Maybe. It’s been thirty years.
Yep; And it seems like the most likely explanation since the game more or less had two orthogonal axes of “progress” – you could kill lots of stuff and level up and get better gear and things, which is normally how you “advance” in a video game, but all that was really just an enabler at best or negative at worst, depending on how you achieved it, in terms of actually making progress towards completing the game.
Yeah, you needed some levels and some gear to go into the dungeons for some of the most questy bits of the game, but thievery and other negative actions would actually move you backwards in terms of being able to complete those quests.
It’s…not really the game’s fault if you decide you don’t want to engage with its premise though.
Just chime in, I created a thread some time ago to complain about “wolfenstein, the new colossus”. I started it, dropped it for quite some time and came back to it recently.
My thoughts didn’t really change, the story was mawkish dogshit with embarrasing levels of “acting” and accents. I skipped pretty much everything I could and concentrated on the actual shooting. The gameplay design was pretty good and they have spent far more time on creating more of that and less of the story. The ending was a huge anti-climax as well. Still, it is complete and as I have no compulsion to replay I’ve sold it, (Physical copies of switch games do keep their value so there is little risk in giving them a go). I have now downloaded Doom 3 for £7.99 and I’m having a whale of a time. The barest whiff of a plot is all that is needed.
Apparently the very first of the “new” Wolfenstein games (I think it was “New Order” but I can’t keep up with their names) was pretty good, with just enough plot and absurdity to keep things moving, but the subsequent ones have become more and more stupid and awkward.
Rumor has it that the new Doom (the 2016 one, with no number) was a real winner though.
yes, I certainly enjoyed that one more than the Wolfenstein ones and for a recent game it ran well and look pretty darn good on the Switch.
Jophiel - Those who can do; those who can’t watch a video and at least get to see what should have happened. Video games has its own category on YouTube, so obviously someone’s enjoying those videos. And it doesn’t matter if the game is very long or old. Baba Is You is the probably the longest and most intricate puzzle game ever, and you can watch hours and hours of gameplay on Youtube from players of varying abilities (I’d avoid Northernlion unless you want to get nearly as frustrated as him), and you can easily find stuff from as far back as the Apple II. Heck, the speedrunner sites (both official and tool-assited) produce new content weekly.
I’m not doubting that a successful career is possible, or at least triumphant moments like nailing the Treasure Fleet or finding your sister (I’ve done both a few times), but it’s always seemed like more a matter of luck than skill and a massive struggle in any case. This looks like just the thing for TASVideos, especially since they’d most likely go with the NES version (which has a maximum possible score of 100), but thus far no one’s cared enough to try it. Too bad.
hogarth - Once I figured it out the combat in Syndicate, it was no sweat. The important thing is, as they say in boxing, protect yourself at all times. If you properly defend against every punch, grab, and bullet, you’re flat-out invincible. I think I struggled early on because I was used to taking out one enemy before moving on to the next, which in Syndicate simply takes too long and inevitably resulted in me getting clocked from behind. Just keep your guard up, get your licks in on whoever you can when you can, and they’ll all go down; even better, you can pull of a spectacular multi-counter kill. As for money, I found that the smart path was to just stay on the train, let the cash roll in, grab the income enhancements, let some more cash roll in, and get back to work once I had all the upgrades I wanted. Looking back on it, I can’t point to anything in Syndicate that I found outrageously difficult (like Rogue’s Storm Fortress), completely unreasonable (Brotherhood’s time requirements), or badly broken (like Unity’s…pretty much everything). It really is a great game!
Subnautica…ya got it or ya don’t. I don’t. It was painful, but I’m not going to cry about it anymore. Thirty bucks down the toilet, whatever. I’ve taken worse hits.
BigT - Again, it’s not my intention to call anyone a fool or a liar. I’ve simply come to realize that, whatever enjoyment I might have gotten from this hobby, I’ve been extremely unhappy about a huge part of it for a long time now, and if I don’t come to terms with it there will be serious consequences.
That said, I like to consider myself open-minded, so if you have a video of any of the games I mentioned, I’m willing to consider modifying my stance. (Except Wishbringer. Screw that “Introductory Level” pile of crap forever. ;))
Airk - But that’s the thing; sure, Gauntlet made you shovel in tokens, but as long as you kept doing that, you could keep on trucking no matter how abysmal a player you were. Same with many other Atari and Midway games of the era: APB, Super/Championship Sprint, Space Lords, Blasteroids, Roadrunner, Rampage, Power Drive, Blasted. Same with nearly all the sidescrolling beat-‘em-ups and plane shooters. I mean, burning through six credits to finish off Garibaldi wasn’t fun, but it was doable. Compare that to, say, NES’ Double Dragon, which gave you three lives for the entire game, or a typical Sekiro boss. When I think unforgivable, make-or-break difficulty, I always think of consoles first and computer second, and the occasional Speed Rumbler, Rolling Thunder, or Mortal Kombat barely even registers.
I do accept that it’s been a bad relationship for a long time, which is why I’m trying to change it now.
I typed “Youtube Sid Meiers pirates” into Google and got a page of results. Dunno what to tell you.
Okay, did another search, got a few gameplay videos (again, I’m specifically talking about the original 1987 version). As a reminder, as long as you don’t lose a battle, you are guaranteed to finish no worse than farm hand. A couple by someone named Captain Thriftwood, who got absolutely clobbered at some point both times and ended up as a beggar (-30) the first time and a rogue (-2) the second, and one more career he more or less just gave up on after repeated catastrophes. Someone else gave it a good fight, didn’t achieve much, and ended up a farm hand (1). Then another rogue. Two or three incomplete careers. And finally, one player managed to actually win a few battles, decided to quit while he was ahead, and ended up a sailor (9). Again, this is the best result I could find that was arrived at honestly (I understand the NES version has some exploitable glitches). Compare this to what you’ll find for, Tecmo Bowl, or Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, or any Touhou game. And yes, you’ll find plenty of comments about how much they loved the game back in the day, how addicting it was. I’m not doubting that for a second. But it’s a lot of work and a lot of luck actually achieving anything meaningful.
And now I’ve forgotten what point I was trying to make with all this. Doncha hate when that happens? 
So what you’re really saying is that you’d like more “pay-to-win” DLC? The funny thing about most of those games that you mention is that you couldn’t actually win them. They’d just keep going until you gave up on giving them more quarters. (You could actually win the NES version of Rampage, though it was the runner up for biggest letdown ending right behind the NES version of 1942.)
There actually are a pretty fair number of games that will let you continue forever though, so I still don’t really understand what your problem is. It’s very weird.
I see you never managed to beat Ghosts and Goblins, going through the stupidly hard game twice without being able to turn your NES off (which meant leaving it plugged in overnight and hidden from your sister so she didn’t switch games before you got home from school the next day,) only to get a smooch on the cheek from the princess and a single line of Engrish “congraturations!”
Airk - Oh sweet Hecatia, anything but pay-to-win DLC. The day I become a damn whale, harpoon me. (While that’s not my biggest issue with the PS4, it certainly not making it any easier to find something good.) In my day, you only needed one device for the entire system. Occasionally it’d turn out to be no good and you’d have to get something better, but we’re talking three or four purchases, tops, not a new cash outlay for every game.
And I didn’t mind that Gauntlet, Peter Pack-Rat, APB, Super Sprint, Roadrunner etc. were endless. (Atari seemed to be caught between the “have a definite ending but make it insanely hard to achieve” camp and the “grab as many tokens as those suckers are willing to shell out” camp, and I’m not sure that either ever won out.) I’ve happily walked away from endless games more times than I can count. The level with 80 generators and 30 teleporters? Bah, someone with a lot more fortitude than me can tackle it. When, just to give one example, I returned Gradius 2 after barely making it to the fourth level after repeated attempts, it hurt. (Bonus points for 1. an incredibly awkward explanation to the shop owner what the “Konami Code” was and 2. an even more awkward explanation of why it didn’t help.) I’m not certain that NES’ Rampage is a good counterexample, either, as it was super easy (as I already explained in this thread), something you would not use very often to describe a Nintendo game.
Bottom line, at this point all I want is peace. Right now I’m getting it from Project Diva Future Tone right now (same Project Diva gameplay but with zero baggage and a sensible scoring system). I recommend it.
I can’t argue with the criticism of Wishbringer but I used to know and sort-of be friends with the guy who wrote it (Moriarty) so I’m always tempted to defend it just on his behalf. But I won’t. It just makes me feel bad, I know he worked hard on it.
At least you got a kiss. 1942 just gave you a black screen with the word “Congratulations” and took you back to the title screen. And man, that game was long, punishing, and, par for the course in the day, had no ability to save your progress.
Except that this is exactly what the arcade games you were praising a minute ago were doing. You get exactly as far in Gauntlet as you are willing to pay for. That’s infinitely more Pay-to-win than 99% of what’s on modern game systems. (Excluding phone/tablet games, anyway).
Nonsense. For all the talk about “Nintendo hard” a lot of games from that era were absurdly easy. If anything, the difficult thing to find on that system was games that offered a middle-of-the-road challenge.
I confess, I’m not entirely sure why you needed to tell us this. This whole thread kinda seems like an exercise in “So long, suckers, enjoy your crappy games, but don’t worry, I’m not going to remind you of that anymore.”
You never did take me up on the 100% free recommendation of a game I was willing stand behind, so I’m forced to conclude that you’re not only incredibly picky, but that you like complaining.
Airk - Dude…please…enough. After giving it plenty of thought, I decided that JRPGs aren’t for me. That’s the long and short of it. I’m sorry if you were really hyped up over winning a convert, but it just wasn’t meant to be in this case. I made absolutely no bones about being incredibly picky, so you should’ve been prepared to be disappointed.
As for that other stuff you’re trying to debate, no. I’m tired of gamer debates. If you want to make a thread about really easy NES games, I’d be glad to give it a look. Otherwise, believe what you will about me.
You spent your own money on a bunch of games that other people recommended in that thread, only to then rant and complain, but then wouldn’t literally take my money to try something different. I’m really not sure what else to conclude.
So, I found my old Ultima Collection game disk. The installer won’t work on Windows 10, but it doesn’t look like it’s strictly needed, and I was able to get Ultima 1 working with DosBox, at least. I’m going to try and make my way through the Ultimas.
If you aren’t using Star Man you’re doing it wrong. Completely OP, the difficulty was just about right when you used him.