4 replies to this topic

[atarilovesyou]

This may have been talked about before, but I wonder:

We all enjoy classic games for many reasons...but I wonder, what effect does it have on you when you've completely destroyed a game? I mean, when you beat the SHIT out of that game so badly, you're SO good that you know every secret, every angle, you know it ALL about that game. It's not challenging, it's just a shell of it's former difficult self. Would you still be inclined to play that game again?

Part of me wonders if that's one of the reasons I enjoy classic games over newer ones. Those older games were more difficult by design; they were usually based off quarter munchers. Yes, you can jack the difficulty of today's games but imagine that the ONLY way you could play Call of Duty was on the HARDEST difficulty level...and there was no multiplayer option. You'd essentially have Battletoads for the NES, lol!

Some games that I was really good at in the past (Ninja Gaiden, Ghosts n Goblins) I still get a kick out of, but only about once a year or so. But there's some games like Track and Field (NES) that friends have gotten SO good that it's literally impossible to get any better at the game. And then, boredom sets in and people move on to other things....kinda like that, anyway.

I just wonder..now that we can go online and watch youtube videos and all that, and learn how to destroy the games that gave us so much challenge when we were younger, what does that do to the overall enjoyment of the games? I know we don't play games only for the challenge, but once the challenge is gone, what keeps bringing you back?

[Random Terrain]

I don't care that much about hard challenges. I just want to have fun and have a fresh experience every time I play. I hated games that made you play the whole level again or forced you to go back many levels or sent you all the way back to the beginning of the game. I wanted alternatives to constant restarting.

I love randomness and replayability in games. If you're always surprised when you replay the game, it's harder to get sick of it. But you can get a little tired of a game world after a while, even if it is replayable. That's good news for game designers who want to sell more games.

[atarilovesyou]

That's what I'm saying...I hated having to start ALL THE WAY BACK at the beginning of a stage in Ninja Gaiden way back when, but even though it was infuriating, I wonder what it would have been like if I didn't have to? If I could play the same portion of the game over and over and over again until I eventually beat the game? The more time I put into the game, the more satisfaction I get at the end after finally defeating it. But in reality, I'm not sure. If the only thing I saved was time, would that mean I wouldn't have the same good thoughts about a game afterward?...that's why you can't compare today's games to yesterday's games. No more so than you can compare an arcade game to its NES counterpart...they're both designed to make MONEY, ultimately, but it's the fun factor that keeps you coming back on a home console. Fun factor, until you either destory the game completely or just give up from the difficulty.

That's why I find a lot of games today disposable...but what's the difference between Angry Birds and Kaboom! ? There's a lot more depth in Angry Birds I suppose but I keep coming back to Kaboom! for a quick fix...and the fact that I know my personal top score and can't for the life of me beat it. No way I'd be able to play Kaboom! for an hour, though...but I could play Angry Birds for an hour, easily. "Better" game design?...I dunno, because I'd RATHER play Kaboom! anyday over Angry Birds. Again....not sure why that it is, lol.

Many of the flashbased games today are completely disposable, in my mind. That's why I sometimes think about how I would react to those older games like Kaboom! today, if I had NEVER played them before. Would I like them?...at ALL?...lol. Who knows?

[atari2600land]

That's why Game Genies were so cool. If you wanted to start at, say, level 2, there was a code for that. And, if you were lucky, you could also put in an infinite lives code!

[Rybags]

In some cases it does, but in many it's incentive to improve.

I've finished Spelunker on the A8 many times but the last level has lots of parts where you never need to go except to improve on the final score, and going to them costs lives to the point where it becomes an entire new challenge.

Same can be said for some people and some arcade games where it either finishes or crashes at a certain point. Plenty master them but few get perfect scores, and lots try for decades to do so.