And some as fodder.
I should specify the differences in
Hard Games, X-COM has always been a hard game, but as of the recent iterations it has taken it to the side of being unbalanced.
Punishing Games: Your mistakes and mishaps are punished by the game and adhere to the same laws as the rest of the game world. You have to be good at the game to survive, it is all about how you handle the situations, you fuck up and you get fucked up. But you are given subtle hints and are trained on how techniques are handled. Example games would be Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and somewhat of Dark Souls II. Player skill and adaptability are everything.
Brutal Games: You are punished for anything and everything because you don't know the game's level layout. You and the enemies are on even ground in terms of power/ability/and damaging. The only way to survive is to go through trial and error to learn and anticipate how the game functions. Examples would be the original Shin Megami Tensei games and Ninja Gaiden games. Player skill and level knowledge are everything. Don't get me wrong, these games can still be fun, but be prepared to suffer for a long time until you come to grasp how everything functions and how to exploit enemies in the same fashion they exploit you.
Cheap Games: Both you and your opponents follow the same game laws and are treated equally. However, you are placed in situations where the enemy is given advantages that you are given, but they are more capable of using them. Player skill and level knowledge are not everything. Pattern recognition and memorization are top priority. A lot of old NES games like BattleToads.
Bullshit Games: You are given a set of game laws that do not apply to the enemies of the game. You are placed in situations where skill is ignored and it is based on bullshit luck in which the game's AI is always favored. They don't have the same capacity sets as you, instead they are given massive advantages in which the only way to win or survive is to have a lot of luck. The AI has priority in all aspects, they adhere to their own set of laws which favor them, and often enough they are give gameplay advantages that are outright unfair. Player skill, game knowledge, pattern recognition, and memorization mean nothing. It is if you are lucky at the game's whim. Example games would be the latest X-COMs. Hey see that Thin Man enemy across the map with no direct line of sight to your character in full cover? Well fuck that, your leveled character is going to be killed in a single turn, because fuck you.
// edit for clarification:
Being a bullshit game doesn't mean it is a bad game.
* This post has been modified
: 11 years ago
