Psychotic said:
Name-dropping Zelda devs isn't a very convincing argument - he says what he has to say to appease the Nintendo fanbase, which is older than SONY and Microsoft fanbases, so he has to say that even if doesn't believe that. Come on, how many times have we seen the "Gamers want innovation" line ven though it is not true in the slightest and everyone in the game industry knows it. Games today are infinitely more complex than they used to and gamers are often adults with jobs and families. We can't make people figure all the impossible @#$& by themselves and we can't make people frustrated by getting stuck because they didn't learn a crucial technique a few hours ago. I consider NOT holding hands bad design. It was bad game design then and it is bad game design now. In Portal, literally half of the game was a tutorial, introducing one mechanic at the time. And it was an amazing experience nonetheless. Easy games: Games were hard to beat, but easy to grasp. As far as I'm concerned, immense difficulty is not a stample of a good game. Especially when "skill" meant speed, precision and patience. That's not a kind of difficulty that we should see. The was (some) games do it now - deep game mechanics that are easy to learn but hard to master - is the way to go. If you have what it takes, you can amp up the difficulty setting, if you don't, you can still enjoy the ride on a lower one. I'd say games are perfect in this regard today. Meaningful game endings: Do we really need uncountable hours of frustration to feel a sense of achievement from completing a game? It cerrainly helps, I got stuick in Metal Gear Solid for a month and when I finally found the answer, I was ecstatic... but was it worth it? Is that how I want my games to go? Gamer skills: As I mentioned, games in the past required speed, precision and patience. Today's gameplays doesn't involve those things that much. How could they have the instincts and reflexes if they never needed them? Is it surprising that today's kids suck at old games? Not to me. They're not worse gamers, the just lack the skills and talents they never needed and never will. Mainstream games: That's why we have other similar groups. Strategy and hardcore RPG gamers look down on people who play Call of Duty, the PC gaming master race looks down on the dirty console peasants, people that don'T care about sports look down on people who buy the new Madden or FIFA every single year for being a sheep...Everybody thinks they're better than everybody else because of... reasons. There's nothing wrong about mainstream games - niches cannot sustain AAA franchises. The only reason these games are still being made is because they found new audiences and new customers. A franchise can'T live on old-tome fans alone. As to your last point - why don't you leave that for the gamers to decide. I think they're challeged enough. I feel I'm challegend enough. And I don't need t die every ten seconds to feel that way. Why are you trying to decide what is and what is not challenging for somebody else? There is no problem until people stop playing en masse. |
Holding Hands
First, how do you come up with the conclusion that the entire Nintendo fanbase is older? Most people I know who plyed the first couple of Zelda games are mostly PlayStation gamers. While NIntendo definitely has older fans, I would say the majority of NIntendo system owners are younger gamers. Secondly, I don't have to take Eiji Aonuma's word for it just because he said it. I do since HE ACTUALLY WENT OUT AND DID WHAT HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO WITH A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS.
Easy Games
Then you make the argument that games should hold your hand since a lot of people have jobs and families and such. The problem is not everybody has a family. Some people have 40 hour a week jobs while others work part time. Kids don't don't work at all. So instead trying to make games appeal to an adult with a fulltime job and three children, the developers should instead just focus on making a good game period and whoever play will play. By your logic, a puzzle should have fewer pieces since somebody with a busy life wouldn't have the time to figure it out.
Meaningful Endings
If you had that much trouble with MGS, then I can't help you with that one. The only thing in that game that stumped me were the unorthedox puzzles that required me to look on the back the game box and switch controller ports. But there is a difference between feeling rewarded at the end of the game and simply expecting an ending.
Gamer Skills
You mentioned how games back in the day were hard to beat yet easy to grasp. I agree with that. That's how a game should be. A game should be easy to engage while having a good challenge. I also have an issue with simply addding a difficulty option. As I mentioned in another thread, games more often than not are designed around a general difficulty setting. This is why most of Snakes moves in an MGS game are completely useless in the very easy setting. A game is better when the difficulty is integrated with the overall game design and gameplay. Games like this usually start off easy and then gradually become more difficult allowing core gamers to have a challenge while allowing the more inexperienced gamers the chance to get used to a game. Also, you say that gamers today do not need the skills of older gamers for modern games. I think games today would be much better if those skills were necessary. There would definitely be more of a game in each game. Personally, I don't want to simply interact in a game. I want to actually play a game.
Mainstream Games
First of all, I'm not bashing the non core gamer. I think everybody who wants to play games should. What I am bashing are the development choices made for those games. Unfortunately, the industry has become a low risk industry and the creative direction behind a game is often dictated by marketing executives who think they know what's best for everybody. Unfortuantely, pie chart demographics are only a one dimensional perception of people and hardly represent real people. This often means appealing to the lowest common denominator. By contrast, back when the industry was less developed, there was no demographic to base games on. A lot of genres were still being invented. Therefore, the devlopers would make what they felt like were good games and them the marketers would come up with ways to sell those games to children. If developers back then were really asked to make children's games, we wouldn't have challenging games like Ninja Gaiden or Contra. Many popular franchises that we know and love today wouldn't exist. That didn't stop them from developing those games though. An example of a more casual game that's very good is Picross 3D on the Nintendo DS. I spent a lot of hours playing that game. It started off easy and gradually got more difficult. The game required the player to carefully think about their decisions while completing puzzles in a limited time. The game also encouraged more experienced players to go back and do better on older puzzles.
Finally, I'm not deciding anything. I'm just giving my opinion based on my own personal observations and experiences just like Rich from ReviewTechUSA. Honestly, I don't even have a one-sided opinion on all this. In my opinion, the 4th and 6th generations are the best gaming generations. The 4th generation mastered 2D gaming with the 16-bit systems while the 6th generation mastered 3D gaming by ironing out all the flaws of the 5th generation. The 7th generation was a mixed bag. A few things got better while a lot of things got worse including the whole user experience of a gaming console got worse.
And you know what? Just saying that these skills aren't necessary or games don't need to be that challenging, you're proving his point! You're actually mad and claiming that he has a superiority complex just becuas he pointed out something that you apparently agree with, even though he's a gamer who still plays all the modern games that everybody else plays and still enjoys a lot of them. Persoanlly, I don't see anybody having a superiority complex. I just see you feeling insecure over somebody else's opinion that you agree with.
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