Are video games easier today than they used to be?

[g1megatronfan]

I'd say to some degree they are. Take New Super Mario Bros U for example...I finished it in about 1 week. I can remember taking a good long while to finish the original SMB, SMB 2, SMB 3 and Mario World.

Another example from my personal experience would be Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge for Wii U...I beat that in a little over 1 week compared to what seemed like an eternity to beat 1 & 2 on the NES. I'm not someone who plays games for several hours at a time anymore...I play when I have free time and it still didn't take me too long to beat either.

The NES had some real ball busters in it's heyday. I'm not saying current systems don't have difficult games but I don't think they're as hard as 8 and 16 bit games were.

[Red Impact]

Jan 5, 2013 17:57:10 GMT -5 Cyno said:

A lot of games back in the day were developed with an arcade game's mentality. Basically, arcade games were intentionally made very difficult so people would pay more quarters in order to overcome the challenge and earn bragging rights.

Games are generally easier these days with a few exceptions. But that's a side effect of game difficulty becoming more fair instead of obnoxiously cheap. Better technology also allows for more precise player control.

Yeah, that's what I think the main difference is. Often times older games were far more cheap than actually hard, requiring more rote memorization and memory rather than skill, because the systems at the time weren't able to do that much or make games that were that long.

I'd rather have it the way it is now, to be honest, because while I remember being fond of the cheapness at the time, it really was just a cheap way to pad out a game.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

One thing I noticed when I dug my old Genesis games out last year as the difference in jumping. Nowadays in a platformer, double-jumping and gripping the ledge is pretty standard. Back in those days, you had to MAKE that damn jump.