“You’re supposed to get up, dust yourself off, learn why you died there, and then come back in a soul form, doing your best not to die there again. In this soul form, you’ll have half the hit points you did as a living person, making it even easier to die again. Can the dead die again? Not really. But you can fail as many times as necessary, forcing you to start over from the level’s start each time. I did this many, many times, losing everything I gained for sometimes an hour or more, starting over from the very beginning each time. Frustrating is an understatement”

This game has a high Metacritic score because there are still those that love the challenge..some calling it the “anti-casual” game. But still they could have had different difficulty levels and let gamers CHOOSE if they should be tormented or not. Some will buy the game and never be able to finish it: the reviewer above hadn’t finished it by deadline. That sucks for them and anyone else who doesn’t have huge blocks of time to memorise what needs to be done to pass each section.

http://www.destructoid.com/non-review-why-i-couldn-t-finish-demon-s-souls-151008.phtml

I do use GameFaqs if I get stuck for awhile too, and am not ashamed of it. I want to experience a game not gloat about beating it.

Neither do I want to play against constantly spawning enemies (I’m looking at Eat Lead here for example).

To me length of a game being bad or good really depends on the game: if it feels like there is change and progression then I’m happy for longer but if the game gives me tons of fun in a shorter time I’m fine too.

Look at a game like MGS4: you can do so many different ways of playing it (stealth, using your invisible robot or not, or even like a shooter) and there are different environments and it keeps moving (despite some really way-too-long cinematic but overly indulgent and soapy cut scenes).

Then on the other hand you have Terminator Salvation which is both extremely short AND repetitive….both in gameplay and environment.

Your second comment about boss fights is completely untrue, unless you count a boss esaping a death, and the campaign continues, or that they flee a lot and you have to chase them. That, I think , is true, they always seem to flee. That is a perfectly fine way of continuing a game, in my opinion, as it keeps open a lot of paths for variation.

Finally, the artifical use for extending a game – is completely true. There is too many under-built-up bosses in games. I could name a massive list, but for the purpose, 300 PSP has i think 8 bosses that are not in the film. Raimbow 6 Vegas has too many places and hidey-holes not to have a map or a radar, or even an arrow thingy to point the way for where to go. Also, games have gotten easier, but with more difficulty settings, which personally, i find this a half-artificial setting. Unless the game lasts me at least a full 24 hours, it is not worth having a difficulty tier, unless it is a FPS like CoD. The games I now play are the classics that are ridiculously addictive such as FIFA, CoD and Star wars battlefront, or anything from the FF series, such as crisis core, or FF11. Very long, good games, and the difficulty can be tuned to anything you want, as you can rush the storyline and just do that, or practice and train up to the point that you feel comfortable.
Finally, the hardest game i ever played is, don’t laugh, Sonic Heroes for PS2, i completed the easy storyline, last 2 levels on medium and hard, and on chaotic, i am something like 4 levels in out of 20.
Easiest is’nt neccessarily worst, and it proves this fact with Medal of Honour: Heroes for PSP, which i have now completed all the storylines, minus the loading and cutscenes in 34 minutes, on heroic (or legendary, i forget which is hardest, as i just go online).

Personally I like a game that gives you multiple ways of getting through a section, and that rewards you for doing so at the same time. And for using puzzles especially multiple ones, to get through it as well . . . Timeshift is something similar . . where there’s usually different ways to get through one area, but unfortunately, there are bottlenecks where only one way will work.

IE: the balancing water pipe where you have to use your fast-forward or backwards abilities. It can sometimes get very frustrating, but for me, that’s also part of the experience of playing a game. If it was too easy, and way too straight forward, then there’d be no real challenge in it for me.

@ David – Yet another greatarticle mate that is being well received by the readers on other sites . . . you have a great way with words and it’s a refreshing sight to see the views of the site rise. The 2 Days 2 Vegas has just topped you in the top 5 posts viewed, but on average, your’s is coming in at number 1.

We had a 1000 views the other day, and 42% of those were for your article. Congrats . . . . . I think I should be rewarding the writers in here with something every now and then, I’ll put my thinking cap on around that.

This wasn’t the only logical solution but it was the only acceptable solution. If a game is to be designed like this, make it clear and don’t make the game more challenging this way.

You make a good point about giving the player multiple difficulties to select. Might I add, this could even help the game’s sales because it is accessible to more people. In Gears of War it is even more flexible because you can start a campaign in Casual and if you so choose, continue where you left off next time in Hardcore. Every time you go to the campaign screen, you can choose the difficulty of the next chapter.

There are more choices in games these days, and a large leap between easy and hardcore settings. This approach attracts a broader spectrum of gamers. I usualy have my difficulty setting about half way, (rarely ever easy ;p) and replay the (better) games on the more difficult settings.

With the Halo series I’ve always played them through on heroic first and then legendary.

I’ve tossed aside many games that had almost impossible boss levels to get through, a waste of my time and money.

I’ve wasted countless hours stuck in the loop “of try and try again”. It’s not a clever way to make a short game longer and I think the developers are realising this now. They have so much more options now, and I’m loving it.

Although … there’ve been some weird, triumphant dances in my household after getting through particularly frustrating levels.

I recall the time I managed to defeat the evil Nazi in Indiana Jones Temple of Doom, who was hell bent on trying to mow me down in his impressively sized rock driller, while I whipped, jumped, ran, jumped, side stepped, shot my way to the end … YES YES YES … I screamed, I wonder what the neighbours thought!