It didn't use to be like this. Dune 2, Warcraft 1-2, Starcraft? You could slow the game down to snail's pace whenever you wanted, and still you felt it could occasionally be quite challenging.

Then the RTS game I'm trying to play at the moment, Rise of Nations... even in the highest difficulty, it lets you slow the pace down to crawl, and still it feels quite challenging and you have revise your strategy to attack enemy cities etc. It would be perfect... if only they didn't have those silly timers in apparently all missions. I was finally starting to do well against those rebellious Greeks, but then I simply ran out of time (90 minute time limit to capture all the cities).

So what choices do I have now? Not much, besides starting the whole mission from the start, and hoping to be much faster this time, just to beat the clock. And that is the first mission in the whole game, LOL!

Maybe I should also look more into TBS games, albeit they can also have a max amount of moves I presume. I beat Gorky 17 already, it was quite straighforward TBS game.

Give Thief 1 & 2 a spin, they do exactly that when selecting difficulty for a mission.

Hence the "I miss" part.

San Andreas was the everything and the kitchen sink one, with all kinds of vehicles.

GTA III had one clipped wing cessna type plane that was nearly impossible to fly, and obviously wasn't meant to be flew too much either. The graphics started bugging up right away, you'd probably fall trough some roof or through the whole city. I managed a few rounds around the city a few times, but usually it was 200 meters and death.

NOW I REMEMBER!!! How could I forget that thing!?!? For some reason I had a fixation with getting EVERY car on the steal list and when that plane came up it took me an hour to get the piece of shit back to the chop shop. Forget flying, the damn thing wouldn't even drive strait! It was like trying to hijack a grocery cart with the one bad wheel.

LOL!...yeah, see that's that kinda crap that makes me head for the booze ;-). I have Gorky 17, but haven't fired it up yet, will have to try to work it into my playlist a little sooner off the backlog me thinks. LON always looked interesting to me, and I don't have it yet...so maybe I'll steer clear of it for the time being, heh heh. As far as a max number of turns in TBS games, it really seems to depend on the game, and then, sometimes on individual missions. In XCOM:EU for example, with the exception of bomb diffusal missions, you can generally proceed as carefully and cautiously as you feel comfortable, which is nice. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the turn-based Fantasy General, but sonavabitch, the time/turn limits in the game, coupled with quite often numerous enemy units cropping up to smash your ass made it quite hard and frustrating at times...even on easy. For some reason, perhaps I'm a masochist, I couldn't stop playing, and refused to give in, lol. One of the few games, turn based in particular, that was very tough, and often seemed unfair with the sheer number of units the enemy would just pull outta their ass and throw at you, that I played through to the end. At least they wern't moving too fast! ;-)

You know, if they let me hijack a grocery cart with one bad wheel, I'd have to buy the game. That mission would be epic.

And Mr. Gog, please fix these posts, I shouldn't have a post presented that I can't submit without guessing where the quote tag you left out is supposed to go.

I play games to enjoy and have fun. If i keep having to reload because of difficulty, then it leads to fustration and anger which i dont want when im gaming to relax. If a game is too difficult or stupid difficult, then i will cheat to win.

If you have to ask it this way you have only played games that have done it wrong.


See Crimson Alliance for an example of a game that has done it correctly. From what I understand Kirby's Epic Yarn is another example.

Am I the only one who can't win at Cossacks without cheating? How about Dark Reign? This thread got me thinking about the GOG catalogue and those two titles jumped out at me immediatly in terms of impossibility.

I do not play space and flight combat games, so I wouldn't know. But anyway to me it is more about choice. Just give that choice to the gamers and let them decide whether they want to save or not. Not every gamer has 24/7 time to play, and sometimes one also needs to share the computer with the family (which more often than not means one needs to quit the game so that the computer can be used for other purposes). IMHO, not providing save system is either just downright laziness or incompetence on developers' part.

I like a challenging game, isnt that the point of them? What I hate is games who put in cheapshots and riddle the game with bugs and claim thats it's advanced difficulty.

Take Dark Souls for example, compared to the previous game it's a steaming pile. The hit detection is quite unfair, your opponent can swing and clearly miss but still take of a large portion of your health. This kind of crap did not happen in demon's souls (which I completed) and it's a reason I just gave up on Dark Souls.

I can however complete Splinter Cell games on the highest difficulty because the challenge is great fun. They don't cheat you out of the situation.

As stated, that is what I do...

I think the line between frustration and challenge also depends a lot on how much the game manages to be fun otherwise. For example if a difficult section goes with a screwed checkpoint system, where you have to run through a long uninteresting stretch of game before coming to that difficult point - well, then the challenge is coupled to boredom and therefore results in frustration.

And something like screwed controls are not interesting at all and thus lead to frustration right away.

I guess I am different, because I consider gaming an activity, ie. it activates me, not so much relax. Watching TV or listening music is more what I have in mind when I want to relax, even though they can also stimulate me at the same time.

If the game offers no challenge or activity, I usually consider it boring. It might still be interesting due to story or whatnot, but then I might be asking myself why am I playing it in the first place, instead of watching e.g. a Youtube walkthrough of the same?

Online multiplayer FPS games are probably the prime example of this, due to their competitive nature. With single-player games I may be more in the smell the roses-mode, but still I feel it has to offer some kind of resistance to me.