I recently purchased the original Unreal as, to my shame, I had never actually played it up until this point. It was a bit of a landmark title for it's day and was the graphical powerhouse to beat upong it's release, though it seems to have been forgotten in favour of it's larger, multiplayer brother Unreal Tournament. But, for a mere AU$5.00, I thought 'why not?'.Now, I've been a gamer for nearly two decades and have played through some fairly difficult titles and have all but exhausted the FPS genre, so naturally I bump the difficulty level up to 'Unreal'. I like to be challenged, and I eat console FPSs for breakfast. Funnily enough, I was challenged - however, not just by the combat. The difficult adjusts the damage dealt and received, and in some places the number of opponents, however it doesn't change the level make up - and this is where I found Unreal to be the most challenging. Simply finding my way around some of the End-game levels was a lot more difficult than I had thought, and puzzles were down right head-scratch worthy. At first, I thought this was simply bad game design - a few had me stumped for quite a while - and a bit of a commentary on the progression the quality of the Video Games industry. Until I played it's sequel, Unreal II: The Awakening. While Unreal's difficulty was in it's 'puzzles' and combat, Unreal II basically handed you some guns and gave you things to shoot. I cleared Unreal in around 18 hours and was challenged quite often, however Unreal II took half that and provided literally no challenge of any kind.
Looking back at other games such as Half-Life, which was absolutely challenging - and still is, and their sequels such as Half-Life 2, which was better designed but was also a lot less challenging except for one or two moments, I feel that as time has progressed, games have gotten easier as a whole. Now, I'm not just talking about the dumbing down of game mechanics, I mean the actual challenge presented by the games of today. Looking back at the generations of yester-year, games like Sonic basically required you to memorise the entire game and be able to finish it without dying or making many mistakes. Flash forward to today, and games like Prince of Persia actually remove the ability to fail completely. Literally, you're unable not to succeed in that game. Is this something we asked for? Is this the natural evolution of our medium? In my humble opinion, no. Looking back at those older games, it was quite the achievement to finish one because of the challenge it presented. Seeing the ending sequence was the product of hours of hardwork and dedication, but boy did it feel good when you did it. If weren't good enough to be able to finish the game, you had to practice until you were. I remember weeks in front of a game called The Ninja on the Sega Master System II, and finishing it was one of the fondest memories I have as a kid because My Uncle and I spend hours memorising and practicing that game until we had it down cold. Sure, there were moments of frustration, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun.This isn't just for lower-scoring games like Unreal II, however. Look at some of the biggest and best on the market, like Bioshock, and we can see this as well. Bioshock featured Vita-Life chambers, where upon death you'd be respawned instantly and off you go again. If you had half killed something, it remained half-dead while you were returned to full health and able to beat it to death with your wrench at no penalty. That is, if you died - the combat wasn't terribly difficult at it's normal setting anyway, and even at it's full difficulty the real challenge came from ammo conservation rather than from the difficulty of your opponents, a trick Resident Evil used to great effect back on the original Playstation. And yet, Resident Evil was still harder than Bioshock. There is obviously a fine line to walk between challenging and frustrating, but why are so many games failing to deliver the challenge that older games packed in spades?Maybe I'm a rare breed, but I think finishing a game should be something to proud of - something you actually have to put some effort into, however with that effort comes the pay off of the feeling of success. When I finished Unreal, I actually felt good, despite the ending being nothing more than a "you escaped - to be continued" screen. Compare this to Call of Duty 4, Bioshock or even Unreal II, where finish it generated more of a 'meh' than a fist-in-the-air-fuck-yeah! Is this the way the industry is headed as Video Games become more and more mainstream and make more and more money? Or should every person who picks up the game have a right to finish it without putting little to no effort in to it? Is the End Screen a right, or a privilege?
I link hardcore strictly with the skill needed to play. Be it motoric skills, cognitive skills or combination of both, doesn't matter. That means I think there are games where you can't be a "hardcore" player even if you spend every waking hour playing it. Like Sims, for example.
You ever see the mods for the Sims series? There are some hardcore custom creations for the Sims. Very thoughtout well implemented mods and objects. Maybe you just see it as "artistic" and so don't give them due credit, but really your argument lost a lot of weight when you threw in excluding a game just for the hell of it.
And why would someone's artistic skills be worth less than someone's hardcore gaming skills? If anything the first is far more creative than simply being able to headshot someone while jumping from behind a corner.
I just differentiate, that's all. You could argue that "hardcore" means being very good at playing a game of course, which means you can be hardcore at playing Pacman, and I can't really argue with that.
But then you can also say someone is hardcore in Spore or Lego Star Wars. It... just doesn't fit. No offense.
Why has this thread been hijacked by a casual vs hardcore discussion? Nobody cares how hardcore their neighbour/friend/some guy 4000 miles away is.
ORly?
Hijacked? Casual vs hardcore is the core of this discussion! In other words, games have gotten easier (less hardcore) because this type of entertainment has spread to the masses. Now game studios cater to the masses to maximize their profits, which results in games which are geared towards being accessible to the casual gamer, since most gamers are casual.
Hardcore games, like Red Orchestra, have moved to occupy a niche of their own. Unfortunately because of that few developers actually get down to business making such games. For example, if you want a realistic shooter these days, you have two-three options (Red Orchestra, ARMA 2, maybe Operation Flashpoint 2 but I hear mixed reviews of that one) - if you want an easy-to-play shooter, well, take your pick from the pile.
You also have Battleground Europe if you want ultra-ballistic-physics but you don't mind your face melting from the Nazi's opening the Ark every time you see something move.
Dragon Rising (dons't deserve to be called OFP) is basicaly what R6:Vegas was to Rainbow 6.
So yeah, 3 options for the infantry focused wargamer. Arma 2 is my choice.
Yeah, I thought as much as soon as I saw the guy get shot in the trailer movie and not die. I tried Battleground Europe, but it took too long to get some action for me. I stick with Red Orchestra, action is good, teamplay is good by necessity (since all the Rambos get weened out real quick), I just wish there were more games like that out there.
In my opinion games which cater to the realism crowd are much more fun in multiplayer because they force the players to work together. You can't bunnyhop around with a rocket launcher or a knife(!), fragging everyone. But the personal gratification is instead replaced by another kind of a sense of success, when your whole team finally manages to break through and win the round. I guess most casual gamers prefer the personal sense of accomplishment when they shove a rocket down someone's arse.
Discussing casual vs hardcore without defining the context is pointless.
Some measure hardcore in terms of how much skill is required, others in how much time is invested and others in how approachable a game is.
Simple examples:
SHMUPs (Ikaruga, Contra, Raiden) are very approachable games, yet are considered hardcore (skill required).
MMOs are considered hardcore because of the time required to reach the endgame, and be proficient in it.
Simulators (milsims, flightsims), for the most part, can be considered hardcore because of the steep leaning curve, e.g. approachability.
There are all these different axis of discussion, and mixing it all up will only further antagonism. A true hardcore gamer could be one that played games with hundreds of keys, for the longest time, and with uber skillxoorxs... Like a Combat Flight Sim MMO.
But wouldn't a Space Invaders pro be considered hardcore? What about the MMO player that has all the best loot, by means of grinding? And what about the guy that had to spend hours reading manuals just to be effective in his game?
Again, without context, it's a pretty moot point.
I believe this provides what you're looking for.
This is probably one of the better attempts at definitions I have seen so far, as in it does not arbitrarily exclude games you don't like as many try to throw in there aka Sims, Wii. Still I am 99% sure if someone said they play Pogo or BigFishGames everyday for the past five years, a lot of people would still try and label them a Casual Gamer even though under your definition, they would not be.
I really miss this. I remember breaking open my retail boxes, popping in the game disk, or one of the game disks, finding a chair and just reading the manual. Now, so many games don't ship with printed manuals (again saves in costs but the savings are hardly passed down), and even the PDF versions are crap and not nearly as fun to read.
"Back in the days" it also took you so long to install that you could read the manual beginning to end, twice Nah I still have flashbacks of reading the Super Ghouls n Ghosts manual for the SNES. Somehow manuals from back then were something special, not just enumerations of troubleshooting tips and telling you to f***ing update your drivers or don't even bother insinuating there's a bug in the game.
Well I don't mind admitting being a bit of a nerd. I used to read all the manuals through before playing a game anyway, even now although I skim a lot now because so many games are similar to others that i already have the basic idea. I still have my Pharaoh manual that is 265 pages long. Reading manuals like that just got me more excited about my purchase. Ages of Wonders something like 172 pages. Now I go to the PDF hoping to find the same rich experience, even though I prefer printed copies, and its the same 33 page in adequate manual that was in the box (if the box even had a manual).
Getting a manual was one the reasons I still wanted a physical copy of a game instead of digital download, but the manuals are really sad these days. Plus, they started putting those damn CD-Keys on them and I would spend 30 minutes trying to remember where I put my freaking manual when I needed to reinstall.
<sigh> I really miss games like Pharaoh.
Oh, GOD, super ghouls and ghosts. That game was insane. Couldn't put the damned thing down
Here's another option for tactical realism shooter fans - Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. In my opinion, after only a few (but long) battles, its the no.1 choice for the tactical shooter connosieur out there. If you haven't, try it, it blows things like ARMA II out of the water.
You can still get hardcore games. Roguelikes like Nethack come to mind. There's also Dwarf Fortress, it's a crazy category in itself.
Figured I'd post this here rather than make a new topic. Interesting article on IGN.com which plays a little into the thread.
Every game should have at least three difficulty settings. The easiest setting should allow just about any idiot to make mistakes and still beat the game. The medium levels should provide a good bit of difficulty but still be beatable. There should always been an insanely hard mode that is much, much harder. That's just my two cents. I don't, however, like it when the AI cheats in strategy games when the programmers can't just make the computer player better.
@OP
Bah, here i was thinking i had gradually become more and more awesome at games and you go and ruin it.
I think it started to happen as 'rules' for game design have started to develop. 'Must always be somthing new an interesting to keep the player hooked every few minutes' - Hard to do that if youre stuck on the same level for hours.
Game design rules are poo.
Having said that, i dont mind easy games once in a while, it's kind of like watching a brainless action movie, switch your brain off and enjoy the show.
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