Where is the fear?

[DarkSideDK]

Hi everyone, this has been bugging me for some time now.

I've noticed that over the years, games are getting increasingly easy, both doing your progress through a certain level of difficulty, but also navigating around the world the game takes place in.

I find it that so many games these days are very straight forward in their gameplay, I mean, you either have HUD elements telling you were to go all the time, or you have a "supervisor" constantly reminding you of what to do, giving you hints etc. etc. And not only that, at the same time, you are constantly bombarded with checkpoints/savepoints/savezones/healingstations/upgrades/powerups, relieving you of any anxiety you might have about losing your progress.

I.e. Resident Evil 1, you really had no guidance on what to do. You were pretty much alone wandering the mansion, looking for whatever you needed, and I'd always felt that added to the suspense. But not alone the feeling of being alone and trying to survive on low ammo, getting stuck in situations where it could take you half an hour just to find a typewriter to save your progress, the music that set the mood for a really dark horrorgame was an awesome sensation. I mean that music really haunted me when I was younger. Lol I remember almost fearing for my life, because I knew how many things I would have to do over in case I died, and I haven't gotten that feeling in a long time.

A thing that I personally think is being forsaken these days, are especially the music in games. It's not being used as a mood setting anymore, now it's just background noise. And I think that's a shame. My only and final question is, where is the fear? I want to fear for my life. lol

I could rant on about this for hours, but tell me what you guys think :)

[Havoc]

There is a difference between difficulty and annoyance.
If a game gives you no clues on what to do and you keep looking for something for hours to no end, it's just stupid because you can't progress in the story, a thing that the game intends to deliver. And I'm sorry but by all means Resident Evil 1 was a bad game.

Essentially, a game in which you have a gun and in which an enemy responds especially allergic to regulated doses of led in his head, there is no fear, because as a skilled player nothing would pose a real threat here. And the bigger the gun, the less terrifying a game gets.

Dead Space and ESPECIALLY Dead Space 2 were just downright boring for me. You quickly got hold of some overpowered guns and an excess of ammo and you saw every monster wobbling at you through a brightly lit room which cut out every aspect of fear and challenge.

The quicksave button is an essential part of PC gaming, because there is no reason why a player shouldn't be able to quit a game at any time he wants and continue from that exact position. Of course it's clever to map this function so that you can't save mid-combat or at moments where you may or may not have screwed up beyond repair.
Games where you have to redo entire boring/annoying sections because of a stupid mistake/stupidly hard part at the end, get frustrating fast and the further away the checkpoint, the more annoying it gets.

Most of those elements have absolutely nothing to do with your fear for your digital life,
those are just samples of bad game design that make the game ANNOYING, instead of entertaining and/or challenging.

But setting all this aside, I agree with you that most games just lost their challenge factor. I played the last 4 Call of Duties on maximum difficulty and even that wasn't a single bit hard. Same goes for Crysis 2 btw, laughably easy game, even on max difficulty. I think regenerating health plays a major role in this.

I liked the health system in Operation Flashpoint: Red River, if you got shot, you were likely to start bleeding, and depending on where you were hit, a certain function would be impaired; aiming if your arm was hit, no sprint when your leg was hit, impaired vision if you took a strafe shot to the head, death if you took a direct headshot. And then you'd have to get to cover and stop the bleeding with your medikit before you bled out. Or you could have a teammate have do this for you while you kept up suppressive fire. And once you stopped the bleeding, you'd still suffer the debuff from the hit, but you could just patch your health up, which took a considerable time. But at least you wouldn't drop from the next hit.

Also a challenge was the realism mod for HalfLife 2 which I really enjoyed. Bullet damage was so high, that any enemy would die from 1 good shot. But so would you.
This wasn't frustrating, since you could save at any point in the game, but many passages were so extremely hard to overcome, that no amount of quicksaving could help you out there. You spent most of the game with 1-10 hp anyway. Now that was some good "fear for your life".

If you want some fear for your life play Amnesia or The Witcher 2 on hardcore mode.
(If you die the game is totally over, for good, rockhard combat and no regenerating health).

[Exentenzed]

If you want challenging you should also try out the X series.

You can only save at stations, and if you get shot "down" its game over. (You can always load you're latest save but some missions can be long and deep in enemy territory.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(game_series)

Its a Space combat and economic simulator. Its best played with a Joystick even though its fully playable with mouse and keyboard.

Its realy detailed and it got a dynamic economy. Furthermore its set up so you can just rush trough the storyline, when you get a challenging mission you have to stop and think "What do i need to succeed in this mission" since trying to destroy a pirate base or doing recon deep in enemy territory is hard with the small frigate you start out with.

To increase you're funds you can for example, start a buisness empire, you can set up factories, you can get merchant ships to ferry goods your factory needs and to sell its products. You can also program your ships autopilot to do these task aswell as hire pilots to do some freelance trading for you.

You can also do Assassination contracts, start a ferry buisness if you get some luxury liner ships, you can join the police/army and do combat patrol and attack/defense missions etc.

However, this game has the worst learning curve ever but it REALY is a rewarding game since you can build up a massive fleet containing everything from a small recon ship to a HUGE carrier/destroyer class ship armed to the teeth. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amcyqMpOq4g&feature=related

[Havoc]

But if you play X you better have a book you can write in to keep track of the economy and your own trade and company (if you decide to have one). Also if you're playing with a joystick it'd better have 120 buttons. xD
God I LOVE those games but damn, you can spend an entire night just reading shyt and organizing stuff in there.

[Exentenzed]

Ahaha, that is true. :) Even if you have a joystick you will need your keyboard alot xD

And i dualscreen so i had a 12kb text file as a ledger. xD
"So... Much... Information...." :P

[paecmaker]

I agree, the learning curve in x3 is just painfull, but the game itself is worth the pain.

two more games, I would like to say about are

Stalker shadow of chernobyl, after the intro you are thrown into one heck of a world full of monsters and soldiers. After about every hit you start to bleed and will continiue bleeding until you die(or heal yourself) You get only a few advices and there are only autosave across different zones. This game could also be said to be a scary game.

ARMA2 its not scary but on hard you get no hud and an unmarked map. Its you and your squad vs the enemy army. 1 bullet can kill you but if it doesnt you will lie down on the ground watching your squad getting butchered.

[DarkSideDK]

I've played alot of Operation Flashpoint on my PS3 and I found it to be very challenging, actually a very good game if you look aside from the retarded AI, lol.

I'm gonna go check out The Witcher 2 and STALKER, since I have already seen a friend of mine complete Amnesia.

I would really love to play ARMA2, but my computer is no way near powerfull enough.

All the other games aside, I think X looks really interesting. Is it similar to EVE?

[Exentenzed]

Its sort of similiar, but then again not at all. xD

First of its singleplayer only, unless there is a mod out there that i don't know about.
The combat system is more fun in my oppinion, as you control the ship and weapons directly.

Anyways.. take a look if it interests you.
http://darkzero.co.uk/game-reviews/x3-terran-conflict-pc/

He sums it up a bit. :)

[Delta]

I played the last 4 Call of Duties on maximum difficulty and even that wasn't a single bit hard.

Plz answer me this how in the world did you beat COD 4 on veteran?? srsly. It took me 2 days to beat it on regular. The enemies literally go straight after you. No one else, just you. Plus the shoot the living crap out of u on regular. The story line was epic and they drove it AWAY from real wars tht already happened so i thought that was cool. Treyarch just goes to different wars (WaW: WW2, BO: during the cold war, idk about COD 3).

[R3d M4g3]

I think, personally, games are getting easier. In some cases, its acceptable (Having multiple saves in RPGS incase you get stuck w/ your bad build, made a bad decision in a FPS and have to redo an objective) but mostly it's horrendous. Game developers try to either make it too easy for newer gamers/ n00bs (Think of how the CoD Games became easier - Call of Duty 4 MW to Call of Duty MW2 to Call of Duty BO) or make it ungodly hard that only no-lifers can beat them. (Think Super Game Over- I mean, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts)

In most cases (Not just video games) you got to make an ultimatum - make a hard ass game or make a game thats user-friendly and enjoyable for most people?

My opinion, is that they make a "Hardcore" setting for games that make it more challenging and reward players for doing so. (not just an Achievement, like an in-game reward)

[paecmaker]

Plz answer me this how in the world did you beat COD 4 on veteran?? srsly. It took me 2 days to beat it on regular. The enemies literally go straight after you. No one else, just you. Plus the shoot the living crap out of u on regular. The story line was epic and they drove it AWAY from real wars tht already happened so i thought that was cool. Treyarch just goes to different wars (WaW: WW2, BO: during the cold war, idk about COD 3).

Havoc, is "special" he plays almost all games on the most difficult(from what I understand) and compared to that maybe cod games arent that difficult.

I myself truly hated the last part in the pripyat mission when you wait for the chopper, on veteran I died over and over again, I got tired and havent played it since then.:p

[Delta]

Havoc, is "special" he plays almost all games on the most difficult(from what I understand) and compared to that maybe cod games arent that difficult.

I myself truly hated the last part in the pripyat mission when you wait for the chopper, on veteran I died over and over again, I got tired and havent played it since then.:p

Is that the mission where your Captain Price and u sneak around wit MacMillan, then shoot off Zakhaev's arm THEEEEEEN you have to escape from Zakhaev's men, TTTHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN u have to karry MacMillan for waht feels like an hour, TTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN, u hav to protect you and MacMillan until a helicopter comes to save you? That effin mission??????

[paecmaker]

Is that the mission where your Captain Price and u sneak around wit MacMillan, then shoot off Zakhaev's arm THEEEEEEN you have to escape from Zakhaev's men, TTTHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN u have to karry MacMillan for waht feels like an hour, TTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN, u hav to protect you and MacMillan until a helicopter comes to save you? That effin mission??????

uhhm, yup its that mission and it feels freaking impossible on veteran.

[Ilyich Valken]

uhhm, yup its that mission and it feels freaking impossible on veteran.

It was a pain, but it was far from impossible. You want impossible, try Charlie Don't Surf and Mile High Club. Hardest ****ing levels in that game on Vet.

[paecmaker]

It was a pain, but it was far from impossible. You want impossible, try Charlie Don't Surf and Mile High Club. Hardest ****ing levels in that game on Vet.

I know mile high, but what was charlie dont surf?

[Ilyich Valken]

I know mile high, but what was charlie dont surf?

It was the one where you come in on a Black Hawk, get dropped off and you fight your way through the streets and several buildings until you get to the television station he's thought to be in, and have to fight your way trough that (several long hallways, a couple large rooms with cubicles and whatnot.