Hurt me plenty

Hurt me plenty

2-26-10

Thinking about the games I played when I was younger it occurred to me how a great many of those games I never beat...and even curiouser how many of those games I rarely got half way though. You might be thinking well Chris...this is because you suck. You could be right but ask yourself this...how far have you gotten on Pac-Man, Defender, Joust, Donkey Kong, Ghouls and Ghosts, Doom 1 or 2, Tempest, Smash TV, Dragons Lair etc.. and the list goes on and on. You may have beat these games and are thinking still...dude you suck. Thats fine as I'm not here to prove how awesome I am. I'm here to talk about the over all lack of difficulty in modern video games. See my point in brining up those games was to point out how even though I never really got all that far in them I loved them regardless. Even if you are the game wizard I'm sure you've had a game or two that you never really got far on but still enjoyed the brief time you spent with them. Now how many modern games can you say this about? I can think of few that would get on that list. If a modern game is too difficult it slips into obscurity rather quickly and is forgotten. If it can't be beaten then its not worth playing at all...seems to be the sensibility that pervades the modern gaming mindset. Though instead of gamers getting collectively better the games are getting easier if you ask me. Can the game companies be faulted for this though? After all they are in the business to sell these little discs to us. And besides we cant all be hardcore can we? These are excuses I hear a lot...and if you ask me they don't hold watter. Much of the "companies giving the consumer what they want" excuse sounds like a chicken or the egg dilemma. And don't give me this crap about casual gamers not wanting hard core. The entire industry was founded on casual gaming...fun date night arcade romps, or silly gaming for a few minutes in the theater lobby. How do you get more casual than Pac-Man or Asteroids? Like it or not this industry has gotten where it is today on the backs of lots of lamers like yours truly. Who loved to have fun with games though we weren't all that great at them. The question I want the answer to is where do we derive satisfaction/fun from games. Is it the mere act of playing a game or "beating" it. If said game is already relatively easy then whats the fun in that?