A while back I got Paperboy on XBLA and obsessed over it. I loved that game in the arcade as a wee lad, but was never able to finish a complete week, even on Easy Street. I made that my goal, and damn man... it was tough. It's memorization with twitch reflexes. It's made extra hard to memorize by each day being on the same course, but with a slightly different set of obstacles to avoid. Do I zig right to get out of the way of those bastard skateboarders on Wednesday or Thursday? By the time you get to Friday it's a question of using all those extra lives you saved up earlier in the week wisely enough to make it through Sunday.

I finally did it, satisfying a boyhood dream.

It made me think... games were harder back then. Not necessarily more fun, in fact I'd argue that Paperboy isn't really that fun at all, just hard. A quarter capacitor, storing them up on behalf of Atari and the arcade.

I'm glad modern games are making attempts to adjust the difficulty to your skill level, up to a point. I don't want them too easy, or if they are, they need to find someway to fool me into thinking I'm learning new things, improving, and overcoming something seemingly insurmountable. It's about manipulation, and the games that do it really well are more successful.

Finishing a full week of Paperboy though. Damn, that was hard. That achievement felt so good.