While playing games for the Backlog Killer blog, I try not to burn out on
one game and bounce around between a few games I can just pick up and play for
a little bit. I try to keep a good mix of new and old games so I can stay up to
date. Bouncing between decades is a constant reminder of how far games
have come graphically, technically, and financially. It also serves as a
reminder of how games have developed in terms of design philosophy and how they
treat the player. I often wonder: "Are gamers really better off than they
used to be?"
I played a lot of Nintendo games as a kid. We did not get a computer until
later so I was used to limited control inputs, fairly simple scope, and limited
mechanics. These games could be easily figured out by just playing them and experimenting
to find out what made the character jump, shoot, move, etc. The manual could
provide some exposition for the game if memory did not allow for an opening
sequence, but this was generally optional. It was a good, simple system.
Later, my family finally decided to get a computer. I do not remember what
year it was, but it must have been around 1991 or 1992 since CD-ROMs were not standard
and we actually had to wait several weeks for ours to arrive. After getting the
new machine, my uncle let me have several shareware and non-shareware games to
get started. I remember some of these: Duke Nukem, Codename: Iceman, Dark Ages,
and Crystal Caves. We also picked up a few other games such as Ultima 6,
Wizardry 7, and Might and Magic: World of Xeen, opening up an entirely new
world to me.
The new world was not necessarily fun from the start. My parents generally
left me up to my own devices because they did not have any idea how to use the
new computer either. They would sit with me to install games, maybe play a few
with me to make sure they were nothing inappropriate, but if there were any
problems, they were just as lost as I was. Without the Internet, I was forced
to seek out technical documents, mess around on my own, and just figure out the
game itself IF I managed to get it running. After using DOS for a few months, I
became quite comfortable editing boot sequences, configurations, memory usage,
and creating boot disks for specific games manually at the age of eight or
nine. This was only half the battle. Many games of that era had some form of
introduction, but many would just toss you in the deep end with no floatation
device. Ultima 6 was such a game. Turn it on, create a character disk, create a
character, watch the cool intro, and BAM. You are in the game with no idea what
to do (since I hadn't played any other Ultimas) and no clear indication of what
the controls are. The only sensible thing to do was to go read the manual.
I would bring these manuals to school with me, read them on the toilet, and
basically take in every detail so that I would be ready to face the game
itself. Even after doing this, many games were quite hard and took hours and
hours of figuring out puzzles, mastering mechanics, and putting in hard work to
finish. After finishing many of these games I felt a sense of satisfaction that
is only matched by completing a tough book, seeing a really good movie, or finishing
a long project.
[Better than a cardboard sheet with some commands on it like you get today.]
Fast forward to the past couple of years.
New operating systems and more powerful gaming consoles have made video
games available to almost everyone. It is now easier than ever to install and
begin playing any game that comes out. These new programs have amazing
graphics, full voice acting, and take up entire Blu-Ray discs. I am constantly
being forced to question if what I am seeing is pre-rendered, rendered in-game,
or a movie or picture from real life. I play through these games, but, for the
most part, am unable to feel a great sense of satisfaction anymore. Why is
this?
I am about to enter well trodden and supremely jerk territory here, but are
modern games as good or demanding as games from the past? Of course they are
technically better in terms of graphics, sound, and processing power, but is
what’s going on under the hood any better? Whenever I ask myself this question,
I usually come to the conclusion that ‘It’s probably the same.’ There were TONS
of junk games when I was growing up just as there are now. These are evident
within the first twenty minutes of play: boring game play, bad stories when the
game is story-centric, and bad controls. Despite this seemingly (admittedly
only upon self-reflection) grounded opinion, I still feel something lacking
when I play through most modern games that I really like.
Let’s take one recent example: L.A. Noire. I was excited about the game as
a fan of James Ellroy’s fiction (The Black Dahlia, LA Confidential, The Big
Nowhere, etc.) and gritty cop dramas taking place in post-war America. It
originally looked like a sandbox game with a serious story, but turned out to
be more of an adventure game which was a pleasant surprise to me.
Unfortunately, it also turned out to be quite easy. Crime scenes alert the
player when a clue is to be found with piano chimes, otherwise immersive
interrogations are ruined with immediate feedback about if your choices are
correct or incorrect, and a lack of any ‘puzzles’ fail to make the game
any more than looking at items scattered around. I was particularly
disappointed with the interrogations as the responses to any option you choose
sound authentic and still give some interesting information. Unfortunately, the
immediate knowledge of failure makes the urge to restart the process almost
unbearable, thus removing any immersion. I enjoyed the game and I think it tried to do something really cool, but I did not
feel like I had completed anything truly fulfilling when I was done.
This is just a quick and dirty breakdown of my opinion on that game that
has hundreds of holes that I would love to plug, but that isn’t what I want to
get to as the crux of this post. I truly believe that games are just becoming a
little bit too easy. Now, I don’t think that games need to be brutally hard,
but games are meant to challenge the player by design. Living through brutal
times where copious notes, repeated attempts, and serious brain racking were
required to complete games has brought a deeply ingrained history to contrast
against the ‘lead by the nose’ attitude that seems to purvey modern video
games. I do enjoy saving anywhere and having extended help in the game, but the
fact that many try to lead me hand in hand while telling me “Everything will be
OK. Don’t be sad you messed up,” feels a little strange. I do not have that
much time to spend playing games and want to have fun, but I also want to be
challenged. If I did not want to solve something or work toward a goal, I would
just watch television or a movie. I realize this is reductive in that all games
require input from the player and require some degree of skill and some even fill my criteria, but many have
just turned into self-affirmation sessions where the game tells you how great
you are rather than making YOU realize how great you are by winning.
Maybe this is personal so I will use the pronoun ‘I’, but I never feel
fully satisfied if I do not complete a game on my terms. If I knowthe
game did something to boost me or help me, I feel like I’ve cheated. This isn’t
to say I want to complete games perfectly; if I choose to move on knowing I
haven’t done everything, that’s OK, but if I know that the game pushed me through a
hard sequence or puzzle without me having to figure it out I feel a little
uneasy about continuing. I want to finish the game as it is designed and make
my own decision about if I should continue past the challenge or skip it.
Making me feel like a fool who is in need of constant reassurance is not
something I am into.
Maybe it is because I have some weird compulsion about getting everything
done by myself, but part of the joy I experienced from old games was actually figuring out the
mechanics of the game and just how to get the thing working rather than
winning. Having the light switch turn on about what I need to do in Ultima 4 is
way more amazing than going through a checklist provided by the program.
FINALLY figuring out that I need to use the dance steps as the treasure map in
Monkey Island was exhilarating. Just getting sound to operate in Doom using
only 4mb of RAM was a puzzle in itself. These aspects are what I miss about old games.
Graphics and sound and the new heights stories can reach are amazing
advances in video games that excite me, but how these will be utilized to
get the best effects? Will any demand be placed on the player besides “push
these buttons” or will we just continue to railroad them around? Independent
developers are already exploring this ground that has lain fallow for so long and I hope that more large companies will follow suit by challenging gamers a little
bit more than they have been. With that said, I’m going to go back to playing
Dark Souls and Ultima 4 in my Ivory Gaming Tower while lamenting lost halcyon
days.
--Backlog Killer