Never been a better time to be a gamer! True or false? (Poll)

[Spindel]

Chrkeller said:

Spindel said:

Oh you don’t like some of the things that makes games worth the time to play and is lacking in most games from bigger studios today.

I like, and think there are way to few, games with punishing difficulty and long gaps between save point (that add to the difficulty and add consequences for stupid actions in game). And no, don’t bring up Dark Souls games, they are not difficult because of good game design, they are difficult because of poor and clunky controls.

I voted false in the poll, but it’s not entirely black and white. The up side to today is that you have access to a large back log of games (even if a lot of older games are hard to get or really fiddly to get running on modern hardware).

But in general for games there is way to much focus on just making things look nice but with the blandest of game plays (specially true for games from bigger studios). Add to this way to many games that are basically MTX hell and I would say we are far from the â€Âgolden ageâ€Â of gaming.

Creativity is mostly found in indies, the problem there is that there are 500 bland rehashes with pixel graphics for every interesting game that makes the gems really hard to find. Sure, there where a lot of duds in all previous eras of gaming, but the sheer amount of games being released today compared to previously makes the gems much much harder to find and pick out even if you try to research them and read forums and reviews.

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying but QoL have gotten better with time.  Zelda, dying and starting with 3 hearts is annoying.  Zelda 2, dying in a dungeon and starting back at start is annoying.

The things above are not good design.  Battletoads, on the NES, is flatly punishing, especially two player.  

Games are more balanced now. 

Edit

Actraiser 2, MDK2, etc.  Good luck playing those games.  Christ the difficulty is brutal to the point of no fun.

No map in the original Metroid wasn't good design.  

Starting with 3 hearts in Zelda is a perfect way to annoy the player. It’s a consequence of the player messing up and maybe the player learns to be more careful in the future. Same with Adventures of Link, restarting in the entrance is a consequence of messing up. Consequences for poor actions are good design and something lacking in most of the games from the last 20 years. 

I haven’t played Battletoads in ages but as I remember it it wasn’t to punishing up until the motorcycle stage. And I’ll admit I’ve never made it past the motorcycle stage. But that was more an issue of never owning the game myself. 

And again I’m going to disagree with you on Metroid. The no in game mini map is a feature (specially in hindsight) that I hold to a high esteem. You want to know how both me and most of my friends played it the first time? With a pen and a stack of paper next to the TV and we drew our own map. That added to the experience and sense of wonder and discovery. I’m currently on a play through of it again on Nintendo Online, but nowadays I don’t need pen and paper I still remember where to go. 

I’ll add another game that you probably hate that I love and that is Simon’s Quest. The NPCs giving misleading information is a stroke of genius that I would dare developers do today in the age of arrows pointing at the objective and where to go.

But let us say this, I think you and me will not agree to much in this discussion.