New Age Gamers Have it So Good

Remember back in the old day, before memory cards, before analog controllers, hell, even b4 the notion of the possiblity of 3-d play. Back in the day, the game wasn't fair. There were no ledge grabs or health refills. The bosses could move twice as fast as you and took fifteen times as many hits as you did and those hits did not come easy. Those were the days, I recently watched my friend finish the game Eternal Darkness, a game with good every thing but challenge. The last boss was easy, retardedly easy. It was nothing compared to Red Falocn in Contra 3 or fighting the Grim Reaper in Castlevania, hell, remember the way Mega Man couldn't jump very high, couldn't aim his gun, wasn't faster than the bosses and took one quarter the hit? Hell, such restrictions in todays day and age would be intollerable. Instead we get kiddie games like Spyro the Dragon, now I know that's a kids game and all but hey, so was Zelda back in the day and that was knuckle bittingly hard compared to this crap these days. Not even current incarnations of the classics still have their teeth. Zelda 1 didn't tell you crap. You either bombed the right unmarked wall or didn't find the next level. Nowadays the game (mainly Zelda OoT and MM) practically plays themselves. Castlevania's are nothing compared to the old ones remember when 4 hits a level was what you got and all you could do was walk, not run, jump, not super or double jump, and whip in ONE direction, and hell, Mario well, Mario wasn't hard to begin with sorry, but hell, try Double Dragon 3, a game where you had to finish the WHOLE thing, no continues, no save points, no nothing, on ONE LIFE. I remember the day when finishing a game on it's hardest setting with one credit earned respect. Nowadays what do we have? Metal Gear Solid, Soul Reaver (cool game but not really hard) and Final Fantasy X (which is nothing compared to the old ones as far as challenge goes). Why is it that these days, games try so hard to not be unfair or hard? Why is it that the modern gamer will play a game like Super Monkey Ball and consider it TOO hard and give up? Old gamers bucked up and figured out how to beat the hairy Japanese programmer at their own game. Old Gamers played smart and hard, and either sank or swam, rewards were not gauranteed. Gamers also spent hours at a time to play a game. I fondly remember setting aside hours of my life to finish Super Mario 3 and Sonic due to the fact you did it in one sitting or didn't do it at all. Now, there's save points all over the place. Hell, some games let you save whenever you want. Saving, saving, saving, man, between that and the boss fights that actually give you thing with which to finish the boss with (i.e. grass with limitless stuff in Zelda) and the over powering kills everything in one hit spells, it's amazing games are still remotely interesting to any one who used to worry about saving New York City in TMNT 2 TAG. I just don't get it, games are simple these days, Devil May Cry is nothing compared to Blaster Master. And any game that's old skool and hard and requiring of manual dexterity that's produced today is trashed and rejected by the people who wouldn't be playing games with out the old skool games they despise. Man, I just don't get it.

And don't even get me stared on 2-d vertical and horizontal shoot 'em ups like R-Type and Gradius and Phalanx, hell, ever tried Phalanx on "funny" difficulty? Good luck getting out of stage one, hell, in that game, even the crap the enemies shoot fires at you. I swear, if I hear one gamer EVER say that a new age game is hard, I'll get them to play level 3 of BattleToads and see how they do, or how long they last before inevitable death.