better. Especially with the included shield, LAN games are much more fun

_Chaz_ · Feb 27, 2011

I've never heard it put in such a way that made this much sense before.

I agree that classic games are much harder, and therefore much more fun, but I never knew why.

KingVamp · Feb 27, 2011

Harder doesn't always = funnier does it?

Fear Zoa · Feb 27, 2011

KingVamp said:
Harder doesn't always = funnier does it?

No....IWBTG taught me that....but on the other hand super meat boy is fun.....I guess it just depends on what makes the game difficult....

Hells Malice · Feb 27, 2011

it makes sense, but I don't actually agree.

I think it was just what people play games for that has changed. Back in the day, if you gamed, you were a gamer. You likely wanted to have a fun challenge.
These days people who game aren't always gamers. So there are pretty games that are easy.
That and some games exist to portray a story, and might not go too deep into gameplay and thus create pretty simple gameplay (like final fantasy, though the stories on them are...yeah).

Though, the simplicity also made it easier to increase the difficulty without being unfair. Lots of games these days just make unfair crap and say it's "difficult".

KingVamp said:
Harder doesn't always = funnier does it?

No, but it depends what you play.
Story based game? Nah difficulty doesn't = funner
Gameplay based game? Almost definitely. If Ninja Gaiden was simple/easy, it'd be god damn boring. Dynasty warriors/Samurai warriors are ridiculously easy, and can be quite boring.

Rafinesque · Mar 2, 2011

Malice's point is the real situation.

Games have gotten easier because it sells more games. Not because developers can't make hard games any more, or that a complex or pretty game can't be hard.

As games has become a bigger business, and companies have figured out what sells games, they have started making games easier. The Wii is the perfect example. The Wii has sold more consoles and more games than anything else, and 90% of Wii games have no challenge whatsoever.

This is because most people don't have the desire of determination to replay a level over and over until they beat it, which is what you have to do in hard games - so they make games that don't require that, which more people will like.

That's why Super Meat Boy is a throwback to those old games, because you do have to replay levels multiple times in order to beat them, and also why the game will never sell as many copies as Peggle or Bejeweled.

The Ey Man · Mar 4, 2011

But what about Demon's Souls? If anyone has heard about it, they probably know it as a really difficult game. Monster Hunter as well. Both don't really have a big story line or an easy difficulty.
But both games are huge in Japan and everywhere as well. They're the games that bring back the true gameplay of games IMO, which is why they're my favourite games.

I just really hope game developers start making more games like them, although it's rare they even will. Both games hesitated their releases in the US and EU. Demon's Souls released in EU around three years after the JAP release, and the Monster Hunter games are released in JAP months before US as well.

I think there's a pattern of "fear to get overwhelmed by casual games" thing...

stanleyopar2000 · Mar 4, 2011

games nowdays Like Call of Duty are hyped the fuck out of with the media and the damn internet to make them seem better than what they really are

before the invention of the internet...gamers made their decisions based on gameplay and the merit of the game itself.

Now days it seems like game companies form our own rationalizations about the gaming industry and what to buy.

Ikki · Mar 4, 2011

stanleyopar2000 said:
games nowdays Like Call of Duty are hyped the fuck out of with the media and the damn internet to make them seem better than what they really are

before the invention of the internet...gamers made their decisions based on gameplay and the merit of the game itself.

Now days it seems like game companies form our own rationalizations about the gaming industry and what to buy.

You can blame general media but not the internet.

blackdragonbaham · Mar 4, 2011

it's just like the ts wrote. the mayority of the games nowaday are a lot easier than the counterparts of the past. thats may be a development initiated of the spread of the games as mass media. the patience of the people isn't as great as earlier, not everybody is willing to buy a game which is nearly unbeatable, so the developers came a long with easier games or at least with multipe difficulties to make the gaming rather fun than frustraiting. zelda and mario are good examples for this, i've beaten every mario and zelda game excepting the titles for nes. games like super meat boy or wanna be the guy are exceptions and tributes to the good old days.

machomuu · Mar 4, 2011

Funny thing is, Airman ga Taosenai (A song I LOVE) is what got me into Megaman and ultimately retro gaming (despite the fact that Airman himself is pretty easy, even in the Japanese version).

One thing I adore about Retro Games is that they were harder because of their simplicity, and it's a criticism I have for games of today because they are more complex and add elements that essentially make a game easier than it ought to be. I have alot to say but I have homework to finish

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Games of the past vs games of today

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