How Casual Gaming Has Hurt the Industry

I have played video games for years, over the years I have found a trend. Not just a trend in the gaming industry but a trend in how I play video games. I have played all of the consoles from the Commodore and Atari, to the newest consoles, but my greatest time of expanding my video game skills was during the days of the Playstation. This is where I learned the basics that carried my through the Playstation 2 and beyond.

Now after years of playing on the Playstation 2 and slowly but surely abandoning the original Playstation games, which I kept because they were classics, I decided to pull out the old Playstation games and give them a go. Now that was something that really opened my eyes to how far technology has really come but also to how far games have actually changed to meet the people's whining demands when a game is "too hard". I decided on three games, which are all classics and were the bread and butter of my gaming training.

The first game to get dusted off was Silent Hill, which to this day still send more shivers through me more than any game or movie will ever do. This game is gritty, but then again it is meant to be, the graphics while paling in comparison to the Playstation 2 still are good enough to be playable. In fact compared to many original Playstation games, Silent Hill has some of the best graphics capable. There still is nothing else compared to the experience of playing Silent Hill in a totally dark room at night alone.

After about 2 minutes of walking into walls I was back into full Pipe beating mode. Which also leads me to state the simple fact of how I play. If I can get around using a bullet when they are limited in the game I will, Silent Hill taught me this, the pipe is truly mightier than the sword, or gun in this case. Unlike many other games Silent Hill plays through with a standard character, no training, no military experience, no police. Silent Hill will remain on my shelf until the disk falls apart, I now treat Silent Hill with due respect. But as I was about to find out in Silent Hill you have it pretty easy compared to others when difficulty is taken into account.

The next game to get warmed up in the disk tray was Resident Evil 2. Never in any of my gaming experience have I had to work so hard. You start with 3 enemies about 5 seconds from your face literally. This game is hard, not Smash TV hard but hard, it likes to pit you against slow moving zombies that seem to take about half a gun full of bullets to drop permanently.

This game also has limited supplies of ammunition so there is two main choices run or gun, the third option is to fight it our with a knife but it seems the gamers with suicidal tendencies attempt this move. The idea in Resident Evil is also to scare you but seems to lack in the sheer horror section and opts for the occasional "pop out and say boo" moments. Once again a great game in its own way, with 2 discs and two main characters with 2 different games each and two mini games after the 4 main games, it is a great value. No other game offers for most players 5 games, and for those with the nerve, time, and skill the tofu special game.

The final game to come out of storage is possibly the best game to ever touch the Playstation console. Not only is it a part of a series of games under the same title, but the series has graced multiple systems and all have their spots in the classics section of any gaming history. The creator when moving the game to the Playstation was looking for a way to name it a bit different than the others in the series. Since this was to be the first one on a 3D system and not a side or top scroll format.

He tacked "Solid" to the end of the games series name to create the biggest break through in gaming. Metal Gear Solid took the market by storm and held it hostage. The subtitle for this title was Tactical Espionage, maybe not too fitting for what the series has turning into. The storyline is quite possibly the most complex storyline to every hit a gaming system. Final Fantasy stories fall very short of this series long plot twister.

After all of these games I notice th trend that after years of playing the newer games I had actually gotten worse at video games. The old classics are just as hard or harder now because I am use to having everything handed to me. As video games have come out of the basements and into th mainstream living rooms the games have gotten softer, easier, more relaxed. The gamin industry has not only allowed for these "player friendly" games to hit markets but actually promote them.

I also have had some conversations with some of my "gamer friends" and we feel that the industry had gotten to soft and that it has become boring, repetitive, and instead caters to the casual gamers who whine about difficult games. Not only was my dead character handed back to me in many instances in these classic games revisited, but it was thrown in my face, another testament to the older classic games.

They not only killed your character but threw its corpse in your face to say your not good enough. Now the new games flip to a screen to load,continue, restart or whatever. Gone are the days where when you die you see your characters body being fed upon by multiple zombies ribbing through your flesh and blood. Hopefully the gaming industry will see the light, but I do not think this will happen because money is on the line.