New Games = Too Complicated/Sensory Overload

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Does anyone else feel this way? I used to be a hardcore video gamer. No more.

New games are too complex. There are too many commands, too many buttons, too many abilities, too much going on at once, and everything is too fast-paced.

Back in the day, before games became dumbed down, before it was all about eye candy, they were nice and simple. A button, B button, Start, Select, Control Pad. Everything that flashed on the screen had a reason for being there.

I was watching a friend play Final Fantasy XIII a few weeks ago. I watched two minutes of it and was like, "Huh?" Couldn't even tell what was happening. Just a bunch of numbers flashing on the screen, and the whole thing was autopilot. No resemblance to the FF gems of lore.

Getting old? I find games these days too much like work. All effort and no reward. I don't mind complex as long as there's payoff. I can see through the addiction mechanisms to the empty core of games, now. Bombarding you with more and more crap is one way of keeping a player from quitting. It must be successful, cos it's prevalent.

I felt stressed about them too until I took the 'competition' part out of the picture. I like a certain kind of game and I test stuff, download demos, ck it out. Then I sit alone and just learn the controls and the point of it. If the sound is annoying I turn it to mute. I can understand why you find them overload but if you loved gaming at one time it is too bad you can't still enjoy it. Playing a game is like having a friend to look forward to. It has become really awesome with the advances in technology, resolution, processors on the game units. I play on novice level until stuff about falls on me and then bump it up when I get better. I go online if I don't suck too bad or just play local. If you take 'what's cool' out of it and do your own thing it is way fun.

i agree i haven't played birth by sleep yet, it's not out yet but it looks so hard from what i have seen i might not even get it.

most ds games are like that, either the controls or touch screen make a choice, even dragon age has to many commands and what not. sonic unleashed is hell on earth for me, i only keep it for the fact that you can play your music while playing the game. i had to get a save just to play it.

You thinks that's hard? Try playing a PC game. Our buttons are the entire keyboard! Yup. All 101 of them!

I look for turn based battle systems. But there must be a story as well. I have played FF13 and I do not even know whats going on. So its just not you.

you're just not HARDCORE enough to get it. /joke.

Don't forget our mouses. I saw a gaming mouse with 13-15 buttons functionality. Consoles are simpler in terms of buttons. It is true our PC games requires a lot of buttons =P. Beside using the normal keys, we also have to use combo keys like "Shift+tab" or whatever =/ Oh yeah, need to get me some new eyes (newer games are too flashy)

try some non competitive games, and some adventure games too:
Pikmin (gamecube/wii) is great
Katamari games (PS2/PS3)
Wii Sports games (wii) --- this one is great and very "go at your own pace" games
Try Knizia games (iPhone) - great games with no timer
Noby noby (PS/iPhone) crazy, by same guy from Katamari - http://o--o.jp/
And of course some turn games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan, available on iPhone/Xbox too.

and of course you can play any old game with MAME or other emulators

P.S.: Check this site, lots of indie games:
http://db.tigsource.com/top




If someday you want to die, get drunk and play trippy Rez (PS2/Xbox) or Cactus' Clean Asia: http://cactusquid.com/ or ChuChu Rocket (dreamcast!)
Rez vid

I feel that the reward is much better due to trophies/achievements.
I really love them and that is what keeps me to game much longer.

You should transform yourself in a old school gamer, or going for Nintendo games. (Nintendo generraly made their games simple.)

Yeah, Im going to stick to my mario kart wii/ds.

Is this not a bit of a contradiction in terms? Games become dumbed down by becoming more complicated?

As for fast-paced, many early games relied almost entirely on ramping up the speed of the game to create difficulty, and that was it. Space Harrier just created more obstacles and got faster (though it was fun, to be fair) whereas Killzone 2 has enemy AI that THINKS about where you are and makes determined attempts to out-manoeuvre you, in a nearly photo-realistic environment. Both had a piss-poor plot. Sonic the Hedgehog was a simplistic platformer that relied on speed to ramp up tension. LittleBigPlanet lets you create.... just about anything..and platform it. Likewise there were games as far back as the Spectrum that were deep and complicated and involved hundreds of commands, and everything short of advanced trigonometry to control (Lords of Midnight, Sink the Bismarck.)

Some of the most engaging games available today that provide weeks or months of gameplay are the most complicated ones. Total War, Oblivion, GTA, Fallout3. HUGE complex games with LOTS of controls and menus and potential skills.

The most overwhelming issue with games today is the cost vs endurance. Too many outstanding games are far too short and miss out on so many different possibilities, for a hefty pricetag.

I started to feel this way years ago. I played Amiga games as a teenager, and the flight simulators and strategy games with their brick-sized instruction manuals were the games I always avoided. Give me platform games and football games any day. I would have liked to have gotten into Sim City or Civlization or Railroad Tycoon perhaps, but that's about it. I don't think even the teenage me would have bothered with most of the video games that are on offer these days.

Definitely I still play Nintendo games because I know that they are simpler and plus newer other games don't really interest me.

Sometimes I don't understand how people say newer games are more difficult. I played my first video game (Super Mario Land 2, yes I got off to a late start) for over a year and still could not beat the final boss. I bought both Need For Speed: Carbon and Star Wars: Battlefront and beat them in a single day.

Older games are just plain unforgiving most of the time. Bowser hits you with a fireball you are dead, ghost bites your butt you are dead. Sonic was the main exception, almost anyone could beat a genesis version (gamegear not so much). These days you can get hit with a rocket and live through the experience and suppose you do get hit again oh well you can respawn.

A lot of games look more difficult when you are not playing as well. Watching my girlfriend play my copy of Final Fantasy X-2 after I got stuck on like the 2nd or 3rd mission I couldn't see anything she was doing. Now of course I've beat the game and could easily do so again.