It’s a question that, to most gamers, seems obvious. What is hardcore? Who are the “real” gamers? And where does the distinction lie between what we think of as hardcore gamers and the new wave of casual gamers that is slowly eeking away from word-wrangling flash games on the internet and taking a sudden interest in these “gaming console things”?

Really looking at that question, I first thought of the most obvious distinction. That hardcore gamers prefer larger, more complex games. And, as a rule, more difficult games. That hardcore gamers are the types of people who crank a new game up to maximum difficulty before even loading the opening cinema sequence. And they’re usually the people complaining that modern games are too easy and too short (especially if the new buy price is going to be $60 a pop). And that begs another question – an important one – about difficulty. Are games getting easier? Or, as Tim Rogers of insert-creidt.com suggests, are we simply getting better? Is hardcore defined by a learning curve, or by natural ability?

Or is it merely enthusiasm? I know a few gamers that would consider themselves hardcore, but suck at a wide variety of games. I myself know that, despite infinite amounts of playtime, my best use in Counter-Strike is as a human shield for more skilled players to rush in and mow down my killers. And yet, take the same basic game engine and call it Day of Defeat, and I am a one-man Ally busting machine (hey, it’s not my fault I like the German guns more). Does my inability to adapt to certain game styles or archetypes disqualify me as a hardcore gamer? Does the fact that most people haven’t beaten Super Metroid with a 17% collection rate disqualify anyone else?

These are questions that have been floating around in the back of my mind with the release of the Wii, but I don’t think they solidified until Tycho uttered words that were prophetic and insightful even for him – “The game is not challenging, it’s difficult to play, and it’s taken many years but I’m ready to begin making this distinction.” There was a time in gaming history when the two things were so very similar as to be indistinguishable. Was anyone really ever “good” at a game like, say, Burger Time? Or had they just memorized enough patterns and learned to control the awkward meanderings of their character enough to do what normal people could not?

The game I always think of in this regard is Castlevania – well, the first three anyhow. Everything about your character in the original NES games was slow, cumbersome and even downright frustrating. Simon and Trevor Belmont jumped a very methodical way. Once you pressed the jump button you were committed to that jump in a way that was completely unlike any other popular side-scrolling game (though admittedly, more realistic). Mario, Mega-Man, Kid Icarus, Samus Aran, and scores of other lesser gaming avatars could change course mid-jump, could double back, could define the length and height of their jump with the release of the A button. The Belmonts (whom I am told by my instruction booklet texts were very athletic) jumped in even plops. And they likewise whipped in strong, slow, definite strokes.

Modern incarnations of Castlevania have done away with that control concept in exchange for a much more Metroid-y movement style (as well as a Metroid-y everything else). But the question is whether or not that new control scheme was simply to conform to the new style of play or if it was an admission that the old Castlevanias were clunkier than they could have been. And likewise, were the older titles balanced against the control scheme in terms of difficulty? Were there fewer demands on the protagonists’ agility (evil fucking flying Medusa heads aside) because the scheme limited that agility? Would giving Simon and Trevor the mobility and speed of Samus Aran have broken the challenge of those old games (in much the same way that the Wiimote broke Resident Evil 4′s difficulty)?

Of course, this isn’t the question Tycho is referencing. What he is saying, very plainly, is that Lair expects players to be able to perform airborne acrobatics that are beyond the reasonable scope of the interface. That it is technically possible to execute them is irrelevant. Because that technicality has reduced the challenge of the game to simply grasping basic controls. Would Ocarina of Time have been a good game if it took you thirty game hours to figure out how to swing the sword properly? And balanced against this example are fighting games, where precise and often unlisted button inputs are the different between a Super Shoryuken and performing a right jab while you get Sonic Boomed in the face. And what about a game like StarCraft, where the interface is a contextual GUI of menu-drive commands? Or World of Warcraft, where the interface can be completely stripped away and replaced by user-created content?

Though maybe the truth is in the telling. There were (and probably still are) vast numbers of players that can play fighting games with great skill and precision. And there are armies of Korean gamers that could crush either you or I in a round of StarCraft that makes even the most vulgar internet vernacular seem timid and kind by comparison. As for Warcraft, well. . . I have over 80+ inputs on my Warlock’s screen and I’m always looking for ways to add more. Yet none of these games are limited by their interfaces, and while some of them require the gamer to learn the interface, that learning tree is not the game itself. If a game goes from being mind-numbingly impossible to being breathtakingly easy once the clunky interface has been learned, then the game is the clunky interface. Period.

So when Sony sent out a guide on how to review Lair to the gaming media it really gave me pause. What they were essentially saying to a group of people that play games all day long, even play them for a living, is that they universally didn’t know how to play Lair. And that if only they would learn how to play Lair, everything would be alright again and Sony’s new flagship title wouldn’t sink like a stone. It begs the question of whether any game that needs a huge, full-color picture book to explain the control scheme should even be able to qualify as a good game. I think it could, possibly, if such a thing were intended as part of the gaming package. Certainly I’ve seen flight sims with manuals that long. But Factor 5 intentionally doesn’t make fight sims (they cranked out Rogue Squadrons, not X-Wing vs TIE Fighters). The general gaming public certainly isn’t going to get a glossy full page player’s guide to show them how to perform basic maneuvers.

Lair is, by definition, a hardcore game. It’s on a hardcore platform – seeing as how the PS3 has the lowest buy rate and the highest price, it’s fair to say that the PS3 is limited almost exclusively to the hardcore gamer. And yet the gaming community, the gaming industry, and even the idols of gaming themselves have smote Lair – despite having previously heralded it as a reason to break down and buy a PS3 in the first place. So is Lair hardcore because it’s on the grown-up console? Because it has cinema-quality graphics? Because it’s matured rated and for a reason? It certainly isn’t casual. And maybe it’s just plain crap. But the question of What Is Hardcore speaks to so many qualifications and in many cases personal preference. In the end, identifying hardcore gaming may wind up following the same statute that the Supreme Court uses for sifting porn from art. I may not be able to define it, but I’ll know it when I see it.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.