Difficulty Curve

Last week I completed Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the Nintendo DS, which is the 4th DS game I’ve completed recently, after both Professor Layton games and Jewel Quest: Expeditions. It got me to thinking about how games seem to be easier to complete these days than in the past.

I remember some excellent games on the old ZX Spectrum such as Exolon and Army Moves, where I rarely got further than a dozen screens in. My all time favourite game on the platform was Back to Skool, which was so incredibly hard I defy anyone to complete it. Despite this I never felt they were poor value for money, just a great challenge. Nowadays however I can stick Uncharted on Easy difficulty and sit back and enjoy the interactive cinematic experience right to the end. It’s not necessarily worse, just a different way to play, and reinforces gaming’s position as a peer in the entertainment industry to TV, music and movies.

Partially I think the change has come through improved technology. Previously it was only possible to save most games at the end of a level (if at all) due to memory restrictions, whereas now it is not a problem to be able to save whenever you need to. Also I think the modern gamer does not make the same allowances for games that previous generations did in terms of game length and difficulty. Previously a game could be relatively short but very difficult, whereas now less than 10 hours of game time is considered poor value for money. A game you can complete in one sitting of a couple of hours (like the Dizzy games) would be considered ridiculous now.

With the amount of development resource required now, it is important that the player gets to see more of the game. I can imagine the pitch if mainstream games still held to the old difficulty levels: “Ok, the game is going to cost $10m to develop, and around 5% of players will see the final 2 levels, of which 1% will actually see the end sequence.” It’s doubtful that such a game would be made now.

Part of the reason I complete so few games is that many of those that I play don’t have an ending. Games like The Sims, Fifa, Burnout, SARBC etc just carry on. The PS3 Trophy system (and the Achievement system on Xbox) somewhat mitigates this by providing tangible rewards for achieving specific goals in these games, but this is down to the drive within the player to get them, rather than a natural progression or requirement within the game itself. Recently I’ve been playing more completeable games as I don’t have the time to play open ended games (part of the reason why I’ve held off getting Dragon Age and probably wont get Final Fantasy 13), as the completeable ones lend themselves better to shorter bursts of gameplay.

Of course there is also the vast number of Football Management games I’ve played over the years. To my knowledge only the original Championship Manager had an end as your character aged through the game, but I can’t imagine anyone completing 40-odd seasons at the speed it ran on my Amiga. No, in each game you would continue until you got fired, at which point like a digital Graeme Souness you would be offered another job despite your glaring ineptitude.

Being both a geek and a nerd I have naturally compiled a list of all the games I have ever completed across all formats. It shows that despite playing hundreds of Spectrum games, I completed relatively few. The completion percentage is almost certainly highest on the DS, with PS3 coming next, though without knowing exactly how many games I’ve played I can’t be sure.

I’m currently playing GTA4 and The Bourne Conspiracy on the PS3, Secret Files: Tunguska on the DS and have just started Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass also on the DS. We’ll see how I get on with them!

I did read about a game which sounds like the hardest, most unforgiving game of all time. You got 1 life, any contact with enemies or bullets resulted in instant death, and the reward for clearing an entire screen of enemies: 1 point. Now that’s hardcore! Can't find the article though so the name escapes me.