Easy does it for hardcore gamers

Nearly all of us have memories of gathering around an NES with friends when we were younger to play the hottest new games; classics like "Super Mario Bros.," "Contra" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."\nBut what only the hardcore gamers remember is just how much screaming, wall punching and controller-throwing these classic games induced.\nIn the grand old days of the NES and even the SNES and Sega Genesis to a lesser extent, I would sit down with a game expecting to be challenged. \nI knew I would be lucky to finish the first level of "Bart vs. The Space Mutants," let alone beat the entire game. \nBart Simpson had a very limited number of lives in that game, new ones were hard to come by and there was absolutely no saving between levels, like games offer today. To this day, I still haven't beaten that game. In fact, there weren't many games at all in my old NES collection that I had beaten. \nYet each time I got just a little bit further in a game, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment.\nThat's a lot more than I can say about current video games for the Sony Playstation2, Microsoft Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube.\nBeing an avid Xbox player, I've beaten some of the best games for the system, including "HALO," "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "Dead or Alive 3." Sure, I've had fun along the way, but I just don't feel like I've accomplished much. \nWho's played those games and not beaten them?\n"HALO" is a cinch compared to "DOOM," "Knights of the Old Republic" can't hold a candle to the uber-difficult "Dragon Warrior" and "Dead or Alive 3" is a cakewalk compared to "SuperStreet Fighter II Turbo." \nIt's not that my skills have gotten that much better over the years; if anything they've degraded. I can't play the old NES games nearly as well as I could back in the day. The problem is that game developers aren't making challenging games anymore.\nTake away all the flashy graphics and sound effects, then compare the actual core gameplay of a recent role-playing game like "Knights of the Old Republic" to the early "Final Fanasy" or "Dragon Warrior" games. \nI breezed through "Knights" this past summer without any forced leveling up and when I got to the last boss, I beat him in about only five tries.\nOld-school NES RPGs took time and patience to build a character up and even then there was no guarantee you would prevail in the final boss battle. \nThose games were fun and challenging.\nGames have been getting easier for awhile now, but things have really gotten simpler since the release of "Grand Theft Auto III" on the PS2 in late 2001. That was the game that brought the entire industry mainstream attention.\nThe upside to this is now video game culture is receiving the funds to ensure it will continue for a long time to come.\nThe price, however, could be the death of old-fashioned hardcore gaming. Mainstream gamers want shorter, easier games and since that's who games are being marketed to now, that's what the developers are creating.\nLuckily, a few games that actually require skill, like Treasure's 2-D shooter, "Ikaruga" for GameCube and SEGA's rail shooter, "Panzer Dragoon Orta" for Xbox still come out each year, but how much longer will this continue?\n"Ikaruga" was almost never released in North America. SEGA said if "Orta" sold well enough they would consider producing an RPG sequel, but that game has never been formally announced, inferring that it didn't sell as well as they expected.\nI still enjoy a good dorm room game of "HALO" or just goofing around with killing sprees in "GTA", but I crave the rare games that require skill to master. \nUnfortunately, the holiday lineup isn't looking too hot for true gamers. PS2 fans have "Gran Turismo 4" to look forward to, a game series known for its near-catatonic computer opponents.\nNintendo is pushing "Mario Kart: Double Dash" this fall, but if their recent big-name sequels are any indication of the quality of this game, I think I'll pass.\nAnd then there's Xbox. Microsoft gamers get to look forward to a two-pack of the games responsible for destroying hardcore gaming: "GTAIII" and "GTA: Vice City."\nThe big name games of the fall should satisfy the unwashed mainstream masses, but I'll be continuing my quest for a truly hardcore game.