And people claim gamers today aren't spoiled.
[Funny] Funny Pictures! (Keep em clean, folks!)
- Thread starter Dave
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REALLY need to download that emulator and games collection again...
Maybe then I'd get the old-school nintendo/super nintendo references...
Maybe then I'd get the old-school nintendo/super nintendo references...
This is pathetic and hilarious.
figmentPez
Staff member
What gets me is all the people trying to defend them by saying that back in the day you had to read Nintendo Power or call the help line to figure out all the secrets. While that was true for some of the obscure hidden stuff in Super Metroid, or really obtuse games like Castlevania II, it doesn't apply to people who get stuck in the first part of Super Metroid. How to open red doors was in the manual, and as was how to lay bombs. This isn't ridiculously difficult stuff that people are getting stuck on.
I can't remember. But didn't you shoot the doors?
you guys are all old enough to remember the times before all the hand holding, back when you got a game and it was up to you and any friends to make it there alone. Many of these kids were born in the late 90's and early 00's when the handholding was effectively over. There is FAQS/walkthroughs, message boards, and how-to videos on the internet now, chances are if you get stuck someone has the answer how to get you unstuck. This is something the next generation has lost. When we get stuck we try to figure it out, we probe around, we try things before we go to the help sites.
There's a distinct difference between games which were, at the time, puzzles or riddles to be solved, and many games now which intend to be experiences, essentially user driven movies.
If a game mechanic or glitch takes the user out of the story, it needs to be massaged hanged, or removed so the story shines through the game.
That's not to say. Don't have puzzle games any more, but I think gamers expect more from their games than those in the 80s did. A video game was itself novel enough that it didn't have to work hard to capture attention.
With so many choices for entertainment today, games have to work really hard to capture interest, and if they approach any unusual level of difficulty or frustration, they die on the vine.
If a game mechanic or glitch takes the user out of the story, it needs to be massaged hanged, or removed so the story shines through the game.
That's not to say. Don't have puzzle games any more, but I think gamers expect more from their games than those in the 80s did. A video game was itself novel enough that it didn't have to work hard to capture attention.
With so many choices for entertainment today, games have to work really hard to capture interest, and if they approach any unusual level of difficulty or frustration, they die on the vine.
to be fair Steinman, super metroid is a 90's game. I miss the feeling of being dropped and the planet and being left to figure out the rest myself. The only help you get even in the modern prime series is a dot on the map to head to and how to use your equipment when acquired. I really miss games like metroid, now games are so easy its boring. My idea of fun is to be challenged, its why I played through bioshock infinite on hard then 1999 mode. I don't want to pay 60 dollars for a game and finish it in a few nights. I want to explore and probe, I don't want to be told at every turn that I can go here and do this to continue. My era of gamer is dead I guess, I was born in the mid 80's so I grew up on nintendo hard and I love it. I will be honest I have loved nintendo's theory on this. Their games can be beaten easily, but to 100% the challenge begins to ramp up rapidly.
With whatever beam was the same color, I think. It's been a while.
You know what would be really cool? How about replacing thumbs-up with guns?
--Patrick
So you're saying that they're getting stuck on things that gamers back in the day had the solutions for explicitly told to them? Since I doubt they get a manual with the VC downloads, that makes it more understandable, doesn't it?
you do get a manual...actually
when you go to the home screen on the gamepad its one of the options.
I stand corrected. Still, does it represent newer gamers needing more handholding if the information was provided back in the day? Is it just that new gamers are more likely to go post on the internet about their issues rather than read the manual? Either way they're getting help, just changes who they get it from.
Yes it does.
Ok, how do you explain the contradiction between newer gamers needing information is handholding when the "independent" older gamers were given that information straight away?
figmentPez
Staff member
Red doors have to be shot with 5 missles (or 1 super missle) to open.
Green doors require a super missle, orange doors require a power bomb, and metal doors are unlocked by fulfilling certain conditions (usually killing all enemies).
It's where people go for information. Older people research (be it manual, or some other method), whereas newer ones "shout into the void" and expect an answer from somebody, rather than taking that extra 30 seconds to go to google. They don't even do that anymore, which is the sad part. They expect to be told, as opposed to expecting to have to do anything themselves, even reading or searching. So this isn't about the willingness to flail around, trial and error, it's the willingness to even go looking.
figmentPez
Staff member
In the case of the red door, yes, the stupid thing about the situation is that they didn't RTFM. They could have noticed that missles are red, and the door is red, and guessed that color matching might be an idea to try, but in a game that doesn't tell you how to jump, fire, crouch, aim, switch weapons, etc. outside of the manual, it's not unreasonable to expect players to do a little bit of reading.
However, the majority of the screenshots are of an area where you need to use bombs to continue. The players either haven't gotten bombs yet, or they immediately forgot how to use them (and the game does have a little pop-up info on how to use bombs when you aquire them). The bombs aren't hard to find, or hard to get. Nothing in the game or manual tells the player that certain blocks can only be destroyed by bombs, this is the in-game training for that fact. It's non-explicit but it all but forces the player to bomb those blocks (when previous blocks could be destroyed with the beam.) Super Metroid is actually pretty good about teaching new concepts to the player in that way. There are at least two points in the game where advanced techniques (speed boost jumps and wall jumping) are introduced by alien creatures performing the moves, and it's left up to the player to figure out how to mimic them.
Haven't had many older family members have issues with technology, have you? Lucky.
Seriously, not a bad point, though I'd disagree that it's really a difference between people of different age groups. When people didn't do so in the past, I think it wasn't because they wouldn't have prefered doing so, but simply didn't have the option. Now with our always connected world, people, young or old, will often default to that option.
On a personal note, I played ALOT of NES/GENESIS/SNES games out of Rental stores that never came with a manual. I had no problems figuring out how to beat the majority of them through trial and error or basic skills I had gained playing games before that were difficult. If every game I played prior to Super Metroid had literally spoon-fed me everything in game, I would have been exactly like the people in the pictures.
Simply put, if you never learn problem solving or game basics on your own, you'll always expect it spelled out for you. The day it's not, you'll post screenshots of it online and be ridiculed.
Simply put, if you never learn problem solving or game basics on your own, you'll always expect it spelled out for you. The day it's not, you'll post screenshots of it online and be ridiculed.
GasBandit
Staff member
While I agree on most points, I do have to point out there are some games out there with some pretty arbitrarily random control schemes that NEED the in-game handholding. For instance to heal in the first Hulk PC game (2008), you must press 1, then hold the right AND middle mouse buttons, and then push "f" on the keyboard.
Granted, tapping down twice to go into a ball isn't exactly THAT complicated by comparison.
Granted, tapping down twice to go into a ball isn't exactly THAT complicated by comparison.
I never read the manuals to metroid or super metroid, and I managed to beat both of them. When I was 10.
Really, even though how to open red doors is in the manual, you don't need the manual. You open -every- door by shooting it, it's one of the few ways you interact with things. So when you first come to a red door, your first instinct is to shoot it. But your normal bullets bounce off of it harmlessly. What's the next logical step? SHOOT IT WITH OTHER STUFF. Everything except for missiles bounces off of it, and when you hit it with a missile, it reacts. That should be your clue to keep shooting it with missiles.
Everything you need to figure it out is in the game.
Really, even though how to open red doors is in the manual, you don't need the manual. You open -every- door by shooting it, it's one of the few ways you interact with things. So when you first come to a red door, your first instinct is to shoot it. But your normal bullets bounce off of it harmlessly. What's the next logical step? SHOOT IT WITH OTHER STUFF. Everything except for missiles bounces off of it, and when you hit it with a missile, it reacts. That should be your clue to keep shooting it with missiles.
Everything you need to figure it out is in the game.
fade
Staff member
That photo is actually in the Geology 101 textbook I taught from. That's also pretty much what I say to the class when I'm pointing out how stupid Hollywood volcanoes are. It's not the bright red glowing lava you have to worry about. It's the 800 C 400 MPH cloud of glowing hot gas that will get you. You can get out of the way of slow moving molten rock. Good luck with that nuee ardente, though. You can see it in the Pompeii casts. The people who were awake have this look like, "Huh, what was th--" before being flash fried.
GasBandit
Staff member
And then, if memory serves me, everyone who managed to survive that somehow, instead, got the pleasure of an ash-choked death by asphyxiation in the caves in which they took refuge?
GasBandit
Staff member
Gives new meaning to "getting all coked up."
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