Are we as gamers getting more stupid?
By DragoonKain1687 59 Comments
Speed read on the bottom
This is a question I've been asking myself for the past 3 years. Am I getting smarter as I grow, or are games just being more simply done? In other words, easier?.
As I game, I go back and forth between those ideas, as I find games challenging, easy, pathetic or just hard in the wrong way. There are cases that represent all those ideas, but back in the day, when I started with the Atari 2600/5200, games where hard, because it required some "path" to be memorized. As we moved to the NES era, games evolved, including random patterns, but still featuring a path to be learned. Now, once the SNES/ Genesis era began, we saw games that were completely new, games that were hard in the good way, that required a deeper participation from the gamer in the product.
This can be seen in the SNES era The Legend of Zelda games, or in the SNES Metroids, and Castlevania. And lets not mention Super Mario RPG (Nintendo, WHERE IS MY DS or WII REMAKE??) or Final Fantasy (though this did not reached the states normally until Sony took the franchise) or Bahamut Lagoon?.
Later on came the PSX and the N64 (my most beloved console). With them, we received true 3D, at least from Nintendo's side, and started seing games that were not only challenging, but also required lots of thought, and showed true hard work on their end. For example, the early Tomb Raider's, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (who doesn't remember the dreaded Water Temple?) or Resident Evil many puzzles?. Even the first Dino Crisis, with its ID card keys (To think that I realised near the "Watergate" ID that the ID letter was also the first letter of the password). Or Metal Gear Solid, with its multiple paths, and Vagrant Story with its crafting and combo system (man, I wish I did not used fakes as a kid, but originals were not available here at that time)
During this era, games began using also something called AI, a completely new thing, but this was just seen in few games. Who doesn't remember the first 3D Mario? Super Mario 64? The best 3D Mario ever. Mario Sunshine was a joke, and despite the charm of Super Mario Galaxy, its so easy that my 5 year old cousin could collect all the stars with no trouble (though I had to point her in the right direction a couple of times, she is a kid after all). Super Mario 64 mixed both amazing graphics, with complex level design that would require a certain amount of skill to complete the level, specially if going for the hidden stars, or the 8 Red coins challenge. And how about the Magic Carpet level? Who did not die repeteadly in that stage?.
Or how about Ocarina of Time. In Ocarina, being hit by an enemy was something common, even in the amazing Wind Waker. But, despite the graphical upgrade, and the art (my favourite) in Twilight Princess, it fails to represent a challenge during the whole game. You know that the game is easy, when you can beat Ganon without using a single potion.
Few games evolved well from this era.
During the PS2/NGC/XBX era, games evolved again, now having a more than solid AI system. With more randomness in their answers to your presence. But also, it was the birth of the new era of Beat Them Up, now called Hack & Slash with Devil May Cry (seriously, it would make your butt cry), Ninja Gaiden and of course, God of War. Both Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry featured simple puzzles with deep combat system. Ninja Gaiden revolved around combos and structure, attack, defend and counter. Devil May Cry started as a Resident Evil spin off (you had to aim first in Devil May Cry, though this was dropped for DMC 2 and 3). And God of War mixed simple combos structures with a rich story, amazing graphics, music and relatively complex puzzles.
But, not only this games appeared, games as Halo, Call of Duty and Doom 3 also showed their lovely faces in this era. This games presented a challenge to us, the gamer. The first 2 had good AIs for the time (specially Halo 2). Doom 3 changed its ways, and now featured a text based story (all those PDA's), a more horror survival setting and gameplay, and really, really hard bosses (except the final Cyberdemon).
On a different side, we got the Shin Megami Tensei saga finally to the US (not considering the first 2 Persona in PSX). Games as Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga really challenged the player, as reaching a point required lots of work, both strategically as mental. Persona games are a little bit easier than those 2, but show the same great system in work.
Metal Gear Solid also evolved, now featuring an amazing AI (unless you are one of those bitches who like exploiting the few blind points and glitches).
But, how many of those sagas got the same results during this era?
If you played Daggerfall or any old The Elder Scrolls, you will realize that the only good thing in Oblivion is the fast travel option. Fallout 3 is an insult to Fallout players.
Halo 3 is a joke compared to Halo and Halo 2 in terms of difficulty. Call of Duty 4-5-6 are still using Call of Duty 2 engine and the enemies still dont have AIs. Super Mario Galaxy is easy as it can be, Super Smash Bros Brawl has no challenge, where is my new Giga Bowser challenge?? I seriously dont see it here. Resident Evil 5 only problem is the mediocre AI for Sheva in PRO, the rest is very easy. Prince of Persia? Devil May Cry 4? They all lost the challenge they had in the past.
Few games kepted their challenge. Fire Emblem is one of them, Metal Gear Solid 4 is another, also GTA IV and Ninja Gaiden. We can add some new IP's to the mix, but the truth is that many games have lost the challenge they used to present when they were conceived. Resident Evil: Code Veronica on DC was the last true Resident Evil that appeared, where are games as Shenmue? Once we get a game with a more than amazing story as Yakuza, nobody buys it.
Gameplay has become so important that many things that make a game are forgotten in the middle. Games as Wolverine that would have gotten a 6 with luck in the past are now scoring well over 7. Games that show no depth in any way, no such thing as a puzzle, or challenge, or even worse, story.
It seems that today, blood, gore and foul language is what is needed to be succesful.
Long gone are the days where a game was the sum of its parts, and that having great gameplay was not enough.
EDIT:
As it seems that many are missing the point here, be it because they read it partly, or just because I may have expressed myself unproperly (after all, english is not my nathal tongue, and I keep this blog as a way to practice it so it doesnt rust) I will sum up some concepts below for those who want to speed read it.
- Current Gen games are amazing, I never said anything about them being bad, or that NES-PS2 era being better. All I said is that in many franchises, the evolution cutted most things that made them what they were in the past.
- There is no need to point out the few games that really accopmplish degrees of uniqueness in this era, because I most likely have played and loved them (as Valkyria or Bioshock or Afrika)
- The change in difficulty does not come only from an interface being redone, its a big group of things. Zelda games never required much Combat skill after all, yet the puzzles were amazing. And later enemies had a tendency to be more harmfull, and dungeos had more threats than in TP. I still prefer TP (took me over 40 hours for my first finish due to the huge amount of things to do and explore), as it is in my opinion, the best depiction of Hyrule that Ive seen. Though I would have liked Nintendo using MP3 and not Midi's for their music.
- Fallout 3 falls under the same category as Resident Evil. The new ones are not bad games, they are just not like their source material. Fallout 3 lost the level grinding and most RPG elements (Really, Bethesda Idea of level caping, and growing enemies is plain stupid imo). Resident Evil was stripped from its Survival Horror elements in 4, recovering some survival elements in 5. But it lost all the deduction that the player had to put on the game, all the puzzles. Where Resident Evil 4 has only a handful of them, Resident Evil 5 has none. Thats my complaint on their change of difficulty.
- I think that what many are thinking, is that the change in difficulty, only means stronger enemies and bosses, but that is not it. Difficulty is made from a wide arrange of things, enemies are just one part of it. Level design and puzzles are what concerns me, and that IS something that is being lost little by little. I fully understand what some of you mean, that games can be more accessible. Heck, I cant play an RPG nowadays unless I decide to go to bed late at night (since I work almost all day long I dont get many gaming hours) and many modern games are covered in checkpoints, or close save points. But that is not my complaint, who in his righteous mind would want to start a game all over again when he turns it over or dies? I know I dont.
- I repeat just for those with a weak mind, I LOVE THE CURRENT GEN, and possibly, even more than past gens. Why? Because my idea of a game is the mix of this 3 things: Story (world design also included here), Music (sound effects also included here) and Characters, and many current games have great stories (for their genres) with reach worlds to explore, or just do what I normally do, sit and admire getting lost in thought in an Afrikan Savanah in Far Cry 2, getting lost in a battlefied while using a mech in Killzone 2, or just saying WTF in Crysis after seing your first morning lights from the sun at max settings in DX10. By Music I mean both the soundtrack, and the sounds of the game. And normally they tend to go hand by hand. As catchy as they may have been, I would rather listen to the Black Mages "Fight over Big Bridge" version than listening to the midi thing in FF V. And I rather have the variety of sounds found in games as Metal Gear Solid 4 (seriously, turn the 7.1 one, and its amazing what Hideo has done) or the ambient noices from battlefields found in Killzone 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 or Gears of War rather than the old, not so "nice" "ratatata" etc found in old FPS's.