It's not you, games really have gotten a lot easier to play. Giant arrows pointing to your destination, minimaps, quest lists, automatic everything. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, but it's a bit of a shock when you try to play an old game with new-gamer sensibilities.
Once upon a time, when you bought a new rpg you had to find/make some graph paper to draw maps. I think "Dungeons of Dredmor" has an old-school mode, but my brain is too old to try it... :)
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You guys are talking like it's a bad thing. I much prefer this to the old days of "I haven't played Dragon Quest in a week and I forget where to go. It'll be faster to restart than to figure out where to go next." Especially since in most games, you can ignore the way points (Dead Space being a prime example)
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Etrian Odyssey for DS has a built in feature to let you draw the maps :P
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EE auto-painted the maps for you. But it did allow you to draw the walls, add icons and annotate them (albeit with a limit of alphanumeric characters per map). I wouldn't say that really counts as you're kind of led by the nose in the "drawing" process.
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True. I remember playing Wolfenstein and Blake Stone and hugging every wall with spacebar, just to find the secret rooms and items. At some point I had unconsciously memorized levels. And with adventure games you kinda just had to figure it out on your own what to do next. That was part of the reason why I never finished Police Quest; without the internet for walkthroughs I was unable to progress ^^
So I actually do appreciate to some extend that nowadays things are more pointed out. I for one appreciate that I do not have to sink half of my gaming time into finding or combining some obscure item, person, etc. just to advance.
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Games are difficult to develop. Its allot easier now because there is more talent and experience in the field of game development.
people need to understand the reason why games were difficult in the past was mainly due to poor programming and the second reason was to "pad" the game with forced deaths/obstacles to make the game feel longer than the 1 hour it really was.
As much as i enjoyed the games of old. They are just not as interesting or rewarding as today's games.
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No, games back then just didn't hold your hand while you did everything. It's not nearly as rewarding today to beat a game where it specifically told you how to do everything compared to actually exploring and figuring everything out for yourself. This is in no way poor programming. Perhaps some of it actually is padding, but at least it was never boring like it often is today.
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+1 to this, older games not rewarding, what the hell O_o.
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respectfully i dont think games are rewarding like today atlhough they were still rewarding.
it was difficult to form an emotional connection with characters or a story. you still could but its allot easier with the better writing and storylines.
Games were not complex back in the day . i mean repetition was pretty high. i dont see how a difficult boss fight is going to change that when u got 1 or 2 buttons.
i'm just trying to say they were limited and it was not intentional. perhaps we enjoyed games back in the day because it was something "new".
i'm just trying to say that quality was pretty low and our low expectations convinced us it was a "challenge".
a challenge with quality to me for example is "Vanquish" challenge maps 6. i couldnt do it but if i could i would have been ecstatic.
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Respectfully, I strongly disagree. Some of the best and most rewarding games were for old consoles. The N64 had so many tough games, that when you beat a level, you felt like you accomplished something great. For example, Paper Mario was so complicated, and when I beat something hard, I felt like a boss. When I beat a game on the WiiU, I felt like, "When do the challenges begin, instead of just this person hinting?"
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"i'm just trying to say that quality was pretty low and our low expectations convinced us it was a "challenge"."
That made my head hurt, seriously...quality back then was low? But not now? O_O.
"Games were not complex back in the day"
Yeah comparing Deus Ex to newer FPS games you're right, definitely not as complex! Yeah comparing Bioshock to System shock sure shows the complexities of newer games over older ones/Sarcasm off.
"1 or 2 buttons."
Are you a new age gamer? Seriously? I can't....Ugh.
"it was difficult to form an emotional connection with characters or a story"
Just stop....
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...You often have some of the best view on this website, at least in my opinion, and I find it odd that you are bashing him this hard....are you mad at Bill or something? XD
Truthfully quality was shit back in the day. You forget the masses of garbage that you shovled through to find a diamond like Zelda or Mario or something. Nowadays most games are at least decent so better games seem less impressive.
Games in general were not complex, "Go Left", was a commen theme. When you compare certain titles you will alway win. In every generation there are titles that standout and always will like "Deus Ex" (I haven't played or seen System Shock, but I know I probably should)
1 or 2 buttons was obviously referencing the NES and Atari. Come on.
Tell me that if you didn't read the manual or some related book, that you could get into most NES, Atari, and to some extent N64 games. A lot of games had one screen with the story or some BS and that was it. The standout titles might have had a lot more, but again they standout fro mthe crowd.
Just saying. (BTW I might be wrong on stuff, we are humans after all, so plaese say so if I am)
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Maybe I was harsh but to be fair, quality is terrible in many games now, if anything its even, there are bad games in every generation, "Go left" is one segment of gaming, mainly console gaming, PC games were a bit more complex if you ask me, even compared to nowadays. So in a way saying older games were 1 or 2 buttons was a foolish thing to say, I mean come on, some games now are still like that anyways. I feel like the narrative in older games was different, not worse, I mean if we all didn't have a strong connection to those characters why did Half-Life stick in so many heads, or hell even games like Zelda, we did get emotionally attached to those characters. I was and still am emotionally attached to Donkey Kong....I am SURE I am not the only one...
Yeah I was a bit harsh but his post literally made me facepalm, I mean to say older games didn't feel as rewarding, those games felt more rewarding to me(older games were harder thus getting through a difficult part was a YEAHHHHHH moment), hell now most games aren't challenging and I feel like I am going through the motions. All my opinion though of course.
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See there you go! This is what I was saying. Yoe are really reasonable.(After a bribe or a "night with Bill") If we bring PC gaming into the equation and go to PS2, Xbox, and farther then you are right in every sence. ( Maybe some PS1 aswell)
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I would sooner break my PC than relive 80s game design. Get crappy inventory spaces, characters who fire a few spells and become worthless until you go to an inn, aimlessly travel around the world because no NPC will tell you how to advance the plot, fight dozens of battles to buy a stick sword.
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Why ya gotta hate on the stick sword bro, we all gotta start somewhere :-D.
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I'm more like on level 3's expression at the end of most newer titles, not due to difficulty, but do to a wtf feeling.
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Why would anyone want that back? We are to dumb for that, I don't want to get lost in the map :-P.
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You were only 94 minutes off from par so that's not to bad. lol
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Think of it in a possitive light. You are now starting to gain what some of us older gamers call "gamer instinct". As you play more, you'll start recognizing prime hiding spots for secrest, seemingly silly placements will become more obvious to you, and your times will improve.
But I warn you, there's no turning back. As you develop as such, it will bleed over into today's hand-holding, puppy guarding, golden path, auto save/load crapfest and nothing will feel the same.
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A little fyi for you.
Many older games had par time & bonuses.
Par time was the fastest you could get from start point to finish/exit, a slight challenge by itself.
Bonuses, these were usually challenges like find all secrets and kill all enemies, both of which usually ended any likelihood of of making par.
Making par and getting all bonuses were sometimes possible after many attempts and memorization, that is when you move up to the next difficulty (another challenge, yay).
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Probably not. You went searching for all 5 secrets, that's a great job. I tried Duke Nukem 3D weeks ago but it's hard to get used to the controls. I don't remember having problems playing Doom without a mouse, but now it all feels different.
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Don't worry. I'd bet I suck at more things than you do.
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Herp it's just you, no ome else has this problem xD
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i feel like i should just quit, after like an hour of searching i found a random wall that you had to blow up with a pipebomb... made no sense, but i guess thats how old school games are. Im enjoying the game thus far but, taking this long just makes me want to give up. Anyone else have a durr moment like that especially on an old game?
Am i a noob?
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