Ok I just want to say off the bat that I understand challenging the player in a game without making the game too hard or too easy is a huge challenge in game development. I get that and I appreciate a game getting the difficulty right. I really really do. That points aside I have an issue with a few games that I want to address.

Plainly put the argument is this. When the enemies and puzzles in a game constantly put themselves in a state of flux depending on my gameplay it ruins the game for me. Yes I understand that the game mechanic of adjusting difficulty is not a new state of affairs. But for goodness sakes we have had 20 years to learn how to get the difficulty down when making games and we still have to cop out by using this system of self adjusting enemies?

What every happened to good honest game design? It's more then a little confusing when I can start off in a game killing rats with a single blow of my sword and a few hours in all of a sudden the rats can surive a much bigger better sword for two or even three swings? That is a little confusing game developers. Why doesn't that rat just act the way the gameplay has taught me it should act every time?

That and you realize game devlopers that when you do this thing called adjusting difficulty that I the player feel robbed of any kind of progres in terms of power. Frankly that's one of my favorite parts about gaming. Walking into a room that would have kicked your rear and handed it to you in a can 5 hours ago and being able to reverse the situation. It's a feeling that is part of the reason I game.

The part I really don't understand however is how no one seems to have picked up on what Bioware did to solve this problem. Take Baldur's gate for example. The game would adjust encounters based on what level you were when you triggered the encounter. But instead of simply beefing up the monster they simply put in more monsters or less monsters based on your level while the enemies and rewards remained the same. Bascially put you encounter a beholder once and you know what to expect everytime you see a beholder. What you don't know is how many beholders you will encounter the next time through the game in the same spot. Or if you will encounter a diffrent race of beholder with an increased range of spells. But a Grand beholder acts the same each time you encounter one no matter the numbers or area.

To the point the game that finally got me to see all this was oblivion. I finally could play the game no longer about 14 hours in becuase the goblins I encountered once were no longer goblins but some insane mass of death that simply took on the form of a goblin and somehow survived more hits with a sword 20 times more powerfull then the one I used to kill my first goblins. It just made no sense to me consdidering the goblins I had encountered only a few short hours ago. That and my head kind of snapped back on when I realized that I was litterly jumping as much as possible through entire towns so I could level up my jumping skill. That's right I'll say it again. Oblivion litterly forces you if you wish to simply jump to jump hours on end to level up your jumping skills. Or you have to fall off as many roofs as you can to level up your tumbling skill.

But hours of crazy acrobatics aside the point I'm trying to make is ultimatly for me Oblivion failed becuase it felt like the game was forcing me to conform to it's system rather then having it's sytem conform to me ironically. I found myself doing things such as jumping all over town and picking locks simply becuase it was the only way to keep playing. it didn't matter if you level up as a warrior or a thief or what skills you used to get there by the end of the game all locks are super hard to open and if you can't open them you get no loot.

So yes the point in case is I cant stand Obliviion and other games that force the player to adapt to the game rather then the game adapting to the player. it totally sapped me of any feeling of getting stronger and made me do silly things that just were not fun to get ahead. I mean looking at gamespots own game guide for the game which they gave a good score indeed give you the advice of playing a very specific way so you level up as slowly as possible while gaining as much power as possible. Bascially put you have to play the game a very specific way to get the most out of it. Last time I checked wasn't Oblvion supposed to be a huge free roaming sandbox RPG? Isn't that a bit conflicting?

Badly adjusting difficulty has got to be one the worst trends in gaming and one of the most fusterating experiences for a player
right up there with bad AI escort missions.

So what are your thoughts? How should a game take difficulty into account? Should it simply be the old easy, medium hard, selection or should games try and adjust to you as you play?

For those not in the know it's flying around the internet right now that Jeff the Editor here at Gamespot got the sack becuase he wrote a bad review on Kane and Lynch one of the sites major sponsers at the moment.

Even Penny Aracde the Famous gaming comic has gone a strip today of the incident. Frankly if it's true then I bet the backlash will be large and harsh. But I ask this. Are you lashing out becuase you agree with Jeff or becuase you don't want to see reviews bought and paid for by large companies.

Hell both are damn good reasons to protest. Screw paying for reviews. Jeff is and continues to be a damn good reviewer who doesn't wait to really speak his mind although I can see now why some games got a higher score under him then the reading of the review puts the game.

Screw anyone who takes a bribe to put good press out the door.

As my own personal protest I've pretended to give a fart about Kane and Lynch and have written a very very very bad review. Please feel free to do as you all wish on your own. This whole situation is a bull's fart to put it half nicely.

Martial arts are really starting to become a staple in my life. I have to admit I know it sounds weird but the mental focus I've started to develop from the arts has started to weive it's way into my gaming.

Crazy hey.

Anyway besides that It's life as usual for me. Still working as a coffee making barista for a living and still loving it. Finally picked up a copy of Dark Cloud 2 along with resident evil 4 and Mortal Kombat: Decption (Deception was $10!! talk about a deal).

So I guess I'll be happy gaming for a while. here. Resident evil 4 is an excellent game btw and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. Took a bit to get into but the actions solid and well done.

Mortal Kombat is well....Gore and death fighting. what else do you expect from MK. It's not as deep as the 2d fighters I've been playing but the fun is still there.

Looks like my skills on the 2d versions with Liu Kang have shown their wear and tear in the 3d versions as his flying kicks and fireballs do next to nothing in 3d when they can simply be sidestepped and easily countered. I've become more of a Sub zero user now although I have also learned that Sindel is a terrific fighter in 3d.

And Dark cloud is just more of a personal thing then anything else. It's an excellent game but certainly not the 9.0 that gamespot would have you beleive I can't beleive I'm saying this but the game is just accually too straitforward for being so large. It's like trying to take oblivion and forcing it all to go down one narrow path. It just doesn't work well and it looses the charm of freedom of action. It's good but it's just missing that last bit of free choice that would make it great.

Anyway enough said. It's a good week.

ps. Thank you gametap for letting Canada have a crack at you. Your two week free trail has been totally not worth it but at least I got to play Sam and Max.