Uncharted 2: An Unfortunate Difficulty Curve

It’s only logical that, in a medium that prides itself upon interactivity and developing player skill, games would necessarily get harder as they go along, peaking in difficulty at the end of the game in the ultimate test of what the gamer has learned.

In the olden days this was less complicated. Beating a game was its own reward. There was no complicated story to worry about, only overcoming the series of obstacles and seeing the Game Over screen.

But now that games are starting to tentatively poke their feet in the water of competent storytelling, a new element is added to the mix. A vital part of proper storytelling, and a big reason why the interactive medium of gaming has so far sucked at telling good tales, is momentum. Interactivity screws with momentum. It’s a nightmare to maintain a compelling pace when the player has full control of what’s going on.

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Mass Effect 2: Disturbingly Frequent Demise

This just in: Mass Effect 2 is really hard!

I do not want to cast an accusing glance in Bioware’s direction if it is not justified, so I will try to reign in my nasty stares as much as possible whilst I attempt to figure out the true cause of the phenomenon, but let me just say that as a general rule I am decidedly not fond of sequels that decide they need to be more difficult just because there is a higher number in their title.

It is a remarkably common thing, and one that frustrates me to no end.

“Oh,” the developers seem to be saying, “clearly they beat the first game, so what they must want is more and harder, right? I mean, they can’t possibly just want more of what they already enjoyed but with new stuff added. Sureely they want to be incredibly frustrated along the way as well. We must assume their skills have become superhuman and throw all sorts of torturous walls of difficulty at them. That’s the ticket!”

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Virtual Fighting - Surprisingly Accessible

 

I don’t want to speak too soon and jinx it or anything, but I think Virtua Fighter 5 might have one of the best difficulty curves of any fighting game I’ve ever played.

And this coming from a game I was expecting to be massively complicated and extremely difficult.

Weird, right? I know.

To be clear, it certainly is massively complicated, but the game seems to acknowledge this fact. It doesn’t hammer me over the head with difficulty right from the start and just expect me to catch up like most do. It gives me plenty of room to be a total n00b at first. It gives me the time to build both skill and confidence without being stupidly frustrated by a game that seems impatient for me to be much better than I actually am.

What a freaking concept!

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