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Author Topic: TEM's Biweekly Video Games  (Read 24091 times)

« Reply #30 on: January 04, 2010, 06:43:09 PM »
Seriously, we've been doing that same [dukar] for over half a decade. Except better.

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #31 on: January 04, 2010, 07:20:38 PM »
Thanks for reminding me how awesome CashCrazed and Watoad were. Jerk.

Also, I played the game again, and stopped just half a meter shy of Insane Steve's score on my single attempt. Not horrible.

« Reply #32 on: January 04, 2010, 10:34:14 PM »
The cutest part of looking over that thread was where I uploaded the intro vid to CROSS†CHANNEL because YouTube wasn't invented yet.

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #33 on: January 05, 2010, 12:16:08 AM »
Speaking of which, apparently an English translation patch for CROSS†CHANNEL was released back in August.

I forgot about Ball Explosion AWESOME. Its creator hangs out in #tmk, by the way.

Sort of surprised that no one mentioned Seiklus, Eternal Daughter, or Spelunky.

TEM

  • THE SOVIET'S MOST DANGEROUS PUZZLE.
« Reply #34 on: March 31, 2010, 01:23:08 PM »
Difficulty: Turn It Up To Eleven or Slow Your Roll?

Video games with difficulty settings offer staggered levels of challenge for the player. Let's examine two reasons why this reoccurring video game staple exists and discuss what it can offer.

There are two main reasons for difficulty scaling in video games: Game Conforming to Player and Player Conforming to Game.

Game Conforming to Player

People have different amounts of skill at certain video games and the first reason to include and use a difficulty scaling option in a video game is for the player to adjust the game to them. Now this not only refers to lesser skilled players lowering the difficulty of any video game for the purpose of increased enjoyment (or for truly struggling players, simply making the game playable); but it also refers to players with greater skill increasing a difficulty setting to more suit their abilities, the purpose being to make the game enjoyable if it is initially too easy.

An obvious problem occurs when a game is too difficult for a player on its easiest difficulty option and too easy for a player on its hardest. Both situations offer two potential conclusions. The unskilled player can challenge themselves to becoming better at the game. The skilled player can submit to the boredom. The option open to both situations is to of course abandon the game all together.

Player Conforming to Game

The second reason for having a difficulty scaling option is similar to the unskilled player forcing themselves to adapt to the game, except this player can master a given difficulty setting but wishes to force themselves to be able to master a higher level of difficulty. At its root this reason exists by a player's desire to meet a challenge, to forge themselves in its heat, and overcome. This contrasts drastically with the root cause of the former reason, which is that of enjoyment gained from the game by first tailoring the game to oneself.


Resulting Questions: Is there a preferable option? Should games be enjoyed regardless of the means, or is it only admirable to truly challenge yourself to the extreme? Does beating a game constitute a victory, or does it only truly count as domination when the game is overcome at its highest difficulty setting? Does victory or overcoming challenges reign supreme or should only personal enjoyment of the video game matter?
0000

« Reply #35 on: March 31, 2010, 02:53:38 PM »
I approve of difficulty scaling options.

I always play through a game on Normal mode first, so I can enjoy the game without getting too frustrated and without just blasting through it. Then I play on harder difficulties, normally to unlock things in the game and for bragging rights. I never play on Easy except in extreme cases, none of which come to mind.

I don't believe in changing difficulties mid-game. You should finish the game at the same difficulty when you started.

Having a game's easiest setting be too hard is infinitely better than the hardest setting being too easy, because eventually the hard difficulty will make you better at the game and you'll be able to beat those difficult levels, which gives you a high sense of accomplishment. Plus, super easy games are super boring.

I think personal enjoyment of the game is what matters most. And for some people, that personal enjoyment comes from beating the game on the hardest difficulty. I think you can beat a game on an average difficulty and still say you beat it, but no one will be very impressed. If you beat the game on the hardest setting, you can say "I beat this game on the hardest setting!" which still signifies your completing the game, but also garners respect from fellow gamers.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #36 on: March 31, 2010, 03:19:45 PM »
Is there a preferable option?
I'm not sure about this one.  I can't really say that I've ever enjoyed a game more or less than any other due to its having several different difficulty levels.  That said, another option is to give the player rehashed versions of specific missions with extra restrictions, such as in Super Mario Galaxy or Kingdom Hearts; 358/2 Days (which actually had three different difficulty settings in addition to that).


Should games be enjoyed regardless of the means, or is it only admirable to truly challenge yourself to the extreme?
I may not be a relativist as a general rule, but I do believe that as long as you enjoy a game, there's no wrong way to play it; this includes cheats, self-imposed restrictions, and the like.  However, I also believe that unless you try the game first without cheats or self-imposed restrictions, you might be depriving yourself of some of the fun.

Does beating a game constitute a victory, or does it only truly count as domination when the game is overcome at its highest difficulty setting?
That would depend on whether you actually plan on 100%ing the game, or whether you define "beating" a game as getting 100% completion.  In most cases, I don't consider a game really beaten unless I 100% it.

Does victory or overcoming challenges reign supreme or should only personal enjoyment of the video game matter?

The latter.  But most people can find some amount of enjoyment from overcoming challenges anyway.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

TEM

  • THE SOVIET'S MOST DANGEROUS PUZZLE.
« Reply #37 on: March 31, 2010, 04:44:55 PM »
Is there a preferable option?

This is referring to Game Conforming to Player vs. Player Conforming to Game.
0000

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #38 on: March 31, 2010, 05:04:16 PM »
Then no, neither option is necessarily better.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #39 on: March 31, 2010, 06:27:43 PM »
This is a very interesting topic, and one that relates largely to my favorite genre.

I wouldn't be the first to say that shmups are ****ing hard. They are intense, brutal, and oftentimes utterly unforgiving, largely due to the nature of arcade games in general. And most arcade shmups of the eighties and nineties didn't have difficulty settings available to the player, though many home ports and console shmups did have the option. For arcade games, the difficulty of a game was solely in the hands of the arcade operator, and players either dealt with it or didn't play the games (or bought home versions, if those included difficulty settings). And players got to be too good at the games and started stretching their quarter out to the point that it made games unprofitable, so companies made new ones that were harder. And harder. And this absurd difficulty is what turns a lot of people away from shmups in particular.

But look at shmups nowadays. It's not uncommon for shmups, whether in arcades or at home, to offer a few difficulty options at the start. Some games go further, with the DeathSmiles games letting you pick your difficulty for each level (though you have to play each level on the hardest difficulty and on one credit to be able to go to the final stage). There's also stuff like the Touhou series, in which almost every game offers four distinct difficulty settings, and games like Space Invaders Extreme 2 and to a lesser extent Ikaruga, which offer "beginner" modes that give the player infinite lives (though in Ikaruga, this only applies to the first stage, and the whole game in this mode is only two stages long, and in Space Invaders Extreme 2, a player cannot choose their route or save a score if they play on beginner difficulty).

And with shmups in particular, I think giving the player a choice regarding difficulty is a good thing, because it means the genre isn't dying even as the games continue to get harder and harder. It means one player can play through a novice Ultra run on Mushihime-sama Futari and have plenty of fun, while another can play through a regular Ultra run and have just as much fun, if not more (if it's the sort of player who derives fun from overcoming challenges). It means the genre isn't being "dumbed down for the casuals" (an accusation thrown at many games in other, more popular genres).

As for the matter of "beating" a shmup, I tend to agree with most of my peers on the subject: when you have cleared the game on one credit at the default settings, you can say you have beaten the game. This isn't as simple as it might sound - for games such as Gradius, clearing the first "loop" would count as a clear, while for games such as DoDonPachi, defeating the true last boss is a clear (though some players will still say they've beaten a multi-loop-and-TLB game if they cleared the first loop on one credit, regardless of whether or not they met the requirements to enter the second loop). And "default settings" might vary as well, as with Battle Garegga, where "default settings" involve setting the region of the arcade version to Japan (the different regions have different starting rank and scores for extends), or the aforementioned Touhou games, where opinion is split between "Normal counts," "only Lunatic counts," "just make sure to note what difficulty you cleared it on when you're talking about it," and "Touhou sucks."



Now for everything else.

All games where difficulty is applicable should have difficulty settings. However, games with difficulty settings should also offer greater incentives for playing on higher difficulties, as in some of the shmup examples above. Another example would be The World Ends With You, where conducting battles on higher difficulties yields greater rewards; The World Ends With You also allows for more customization of the game's difficulty than pretty much any other game I've ever played.

Sometimes adjustable difficulty in-game works, if it's done in such a way that it makes the game accessible to more players without making it easy for everyone. That said, I agree with bobman that you should finish at the same difficulty where you started, unless you're increasing the difficulty because the game is too easy.

I also agree with everything bobman said regarding games that are too hard on their easiest difficulty being preferable to games that are too easy on their hardest difficulty, except for the part about super-easy games being super boring. Sometimes you play a game for the experience rather than the challenge; this is especially true today, since we now have all manner of "art" games.

I try to enjoy games where difficulty is a factor by way of optimization. Speed-running a Metroid game, earning the highest score I possibly can in Space Invaders Extreme 2 - these are things I enjoy. This isn't to say I don't enjoy games where difficulty isn't actually a factor the same way; for example, I try to clear JRPGs with the least amount of grinding possible, as opposed to just grinding and making the final battle end quickly. In most cases, the former is quicker.

Unlike Turtlekid, I absolutely refuse to use cheats, to the extent that I won't apply an Action Replay code to Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia to give me every card even if it would unarguably increase my enjoyment of the game by allowing me to build any sort of deck I want. I'll instead earn more cards through playing the game or entering codes from the physical game cards to unlock them for purchase in the game, as was intended. However, I won't hesitate to abuse glitches in a game, such as the bug in Shao-Lin's Road that allows you to earn 1500 points from a single normal enemy. If a programming oversight in a game allows me to enjoy said game more or perform better, of course I'm going to take advantage of that.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #40 on: March 31, 2010, 06:38:19 PM »
I forgot to mention that I hate it when the player is made to unlock the higher/highest difficulty level.  I'm the sort of guy who wants to start on the highest difficulty level there is.  I want to be used to the brutality from the get-go, instead of playing through on an easier difficulty to unlock the next one up, and then getting thrashed when I try it.  I don't want to know any different, so I can form strategies and gameplay styles based only on the hardest setting, instead of breaking old habits and unlearning tactics that only worked on easier ones.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

« Reply #41 on: March 31, 2010, 06:53:50 PM »
I generally start a given game on its lowest difficulty setting, beat it, crank it up to "normal" mode, deem that too hard and stay on Easy Mode forever instead.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #42 on: March 31, 2010, 07:44:27 PM »
Wow. Then I guess much like you will never experience the joy of sex, you will also never experience the joy of fiero, the surging elation at defeating a challenge that has thwarted you for hours of intense gaming, the primal scream as you leap to your feet and throw your head back, ripping your shirt in twain to reveal your chest, glistening from all your hard-earned cold sweat.

There's nothing like it, that most precious of emotions. And that is why difficult games are important.

Turtlekid1

  • Tortuga
« Reply #43 on: March 31, 2010, 08:01:57 PM »
Yeah, Weegee.  You'll know what he's talking about the day you're forced to put your own socks on in the morning.
"It'll say life is sacred and so is death
but death is life and so we move on"

Chupperson Weird

  • Not interested.
« Reply #44 on: March 31, 2010, 09:01:03 PM »
I am all in favor of games being hard and me figuring out how to best them. There are few feelings like knowing that finally, after all that patience, as your heart pounds in anticipation, after all those attempts, that boss is finally going down.
That was a joke.

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