Stevey's Legend of OO meltdown in 5 4 3 2 1....

Now for my commentary...

Its very, very, VERY odd that Nintendo chose New Super Mario Bros. Wii to debut this new feature. The DS game was already pretty flexible, forgiving and accessible to players. They gave you a lot of lives to work with.

The only reason I can think of that since NSMB Wii will be 4 player the difficulty has been raised to maintain the challenge core gamers want but not forgetting about the new players who started with NSMB.

I don't know, I just find this weird. I think Galaxy 2 would have been a more fitting game for this feature since 3D Mario is harder to sell towards new players.

http://www.torontothumbs.com/2009/06/16/nintendo-gives-us-demo-play-option-and-this-makes-us-feel-uncomfortable/

The ending paragraph made me lawl. Nintendo has never had difficultly settings avalible in a game from the get-go. It's sometimes hidden. (IE Luigi in SMG)

Well, 2D games would also be easier to program such a feature for rather than 3D games.  Especially given the get-to-the-end nature rather than the explore/collect nature of the game.

True. The first Super Mario Bros. game had the new quest mode that appeared after the game was beaten. Then there was the even harder sequel (the Japanese sequel). The original Zelda also had this feature. Super Mario World had the secret expert levels that you had to find. Ocarina of Time had that alternate quest game disc which had harder dungeons.

You know what? I think that since NSMB is all about Mario nostalgia maybe there will be harder levels and this feature is to help those reach and help them.

Not to mention that Nintendo has always had these types of features, such as the warp zones in Mario Bros. 1 and 2 and the whistle in 3.

Players shouldn't have to worry about this since this is optional.

I'm not ashamed to say that I would probably use this. Some of the boss fights in NSMB were more irritating than fun, for me.

GOD DAMN IT!!!!

GAAAAAHH!!!!!

If I hadn't just gotten over crying (long story), I'd be raging like a motherf***er. A game that literally plays itself. Awful.

I probably won't ever use the feature, I'd rather get a hint or something and still try to do it myself.

As long as it's not mandatory why does anyone care how other people play the game when it doesn't affect them at all?

Because if somebody beats the game without it, nobody will believe them?

That's all I can think of...

That's how its been for the last 20 years or so...

There was Game Genie, strategy guides, cheat codes, Gamefaqs, forums and many other things that offered hints at how to beat a game. This seems to take it to the next level and have the game itself show you how its done.

People will always question whether you truly beat something or not, except now we can prove it easily by taping the performance or via achievements which can be shown online.

Then no, I can't think of any reason why this is a bad thing, or worse how it's destroying gaming.
Though I've noticed nobody has really given a reason as to why this is bad, so I guess such people just like to complain...

While I won't use the feature I think an SMB game is a pretty bad place to start using it. SMB is the kind of game that's perfect for beginners and introduces them to the controller button by button. First you walk to the right with the dpad. Then you encounter an enemy. You have to jump. You learn what A does. You encounter a mushroom, you pick it up. Once you're good enough to avoid losing it again you get a fireflower, now B can shoot fireballs. Later you notice that B also makes your character run and as your skill level increases at some point you start running all the time.

I think teaching new gamers about failure is important too. The game should at least make sure it doesn't encourage using the feature after one or two deaths already. Then again "casual" gamers are very accepting of challenge and will play focussed enough to become good at a game, unlike "hardcore" gamers who jump from game to game like a chimpanzee with ADD and only want to play the game to the credits so they can trade it in at Gamestop to buy their next game...

I disagree, to an extent.  Essentially, I believe Nintendo intends to record every single button-press of someone playing through the game rather quickly and successfully.  The system was defined to essentially have a "chapter" system, and has to be loaded from pre-determined points.  As far as I've seen you can't rotate back-and-forth from demo-mode to human-controlled mode, only being able to go from demo to human once per chapter.

If this is the case, 2D and 3D are of no relevance, at all.  The demo sees "A-button held here, duration 0.148 seconds" in any case.  The scale of complexity is dependent, instead, on how complete and thorough will demo-mode be?  Will it pick up every good item and find every secret, or is it merely a means from point A to point B?  Regardless, that matter doesn't have much to do with 2D and 3D, either, but the linearity and frequency of hidden or alternative things in each individual game.  In Super Mario Bros., would demo-mode grab the hidden 1up before that first pit?  Would it be able to do the first, relatively simple, intentionally programmed sequence break in Super Metroid?

Because it's a GAME. You should not watch a GAME unless you are spectating a multiplayer match or something. If you watch a GAME it then ceases to be a GAME and becomes a MOVIE.

But still, why does it bother you that some people might want to pay $50 to watch the computer play through the game? You're free to play it without any assistance.

I'm wondering if there's a way to put a lock-out on this feature to prevent temptation from less experienced gamers you might happen to be playing with? Like, imagine a friend or sibling that you want to play with. You're already going easy on them and helping them along the way, but the idea is to help them improve (you know, you get better at games by actually playing them) so that when their skill improves you can move on to harder games and not leave them behind. Sure some parts in NSMB were tricky, but there wasn't anything nail-bitingly hard, and nothing that a little practice won't overcome.

All that I said would be meaningless, however, if this feature is part of a pause menu or something. If they made it a simple button press to swap between manual and auto there's no way to tell when other players swap over to cheater cruise control, unless they flash or make a sound effect or something. If they have to pause to turn on the feature, it at least makes it obvious and allows the other players chance to smack them over the head for being a pansy non-player.

A long time ago there was an article entitled "New Nintendo Console designed for Stupid Fucking Idiots" (or something very close). The controller had 2 buttons - "Start Game" and"Win Game", soon, this will be a reality. I think it's stupid, using the difficulty system would make more sense to me, at least when you set it to easy, you're still playing the game.

I really don't think you can activate it in coop since the other player's actions are unpredictable and it would need an AI instead of merely following a predefined routine.

Meh, if people want to ruin their fun let them.

But it's nobody's buisness if someone else wants to use it or not. I think anybody bitching about a OPTIONAL feature that won't affect them should STFU. If anything this type of feature will get more people to buy a game since they know they can get help on a section they would normally get stuck on and then quit playing.

This is pretty genius I must say. Rather than gimping the experience for everyone, Nintendo found a way to make it easier for those who can't hack it.

New Super Mario Bros. (DS) wasn't the hardest of games, but my grandmother would get stuck at certain parts and need my help to progress. With a feature like this, the game could do it for me and she wouldn't even have to rely on me. A lot of times just watching me do something would be enough to inspire her to try again using my tactics so she could beat it herself. She still had a blast playing the parts she could accomplish, so something like this would probably allow her to enjoy it even more.

I don't understand why anyone would begrudge this optional feature. It is in all of our best interest for it to be included. It pretty much ensures that the game will tougher because those who aren't good enough can just throw it on auto pilot.

Now that the utility of gamefaq's has been sucked into the game, can we translate the bitching and continual whining about all life in there too? OH DONT GO THERE YOU WILL DIE FASTA. LOOK WHAT YOU DID. YOU DIED. YOU'RE A TERRIBLE NON-GAMER. NON-GAMERS CAN READ.

Some of you disappoint me because this argument is so retarded.
"OMG!! Oh Noes!! Nintendo is bridging the gap so a non/casual gamer can feel like an accomplished gamer!!! This is gonna ruin gaming!!!"

I mean seriously, a hint system for someone that might get stuck is what is working you up? Nintendo obsoleting the expensive strategy guide and  a trip to GameFAQs is a problem for you? Its not like you hit a button and then sit back and watch the computer play till the credits roll, put the game away and think you finished it like a movie. You ask for help and the game shows you that you should maybe hit this block and jump on this ledge to get by... now you try it.
If Anything this is gonna help the inexperienced player learn how the games puzzles work and help them think like a gamer so they can figure out later levels on their own and maybe feel confident enough to move on to more challenging games in the Wii's library. Nintendo is making gaming more accessible to the casuals in a way that doesn't affect the game in any way for you (because the hints are optional) and some of you have a problem with that? ....so disappointing.

Metal Gear Solid released for PSX, 1998

Guess Nintendo was beaten to the punch turning GAMES into MOVIES that you don't PLAY but sit and WATCH. Lord knows even us hardcore gamers back in '98 couldn't get passed Vulcan Ravens very first attack if it weren't for Konamis brilliant help system that let the game take over the controls from the player and do a black flip of a fucking tank shell.

I normally don't say things like this but with such a stupid argument already heating up, i might as well:

Anyone who gets angry at an optional help system might just be retarded.

RAGE!!!11111ONEONE!!!!!

You mean you want more GLaDOS?

Bleh, of all the games to introduce this feature on, why this one?  It's not like modern Mario games are any challenge whatsoever anyway, and I don't think it's good precedent to make the series any easier with this feature.  It's nice to know Nintendo's dedicated to creating a whole new generation of gamers that can't even jump over a goomba without computer assistance.

How do you know the game won't be difficult though? Its comments like this that really bother me, because you obviously don't see the potential that this "Demo Play" feature really has. With it implimented into the game, Nintendo can make a game with the difficulty of Lost Levels but still make it accessible because those that can't pass a certain point simply click the demo play option and get thru it.

Whats wrong with that?

I know it won't be difficult because Nintendo hasn't made a difficult game in over a decade.  Nintendo won't use this feature as an excuse for making a challenging game.  New Super Mario Bros. wasn't particularly difficult, so why should I believe this one will be?  That's not part of their "Blue Ocean" Strategy.  They'll use it to make an easy game even easier for people incapable of pressing 2 buttons and a control stick.

The very definition of Nintendumb

*slow clap*

This is genius.

Oh and this is even more genius.

You do realize that making a game accessible and making it easy are two entirely different things?

The Mario games are the epitome of "accessible" as it is, though.  They don't need to be made any more so.  This is a feature that plays the game FOR the player, the very definition of making the game easier.

Um....

You seem to not understand the nature of this feature. Let me break it down for you.

Ahem...You first need to realize that this optional, as in it's not mandatory. Secondly, you need to realize that easy games to you may still be hard for others. Thirdly, because of how intuitive this feature is, those who are having trouble can immediately see how to prevail, ie learn. (because no one; even casuals who you give no credit to, want to watch a game)

Now those three points make up our forth. This feature will allow Nintendo to make games much more challenging, while still making them highly accessible. And that is what you seem to not understand.

It sounds like the problem isn't really with the Demo Play feature, but with Nintendo not making the game challenging enough for the experienced game player.

Nintendo isn't gonna make the game any easier than it already was gonna be just because they have the Demo Play option, if anything that gives them an excuse to make it a little more challenging (like EC already said).

1.  It being optional does not make it any less unnecessary.
2.  True enough, but you haven't made the case that the Mario franchise lately has had such things.
3.  You learn platforming skills by doing, not seeing.  This isn't like a puzzle game where there's some logic trick or whatnot that's simply beyond people.  Platforming is running and jumping.  You can't learn that just by watching.
4.  Once again, exactly what reason do we have to believe Nintendo will actually make their games more challenging to compensate for this feature?  They haven't in the past, so why start now?  Besides, if Nintendo has competent designers on their projects I dont' see why they couldn't just design their games to handle differences in player skill more efficiently, rather than just relying on the player to flip a switch to make the game play itself to get around situations they can't handle.  That's lazy design.

It should be noted that I'm not against this system entirely, just that the Mario series is probably one of the top Nintendo franchises that doesn't need it.  This is something that would be more instructive or necessary used in a game series that's more difficult or intimidating, like the Metroid franchise.

1. Unnecessary for you maybe.
2. Yes, but wasn't one of "our" biggest gripes was that NSMB DS was too easy? Is too easy not as bad as too hard?
3. I don't understand this.
4. The reason they haven't made games very challenging is because they wanted to make them accessible, get it? This is the first true way to make a game accessible yet truly challenging.

I love complaining for the sake of complaining.

Everyone say it along with me, OP-TION-AL. Means you don't have to use it. Also means that those who do, can, like my grandmother, who will be delighted to hear this.

Plus a 2D Mario game is the perfect testing ground for this type of system. Let's them program a smart solution in an easy situation. Given they make it abstract enough, adding in a third dimension shouldn't be too tough.

As Stogi said just because it may be seen as unnecessary to you or me doesn't mean more casual players can't benefit from it (also Metroid may be quite hard to pull this off with considering how exploration centric it is). Seriously this things falls right in line with companies including cheats in their games, so WHAT?!?!? You don't have to use it and for those that may not be as talented as you may actually be able to get more out of the game then if it wasn't included. Personally I'm for more choice in games if it doesn't ruin the core experience by binging everything down with it. If someone wants the game to get them past a tough jump, or use a cheat to get infinite health. That is their choice, and it is their hard earned money so if it helps garner more enjoyment from a title for people? Why not? There is no need to being a nazi about choice in games, give people the options to play the games how they want.

This isn't the same as a cheat chode.  Cheat codes are there for people who just want to toy with their games and get an extra little bit of enjoyment out of them.  Even using cheat codes, the player actually has to do something to proceed.  This is the game playing itself.  If you're going to just watch a game, you're better off just watching a movie.  I find it pretty ironic that a group of people who are always going around going "Gameplay!  Gameplay!" are cheerleading a feature designed around players watching their games.  I'm all for choice and I'm certainly a proponent for moderation in gaming difficulty, but this feature de-emphasizes the core of what makes a game what it is: that it's interactive.

And by the way, I expect more out of you GoldenPhoenix.  Really, using the word "nazi" as part of your argument?  Surely you can do better than that.

Your opinion, people get different experiences. Also I LOL at you taking my nazi word completely out of context (then again I expect no less from you, you seem to want to start a fight but frankly you aren't worth it with stupid comments like that), I'm talking about taking away choice out of games instead of allowing it in there. It is selfish, it is elitist, either conform to the collective will of the elitist gamer , even when it is OPTIONAL, it it is something horrific! If a feature can get someone past a tough spot and allow them to enjoy what else it has to offer, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.  If people want to watch their game play, so what?!?! It doesn't hurt you.

If designers are concerned about there being "tough spots" in their games they can simply design their game better so there are multiple ways out of a given scenario.  For example, see the adaptive difficulty feature of any of the Sly Cooper games, where the more time you die the more health the game gives you for that section of the game and the less health it gives to the enemy.  This feature is a crutch for bad designers.

Every aspect of the argument is wrong.  I haven't read the rest of this thread because it's so stupid, so I'll just assume that everyone else is explaining why it's wrong.  Actually...

1. Yes, it does.
2. The argument was as follows: that which is easy for some may be difficult for others.  Your rebuttal doesn't make sense.
3. You can learn by watching.  Go watch a Mario speedrun and discover how poorly you're been playing all these years.
4. Let me quote:

"Once again, exactly what reason do we have to believe Nintendo will actually make their games more challenging to compensate for this feature?  They haven't in the past, so why start now?"

Can anyone in the class tell me using simple logic why these two sentences just don't make sense next to each other?

I won't even address the second part of that argument.

I wonder if this will be an advertised feature, if they will put a little icon on the cover of games which use this system. Could this be a selling point? Someone might have played a previous Mario game and enjoyed it, but might have reached a tough spot they couldn't get past. If they saw this game and found out about the help system, might they be more interested in trying out another Mario game knowing they could be helped through trouble spots?

I'm sorry but some gamers aren't going to be able to get through certain spots, it isn't a "crutch" if utilized correctly to help those who may be pretty new to these types of games. This is especially true for platformers where there it requires more skill. You can't have an adaptive difficulty feature that keeps you from falling in a pit (also what exactly would these multiple ways out of a scenario be in a 2D platformer?). Frankly I trust Miyamoto's ingenuity and brilliance to implement this correctly. If anything it gives them more options as to how to design levels so they are challenging without having to worry about being too hard for some (or perhaps many) to get through.

Well, we've had some precedence for this in the past.  You might remember that Alone in the Dark last year tried to make its Chapter Skip feature a major selling point.  I haven't seen sales data on the various versions of the game, but I can't remember it selling too well (of course, every version being buggy as hell didn't help it).

I think it will be, it is a pretty creative feature in itself and with the right spin can be a big selling point.

I guess this all boils down to one's faith in Nintendo to cater to the entire market rather than the one that's been buying all the Wiis.  You have it, and I don't.  Fair enough.

That isn't like this feature though, at all, it looks like you can jump right in whenever you want. It isn't a chapter skip (which has been done for ages via cheat codes), also I'm not sure Alone in the Dark has much mass market appeal, not to mention the game sucked beyond words. There is little comparison to Mario which has a mass market appeal, not to mention I think it is safe to say the game will actually be very good.

Yeah I forgot, they are releasing that Mario Galaxy expansion pack next year, who would have faith in them after that? ;)

Funny I thought I owned a Wii, and about 50 million others own one too. Sounds like a pretty good market to cater to! But I'm not going any farther into this ridiculous retread discussion on Wii and Nntendo. This about a feature that could open the doors more to people enjoying a 2D Mario platformer, it is an experiment but I definitely have more faith in Miyamoto to implement it correctly then broodwars or others. It can be a wonderful thing that helps even the playing field so the difficulty doesn't need to be dumbed down, or it can be a crutch to poor level design. I have enough respect in Miyamoto to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now if it was Sony, I would be extremely concerned (Oh no I didn't!).

The Chapter Skip feature in Alone in the Dark is a bit more flexible than your typical Chapter Selection feature, as the entire game is available from the get-go and you can skip forward or back at any point in the game (not just from the main menu).  It was designed to allow people who couldn't figure out a puzzle or get past an enemy the ability to enjoy the entire game, plus allow people to go back and enjoy parts of the game they particularly liked.  It wasn't that dissimilar to this new Nintendo feature, at least in core concept.  And incidentally, despite the Xbox 360; PS2; and ESPECIALLY the Wii versions of Alone in the Dark being utterly horrid (yeah, I bought the later when it came out last year), the PS3 version's actually pretty decent (they delayed it 6 months to correct the more-aggregious bugs).  It's still a technical mess in places, but at least you can enjoy what the developers were trying to do.

You mock my referring to that game as the $50 Mario Galaxy Expansion Pack, but Miyamoto isn't doing your cause any favors with his "it'll have 90% new levels!" comment.

And as for Sony, I don't think anyone's arguing that they don't have critical issues of their own.

The fact that impressions from E3 say that the game is more challenging.

Hasn't Nintendo (or somebody from Nintendo) said that both New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are going to be more difficult than their predecessors?

I'm pretty sure it was Miyamoto who said that about Galaxy 2, to the point that that was one of the reasons they were making it.

The Logical, Industry-Minded Gamer in me says this is brilliant, and a great way to allow games to be accessible to more players.

The Old-School, Unforgiving Gamer in me says that this is ridiculous, and a further example of what I call the Pussification of Video Gaming.

Shake those up in a box and I come out absolutely neutral to this because it doesn't affect me.

Wow... Anyone who's protesting the feature needs to relax, and just take it easy.

Have you ever turned on a game, and watched the short demo movie of the game, where the character goes and does something, something a normal player wouldn't do, and then gone in the game, and repeated the feat yourself?  Donkey Kong comes to mind, they show off some secret areas in the opening demos of some stages.

Did you get angry then?

It's a trick question.  If you did, you'd know those videos aren't truly optional if it took you any time to press the start button.  They are what hits the screen, and you couldn't avoid them in any other way.  If you didn't, well, you're just a hypocrite, since what we're talking about is exactly that, only with the possibility of the player jumping in and taking control at any point.  Of course, there's demos for every stage, but you can watch what you want, and ignore what you want.

It was alright on the SNES, but not now?  It was alright on the Nintendo 64, but not now?  What's the deal?

"Pussification of Video Gaming"

Really? You think games have gotten easier than in the past?

Sadistic showcases like Ninja Gaiden and the final area of God of War aside, what makes you think they've gotten harder or stayed the same?

I have trouble falling into this "games are getting easier or harder" argument, because games are just different now. Back in the NES days, a "hard" game was one where you'd have cheap enemies constantly knocking you into holes. Now days you have games trying different things, including trying to tell a story while trying to keep the player engaged. I guess it all depends what you consider what makes a game dfficult without being poorly designed.

I sorta agree with Lindy, but I'm not sure games have gotten easier over the years so much as we have just gotten really good at games in general.

We've all developed the hand eye coordination that new gamers have yet to perfect. We've also had so much practice with these games as they have evolved over the years that we understand how most of them work and now it seems almost second nature to know hat it takes to beat most of them.

As I said in my first reply, this is simply Nintendo making gaming more accessible to the NEW gamer while not taking anything away from teh experienced gamer.
I just witnessed this in effect and that feature could have really come in handy.
I just watched a little girl enjoying the hell out of Super Princess Peach until she got to some boss. She couldn't beat the boss after many attempts and started to get frustrated. I figured out the first step to beating the boss for her and gave the DS back, but her frustration with trying to beat that boss just sucked all the enjoyment out of that game for her. Now she put the DS down and probably won't pick the game up again for awhile. (I'm gonna beat the boss for her BTW)
If she could have demo played through the boss, she would probably still be enjoying her game.

If you have a problem with Demo Play, then it obviously wasn't made for you, but that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't use it or that someone else doesn't need it.

I understand where you're coming from, but are you really doing that girl any favors?  For the most part, bosses are supposed to be a test of the player's skills to see if they're ready to move on to the next set of challenges.  I'm not familiar with SPP so I don't know if the game does build upon itself, but won't she just have even more trouble with the next set of stages/bosses?

Of course, some games just decide to be jerks and put completely unfair boss encounters in for the hell of it, so it could just be one of those.

Exactly, BNM, I love that example.  Perfect.

Wasn't Ikaruga praised for having in-game videos of people playing the game well?  Yeah, in this case, you had to earn them, but no one was at arms about the game showing you a method to play it that would merit many points and few deaths, did they?  It was a selling point, and I believe it was on the box, as well.

A lot of you have selective memories, I'll say.

Edit:  broodwars, if the girl watches what BNM did, and learns from it that way, and possibly even goes back and duplicates the feat, then what has she lost?  Some people aren't good at games.  Some people don't make connections right away.  The key is to teach the play in a convenient, understandable, and patient manner.

Hahaha, this reminds me of the famous Nintendo hotline.  Anyone else remember?  Their claim to fame, while operational, was that they could get you through any part of any Nintendo game, or at least tell you how to get through it.  I had to use them once to find a secret staircase to progress in FFVI, back when I was much younger and new to RPGs.  Anyways, they guaranteed they could help, and if not, they'd find the answer and call you back, toll-free.  The Adventures of Lolo and its two sequels... well, that was a game they got several calls about.  Nintendo's always had a policy to try to help gamers make it through their games.  Now, they've just found a cheap and efficient delivery system for that help.

Have you ever given up on a game for some time because it was too hard?  Maybe you came back to it, but for some time, it was just too much, and too frustrating?

I ended up selling Metroid Fusion because I couldn't get past one of the bosses.

I think I did her a huge favor. She is only 7 afterall. She got over her frustration and I beat the boss for her, and now she is happy again and playing the next level knowing that the boss she had so much trouble on really wasn't all that hard once she knew what to do.

I'll see how effective it was at the next boss.

Black is creepy because he has not specified what sort of relationship he has with this mysterious "little girl."  I'm a little nervous.

broodwars is an asshole for wanting a seven year old girl to suffer so she can "learn" how to be a "better gamer" or some such nonsense.  Nerd elitism at its finest.

You know what, buddy?  Go *explitive removed* yourself.  I've learned from experience that if you don't learn the skills yourself, it doesn't do you any good to have someone else do it for you because sooner or later you will have to do it yourself and there's not going to be anyone nearby to hold your hand.  That's what I was getting at, and that applies to any game.  If the girl learned from watching him take on the boss and can apply it to future encounters, good for her and him.  If not, what was really accomplished?  I consider it more cruel to be kind and possibly throw people into situations they just aren't ready for.  Granted, this is Princess Peach we're talking about...

Not that I need to explain myself, but my friend has 2 kids. She has a 3 & 7yr old daughters.
SPP was her 1st grade/summer break present along with a pink DS (both bought by her mom).
I had originally asked for help locating the game for a good price in the Amazing Deals thread in the DS/GBA section.

Now thanks to me "Demo Play"ing the game for her, she is happily playing towards whatever the next boss is, but more importantly, still having fun with her game.

You are acting like we are prepping people for Real World Combat or something. We aren't giving people a pass at the shooting range and letting them skip the boot camp then throwing them in a War situation. This is video games.

Last time I checked Video Games are meant to be FUN. Whether you end up beating it or not, the whole intent is that you had FUN while you were playing the game.

Lots of gamers have made gaming a competitive sport, and others "gamers" mostly collect games and talk about them online but never really play them, but almost all have forgotten that a "GAME" is supposed to be about the "FUN".  You get your fun from the challenge, maybe some people have fun watching others play, and some just like to forget the stress of life by losing themselves in a game just for the fun of it. But the whole point of "Demo Play" is to let those that aren't up to the challenge still have fun with the game.

We're actually talking along the same lines here.  You said she stopped having fun because she got stuck on a boss she couldn't beat, right?  Ergo, the best way to keep having fun is to not get stuck, ergo getting better at gaming in general and hope common sense in game design suddenly hits the game designers.

Like I said, if what you did works and she's having fun and gets through the game just fine than more power to you both.  I'm just looking ahead a few moves to the next time people get stuck.

So you're saying that if she learned how to play the game from watching someone play it, that's a good method to learn how to play the game, but it's not your method of choice, right?

That statement is just a rephrasing of your second paragraph, isn't it?

If it works for them, then I suppose it's a good method for them to learn how to play.  I've tried teaching people in the past how to do things in particular games (most notably trying to teach my best friend how not to suck at FPS games in Bioshock) and I haven't found it particularly effective till he'd screwed up a few (dozen) times and learned it the hard way.  Most of what we call "gaming skills" just boils down to simple pattern recognition from a library of common patterns most games within genres use.  We've experienced a pattern before and we know how to deal with it, so when we see it again later on with whatever permutations we know how to deal with it.  But most times I've seen a person doesn't actually get a pattern till they've done it successfully themselves.  Seeing someone do it does not mean you can then do it yourself in every situation.

Then why are you so against this?  Essentially you're saying it's good if it works, it's as-of-yet untested in the wide-spread market, and you're quite comfortable to ignore it, blissfully.

Why not let it exist, and see what becomes of it before you go on a crusade against it.  It's true, it isn't an instant way to increase skills in gaming, but we all know that part of the problem isn't always direct skill, but rather clues that hint at something.  Some people notice some, some don't, but as BNM said, the girl, a part of Demo-play's target audience, just needed to be shown the trick to the boss, she, herself, seemed to learn how to execute it, beyond that.  Perhaps the clue was written, and she was just a little too young to comprehend it, even.  Regardless, there's nothing wrong with trying, after all, the method you are so steadfastly encouraging is trial-and-error, isn't it?  Let Nintendo give that one a shot in game help ;)

My problem with the feature isn't so much the feature itself, but that it's part of a continuing slippery slope of gaming leading inexerably towards a point where from the moment you start a game all you have to do is hit a big ol' "win" button and the game is over.  Game designers don't have to try and create an environment that is well-designed and stimulates improvement and learning, because when all else fails you have the "win" button.  Gamers don't have to reason to learn and improve, because when anything comes along that challenges them to stretch their boundaries there's the "win" button.

If this feature promotes positive gains in learning in gaming I'm all for it.  I'm just wary of its mis-use, since it's so easy to abuse.

Why are you so caught up in other people's experiences? If someone else finds it fun to hit the "win" button to succeed shouldn't that be ok? And if you decide that you never, ever, ever would, isn't that ok too?

It just seems like you are projecting your ideals on other people. Just because you have fun one way doesn't mean others do as well. There is no slippery slope, because this is OPTIONAL.

I think I know why they are introducing this Help Feature with NSMB Wii. It's a 2D game, so it is easier to make a friendly AI for it, rather than a 3D game. Here's a quote from Will Wright in GFW magazine article called Three Wishes:

Knownothing/Broodwars - kill the personal attacks, please.

With my "Pussification of Gaming" statement I was being facetious, but I do think that games have gotten easier.  Games were harder in the 80's because they were made with the "arcade mindset": games were short but purposely difficult in order to to pull quarters out of people.  A lot of NES games (Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man, anyone) were part of the hangover of this design philosophy, which was to ramp up the difficulty to artificially extend the experience.  As hardware matured and it became easier to make games longer, retaining that same level of soul-crushing difficulty no longer made sense if designers wanted games to be fun.

As a generalization, games have moved from shorter and harder to longer and easier over the last 20 years.  There are exceptions (Ninja Gaiden II, for example), but they are few and far between.

JUST RAMBLING: I remember back around 2000 I was discussing the Zelda franchise with a buddy of mine.  We were talking about how the old 2D Zelda games (Zelda, Zelda II, Link to the Past) were more arcadey and actually required some skill to beat, but 3D Zelda games are more about putting the time in than anything else.  Anyone can beat them if they devote 50+ hours...they don't require you to master anything, or really hone much skill at all besides puzzle-solving.  I really wish Zelda had bosses more like the Metroid Prime games...for example, the final boss in Metroid Prime 3 is EPIC and DIFFICULT.  Beating that boss actually meant something to me, because I had to figure out his patterns and get better as a player to succeed.  Victory required patience, perseverance, and skill.  I can't remember the last time I played a boss in any Zelda game that I didn't beat on the first or second try.  Even the final battles against Ganon don't stick out in my mind as notably difficult; heck, in Twilight Princess hardly any of your special attacks are even required to beat Ganon, rendering them pointless for the most part.

MORE RAMBLING: For me personally (I realize that I'm old-school and look at most things through that lens), most games today don't give me a sense of accomplishment because I feel they're too easy...that anyone can beat them, so doing so is nothing special.  This is probably why I gravitate towards first-person shooters, because increasing your skill makes them more fun.  If you dominate a particular deathmatch it's because you're probably better than most of the other players there, and that's a good feeling.  On the flip side, getting a royal beat-down sucks and it's frustrating, but that makes me focus on getting better.  It's this reward/punishment loop that many games are lacking today, in my opinion.

Everyone who wants hard, old school gaming, go download Birds and Beans.  That game rocks. :)

I agree, Lindy. Games are getting longer and they are getting easier. I, however, believe that developers like Nintendo do want to make games difficult and challenging but that it isn't sound business. That would be betting on the few, like broodwars, and not the masses, like the little 7 year old girl.

But that is what I find truly fascinating; first with the patent, and now with its inclusion in NSMB Wii. Is there a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

Yeah, that's the impression I've been getting too, that online multiplayer is the last refuge of jump-in-and-play gaming that requires skill and I see more and more games attempting to undermine that with experience grinds in multiplayer to unlock any gear (most notoriously Killzone 2). Well, okay, there's also casual gaming but most veteran gamers are looking for something else.

That's probably the last frontier of gaming: adaptive AI that tailors the game to fit the skills of the player in real-time.  Maybe one day we'll have a console powerful enough and programmers capable enough to create such a thing flawlessly.

I don't like this because there are countless times in games where I have been stuck on a puzzle or boss for hours on end, wishing I could just skip it; then after so many hours, days, and years I finally beat it with the greatest sense of accomplishment. Yeah, say you never will use it now, but sooner or later you will give in to the temptation when a puzzle or boss just really pisses you off and you will loss the sense of victory. As time goes by the skill level of gamers will keep dropping as well as game difficult as people just keep skipping over and over again.

What makes this horrible is that game developers might not bother anymore to spend months making a game challenging when most gamers will just skip that hard part missing out on their genius. Worst, game developers will go the lazy route and when they need to make the game difficult by cheaply placing in a bunch of 'one hit undodgeable kills' and 'unlogical and loosely explained puzzles that solution don't make any sense' knowing that everyone will skip them and the hardcore will put up with it until they get lucky....

I'm almost as much of a Blizzard fan as I am a Nintendo one. And you know what? I cheat like HELL in Blizzard games. I use god mode and resource cheat codes because I just can't beat their story modes. But I love the RTS gameplay, and I love the map-making, and I love the Use-Map-Settings experiences, and I love their story and fmvs.... I just need to cheat to get to the end of a game I love. (Except in WC III, which only required that I play the last level on easy mode)

With that in mind, I have absolutely ZERO qualms about a feature like this. I am perfectly willing to accept that I'm not as good at games as someone else, that I can never say that I "beat" X game or Y. But hell... at least let me keep playing somehow! I'm loving the game until I get my face smashed into a brick wall of difficulty.

Wait a second, Lindy beats games? Megaton!

Also am I the only one that finds it pretty sad when someone condemns an option feature because they may not have the will power to not use it? So since they don't want to be tempted with it NO ONE CAN HAVE IT!

Time for me to be honest...

I play games to have fun. I lack the uber hardcore skills to get the high score or get a hard achievement. I never have and never will. I care more about completing a game than about being the best. So I will confess that if the game gets too hard I will lose interest. Like I already mentioned I play games to have fun, to relieve stress and forget my troubles. If I get too frustrated then why bother?

Everyone's complaining about this since...

- It's Nintendo
- Its a feature aimed at the new audience
- Its making games simpler for everybody.

But the truth is that things like these have been around forever. Game Genie, for example. The device allowed you to cheat like crazy. Did that tempt gamers into buying it? Some yeah, but I didn't see gaming fall to its knees. Remember the Konami code in Contra? It gave you 30 lives. Did that make the game even easier? Of course not.

Gaming is personal. It molds itself to the wants and needs of the player. Want a really hard game that busts your balls? Go ahead. Want something simple? Sure. Just because a game gives you the opportunity to tone down its difficulty it doesn't mean it will ruin the experience because in the end the one that makes the experience is YOU, the player. The player is what gives value to the game, not the company or the developers.

So why worry?

I actually would have never even played that game if it weren't for that code. And even with that I could never beat it solo...

Well, after completing Psychonauts tonight for the first time and slogging my way through that horrid platforming HELL that is the Meat Circus final area of the game, I do have to retract one of my earlier statements: yeah, we still have companies making old school "Nintendo Hard" games besides Team Ninja.  Unintentionally through really crappy platforming, yes...but that's how it usually was in the past as well.  ;)

I don't like that either, adaptive difficulty tends to mean that when you encounter an obstacle you'll have to train yourself to get past you can't train because the obstacle is lowered with every attempt and will probably end up being a total pushover before you get any real training done.

How much difficulty can be tolerated strongly depends on the game though, some games have MASSIVE overhead where you spend like 20 minutes driving to the location for the mission every single time you attempt it and that makes failure suck REALLY hard. Generally a game that wastes your time while you're trying to overcome a hard obstacle will probably not make for an enjoyable experience. However in my oppinion a game that lets you retry fairly easily and lets you see your skill improvements even before you're good enough to succeed is usually encouraging to get better at. Designing a hard game properly isn't trivial though and especially the whole movement towards cutscene and visual heavy games makes it harder to do right since impressive visuals or great cutscenes wow only once while difficulty usually requires many attempts and really shows the game mechanics, making the bells and whistles that seem to be the only differentiator between games these days fade away.

I've already mentioned this but I  thought the Sly Cooper games are a good example of how to do it right.  In Sly 1 everything that hits you is a one-shot-skill, so as you can imagine this can make boss encounters really hard.  What the developers put in, though, is that after dying a certain number of times in the same spot you'll respawn with a lucky horseshoe already attached to your character, which gives you a free immunity to one hit.  If you continue sucking, they'll give you just one more for a maximum of 2 free hits.  When you get through the area you were having trouble on, the horseshoes are removed and it's back to business as usual.  This allows the designers to do some pretty sadistic things while making the game just a little easier (but still not easy) for players who are having trouble so they don't get stuck.  When the series went to life bars in Sly 2 and 3 they did something more subtle: everytime you die in boss encounters, the game slightly decreases the amount of damage you take with each hit and increases the damage enemies take with each hit.  The effect is so subtle I didn't even notice it till late into Sly 3 when I got beaten into the ground by a really hard boss in a bamboo forest battle, and slowly through the course of my many deaths I noticed that I was getting better at hurting him until finally I barely beat him.  These systems are great because you still get that feeling of accomplishment: the game didn't just hand you your victory.  You still had to earn it, but the game just made it a little more reasonable to obtain.

So long as the effect is subtle and not as blatant as "flip a switch, now it's EASY instead of NORMAL or HARD!", I don't see the problem.  GoldenPhoenix brought up a scenario earlier about how an adaptive AI would handle pits, but haven't we seen games where if the player falls into a pit they get magically pulled out of it just once for just long enough for the player to recover to their starting location?  There are so many possibilities for gracefully handling variances in player skill.

If people did their game history homework, you'd know features like this were already in video games for a long time.  Which doesn't mean this particular use of the concept from Nintendo isn't innovative.

FFXII had that gambit system that literally sucked the last part of combat interaction out of the series, possibly forever.  You know where you would "program" your character to attack automatically and heal when injured.  I remember a little kerfuffle about, but nobody said Square Enix was "pussifying" games because of it.

As mentioned before Ikaruga has some videos of high score champs playing.  SMB3 not only had warp zones, but also that lovely cloud that you could skip whole levels with.  F-Zero Max Velocity on the GBA has a demo mode on the title screen by pressing, with on-screen buttons showing exactly when and how they are at being pressed.

Remember when like, NFL Blitz, an arcade game would flash information about how to do special tricks before the game starts?  And madden does the same thing?  Shouldn't they have to have earned it the hard way in blood and sweat and tears in the battle trenches of having to figure it out?  I just don't see how this is making games "easier" or "pussified."

There, I single those 2 games out because you are wrong in using these for comparisons:

1.  In the truly-horrible Final Fantasy XII, the gambit system did automatically handle tasks for you during combat.  But YOU still had to program them in, meaning YOU had to anticipate situations where certain responses would be needed and anticipate any corrections those responses would require down the road (for example, you could program a hefty healing gambit in so your character cast Curaga every time they got below a certain HP, but if you didn't anticipate that your character would eventually run out of MP during long battles you didn't program it correctly).  All it did was take micromanagement of battle and turn it into macro-based pre-battle strategizing, no different than what you'd do in many strategy games.  The game played itself for you, but only following your instructions so it was essentially doing things you'd be doing anyway.  Hell, it wasn't even all that great a system, since the gambits had to be programmed in exactly the right way and in exactly the right order.  Plus, you had to constantly be writing and swapping out and activating/deactivating new gambits to keep up with the current situation.  It's a far cry from this.

2.  Mario 3 did have warp zones and the cloud, but exactly what benefit were they to you if you couldn't handle what was on the other end of the pipe/level?  You could use the warp zones to go to World 8 from as early as World 2, but if you didn't have the skills to handle World 8 you didn't do yourself any favors.  If you use a Cloud to skip a level and fail on the next level, you get skipped back to the previous level anyway.  So once again, if you don't have the skills anyway, there's little good the Cloud can do you.

Can we end this stupid argument? Its painfully obvious that broodwars has the skillz to pay the billz and pitys the fools who don't.

The rest of us that see no problem in giving people WHO NEED IT a leg up can just go on with the rest of our lives, stress free.

I actually stopped arguing the main argument some time ago.  And for the record, I've never claimed to be an exceptionally-skilled gamer...just an experienced one who grew up with the NES and respects a fair challenge, and often wonders why that's apparently beneath the new generation of gamers.

So that automatic game-playing feature takes a little bit more skill to use than NSMBWii's?  I'm not sure what your point is.

It was still level-skipping and it still applies.  We still don't know if the whole game will utilize this and not just the first three worlds and such.  IF you really want to ramp up the difficulty of Mario, make the game stop throwing a gazillion 1-ups at you, particularly SMB3 where you were basically guaranteed at least one 1-up every three levels.  With all those 1-ups it makes the game more time-invested than skills-needed.  Game Over after 1 death, please.

Well, I suppose so.  I just think all this hoopla about this is totally unnecessary and a projection-like overreaction.  It seems there will be no headway gained when the simple existence on an option menu is such a great offense.

Its not just a new generation of gamers ya know. I grew up with the NES too and remember all too well the Contras and the Ninja Gaiden difficultys but when i look back to that time, i don't know how i had any fun with those games at age 5! Yes i beat them and felt accomplished when i did, but going back today those games aren't as fun as they were when i was a kid and didn't know better (because there wasn't much else). I wouldn't say that a fair challenge is "beneath" me in my eyes, what we get know is much more of a "fair" challenge than what we used to have. Imagine playing Gears of War in a Contra mode with only 3 lives.. I don't see anything fun in smashing my controller on the floor, but hey thats just me.

All i know is I like to enjoy my games, and whether its difficult or not doesn't matter as long as its an enjoyable experience. I see your fears about devs taking the easy way out in creating their games because "demo play" might give people the incentive to just watch the game instead of play it but ya know what? If that day ever comes, you'll see that lazy mindset shine thru reviews of other battle hardened gamers that KNOW they're playing a cheaply designed game with cheap AI and it'll get scored appropriately and you'll know which games NOT to buy. Combine that with the fact that you personally will never ever touch the demo-play button, and you're set!

Really, it just seems like you're making mountains out of molehills with this. Call me optimistic but with this feature implimented in their games, I really do feel like Nintendo can raise the bar on challenge while still making their own games accessible to everyone else. As far as 3rd parties go, we'll see because they're always hit or miss when it comes to doing anything right. Still, i don't see this as a dumbing down of games in general because this is an OPTION not just for you but for the developers. Nintendo might not have to include "demo-play" programming into all their games (ie; you'll never see this in WiiSports 3: Xteme) and surely 3rd parties won't bother putting effort into making a quality wii game, right? ;P So really, there's nothing to fear here.

Well, I'll agree with you on this much: let's hope for the best and that this feature doesn't get abused.  If it doesn't, all well and good.  Argument over.

When we were young gamers, we had to walk to the store... uphill, both ways.... barefoot, in the snow.... just to get the latest gaming magazine.
Gamers nowadays got your internets with online help and free shipping....  Hey Demo Play!! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Here's the thing.  Nintendo is going to cater to casuals and non-gamers no matter what.  They're going to make their games more accessible.  Now how would you prefer they do it?  You want it being damn near impossible to die like in Wind Waker?  You want the unskippable hint system of Metroid: Zero Mission?  Or do you want this optional mode that you don't have to use?  When Nintendo was talking about making their games more accessible the immediate assumption I made was that they would dumb it down.  That *I* would find the game boring because it was too stupidly easy.  With THIS we're getting a pretty decent compromise.  It's a lot better than dumbed down non-games.  This is a way for Nintendo to truly make a game accessible to everyone with no one's game experience being compromised.

Now I do have concerns.  Nintendo might still make their games really easy and offer blatant hints even with this in place.  There is also the problem that it may raise future generations of gamers that literally just watch their games.  This may have no immediate effect on us now but may bite everyone in the ass years from now when "gamers" that have always used this feature are the majority.  It may breed even wussier gamers and thus make future games easier as developers feel the need to cater to a market of wimps.  But then I think even marketing towards non-gamers will do this.  The bridge has already been crossed.

Though I'll admit that there are several games that one particular part just frustrated me to all hell and made me give up on the game.  If I could skip that part I would.  I would likely use this feature as a last resort "fuck this" button if it came down to losing interest in the game or skipping a part that's tearing my hair out.  If I was a game designer though I would enforce a finite amount of "skip aheads" to make it a last ditch emergency item and not a crutch.  If you had only one it would become part of your strategy.  "Do I use my deux ex machina device now or should I save it for a potential harder part?"

These days you CAN watch complete playthroughs of games on YouTube.  If you want to watch a game you can.

Some games like World of Goo have a "skip this level" button, the help feature lets you decide exactly how much you want to skip.

As for a future with gamers who only watch their games, remember Nintendo patented it so non-Nintendo games won't have the feature anyway.

You know what I think would be a good HELP feature, for beginners and for veterans?

You know how Mario Kart has Time Trail Ghost that you race against, I think the games could have a Ghost that goes through the level that you could follow. It might show you a route that you didn't notice, but it would still make you have to perform the action. A good way to implement it would be that you only get 10second ghost, but to replenish your ghost bar, you have to progress through the level without using the ghost. That way you can use the ghost all the time, but you have to play to continue to "cheat". You can't just let the game play itself.

Yeah but patents are usually very specific.  Nintendo can't just say "the game plays itself if you want" and earn a patent.  So if it took off other developers could just do something similar but technically different.  Case in point my suggestion of making the "instant win" an item of sorts with limited uses is technically different than Nintendo's feature.  Somebody could do that and effectively offer the same thing.

Is Nintendo's idea just literally a video or does the game actually play itself?  Whatever it is, do the opposite, and you would likely get around the patent and provide similar functionality to the player.

I though Toki Tori handled a system like this well. You could use an item to skip a level, but in order to retrieve that level skip item you needed to eventually beat the level you previously couldn't beat.

According to one of the guys on ListenUp it has three degrees, 1st one has a video of what you're supposed to do play in a small window, picture-in-picture kind of thing, 2nd pauses the game and plays the video full screen, 3rd actually plays it for you.

I'm still amazed they got away with patenting that.  2 of those 3 things have been done by DVDs and Blu-Rays for years.

This seems to be a pretty popular topic on the interwebs.

http://www.destructoid.com/a-difficult-subject-136911.phtml

In two years, Sony and Microsoft will bring out their own help systems and say they have been working on them for ages.

Natal will see the level of frustration on your face and adjust the difficulty accordingly.