Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 March 7

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March 7

Hardest video game

What's the hardest video game? --70.250.214.164 (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

To answer this question meaningfully, we have to exclude indie art games that were deliberately made impossible to finish, as a statement. The matter is subjective; an action gamer may think the hardest video game is a strategy game, whereas a strategy gamer may think it's an action game. But it is a popular topic. This link to a Google search yields dozens of blog posts and articles of "Top 10 hardest video games" and the like. I actually think the correct answer might be "playing a game of chess against Deep Blue", though this is a game that very few of us will ever get to play. (Disclaimer: I realize Deep Blue was designed to beat Garry Kasparov and its weakness may be playing against a novice! But I doubt it.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect to IBM, a modern chess program like Fritz or Rybka running on a high end PC could kick Deep Blue's butt. Of course, any of them could wipe the floor with most humans. Buddy431 (talk) 18:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe you want this TV Tropes article. Vimescarrot (talk) 03:07, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Call of Duty 2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by ApplePie456 (talk • contribs) 11:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

No game made this decade is as hard as the games made for older consoles, pre-PlayStation. Vimescarrot (talk) 12:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a rather sweeping statement. For example, A chess program bought in this decade may well be significantly harder than any games purchased in the 8bit era. :: On top of that there are large number of commercial games intended to be unwinable. Which is harder, Left 4 Dead in "Survival Mode", or Robotron 2084?

And, of course, as mentioned above, there are a large number of indie games that are specifically designed to be impossibly difficult. (Lazy design if you ask me. Anyone can make a game that's impossible.) APL (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, to slightly unsweep it, I don't mean all games of this era are easier than all games of the NES time. What I meant was, if you make a difficulty spectrum of all the games of this era, and make another spectrum for all games in the NES era, the NES spectrum would be harder. And yes, I'm ignoring games like I Wanna Be The Guy... Vimescarrot (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Vimescarrot, with the slight modification that there's a difference between a game that's extremely difficult because it's been made to be that way and one that's just so poorly made or buggy that it's impractical to play through to the end. During the second and third generations of video game consoles, the market was flooded with hastily made crap that combined a poor technical base with pointless stories to create games that were almost unplayable (let alone un-winnable) if you tried and so piss-poor that few people would bother once they found out what crap they'd bought. The nadir there is, of course, the infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. Matt Deres (talk) 01:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, there are many games that have infinite play. That is, you never win. Some stay at the same difficulty, while others just continue to increase the difficulty (say by adding more monsters) forever. StuRat (talk) 00:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There is an indie game that is winnable but is designed to be very very difficult. It's called I wanna be the guy, and you can get it free here - iwbtg. edit: Oh hey there is a wikipedia article - I Wanna Be the Guy Gunrun (talk) 15:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

If I had to pick hardest, but winnable, it would definitely have to be Nethack (or the related game Slash'Em, but that's really just derivative). Took me 8 years to win it, and is considered nigh-impossible without spoilers.192.26.212.72 (talk) 20:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh good lord, yes, Nethack would definitely be in the top 5. Even experienced players who know the tips and tricks from experiencing them can have little chance of making it to the end. Short of actually breaking or subverting the code of the game (by save scumming, for example), victory is nearly impossible to achieve. But it is doable. Barely. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:17, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

A similar argument could be made for adventure games made by Sierra, which was infamous for the difficulty of its games, as it was possible to make one wrong decision in the beginning of the game and then find out ten hours later that you cannot beat the game, or not kicking a cat makes you die two hours later, so without incredible amounts of saves and a copy of The Lost repeated playthoughs, it was near-impossible to win a game on the first try. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.9.68 (talk) 02:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I once had a copy of The Lost World: Jurassic Park for the original PlayStation; couldn't get past the first level. I still haven't forgiven Steven Spielberg for it. Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Long Play Disks

Do they still make LPs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SIOU.4.5.6 (talk • contribs) 11:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

LP album says "... the compact disc began to significantly displace them by beginning of 1988. As of 2006, a renewed interest in vinyl has occurred and the demand for the medium has been on a steady increase yearly in niche markets". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

There are specialty stores that sell only LPs, and some regular music stores sell them too. I've bought some recently but they are more expensive than CDs. You can also still buy record players (new ones! That are also CD players and radios!). Adam Bishop (talk) 14:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

CD's were originally rather more expensive than LP's, although even then there were hi-grade LP's that were priced around where the CD's were. Now I expect it's a supply-and-demand issue, making LP's more expensive. In fact, if memory serves, the typical sticker price of ordinary CD's (around 15 dollars) is not much different than when they first came out - in short, their real price has dropped significantly in 25 years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I would attribute the higher price for LPs to the economy of scale. That is, you can produce each item cheaper if you make a million than if you make a thousand. This is because the fixed set-up costs are similar, but are divided by more units, if more units are produced. This portion of the set-up costs is then added to the per-unit costs (such as the price of the blanks), to arrive at the final production cost. StuRat (talk) 18:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Also the factor that the creators are (presumably) putting extra effort into the process to ensure high quality. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Many new LPs come with passcodes to download digital copies as well. This may add to the cost. The do occasionally contain bonus tracks, as did Brian Wilson's SMiLE.Aaronite (talk) 19:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to DJing and Turntablism as an artform unto itself, the vinyl disk is something that is here to stay. There are also audiophiles that bemoan digital music as artificial, and still like to hear music from an analog source. So the LP will still maintain a small market where tape forms (reel-to-reel, 8-track, and cassette) have disappeared. --Jayron32 21:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think cassette tapes have quite disappeared, yet. I find them easier to put in than a CD, while driving, although a large enough CD changer could address that issue. StuRat (talk) 21:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The advantage of CD's over LP's is what I call the "Rice Krispies factor", a.k.a. "Snap, Crackle, Pop," which can plague vinyl records. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

But some people actually like that, as they have good memories associated with music with those noises. There was an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond about this topic (Episode 181: "Jazz Records", Season 8: [1]). StuRat (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Recordings are often "cleanest" on compatible equipment instead of "dubbing". Which is why Billy Murray sounds better on a Victrola than as an MP3. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

projectionists

Do theaters still hire the local kids to be the projectionists or have health and safety reasons meant they have to hire people with training and experience? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catakoombs (talk • contribs) 23:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Projectors are almost completely automated. The training required takes a matter of minutes. As for repairing a broken film, the manager will have the training to do that. So, theaters still tend to use teenagers. Often, the projectionist will be older because many theaters require employees to work their up to projectionist by first cleaning theaters, then working concession, and then working projectors. -- kainaw™ 23:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

In our local small-town theater, the same person sells the tickets, runs the refreshment stand, and operates the projector. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 00:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Reminds me of a Green Acres episode, where they went to the airport, and the same person was the porter, ticket agent, and pilot. I wondered if he was going to put the plane on autopilot, put on a skirt, and hand out peanuts during the flight. StuRat (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

That was my job long ago. I sold the tickets and everyone would go wait at the concession stand. Then, I'd sell concessions and everyone would go into the theater. Then, I'd start the movie. It isn't too hard in a 1-screen theater. I wouldn't try it in a multi-screen theater. Further, I wouldn't try a single-screen theater either. Get one bad movie and the theater is likely to go bankrupt. You need as many screens as possible to offset bad movies with good ones. -- kainaw™ 00:55, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're considering a career as a projectionist, one thing to be aware of is that, at some point, I'd expect theaters to go with digital movie delivery and projection, meaning no more film and probably very little for an operator to do besides turn it on and set the volume level. This might all be done remotely, so that a single operator in a control room would start all the films. Or they may all be programmed to play at certain times, in advance, so there would be no operators involved during the actual playing. StuRat (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It isn't just the theater that will be automated. Delivery of digital movies will be electronic. So, the entire movie delivery service will be abandoned. Of course, the movie delivery companies make a lot of money right now, so they are actively doing all they can to stop the advance of digital movies. There is a proposal in the works to try and go digital without losing that business. Some people want to put movies on a harddrive (they call it a digital storage medium) that will be delivered to the theater. Once that is in place and everyone is digital, it will be trivial to jump to electronic delivery. -- kainaw™ 00:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I mentioned "digital movie delivery" in my response, but didn't go into detail, because this isn't as relevant to the job of projectionist. StuRat (talk) 10:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Where I'm from (Vancouver) there was a strike a few years ago by the projectionists' union. There were no teens on that picketline. Aaronite (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

(OR) When I was in university (which was 5-10 years ago), I worked part time for the audio-visual department projecting films throughout campus, anything from 16mm film reels to VHS to DVD. This may be showing a video during classes or movie club screenings. Beside delivering the film to the venue and getting it ready to screen, the job also involved servicing overhead projectors. Different venues have different audio visual equipments, and sometime there is a booth, so it's important to know the way around and how things hooked up in various places. There is usually only 15 mins to get everything set up before class starts, and things do get out of your control sometimes. But once I get the movie going I can study or do my homework. Except when something goes wrong you're the first one to be blamed (even like a burnt bulb). Part of the job would be to deal with it quickly and calmly. The best part of the job is to get something fixed and you'd be treated like a hero. It's a good way to become disciplined and puntual because the entire class or lecture hall full of people depend on you. The job pays hourly, so it's a good way to earn beer money :) --Kvasir (talk) 17:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)