15 years of gaming...

A dear friend of mine posted a funny picture on his Facebook the other day and this picture reminded me exactly how I feel about video games from the past to the present.

The picture made fun of how hard games where then and how easy they are now... I almost completely agree with that point. Its a well known fact that companies like Nintendo made their games deliberately and not so deliberately very, very hard. Whether it was the level design, the sheer amount of enemies that came out on you at once, or even the simple fact that you could not save your progress, games where hard, and hard was fun. Beating these games gave you a real sense of accomplishment. What they didn't give you was a cut-scene after every level and a 30 minute end-scene after beating it, my point is, if you spent 40 hours on a NES game, that means you've played 40 hours of game-play, 40 hours of GTA 4 means 1 hour studying controls, 10 hours of cut-scenes,... no, I did not research these numbers, and maybe GTA is not a good example, but I'm sure you get the point. 

Games where hard because they required skill, you had too blister your thumbs, mash the buttons until your fingers bleed and focus and the TV so long, you've got tunnel vision. Kids from this age of gaming don't even appreciate hard games. If they cant play true it first try, its to hard or bad game design.

Now a days, the only hard part about a game is remembering all the controls. I'm very serious. Try starting a game like Batman Arkham Asylum , play it half way true, and then leave it be for 2 or 3 weeks. There is no way you can pick up the controller and play it like you can with for example Super Mario bros 3 or even Mario64. Ok, most games from yesterday don't have as much going on like modern games do, but it's the purpose of a video game to have some leisure time and not have to study a bible sized manual just to pick it up. If that is the way developers plan on making games hard, ill pass and ill keep playing my old school games.

In this modern era of gaming, maybe single player is a lot less important. And I do believe there are really good online games, which don't rely on cinematic and cut-scenes but do offer hard game-play. But in essence they have the same flaw. There is the type where you have too studie the game for ours and sacriface your whole live for this game, like World of Warcraft. Or there is the type for which you have to train ridiculously hard because the online competition is so fears, you can't just join and expect to have a good time (or live longer then 2 seconds).

Now in all honesty, early games where hard for an other reason too. Older games where ported from Arcade cabinets, and were not really adjusted for the port, especially not the difficulty level. Arcade games were hard so you would spend more money on them, trying to beat high-scores. In game console ports, there were no coins to put in after dying, but the difficulty level remained the same. Of Course, modern games don't go to the Arcades before coming to our home consoles (or PC's) so "Nintendo Hard" isn't really a factor in modern games. And I believe that is a bad thing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate modern games and I can enjoy them too. But the reason for playing and the way I'm having my fun are so very different. The main reason I play some games today is because I want to know the story, look at the cut-scenes and not so much for the good times "playing" them.

Thank god there are developers like Capcom, Notch, Team Meat,... who still  listen to fans or feel the same way I do and create gems like MegaMan 9, Minecraft and Super Meat Boy. It's also great that the big guy's like Nintendo re-release their old gems for their new consoles. I don't really understand why they don't release their entire library, but that's probably a marketing decision. And thanks to the latest trends in mobile gaming, a lot new 80'ish, 90'ish, games are being developed, some great, others not so. If a game like Angry Birds can score this good with Hardcore gamers and casual gamers, I think their is still a very bright future for old-school type games.