14 k of g in a f p d

With the new machine I’ve been busy trying out some the games I hadn’t been able to play when they first came out as well as some of the newer selections.

One that falls under both categories is the Orange Box from Valve. This includes Half Life 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2 as well as Portal Team Fortress 2 I had great fun with the original Half Life and so was looking forward to Half Life 2. And I did have fun for a good part of the game. I thought driving the airboat through the “Water Hazard” chapter was great fun and even enjoyed zombie smashing in “Ravenholm” which I understand was a lot of people’s least favorite chapter. I did quite well in the game.

Right up until I hit “Entanglement”.

Near the end of the Entanglement chapter there is a sequence where you have to defend yourself against waves of attackers until Alyx arrives. Now, all along the game had slowly been getting more difficult. This is what I would have expected; the challenges should get more demanding as you go along. But at the end of this chapter I hit a wall. I couldn’t get past this sequence. No matter what I tried, no matter what tactic I used, I kept finding myself staring at a blood-red “Loading” screen time and time again. I spent hours trying to get past this one point.

Finally, in frustration, I enabled the console and hit the cheat codes.

Let’s face it, I’m over 50. I don’t have the reflexes or hand-eye coordination that I had when I was 25. Which raises the question… How difficult should a computer game be?

The answer, I think, is that a game should be difficult enough to challenge the player without actually defeating them. I should be able to get to the end of any game I buy. (Single player games anyway. If I ever really want to lose in a hurry I’ll just fly my frigate into 0.0 space in Eve: Online; that shouldn’t take long.) This is different than the old arcade games. Back then the games had to defeat the player; their revenue model depended on players putting quarter after quarter into the machines. But a computer game is different. I’ve bought the game and I should be able to play all the way through it.

One of my most frustrating gaming experiences came while playing Interstate ’76; a car-driving combat game from 1997. The game had gained rave reviews at the time but I was completely unable to play it; I was unable to complete the very first scenario no matter how many times I tried. Eventually I gave up and gave the game away. To this day I only have the word of other people that this was a good game.

It seems to me that a game should be able to scale itself to the skill of a player. If I lose an encounter enough times then my enemies should be weaker the next time I try. If I defeat an encounter too easily then the next encounter I meet should be tougher. This way I can at least get through the game.

Some people won’t like this of course; they like being able to say they beat Halo 3 on Legendary or whatever. Fine. Let the game come up with a “Challenge Rating” or something. That way the people who do have the reflexes of a hyperkinetic teenager on Red Bull can still crow about their skills while the rest of us will at least be able to get to the end of the game we just bought.