Challenge in games, is it "fun"? Is it supposed to be daunting? Is it cerebral or dexterity based? What presents a legitimate "challenge" in gaming?
I have played to completion Demon's Souls and I enjoyed it. The game presented a steady paced dexterity challenge sprinkled with cerebral pitfalls a plenty. One could not survive Demon's Souls without taking prudent measure of their surroundings. There was a need to move, to float, to parry, to cavort the loose analog sticks, on the PS3, about their sockets.This level of contest, to which one would face in Demon's Souls, could not be an enjoyable one without a certain level of thought to positioning, attack patterns, weaknesses, etc.. The cerebral challenge, inherent in the adroitness of the player controlling the sticks and manipulating the onscreen avatar, brings full-circle the satisfying challenge that gaming can deliver.The competition inherent in video games, such as Demon's, and Dark Souls, would be lost if it were not for the satiation of our desire to express our cleverness. If the result of the games design were not to challenge both ones handle on the sticks and ones ability to access the situations at hand, said game would lack depth. Depth is not achieved through the application of mashing buttons and dispatching countless drones, but, rather, it is through a nimble bridging of mental flexibility and quickness that we come upon "depth" in game design. Think of the trouble with games considered artificially difficult and game-breaking in challenge. What sorts of things would one consider that so harshly alienates the gamer from the masochist? Should a lack of hasty muscular reflexes truly prevent the player from resonating with a games mechanics/ its premise/ its overall design offerings.
