Implementing Difficulty in Video Games
Difficulty in video games is with lack of a better phrase difficult to implement. There are games which pull off such a task with ease making the difficulty in game play gradual and long term over the course of the game. There are other games which implement it horribly causing the gameplay to spike suddenly and thus losing the interest and entertainment in the game play.
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Granted all games should have multiple modes of difficulty and if one particular game is intentionally hard (eg: Ninja Gaiden, Super Meat Boy) then it should be so as a result of the game mechanics itself and not some cheap smoke and mirrors tactic. I’ll explain and extrapolate on this further: All games should have the design intention of being played at Normal difficulty as the standard. That is the experience the developers intended for you to have straight out of the box and anything else is a personal choice to deviate from.
If you want to quickly experience a game and its story then switch it to easy. If you really want a challenge switch it to hard. Whatever difficulty is implemented it should go along with the gameplay and still be entertaining. Granted hard difficulty is supposed to be hard and almost frustrating but it should never be so bad that you’ll want to crack the disc into many pieces.
If a game is hard and you fail a particular section or can’t get past a level, it should be because you haven’t mastered the abilities or developed the skills enough and its your own fault. The game difficulty should never punish you with something out of your control. Super Meat Boy is a good example which presents the player with rather easy levels right away and then completely daunting levels in the end of the game. One misstep, one wrong jump or one mistake and the player dies only to restart. The player is the one making the mistakes and learning where and how to tackle the level through trial and error.
A bad example of game difficulty would be any modern day First Person Shooters. Turn up the difficulty to the highest setting and the player is given a frustrating, mind numbing experience. It isn’t difficulty because the AI is smarter and better than the player but rather they cheat.
Most if not all First Person Shooters give the AI super human abilities to make the game more difficult instead of making it better. The AI knows where the player is all the time so conventional tactics like taking cover or using a smoke screen are pointless and ineffective. The AI is stronger and can take multiple hits in the head while the player can only take one. Also the AI is usually given perfect aim from across the map, while running away from you in a full spring. This is how not to make a game difficult because it is not fun.
So compare this to Super Meat Boy and one can see the player is not learning from mistakes or errors in how to tackle a strategic situation but rather is forced to deal with annoying game play constraints outside of their own power and ability. Developers should make a game more difficult by making the game play more challenging through conventional means. Either smarter AI that flank and out maneuver the player, or extra obstacles in the environment. It should rely on the player’s ability to confront, assess and respond to a situation on their own instead of means that they cannot control.
Quick side note: After my recent Battlefield 3 post about its single player campaign I’ve been told by several sources that I must play Modern Warfare 3‘s campaign. I’m not completely against the suggestion but I did promise that I would never play Call of Duty again. However from a review perspective I could take a look at it and see how well it does stacked up against my Battlefield 3 review. I haven’t decided yet on the particular issue so perhaps it may appear on this blog in the near future.
