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DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!


DrBloodmoney

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Thanks for including my suggestion - Void Bastards.

While I agree for the most part with your assessment I can't agree with your placement on the leaderboard.

As you say it has tons of personality, style, humour and fun none of which Darksiders or Assassins Creed 2 possess (maybe I'm being a little harsh on Darksiders as it does have some personality). For me fun trumps everything and Void Bastards is just a big ball of the stuff.

 

Also I can't belive I didn't make the connection between your name and Philip K. Dick maybe because it's not one of my favourites, if you had called yourself Palmer Eldritch, Timothy Archer, Perky Pat or some such thing I would have got it much faster. I really enjoy his work especially his later work - Valis, The Divine Invasion, A Scanner Darkly and We Can Build You is a real personal favourite.

If you are a sci-fi fan can I recommend The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Under the Skin by Michel Faber and Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

I look forward to your next update.

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1 hour ago, elpoko said:

Thanks for including my suggestion - Void Bastards.

While I agree for the most part with your assessment I can't agree with your placement on the leaderboard.

As you say it has tons of personality, style, humour and fun none of which Darksiders or Assassins Creed 2 possess (maybe I'm being a little harsh on Darksiders as it does have some personality). For me fun trumps everything and Void Bastards is just a big ball of the stuff.

 

Hey I'm with you on the fun, but for me Void Bastards is just a bit too thin to make it further up that list - it's a hell of a good time while it lasts, but it doesn't really last all that long, and by my 5th or 6th full run, I'd seen everything it had to offer really. 

 

Still, a great game, and I'd say 21st out of 80 isn't bad by a long shot -  given that if i had to draw a line through the list and say "everything above this line is highly recommended," that line would be around the 45th-50th place on the current list!

 

Remember - this list is only stuff I both liked enough to buy, and liked enough to 100%, so a high place on that list is a pretty serious endorsement from me ? 

 

 

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Loved your review of SOMA! I played it in ‘safe’ mode which diluted the experience for me gameplay-wise. The story was fantastic though! It’s nice to see it so high up on your rankings.
 

I’ve played 6 out of the 10 games you’ve just reviewed so it was an interesting read all round ?

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Just now, GraniteSnake said:

Loved your review of SOMA! I played it in ‘safe’ mode which diluted the experience for me gameplay-wise. The story was fantastic though! It’s nice to see it so high up on your rankings.
 

I’ve played 6 out of the 10 games you’ve just reviewed so it was an interesting read all round 1f60e.png

 

Glad you enjoyed - these mini reviews started out as a couple of sentences, but they seem to be getting longer and longer each round ?

 

Guess I'm just having too much fun reliving and remembering the old games again ?

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newtestsubjects.jpg

 

⚛️!!SCIENCE UPDATE!!⚛️

 

 

The next 10 (somewhat) randomly selected games to be submitted for scientific analysis shall be:

 

 

Beyond Eyes
Chasm
Cuboid
Demon's Souls
Dokuro

LEGO The Lord of the Rings (PS3)
Mahjong Royal Towers 
Prey
Type:Rider
Zombie Apocalypse

 

 

Subjects in RED marked for ❎PRIORITY ASSIGNEMENT

[Care of @Copanele , @Soraking1991 & @FilmFanatic  ]

 

 

 

Can 'Current Most Awesome' pack leader, Dark Souls, fend off yet another round of challengers?

 

Is current 'Least Awesome GameWatchmen: The End is Nigh going to have any competition for its prised bottom step?

 

Let's find out, Science buddies! ??

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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newgameupdate.jpg

 

 

269b.png!!SCIENCE UPDATE - SPECIAL REPORT!!269b.png

 

 

The first new game to be S-Ranked since beginning this grand endeavour has finally arrived, and so a special episode is in order!

 

Just a single review and ranking here, to keep the science train ticking over between big updates ?

 

 

 

L233a30.png

Twin Mirror

Summary:

Twin Mirror is the most recent game from DotNod (developers of Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2,) and it is an odd one.

It's markedly less ambitious than those games in terms of scope and themes, but clearly more ambitious in terms of technical prowess.

 

The protagonist, Sam Higgs, is a reporter. Or, at least, he was, until two years prior to the events of the game, when an an article he wrote exposed poor safety practices of the mining corporation that was the life-blood and primary industry of his Appalachian home town of Basswood, setting off a chain of events leading to the mine's closure, and the economic depression of the town.
The local economy collapsed, Sam became a social pariah, what we are told was an underlying mental health issue with Sam became more acute, his relationship with long-term girlfriend Anna broke down after an ill-advised proposal from Sam, and he left town in shame.


At the outset of the game, Sam is returning to the town for, ostensibly, a brief visit, to pay his respects to his old best-friend and co-worker at the local paper, Nick, who has died in a car crash.

At the insistence of Nick's daughter 'Bug', he begins investigating Nick's death, which she is convinced can't have been the accident it has been reported as, and throughout the game, uncovers a plot involving a drug ring, an opioid crisis enveloping the town beneath its parochial veneer, and corruption in the police and local business owners.

 

It's a decent, if predictable and short mystery. On the visual front it is really nicely done (if this is the technical quality we can expect from future, DotNod fare, the Life is Strange 3 is something to look forward to.) Lighting and facial-tech are vastly superior to Life is Strange 2, but this was clearly at the expense of game size.

(Also - and I wouldn't usually mention this, but in this case it was a serious issue - there seems to be no obvious reason on screen for why the game would routinely get my PS4 Pro's fan going like a goddamned jet engine. Seriously - I had to play the majority of the game with over-ear headphones, and even then, it was difficult to hear the dialogue over the racket. I regularly clean out my fan, so my PS4 is not the issue - it runs other games without this problem, so I can only assume it is a problem of bad optimisation of this specific game.)

 

 

The game tries to address a lot if different aspects of mental health (I played this game primarily as part of the 'Trophies for Mental Health (Event)' event currently ongoing, and have a much more detailed review of those specific aspects of the game in that thread HERE), but for those who just want the TL;DR summary - suffice to say, I think in covering those areas it largely failed. 

 

The protagonist's mental health aspects are pretty clunky handled, and in steering away for anything super specific, it pretty much fails to address anything.

 

On the gameplay side, the game is pretty competent - controls fairly well, has a reasonably - if never terribly impressive - breadth of branching paths.  

 

The town of Basswood is filled with fairly well drawn, if archetypal and slightly stereotypical characters, but for the most part, DotNod does a decent job of showing there is more to everyone than what you'd initially think. The writing is competent for the most part, but dialogue is often terribly on-the-nose, and DotNod's fairly well established habit of hitting the player over the head with a sledgehammer and telling them what characters are feeling, rather than showing it with their actions and facial expressions is still here - and markedly more off-putting now, given that the improved tech and visuals now clearly have the capability of showing more with facial expressions than they ever did. It is no longer as necessary for characters to be so clunkily and unnaturally expositional, and so it's disappointing that they still are.

 

Most of the game is in exploring and choice-based dialogue, and that is perfectly fun and fine, but every time the game deviates from that - whether it's in puzzle-solving, Arkham-Batman-style detective-vision reconstructing of a crimes, or the ludicrous and giggle-inducing 'nightmare' sections in which Sam has to do some really silly sections based on pseudo-psychological ideas to 'win-back' control of his own mind from his panicked state - it trips all over itself, and lands on it's face.

 

The game is fairly fun for a single, blind playthrough, but my second one - as a trophy mop-up and in which I did mostly different choices - didn't really result in a markedly different story - just some altered dialogue.

 

I enjoyed it for what it was, but couldn't shake the feeling this was something of a testing ground for the improved tech, which will go on to be used in future, better DotNod fare.

 

Ranking:

Beats similarly story-driven Supermassive failure Hidden Agenda, but doesn't beat their much more successful Until Dawn. While its admirable qualities lift it above other well-meaning but flawed fare such as Lords of the Fallen and Dragon's Crown, the fun factor on show in Plant's vs Zombies beats it out, and stops it from moving any higher.

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Prey! Prey! Prey! Fantastic game. I played it last year and it was hands down the best game I played in 2020. Possibly top of my super scientific list if I ever came to do one. Wasn't a fan of the DLC the first time around, the rogue like elements of it just turned me off but I came back to it a few months back and loved it so still top dog in my eyes

 

Beyond eyes sounds interesting. Fits the bill of that shorter more relaxed game I'm finding I'm needing more of these days so I'll stick that on the to buy list.

 

Lego Lord of the Rings is easily the best one for me. Subject matter is easily my favourite so that helps but if you think that one is a bit long you should stay away from the newer ones, Marvel Superheroes 2 for instance is a 40hr game.... ?‍♂️

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Can’t say I’m not surprised that Prey is #1 (I don’t agree of course as Dark Souls is my 4th favourite game of all time but then this isn’t my rankings :P). 
 

I was looking at my timestamps for Demon’s Souls a while back and it turns out that I got and played the game the day it came out in New Zealand. I had read that it was a pretty tough but very rewarding game and that’s what made me decide to get it. I wasn’t a big gamer back then and I only really played FPSs and racing games so I found it very difficult but it was so good that I couldn’t stop playing it. If there’s one thing I agree with you on more than anything it’s that the game is very bland. Not that it really matters as the atmosphere of the game is what really draws you in. Playing the PS5 remake makes the original look even more basic but then I’ve stacked all 3 PS3 trophy lists so it can’t be that bad. The other thing I love about it is the sounds. Coming back to plat the game once I was a trophy hunter, the one thing that bought all my memories of the game back was the sound the game makes when you die. It’s probably the most iconic game sound for me even though it’s not one you actually want to hear. The other sound I’ve always liked is that a lot of the NPCs voices (not so much the named ones) sound so hollow which is an appropriate choice of word (and not an accidental one either) given that when you die you become a hollow.

 

And yes, the remake is truly stunning. The way they’ve updated the worlds and enemies while still retaining everything that you recognise and love about the game is nothing short of amazing. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t choose a certain ring as my starting gift otherwise I would have platinumed the game the weekend I got it (I made the weekend of the week the PS5 released a long weekend) though possibly having been one of the first dozen people to plat the game would have been nice given how much I love the game and series.

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7 minutes ago, Cleggworth said:

Prey! Prey! Prey! Fantastic game. I played it last year and it was hands down the best game I played in 2020. Possibly top of my super scientific list if I ever came to do one. Wasn't a fan of the DLC the first time around, the rogue like elements of it just turned me off but I came back to it a few months back and loved it so still top dog in my eyes

 

All that text, and I didn't even get around to mentioning Mooncrash ? but yeah, I was big fan of that too - never would have thought Prey could lend itself to rogue-like, but it worked surprisingly well!

 

Quote

Beyond eyes sounds interesting. Fits the bill of that shorter more relaxed game I'm finding I'm needing more of these days so I'll stick that on the to buy list.

 

Yeah, it's well worth a play - short and sweet ?

 

Quote

Lego Lord of the Rings is easily the best one for me. Subject matter is easily my favourite so that helps but if you think that one is a bit long you should stay away from the newer ones, Marvel Superheroes 2 for instance is a 40hr game.... ?‍♂️

 

I did actually play the first Marvel one, but just the vita version, and they're much shorter - will be on the list eventually, but spolier - will never rival LOTR!

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, FilmFanatic said:

And yes, the remake is truly stunning. The way they’ve updated the worlds and enemies while still retaining everything that you recognise and love about the game is nothing short of amazing. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t choose a certain ring as my starting gift otherwise I would have platinumed the game the weekend I got it (I made the weekend of the week the PS5 released a long weekend) though possibly having been one of the first dozen people to plat the game would have been nice given how much I love the game and series.

 

Yup, along with probably Returnal and the new R&C, Demon's Souls remake is one of the only guaranteed day one purchases for me when I eventually get a PS5!

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Loved the Prey review/summary. Prey was fantastic when I played it through a few years back, need to pick it up on PS sometime soon and go through it again, with the DLC as I didn't play it.

 

Think Dishonoured 2 (another game I need to play again) edges it for me as Arkane's best game though, one of my favorite games of the last decade. Will be interested where it ends up in the rankings!

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1 hour ago, GloriousFury9414 said:

Think Dishonoured 2 (another game I need to play again) edges it for me as Arkane's best game though, one of my favorite games of the last decade. Will be interested where it ends up in the rankings!


Sounds to me like we will just have to find out sooner rather than later then ?

 

I will add it to the Priority Assessment list, with your name on it! ☺️

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19 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Leab3bc.png

Dokuro

 

Summary: 

Dokuro is one of those situations where I suspect I am going to take some flack from people - or at least, be going a bit against the grain - as I believe that the game is fairly well regarded, but I really did not get on with this one at all.

 

 

How dare science put down my beloved Dokuro! I shall henceforth become a science denier and cast my eyes away from further scientifically accurate results! ?

 

Nah, just kidding. It think it's a fair review. I honestly don't remember having many issues with the controls themselves, but I do remember I mostly failed the puzzles because of the time-trial-esque nature of the game where you have to solve everything before the princess decides to die, not because the puzzles themselves were that difficult.

 

In terms of frustrating controls, a similar game that I do remember having nightmares with was htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary , especially for some of the trophies.

 

In any case, I have a limited memory, so I may just be misremembering Dokuro, or maybe I had such a bad time that the PTSD wiped the painful memories away. Or maybe I just loved it in an unscientific way... 

 

Thanks for the review! ?

 

Funnily enough, I played Dokuro after playing Lemmings on PS3 so I guess I had something about escorting suicidal characters in the summer of 2015 ?

 

 

19 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

L70bfcc.png

Prey

 

Summary: 

There are two things anyone familiar with my posts on these forums likely knows about me:
1. I write too much.
2. I love Prey.

 

 

1. I wouldn't say you write too much, at least you write well and it's very entertaining to read. Plus, scientific results require detailed explanations of the process and the conclusions so I expect nothing less. ?

 

2. I guess I've been sleeping on Prey, huh... I was very tempted to give it a try when they added it to PS Now, might have been playing whatever else at the time and then completely forgot about it... Thanks for the reminder! It's awesome to hear read such high praise (or dare I say Prey-se?) ?

 

 

To keep the ball rolling, I'd like to suggest Metro 2033 Redux to be put to the test!

 

May the science continue!

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16 minutes ago, Soraking1991 said:

 

How dare science put down my beloved Dokuro! I shall henceforth become a science denier and cast my eyes away from further scientifically accurate results! 1f620.png

 

Nah, just kidding. It think it's a fair review. I honestly don't remember having many issues with the controls themselves, but I do remember I mostly failed the puzzles because of the time-trial-esque nature of the game where you have to solve everything before the princess decides to die, not because the puzzles themselves were that difficult.

 

In terms of frustrating controls, a similar game that I do remember having nightmares with was htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary , especially for some of the trophies.

 

In any case, I have a limited memory, so I may just be misremembering Dokuro, or maybe I had such a bad time that the PTSD wiped the painful memories away. Or maybe I just loved it in an unscientific way... 

 

Thanks for the review! 1f44f.png

 

Funnily enough, I played Dokuro after playing Lemmings on PS3 so I guess I had something about escorting suicidal characters in the summer of 2015 1f602.png

 

 

Ho boy - trust me - htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary is on my list - I got that S-Rank, so it's eligible, and let me tell you - it will be taking a good stab at clinching one of the two "crowns"... and it won't be the top one... ?

 

You know - I really did want to like Dokuro - I took no pleasure in denigrating it, because it has so much that seems like my kind of thing on paper, but I can't deny that actually playing it I just couldn't find the fun.

 

It's maybe worth noting - there's something that very likely did affect my opinion of it, which I did consider mentioning in my review, but I ended up cutting it out, since I haven't used this factor in any other reviews:  the game I played right before it.

 

I know that shouldn't really be a factor - I did load up and play a few levels of Dokuro for the review, and my opinion didn't change on the controls - but I suspect my recoiling at the stilted controls was made that much more pointed when I played it, because the game I played right before was Guacamele - one of the most smooth, fast, satisfying and awesome controlling platformers I've ever played, and possibly the best controlling game on the Vita.

By comparison, Dokuro felt like shoving a character through molasses - and it probably felt even worse than it would have anyways.

 

 

 

Quote

 

1. I wouldn't say you write too much, at least you write well and it's very entertaining to read. Plus, scientific results require detailed explanations of the process and the conclusions so I expect nothing less. 1f609.png

 

Thank you very much ☺️

 

This whole task is fun to do, but made so much more fun knowing someone is actually reading these and following along ?

 

 

Quote

2. I guess I've been sleeping on Prey, huh... I was very tempted to give it a try when they added it to PS Now, might have been playing whatever else at the time and then completely forgot about it... Thanks for the reminder! It's awesome to hear read such high praise (or dare I say Prey-se?) 1f61d.png

 

 

Absolutely - Prey is a game I'm always comfortable recommending to anyone, regardless of their tastes, because Prey lets you play in whatever way you want!

Like shooters? Try Prey.

Like Stealth? Try Prey.

Like Sci Fi? Try Prey.

Like Immersive Sims? Try Prey.

Like Choice? Try Prey.

Like Story and Branching Paths? Try Prey.

 

and with the (excellent) DLC, I can even add...

 

Like Rogue-Likes? Try Prey!

 

It just offers so much - it's unfathomable to me that anyone could not find something to love in that game.

 

 

Quote

To keep the ball rolling, I'd like to suggest Metro 2033 Redux to be put to the test!

 

May the science continue!

 

Absolutely - I shall flag for priority, courtesy of your good self!

 

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Just now, Miles-MHunter said:

you misspelled Dishonored

 

How very dare you sir!

 

I shall spell Dishonoured this way - the correct, Queen's English way - until the day I die, no matter what the game title suggests! ?

 

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9 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I shall spell Dishonoured this way - the correct, Queen's English way - until the day I die, no matter what the game title suggests! 1f61c.png

 

Well said old chap!

 

I feel like I should change it in my own list. Feels wrong seeing it spelt like that.

 

Edited by rjkclarke
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On 25/04/2021 at 2:42 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

 

Doc I have a request.

 

Would you consider a spoiler box under each game in your list containing your review? Your review often reference neighbouring games in the list and it will be difficult towards the end when people like me want to read about the top 50 but will have to search through the thread to find the review.

 

?

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3 minutes ago, GonzoWARgasm said:

 

Doc I have a request.

 

Would you consider a spoiler box under each game in your list containing your review? Your review often reference neighbouring games in the list and it will be difficult towards the end when people like me want to read about the top 50 but will have to search through the thread to find the review.

 

1f913.png


I know what you mean - I’m a little worried about using the spoiler boxes specifically, as they are known to be a bit buggy in the forum software, and I really want to avoid anything that might bug out the main topic post and make me unable to update it with each list update, but I will try and think of a way to make it easier to jump to the reviews :hmm:

 

...In my master excel list I have on my home machine I do keep track of which number contains each review (Update 1, 2, 3 etc.), so maybe the simplest way will be to just put an update number next to each game on the list, and have a list of links to the specific update posts at the bottom of the main list?

 

That way, if you looked at the list, saw, say Chasm with an (8) next to it, you could scroll to the bottom, click a link to ‘Update 8’ and that would take you to that post...

 

I’ll need to see what works, but that seems like maybe the way to do it? :dunno:

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Demon's Souls is an interesting one. It came out at a time when AAA games in general still challenged the player, even if they only cared about completing the story. It takes a more keen mind to understand Demon's Souls story, it's not as painfully obvious as your average Assassin's Creed or Marvel's Spider-Man game. One of the most important games of the PS3 era, and one to spark the entire Soulsborne genre. Demon's Souls is undoubtedly a masterpiece that nobody should miss. If I had a PS5 I'd be playing the remake/remaster right now.

 

Dokuro had the aesthetic going for it. Gameplay, not so much. The controls weren't as solid as I thought they would be, so I definitely agree with you on that. However I will say I enjoyed my time with Dokuro. Not a must play game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss or Tearaway, but a worthy game for those who enjoy the Vita handheld.

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3 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Demon's Souls is an interesting one. It came out at a time when AAA games in general still challenged the player, even if they only cared about completing the story. It takes a more keen mind to understand Demon's Souls story, it's not as painfully obvious as your average Assassin's Creed or Marvel's Spider-Man game. One of the most important games of the PS3 era, and one to spark the entire Soulsborne genre. Demon's Souls is undoubtedly a masterpiece that nobody should miss. If I had a PS5 I'd be playing the remake/remaster right now.

 

Certainly with you on Demon's Souls being an unusual masterpiece - though I can't say I agree that AAA games of the era were particularly more difficult than they are now - the biggest AAA games of the 2009 were probably Assassin's Creed II, Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands inFamous and Uncharted 2. Stacked up against 2020 AAA's such The Last of Us Part II, The FFVII Remake, DOOM Eternal, Ghosts of Tsushima and AC Valhalla, I don't really see a marked difference in difficulty in one direction or the other - and if anything, it would be a slight increase in difficulty.

 

Couple that with the indie-explosion of the past decade and the beginnings of the return of the AA, A and B game, (Demon's Souls, of course, was certainly not a AAA game - Souls games wouldn't hit true AAA until the release of Bloodborne, I'd argue) and the massive ascension of the Rogue-like genre (which I think arguably owes some of its meteoric success to the rise of 'Souls-Like' as a sister genre), I'd argue that pond-for-pound, there are more "challenge as selling point" games now than there were a decade ago.

 

 

Quote

Dokuro had the aesthetic going for it. Gameplay, not so much. The controls weren't as solid as I thought they would be, so I definitely agree with you on that. However I will say I enjoyed my time with Dokuro. Not a must play game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss or Tearaway, but a worthy game for those who enjoy the Vita handheld.

 

Yeah, like I said - I realised doing that review, and after glancing at the meta-critic reviews (which I do when I'm ranking these games, just to see how close - or in this case, far away! - from the general consensus my opinion falls) I was a little surprised to see how generally well regarded Dokuro is. I wanted to like it, but the controls were just too stiff. As I said to Sorking1991 - it didn't help that I played it right after playing Guacamelee - a game so fast and smooth and well-controlling, that Dokuro really felt terrible in comparison, and that only highlighted how ropey the controls were all the more.

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39 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Certainly with you on Demon's Souls being an unusual masterpiece - though I can't say I agree that AAA games of the era were particularly more difficult than they are now - the biggest AAA games of the 2009 were probably Assassin's Creed II, Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands inFamous and Uncharted 2. Stacked up against 2020 AAA's such The Last of Us Part II, The FFVII Remake, DOOM Eternal, Ghosts of Tsushima and AC Valhalla, I don't really see a marked difference in difficulty in one direction or the other - and if anything, it would be a slight increase in difficulty.

 

I have to disagree here.

 

Look at games like Call of Duty: World at War and inFamous. inFamous has in many respects, not aged well. We all know the graphics aren't that good anymore but comparing graphics to modern, post 2015 - 2017 era games is completely futile. There's no real argument to be won there because the fact is older games like inFamous had worse graphics because the technology just wasn't there to produce too much better. Even Uncharted 2: Among Thieves looks rather dated when compared to 2020 AAA games.

 

Gameplay wise, inFamous has several gameplay mechanics that haven't aged all too well. Just controlling Cole in general can be at times frustrating. Contrast that with Sucker Punch's newer games, and I think we can both agree they play far better from a gameplay standpoint.

 

Now if we were to play something like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on the hardest difficulty setting or were to earn all the trophies, some of these AAA games are still very challenging and difficult. But if we're going to compare AAA games of this generation to those of the PS3 generation in terms of just playing casually and beating the story, I'm going to say the games of the PS3 generation were far more difficult. That's because there have been substantial improvements to game mechanics, how gameplay is being handled, how fluid the game actually runs, and just being a bit more solid as a game.

 

Look at inFamous 1, then look at Ghost of Tsushima. How the games play and how they perform is literally night and day.

 

39 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Couple that with the indie-explosion of the past decade and the beginnings of the return of the AA, A and B game, (Demon's Souls, of course, was certainly not a AAA game - Souls games wouldn't hit true AAA until the release of Bloodborne, I'd argue) and the massive ascension of the Rogue-like genre (which I think arguably owes some of its meteoric success to the rise of 'Souls-Like' as a sister genre), I'd argue that pond-for-pound, there are more "challenge as selling point" games now than there were a decade ago.

 

I've done a few of these. Super Meat Boy. Downwell. Velocity 2X. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Celeste. Furi. OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood. Resogun. All fun, challenging and immensely satisfying.

 

The stark difference between modern indie games that are challenging and the old challenging games from decades past is the modern indie games are fair. The old challenging games, the kinds of games Angry Video Game Nerd covered, were not.

 

I don't think you could consider Battletoads for the NES, generally considered one of the hardest 'good' NES games, to be any fair at all.

Edited by AJ_Radio
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