Bionic Commando producer: 'Bioshock was easy as hell'

In an interview with VideoGamer.com, Ben Judd said that gamers now only want to die "once or twice" in games.

When we asked the Capcom producer if he reckons games are too easy on gamers these days, Judd replied: "Yes, I do. I think that if you look at one of the highest praised games of last year, BioShock, BioShock was easy as Hell, I don't care what anybody says. That's what people want. They want to play through it. They want to die once or twice. It's like an interactive movie, sort of. Gamers have lost their will to continually drill down on something."

[Silogon]

He is speaking logic today. I give him that much. I agree, todays gamer could never pull off the feats us Nes kids did. Beating Ninja Gaiden alone is something few people have done without cheating or using an emulator to save location before dying.

Nintendo games were crucial and somewhere in the Ps1 days things started changing and by the time the ps2 hit, it was all over. Games did take on a more interactive, let me guide you, approach.

Soul Reaver was one of the 1st game I started to see this huge trend of super easy gameplay and puzzle solving.

[Kleptic]

I wouldn't say that 'all' games now are easy...i agree Bioshock is a joke in difficulty, mostly because damage you inflict to enemies keeps...so if you die fighting a Big Daddy, the damage you inflicted is still there...

NES games on the other hand would be frustratingly hard because most of them where terrible...only the mario games seemed to get it right...difficult when they needed to be, but not frustrating...

there are still games this generation though that are awesomely hard, but have the difficulty settings to let you know what you are getting into...imo Uncharted on crushing is just about as perfect as a game can get...its entirely beatable by nearly anyone that puts in the effort, but is also extremely challenging...its not like veteran on CoD 4, which is nothing but cheap (2 shots you die, and endless enemy spawners, in which case to beat it...you simply run across the room as fast as possible)...but uncharted requires to conserve ammo, engage the enemy at the right time, and retreat at the right time, and there is usually only one way to get a certain area right...thats what i love about it, you can get into a zone, and really feel like you are accomplishing something...its difficult, but extremely fair...which is apparently next to impossible for devs to get right...

that is just one of the reasons I think Uncharted is one of the best single player games of this generation without question...I put it right next to MGS4 as the 2 best so far...where Uncharted nailed the gameplay (with rather excellent story telling and production values in its own right), and MGS4 perfected story telling through a video game...and just happened to have visuals that are without any real rivals...

[ape007]

Bionic Commando producer:stop whining,mgs 4,bioshock

braid for me is better than bc tbh

bioshock has a sweet difficulty feel

but he has a valid point,bioshock difficulty wasn't in solving puzzels,temples or just think where should I go now, it was only when you fight enemies,most games turning like this,which is sad

I say bioshock is so great,but when I just compare it with something like the shadow man,I truly feel that bioshock was a joke,seriosly am not joking

HE HAS A VALID POINT

[gringo]

The Vita-chambers made the combat easy, if you died when trying to kill a big daddy, you'd just respawn and run back to the fight and finish him off.

[ape007]

I think shadowman has an incredible level design and difficulty
I wish I can see anything today like shadowman

shadowman=a true legend,a remake gonna be a mega earthquake

he's kinda right

[die_fiend]

It isn't a valid point cos he probably didn't put it on hard. He probably just left it on normal and cos of the Vita Chambers said it was easy as hell. On hard it was significantly more difficult. I'd love to see him turn Vita Chambers off and play it on hard and still say it's easy as hell. He'd probably die all the time. What would he know about anything? Bionic Commando is sheisse

[waznotwaz]

I agree with you die fiend.Thats what the hardness settings are there for,so use them to play the game how you want to.In years gone by games were too hard for me to play and enjoy,so I would happily select the easy setting.Nowadays with trophies/achievements there is allot more replayability in a game so you don't always need to play a game on the insane settings just to feel you have got your value for money.

[hardmetal]

Seriously he is.

[NMC2007]

it just seems like most of you cannot handle reality, everything he said is true but of course fanboys don't know how to handle reality, not calling YOU a fanboy but I just walked out of the Kojima thread and ........ yeah.............. so I don't think he is talking too much at all, hell I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Bioshock but he is 100% correct, that game IS too damn easy.

His MGS comments are also true but of course the comments are arguable, I agree with him on both counts but the only difference is that I do enjoy MGS long ass cut scenes when they aren't full of blah blah blah speak about war and technology and the bullcrap they talked about in the past MGS games, especially MGS 2.

[sajj316]

it looks he's trying to get 'famous' ... keeping talking bro!

[Topshelfcheese]

He's right, I played Bioshock on Hard and only died once. It was a crazy easy game, but that doesn't make it a bad game by any means. I believe it has to do with developers knowing that a majority of people never finish games, so by making them easier, maybe more people will finish them. idk just a thought, would be nice to get some more challenging games.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Some of us don't like reloading the game CONSTANTLY!!! We want to enjoy a good storyline and die as few times as possible. Sure, that reminds us that we're playing a game, but it also reminds us that...well...it's a game. We want to feel immersed in it. We don't want it to drag us down. Unlike a movie or book, games can make us hate ourselves for sucking at life!

[Drekken]

Some people like challenges and some people like to skate through life on easy level.

[byeGollum]

it has nothing to do with him 'trying to be famous' its his opinion thats what he thinks .. what is wrong with that? i agree with him, i found bioshock easy as well - whatever happened to playing a level over and over again, then when you finally beat it feels like an achievement ..

[sak500]

I rather have a game which i can complete on any difficulty than can't even finish a game on easy cuz of ridiculouly difficult settings. Playing SW:Force Unleashed on Sith Lord (highest available in begning) thinking it would be challenging. But now its more frustrating than challenging. Getting killed many times is really frustrating but i wanted to get the achievement of finishing game on this setting plus gaing points of lower settings in one go. Anyway, will try to complete it on this setting.

[bakagaijin78]

This is why there are difficulty levels.

I, personally, like to experience a game without getting killed over and over. However, if I really like a game, I will go back and play it on a harder difficulty.

[Covenant]

Apparently, he never tried the Brass Balls difficulty level.

[kingme71]

I'm not into repeating gameplay over and over and over. Some people are. I think it is just a matter of play style and interests. Now I'm not saying I should be be able to breeze through it eating popcorn. If a hard part comes up and it takes me 3 or 4 tries to figure out how to beat it, I'm fine with that. That was a challenge. If it takes me 30 tries to beat and I have to do everything nearly perfect, then I'm not having a good time for the hour I'm repeating it over and over. I will say the sense of achievement is greater then (or is it a sense of relief), but not worth the annoyance of repeating over and over.

If you are going to make me repeat something over and over, don't send me back 10 minutes to an old checkpoint and for god's sake, don't force me to rewatch cut scenes each time.

Games in the old days had to be tougher to beat because they had less gameplay elements, inferior graphics, etc. If SMB was easy, you would rescue the princess in under an hour. Games these days don't have to rely on difficulty to stretch them out.

[IQUITN4G]

There was simply no tension in Bioshock because you essentially knew you were invunerable.It's this game's biggest fault quite honestly and in any case didn't this also have quick saves? which are very lazy

Too Human uses something similar but tension is less of a must for this game and as any great Too Human player will tell you, dying in this game means you played cr!p and were in fact owned

The Halo's use a system where you respawn back having to do the same bit again providing you are playing solo or have a skull on for Halo3, but it's never very far to be frustrating when this happens

The worst save system is of course the cheat quick save option where you simply save moments before a hairy part of the game, and this robs any potential for excitement a game might provide - especially the horror genre

Generally though some devs are basically clueless at doing this right

[sak500]

I disagree. Nowdays there should be no excuse for not providing quick save options. The console games are becoming more PC like so why use then 20 year old formula? If you dont like quick saves than just rely on autosave but for others it means they can finish one game and then move onto other. Its one thing to keep dying in some boss fight but another to start from way back so you hurdle through 10 mins before you reach that section to die again. This stupid ST:FUnleashed has this krappy system, even though u hv save option but it will not start from where you save but from auto save so i hv no clue whats the use of save feature is? I keep dying fighting the Junkyard mini boss and have to start from the part where i have to fight again enemies and then reach the cutscene where this boss comes out. Frustrating as hell. No wonder people gv it such low score. I was too excited about this earlier and ws dissing these reveiews but now i agree.

[KiddyBrownTurd]

easy as hell? um, no. not at all. and even if it was, it's still a billion times better than your garbage bionic commando turd. THAT game is too hard and just ANNOYING WTF WHY IS IT SO HARD NEAR THE END. F*CKING PISSES ME OFF.

yeah, much better to piss ppl off than make a GOTY like Bioshock.

poor n00b

[mariusmal]

for me perfect game is where difficulty is a little challenging during normal game. and in the bosses it gets very challinging (but without broken controllers)