Modern Video Games are Easy

I’m turning the big 3-0 this week, so I’ve been playing video games for a looooooong time now. I remember getting an NES for Christmas back when I was about 6 or 7, and it being one of the greatest moments of my life (it still may be). Before that, my brother and I played the Intellivision non-stop, despite its weird phone-like paddles and horrible graphics. Pitfall FTW!

Thinking back about the NES glory days, one thing that strikes me about my gaming back then compared to now is how much harder the games were than they are these days. I remember certain games where I would spend days trying to beat the same impossible boss or section of a level. It often involved jumping off the same damn platform into a pit over and over. Between having a very finite number of lives, no continues, saved games, or having to be absolutely perfect in your timing and control, there were many, many NES games that I just could not beat, no matter how many hours I put into them. A few specific ones I remember are:

This Guy's an Old School Pimp

• Ghosts N’ Goblins: I’m glad I never knew about the fake ending in this game while playing it as a kid, or had the horror of beating the game and discovering it. It probably would have scarred me forever. Like it wasn’t difficult enough already?!
• Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out: Curse you, Mike Tyson! Too bad they never re-released this game when he got old and became washed up. Maybe I would have had a chance.
• Fester’s Quest: I actually barely remember this game, but Dustin assures me that the bosses were some of the most impossible in gaming. I’ll take his word for it.
• Legend of Zelda: While this game was certainly beatable, there were some things that I don’t know how they expected you to figure out without a guide. Burning the bush? The crazy sequence you had to go through to get out of those woods? They’d never be ballsy enough to require that kind of thing in games these days, except maybe as an Easter Egg.

While I’m sure there are some modern games that are ridiculously hard, they’re very few and far between. For most of the big, popular games these days, I’m convinced that if you just stick with them long enough, you’ll eventually beat them. Are there any games where you run out of lives or continues and have to start over at the beginning? None that I’ve played in a long time. Instead of frustrating you, game designers now have to keep making games longer and longer so they’re worth your money and you don’t beat them too quickly. I’m sure many of the old Nintendo games could have been beaten in 2 hours, but they were so damn hard that you’d spend 40 hours or more trying to beat them.

Besides always having plenty of save games, continues, etc, modern games (outside of open-world games) make it pretty clear what you’re supposed to do and how to do it. I’ve read some game design theory, and one of the big points was that you should always let the player know what’s expected of them and how to proceed, so they don’t get frustrated and quit. Not so in old games! There were some games (like the Zelda examples mentioned above) that would give you absolutely no clues about what you needed to do, so you’d have to buy the Nintendo Power Guide to be able to get anywhere.

Am I saying that the old style of gaming was somehow better than the relative ease of today’s games? Not necessarily. I’ve tried playing through some old games I used to love, and now find them way too aggravating to bother with. Apparently, when I was a kid I had nothing better to do than attempt to beat the same level 427 times before finally giving up and moving on with my life. I certainly don’t have the time or patience for that kind of thing these days. There’s also a lot to be said for being able to always save your game, so you don’t have to leave the Nintendo turned on with the TV turned off overnight so you don’t lose your place in a game.

However, I have to admit that I don’t feel nearly the same sense of accomplishment when I finally beat a game these days as I used to. Maybe I’m just a jaded old man now or something, but when a game was a massive pain in the ass and seemed designed specifically to frustrate you and crush your spirit, it felt really damn good to beat it, even when the victory screen was incredibly lame. Or, in the case of the accursed Tiger Heli, nonexistent. I spent weeks beating that stupid game, and as soon as I won it just started over from the beginning, with not so much as a “Congratulation!” message. Bastards.

When I beat a game these days, it’s mostly just to see the ending, since they’re usually pretty well-done and interesting. But I just don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything monumental by suffering through hell to get out the other side, like I used to as a kid. Maybe it’s time for game designers to start bringing the pain again, even if just a little bit.

Am I completely off-base? Are there some really difficult games these days, instead of just ones that are really long? What’s the toughest game you ever played, and did you beat it? Leave a comment below and let me know.

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