Video games have gotten too easy

I used to love games that were incredibly hard to solve, for which many people had to seek a walkthrough, but I never would, because it would hurt my integrity and would bitter my completion of the game. Games like Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill 1, ShadowRun (snes) (and many more) had riddles and items which had to be interpreted and analyzed to death before they could be solved or put to use. Sometimes it took hours, but if you had the ambition it could always be solved. I miss games like that. Now they are made way too easy. Games only appeal to action and graphics, in lieu of their intellectual element. My primary system currently is PS3. There are still good games. Fun for the action.

My question is:

Does anybody know of more recent games (2008-2014) that have these qualities? That are very difficult to solve and challenge you intellectually as well as in action. It is starting to depress me that I'm running out of video games that I can truly enjoy (besides the MGS series, fortunately they haven't sold out). Thanks in advance.

Also, I know their are still puzzle games that are good like Portal, but they are still not like these older games used to be. More of an RPG element along with the riddles/puzzles is what I'm looking for.

You want a difficult RPG Element Puzzle Game ?

As in theres certain puzzles your character can't solve until they level their stats ?

@Lulu_Lulu: I think he means actual puzzles inside of RPGs independent of the combat mechanics. Like in many 90s RPGs

Playing Devil May Cry 1 made me realize games were stupid hard for no reason.

My biggest nitpick with new games is they feel like errands and are tidious, GTAV a prime example. Even tho I put 100s hours into Diablo 3 it's just grinding for better gear and grind some more.

Back to Devil May Cry, it doesn't feel like running errands or tidious.

Hate it or love it but Dark Souls delivers. It brought me back to Super Mario of falling off cliffs and having to restart all over

@mastermetal777

When it comes to RPGs its always important to ask and be absolutely sure...... Who knows just what goes through the mind of a gamer these days.

@Lulu_Lulu: I knew exactly what he was talking about as soon as he mentioned the games he did. Just add RPG in there and you have every good 90s RPG ever

RPG have gotten rid of most of out of combat skills. Most RPG are just upgraded beat them up.

Still it better than those puzzle and problems that you had no clue or way to solve without some help or just randomly doing things.

Buy Wasteland 2 and play on the hardest diffculty level. True hardcore challenge.

I don't have time to sit there and replay until I get it right. When I was a kid sure but gaming is last priority and I prefer to use that time to relax so I enjoy a more leisurely play style where progression is more consistent without practice and have a large collection I go back n forth on depending my mood. I may go weeks or longer before I get back around to a specific title again so a game like Dark Souls wouldn't do me any good.

@mastermetal777

Like Baldurs Gate ?

I know what you mean. I think it would be nice to have more intellectual challenges in games. One of the problems, however, is that a lot of game designers seem to think that ridiculously cryptic bullshit actually makes for a fair intellectual challenge. You know...the kind of shit where you find an item and use it, but you weren't supposed to use it THERE. You were supposed to wait until near the end of the game to use it, which means that if you didn't do things exactly the way you're supposed to, you're fucked. Or that kind of shit where the solution to a puzzle involves some STUPID chain of video game logic that forces you to brute-force your way to the solution by trying all possible options until something sticks, like not being able to get a key until you distract a guard by blowing up a bird by feeding it some Alka-Seltzer that you found in a dirty alley by somehow deciding to investigate the empty bottle that was left in a dumpster with all the other random trash.

Sure, I'd like more games that require players to use their brains. I just fear that if that became more common, we'd go right back to having a lot of games including intellectual challenges that are simply CHEAP and don't make any logical sense. Challenges that aren't just difficult while still adhering to an established set of logical rules, but challenges that establish the rules and then pull the rug out from under the player just to artificially up the difficulty.

Yeah? That is why we had a game genie and game shark back then.

I do enjoy checkpoints and saving a game though.

Dark Souls

The story is a puzzle that you have to dig through item descriptions and your own intuitiveness to figure out.

@Lulu_Lulu: don't know anything about Baldur's Gate. Never played it.

I've found that games have lost their horrendous almost unbeatable difficulty that some of the first iterations of machines brought with them. But with better machines, graphics, worlds, AI has not caught up or even seemed to have stayed in the class as all those areas have improved drastically but AI is still that dumb kid who literally doesn't know anything. Like I mean he can't catch, throw, or run without tripping over himself and he's all ways getting himself stuck in shit. So ya games have gotten easier but it's due to companies not taking the time to make any functional or believable AI system. (Civ5 and Civ beyond earth literally cheat with better stats for your enemies to make the game more difficult as the AI doesn't even know how to fight or defend itself in any rational way with units)

Good example of good AI and it making the game fun would have to be Wolfeinstein new order. It's literally the only game out of the maybe 35 I have played this year that made me think damn good job on the AI(includes all major RTS tittles). It flanked all the time, layed down cover fire and grenades for moving friendlies and generally changed and adapted to everything you did. Most games take the Advanced warfare approach. Spawn here, move here shoot player, ignore everything else on screen and do zero changes to strategy, in regards to the players actions, besides say throwing a grenade at their feet and watching them take off or dive. This form of AI just makes shooting galleries and bullet sponge gun ranges that I'm getting extremely tired of and was frankly after the second modern warfare. But everyone seems to keep making this shit so It's what were stuck with till some company decided to show everyone up and actually program an AI in a game worthy of saying built in 2015 as so far I haven't seen anything out this year that I didn't see similar or almost on par with AI's back on the PS1 and Ps2.

i dont mind a hard game. if the ai is not cheating(like infinte mana etc)

but also another issue is with alot of this games their very buggy and make the game harder due to it.

@mastermetal777

I'm not even sure its from the 90's.

@firedrakes

In what game do you know of does the AI ever run on any limit resource besides health ?

In my Experience they will always have an unlimited amount of whatever it is they use.... Ammo, Magic, Stamina, Back Up etc.

The difficulty in games is fine. Most people just want to enjoy a game. Not everybody is trying to be teh hardcore.

@Lulu_Lulu: Baldur's Gate was first released in '98, so yes, it's from the 90s.

Have you tried Penumbra ? there are 3 titles of it , its horror and puzzles .

@woomar

And Stats ! ! ! :p

Dark Souls 2 and Divinity should give you several hundred hours of enjoyment.

I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying, but some people get into a game because of the adventure, challenges, and brain-pain work it takes to solve the riddles. That is what was fun for me. I never really played a game just to "relax". I enjoy having a hell of a time beating a game, and they just aren't made like that any more. Sometimes bosses in games can be hard but the games in general are not. But it's not just about physical difficulty. Plenty of games still have it in some cases. Mental difficulty is what's lacking. I'm not saying all games should be like that, and they never were, but now NO games are like that. I guess because the type of person who enjoyed a game like that is maybe an endangered species. I liked and beat most of the sierra games (1986-1988 versions) without any outside help. Sometimes I would be stuck for a long time, but it was always worth it when I finally figured out the problem. What I enjoy in most games is the satisfaction of solving an extremely difficult problem.

A good example, which made me specifically list Resident Evil 1 & Resident Evil 2, is I am currently playing Resident Evil 4. The action and bosses and game play is amazing, but the riddles/puzzles treat me like I'm in the first grade. Some riddles in the first two (Resident Evil's) could've taken me 1-2 hours to solve, and most of them DID make sense once solved. In Resident Evil 4 none of them have taken me longer than 60 seconds. You are presented with the need for the item, you then get the item, then you use the item. Rinse wash and repeat. It is far too simple. It doesn't let you figure anything out (however simple it may be) on your own. You are told what you need to do either outright or in extremely obvious hints (when the problems weren't hard enough to justify hints in the first place). It suggests a desire to pander to the less intelligent for the sake of profits and creating a wider client base. Many game creators have sold out, taking the intellectual element from these types of games. The same as the History and Discovery channel have by airing pseudo-reality bullshit 95% of the time, when they are supposed to be educational networks. It's the exact same thing.

@EvadeCaptcha

Hey ! welcome back.... :)

Anyway I never played the early President Evil games but from what I hear their puzzles don't actually make that much sense..... From what I heard its just like typical adventure game logic,the buckets aren't used for collecting water, the metalic scissors aren't used for cutting anything..... For example you might need the bucket to simply stand on while you place the metallic scissors over a small gap on some electric wires to short circut whatever obstacle is in your way......

And if thats the type of "Sense" you're after, you can totally still get it today, PC has a buttload of these types of Adventure Games using that logic.

Also you could try DarkSiders, theres nothing Special about the combat (stupid RPG Elements) but if you enjoyed its puzzles like I did.... Then maybe theres hope, but if you still prefer President Evil's puzzle over that then I can't sympathize..... Those games sucked donkey balls.

@Lulu_Lulu: You didn't like the original Resident Evil games (Wait you said you didn't even play them...)? If the riddles/puzzles were solvable then they had to have some logic to them. I checked out Darksiders; I would be interested there, but I hate that type of combat.

@EvadeCaptcha

I've never been shotgunned in the chest with a bean bag either, wana guess How much I would like that ? I know what I like, like really know, every tiny minute detail. Its not that hard for me to determine whether a game is for me or not, since I'm very gameplay centric.

Anyway, some logic is not the same as perfectly logical solutions....... after all the Brute Force and Trial and Error approaches do have some logic to them.... its perfectly rational to believe trying everysingle method and variation will eventually yield the correct result.

Agreed,games are too easy now
specially GTA5 and MSGS4

I am sorry but , I don't know what do you mean.

It was necessary for games to be difficult back in the olden days.

If you didn't have to take the time (and countless deaths) to precisely learn every single level and boss fight, you'd just end up playing through the game once or twice and probably never touch it again for ages.

I do miss a lot of those older brain teasers though (purely puzzle games aside) that required you to give some real thought on how to solve.

People as a whole have become progressively more and more impatient over the years though (as have I to a degree). The internet makes it too easy to just sometimes go "**** it" and look up the solution, and so we just keep getting lazier as a result.

@Celldrax: But I never would look up the solution, because it ruins the game. But you do seem to understand what I mean. Any games like that exist now? They don't actually need to be that recent probably even 2005~. The problem is I feel I've pretty much played and beat every game like that lol. Which means I'll never get to again. I'm sure there are some I'm missing, just need to find them.

@Celldrax: But I never would look up the solution, because it ruins the game. But you do seem to understand what I mean. Any games like that exist now?

Yeah sometimes you had to resort to trying EVERYTHING, which sucked, but most of the time, assuming you paid attention and have an understanding of such games, the riddle/puzzles/solution can be found through a logical chain. And is the only thing you've ever used a bucket for is to carry water? You've never stood on a chair to reach something? Logic isn't strict orthodox use of an item. A person can logically deduce that a bucket is to make you taller for some purpose, as it can be used in real life.

@woomar

You know exactly what I mean... :p

@EvadeCaptcha

As long as it makes sense.... Any way, about the bucket thing, I in the game I played, there were stools and chairs everywhere, so if I really needed something to stand on, why does have to be a bucket ?

@Lulu_Lulu: Because it was an obtainable item which separates it from all of the aesthetic static items of the game. If you've played a lot of games like this, it doesn't take long to deduce that you need to try to stand on the bucket. If you're new to the type of game, then it could reasonably take some getting used to and time to figure it out. But there is a kind of mentality that exists in these games that does not in others. It's all a matter of understanding or having experience with that type of game. Then things like that come easily and harder challenges come along which are fun to solve. The longer it takes to solve a problem in a game like that, the happier you are when you finally solve it. Solving problems is the most fun thing I can do, no matter how ridiculous they are (which in some cases they are). You're right though, in some cases the game designer isn't really using logic to create problems, but even then, you have an understanding of the rules. Solving those problems using the game designers demented logic is still fun.

Well, what I was really getting at is the growing impatience (and shrinking attention span) of gamers, so that ends up being what developers cater to by making things more and more fast-paced.

I honestly don't know any new stuff though since I don't really keep up-to-date with game releases.

@Lulu_Lulu: I really don't know what you mean.

The trend is definitely there. One thing is difficulty comes in different flavors: there are hard games mechanically, and hard games mentally. Even there, mentally challenging games could be about puzzles, or about strategy, or...

Some old games required mastery of the mechanics, others required puzzle solving (e.g. Myst/Riven), and others (typically RPGs, as you noted) combined a variety of challenge.

I feel like hard games still exist - but, call me crazy - I think most difficult games now are either one or the other, and fewer impose both a mental and mechanical challenge

As someone that's been gaming "for ages" - I can appreciate (and miss) the plethora of challenging titles we used to see. But it is true that sometimes you just want an epic story, for example, and it doesn't have to be difficult to enrich the experience. Variety is the spice of life :-)

i was never a fan of games that were so difficult i had to look online to figure out what to do. So i'm glad that most games find a balance to make things possible for the average person to figure out. Theres still some frustrating and hard games like Dark Souls out there for people who like the pain of failure.

But most people play games to have fun and relax and not suffer failure. Even saying that, I don't like games to be so easy you can finish them without any effort, but i don't want them impossible either.

@EvadeCaptcha

I think I've heard enough..... Your idea of a difficult puzzle just doesn't enough sense.... Breaks my heart. :(

@Lulu_Lulu: puzzles run on logic, regardless of whether or not it's realistic. All games do this through their own form of logic and common sense that's made apparent from the start. How does that not make sense?

@mastermetal777

I didn't say anything about realism, and do you really need me to explain to you why you gotta run into the shed to grab a bucket to stand on when theres a perfectly good stool right there doesn't make sense ?

@Lulu_Lulu: because the 90s were weird and normal logic was for casuals.

Absolutely.

But I've always thought that to be an unfair challenge. The fair challenge would be realizing that you need to stand on something to reach the device, and then realizing that you need a metal object to connect the circuit. The difficulty is figuring out what the actual problem is. But at that point, once you realize that you need something that does X and something that does Y, what's cheap and unfair is that there's only a specific object that you're allowed to use.

"Because it was an obtainable item which separates it from all of the aesthetic static items of the game."

That's not really a good excuse. If the game is full of aesthetic static, then design a puzzle that wouldn't be able to logically be solved by any of the aesthetic static. This is similar to how in many games you're carrying grenades and a damn rocket launcher, but you can't get past a creaky wooden door without finding the owner of the key and agreeing to slay a demon for him before he hands the key over to you. That's sort of bullshit, and the lack of logic takes me out of the game. The "aesthetic static" and the challenges within a game should work together. If you need a certain amount of "aesthetic static" in order to give the game a look that conveys a certain mood, then design puzzles and challenges that logically work with that "aesthetic static". Alternatively, if the puzzles take priority, then design the environments so that they aren't full of useless aesthetic static that could logically be used to solve the problems laid out before you (but that you aren't allowed to actually use, because "**** you gamers, this is video game non-logic").

@mastermetal777

The 90s were awesome ! And Casuals are awesome too.... They understand games.

@MrGeezer

Why does everybody explain things better than me ? :(

I understand your point. Ironically, I think this to myself all the time...usually while playing a video game...how easy this particular game is compared to games I played when I was younger. When I play my SNES, N64, or Sega Genisis I do see the difference. A lot of times I have issues playing games I haven't played in awhile because if I don't jump the correct way, I die and have to start back from the beginning. I do agree. Resident Evil, and Silent Hill were challenging games. I think it had more to do with the set-backs from those days. Unfortunately, developers had a lot of limitations to the graphics, the design elements, and quality because the systems were relatively new back then and they were forced to pick and choose what they would use because of the limitations. You honestly have to pick-and-choose which genre of game you want to participate in.

Games that are crushingly difficult break the immersion for me. I prefer a fair experience that I can play and be laid back.