Video Games

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:25 pm

You have a point there. That may be why i like Nethack so much. Except for the Gnome With A Wand Of Death, Demegorgon, and Vrocks, most deaths involve doing somthing stupid.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:42 pm

Parthenon wrote:Oh yeah, Phantom Crash was brilliant. If only it had more than three maps. Unfortunately I haven't had it for a few years. If I remember rightly, there was a sequel on the PS2. Maybe I should try and get hold of it.

They did. It was called S.L.A.I., had 7 maps, and I enjoyed it the single player quite a lot. The online server was shut before I got it, so I can't comment on that aspect.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:52 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:
Parthenon wrote:Oh yeah, Phantom Crash was brilliant. If only it had more than three maps. Unfortunately I haven't had it for a few years. If I remember rightly, there was a sequel on the PS2. Maybe I should try and get hold of it.
They did. It was called S.L.A.I., had 7 maps, and I enjoyed it the single player quite a lot. The online server was shut before I got it, so I can't comment on that aspect.

Searching at the speed of light!

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:23 am

name_here wrote:You have a point there. That may be why i like Nethack so much. Except for the Gnome With A Wand Of Death, Demegorgon, and Vrocks, most deaths involve doing somthing stupid.

Uh, are we talking about the same Nethack? Granted, there are many hilarious ways to die via stupidity (any number of them involving praying too much, randomly polymorphing yourself and of course, teleporting into the sky or into heaven), but that game is designed to slaughter you repeatedly and let you look at the graveyard of your characters. Beating Nethack was one of the labours of Hercules.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:53 am

DragonChild wrote:That, I think, is an important part of game difficulty. As long as it feels like it's something you could have avoided that made you lose, it's not so bad.

I agree. Theres nothing more annoying than snipers in a shooter simply because you die without even knowing there was an enemy. Coupled with quick load its not even hard, its just retarded.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:27 pm

Koumei wrote:
name_here wrote:You have a point there. That may be why i like Nethack so much. Except for the Gnome With A Wand Of Death, Demegorgon, and Vrocks, most deaths involve doing somthing stupid.
Uh, are we talking about the same Nethack? Granted, there are many hilarious ways to die via stupidity (any number of them involving praying too much, randomly polymorphing yourself and of course, teleporting into the sky or into heaven), but that game is designed to slaughter you repeatedly and let you look at the graveyard of your characters. Beating Nethack was one of the labours of Hercules.

Actually, most deaths in nethack are due to improper responses to mobs of monsters or improper testing of magical items. It's been shown that at least 87% of games are beatable if you do it right. It's a lot like I Wanna Be The Guy in that respect.

Of course, I've yet to actually finish a game of nethack without wizard mode, so it's not exactly easy.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 3:15 pm

Err... no, Nethack is just retarded in terms of difficulty.

I agree that

DragonChild wrote:That, I think, is an important part of game difficulty. As long as it feels like it's something you could have avoided that made you lose, it's not so bad.

but I also add the proviso that you are able to have some idea that you should avoid it. Even instakills aren't so bad if you can easily get back to the same place via checkpoints or lives, and you can easily react to it.

For example, Ikaruga (I only played Radiant Silvergun on a friend's hacked Saturn, and I haven't really played many other shmups). Now that is insanely difficult. The bullet hell is terrifying, and being able to do the first level in one life is a feat that I am still a bit proud of. But in that game you are aware of all the dangers, there are warnings about shots like weapons charging up and you can react and survive.

Whereas in Nethack and other Rogue-likes you don't have that. There are so many instakills and stupid deaths, and there is not enough warning, help and guidance to see where the dangers are let alone how to deal with them. Seriously, 13% of games you cannot win, no matter what you do? And improper testing of magical items? For someone playing the first 50 or so times, how the hell are they supposed to know how to test it safely?

As an example, think of a soccer sim. Imagine if one in eight times you make a new game there is no way to complete it, and all the rest of the times you have to go into every game in the precise correct way or you will be arbitrarily banned and lose the game. And now and then one of your players breaks a leg during a game. Through no fault of your own, until you look it up on the internet and find out that each time was your fault in a different way and could have been avoided. That sort of game sounds retarded to me, as does Nethack.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 3:43 pm

Agreed. Nethack is hard, and you arbitrarily die despite your best efforts sometimes.

I've beaten it like 3-4 times ever maybe (much older version since this was in the late 80's/early 90's). We also had a backup program written so we could reload after dying (which was hilarious when you had to fight ghosts of yourself since the game still added the ghost).

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:14 pm

The hardest thign about nethack is the damn interface, which is just horrible. There are hundreds of keyboard commands and you don't know wtf everything does. Honestly, I had no idea you could test magic items safely. You pretty much have no idea what you can or can't do with your items, or indeed in general.

I mean, why can't there just be a generic "use" command that you use on an item, and it brings up a list of shit you can do with that item? Instead you have to go searching fro some obscure key command to do things, to the point where readying a weapon, putting on a suti of armor and wearing a ring are all different fucking commands. I mean come on... at that point the game is just fucking with you.

And nethack pulls that shit all the time. The difficulty doesn't come so much from playing it or any particular strategy, but fighting your way through a terrible interface and finding hidden commands you never knew existed.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:00 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:What's everyone's opinion on difficulty in video games?

Me, I don't sweat the issue too much personally. Henry Hatsworth and Ninja Gaiden, for example, are difficult games but I enjoyed the hell out of them. Similarly, you can't really find an easier game than Kirby Super Star or Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and I still love the hell out of those games.

I do understand people getting frustrated at really hard games, especially if they look like they would be really fun otherwise, so it's not like I'm looking down on those people. If someone can't beat your game without a lot of practice then you should include an 'easy mode' option to let them get through it. And don't lock them out of seeing certain story elements, that's just cruel.

Though like I said earlier, I don't like 'difficult' RPGs like Final Fantasy IV for the DS and nearly everything Atlus has ever made because difficulty in those games usually boils down to you having to grind a lot more or getting really lucky. I hate forced grinding and I hate being at the mercy of the RNG, so I guess that explains it.

I don;t understand why games all don't have a difficulty select button that you can change during the game that actually makes a difference.

Ninja Gaiden is the most eggarious example of not doing this, where 'easy' is code for fucking impossibly hard and it just gets worse from there.

Half Life 2 sets a nice balance where easy is pretty easy, hard is pretty punishing and medium sets a nice balance.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:22 pm

Let's go back to the NES a bit and talk about good and bad difficulty. We'll control for things that make the interface difficult (like the controls) and just look at the gameplay.

A 'good' difficult game in my opinion is the first Megaman, as long as you aren't abusing certain glitches like the Wall Zipslide or the Pause Beam. The game plays rough, but straight, and doesn't force you to do too much repeating of certain segments. Plus because of the way the initial levels are set up if you suck too much at one stage you can try your luck at another.

A 'bad' difficult game in my opinion is Star Tropics--both of them. The games are way too punishing of screwups and worse don't give you a good way to recover from them. Don't get me wrong, they're still fun to play, but it's an atrocious design philosophy.

Also, there's Contra. It does almost everything right except for one small issue. The lives. Considering how easily you can die in this game and how long the stages are, three motherfucking medals is not cutting the mustard. Thirty is way too many. I think 5 or 6 lives per continue would've improved the game immensely. Since it's a short game it still would make the game challenging without being impossible.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:52 am

There was another old Konami game which had the 30-lives code. Life Force.

I beat it, eventually, with the 30-life code.

Right now, though, I'm playing Super Punch-Out. And it can be...hard. I'm stuck on the first guy in the Major Circuit.

But I'm picking up on his pattern. I got him knocked down twice before he took me out last time.

Other games I borrowed: Mortal Kombat 2, Lost Vikings 2...

I WILL beat Lost Vikings!

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:56 am

I'm trying to remember the games we had for the NES. Mario was excellent: my mum could complete it. Mario 2 wasn't as good but Mario 3 was brilliant. You had some control over which levels you did, you got various bonuses to help as you went into levels, you had the warp whistles so if you wanted to to you could get to any level, and you didn't need to be that good to get quite far.

Unfortunately the only other two I can remember offhand were Elite which is too open to really talk about and a Dizzy game, which had bullshit difficulty where you had to collect everything to be able to complete the game. We had to call up a hotline and get a guide sent in order to complete it. Which we did, taking fuck knows how many continuous hours to do. Man, my mum used to be great at games. Now she plays things like Lego Star Wars and Crash Bandicoot.

Okay, how about this for comparing difficulty: the Halo series of games. Ignoring whether or not you liked it and whether you thought it was boring, the first Halo had a decent range of difficulties. Easy was pretty damn easy, Heroic was pretty difficult and Legendary was very difficult unless you played with better tactics than the Covenant. The elites were just as tough as you and did as much damage. It was extremely fun and interesting to play. It was difficult but fair.

Then, Halo 2 and they fucked it all up. This time around, Heroic was just as difficult as the last games Legendary, but Halo 2's Legendary was arbitrary bullshit. The elites were much better than you and even a few grunts could kill you easily. For me it ended up as repeated attempts, trying different tactics and requiring near perfect runthroughs to the next checkpoint. I hated playing it through on Legendary and to this day I don't know why I bothered.

Heres my basic point: for a decent difficulty either the enemies should be on the same basis as you and be similar in skill and power to you or they should be on a completely different basis and should challenge you in a difficult but doable way. So, with Halo, COD4 and other FPSes I class as good, enemies are of a similar power level to you and you can see your effects on them. In those I deem stupid such as Halo 2, Red Faction 2 and other similar FPSes, enemies are tougher than you, and in the case of Red Faction 2 have no visible effect from being shot in the face. On the other hand, such good games as Serious Sam, enemies are obviously on completely different levels to you and are obviously mooks, inhuman or bosses.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:28 am

COD4 rapidly escalates to bullshit difficult on the top difficulty levels because of grenades.

Actually, it's not "difficult" it's just fucking frustrating. One moment you're standing their, next momonet Grenade indicators EVERYWHERE.

And then it helpfully tells you "look at the grenade indicator next time to see the grenades you retard" which of course you've seen that grenade indicators and that isn't going to help.

I'm pretty sure I only died to grenades in COD4 - except maybe a few times where I got shot a billion times after I'd been flushed out of cover by a billion grenades. And that was seriously two or three times - whereas grenades killed me dozens of time in one level alone.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:24 am

Parthenon wrote: Then, Halo 2 and they fucked it all up. This time around, Heroic was just as difficult as the last games Legendary, but Halo 2's Legendary was arbitrary bullshit. The elites were much better than you and even a few grunts could kill you easily. For me it ended up as repeated attempts, trying different tactics and requiring near perfect runthroughs to the next checkpoint. I hated playing it through on Legendary and to this day I don't know why I bothered.

I agree entirely. I beat Halo 1 on all difficulties without too much trouble, but Legendary on Halo 2 was fucking impossible. I'd seriously run out of anything to murder elites within in moments, even with headshots. Once I got the map pack, it was doable, since there was a game patch or something.

But yeah. FUCK YOU, Halo 2 Legendary.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:32 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Also, there's Contra. It does almost everything right except for one small issue. The lives. Considering how easily you can die in this game and how long the stages are, three motherfucking medals is not cutting the mustard.

I used to be able ot beat Contra with 2 players with 3 lives.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:35 am

Honestly, I wish the 3D Zelda games would put more enemies who fight Link on even terms.

Ocarina of Time had a few of them. Majora's Mask had more. Then Wind Waker had a pretty fun battle system but the enemy AI was just too passive. I could win just by waiting for a parry to happen. However, the final boss was pretty epic.

And Twilight Princess didn't have enough enemies Link could fight on even terms. The big knight guys, that field where the enemies will ride up on the war-pigs...

Although the western shootout was fun.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:16 am

For you, Maxus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35fOxzI-qkI

Punch Out! It's the Name of the game~

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:42 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote: I used to be able ot beat Contra with 2 players with 3 lives.

You were able to beat Contra with 2 players at 3 lives? That's quite an accomplishment; I think it's a degree easier to beat that game with one player, especially on that stage with the flame cannons and spikes in the wall.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:52 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: You were able to beat Contra with 2 players at 3 lives? That's quite an accomplishment; I think it's a degree easier to beat that game with one player, especially on that stage with the flame cannons and spikes in the wall.

Well having the second player really helps as far as taking out enemies. If you kill things quick (and you have to play the fuck out if to memorize locations), you can minimize the amount of bullets on screen.

Yeah the fire level was pretty tough too, but I found for whatever reason I couldn't beat it alone, but with a good partner I did better.

I can't do that anymore, I just used to be able to do it back in the day where I played that game religiously.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 4:04 am

I never tried single player on Halo 2 after the map pack. Maybe I should... Nah.

COD4 I didn't really have a problem with grenades as such. Mostly just a huge number of enemies from too many directions, but only a few times do I remember having more than one grenade at once. Those bloody dogs though. I was never sure of the timing. Weirdly though, I found the ferris wheel easier on hard than on normal. Maybe I just have a different playing style than the majority of people.

Sometimes I wish back to the days of Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear where you get shown the map before you do the mission. As in, you have some idea of the layout without trial and error. That was a really good game.

I recently played through Armored Core 4, and while I didn't realise it at the time, it is amazingly easy. And the missions are tiny. As in kill 1-5 enemies. Occasionally you have to kill everything, but the major complications are enemies being able to shoot missiles at you from across the map or it being pitch black and enemies being able to shoot farther than you in the dark. Anyone else play it and get really upset at how short the missions are?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 4:26 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Well having the second player really helps as far as taking out enemies. If you kill things quick (and you have to play the fuck out if to memorize locations), you can minimize the amount of bullets on screen.

Yeah the fire level was pretty tough too, but I found for whatever reason I couldn't beat it alone, but with a good partner I did better.

I can't do that anymore, I just used to be able to do it back in the day where I played that game religiously.

I never had a problem killing enemies back when I had the skillz to pay the billz--right now, without the Konami Code, I can get up to the second to last level. Which is frustrating because the last level is probably the second-easiest stage in the game. Enemies aren't particularly durable; one guy with a Spread Gun wrecks a lot more ass than two players with a machine gun.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:20 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: one guy with a Spread Gun wrecks a lot more ass than two players with a machine gun.

True, but what about two players with spread guns?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:48 am

If you can have two players keep the Spread Gun for a good period of time then you're money.

Unfortunately, there's way too many cheap deaths that happen on two players due to how screen scroll works, so I don't know how you're going to pull that off.

But hey, at least it's more fair than two-player Battletoad. Even disregarding the Clinger Winger thing, two-player mode on that game is unplayable to the point of impossible. Hell, it was so bad that the AVGN made a video about it.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:56 am

So what's the deal with nethack and all that? I've played roguelike games before (not the ascii ones, though) but I could never get too much into them; the 'die one time and get kicked back to the beginning of the game' thing turns me off to them because I like exploring every nook and cranny and hanging out to see what monsters and traps can do.