Are you a wimp, or hardcore player from hell?

So, if the choice is available, what difficulty level do you usually pick on your first playthrough of a game?

Very easy? Easy? Normal? Hard? Very hard? Insane?


For me, it's generally Normal. But when I have a huge backlog of unfinished games and little time to play them, I tend to pick Easy level just so I can finish a game with minimal frustrations. Sometimes I'll also go the easy route if a game doesn't really interest me gameplay-wise - in that case, I just want to cruise through it and see the storyline.

I generally pick Normal mode in all games. Sometimes I will restart on Hard after I've played the first level if I find the game a bit easy. I've noticed with some recent games that they are starting to add the difficulty level settings within the games so you can change the setting as you play. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing as it would just mean if you get to hard bit you drop it down to easy, and then back up after. I suppose it's better than just getting stuck and giving up.

I'm in the normal region of difficulty too.

My thinking is first time out play a game on it's default settings as that's how the original makers intended it to be played.

Then, after gaining some experience (or finishing the game), adjust the difficulty accordingly. I'd never lower a difficulty level below default - that's like admitting defeat. If the designers made it too hard to complete on default levels, then it's a bad game (and I'm not a bad player). :p

:lol: Good philosophy there. It's not that you are a bad player, more that the developers didn't code it correctly for the benchmark that is "Bloodwych". :thumbs:

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Originally Posted by Bloodwych

I'm in the normal region of difficulty too.

My thinking is first time out play a game on it's default settings as that's how the original makers intended it to be played.

Then, after gaining some experience (or finishing the game), adjust the difficulty accordingly. I'd never lower a difficulty level below default - that's like admitting defeat. If the designers made it too hard to complete on default levels, then it's a bad game (and I'm not a bad player). :p

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I thought it was just me, I always do this.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

developers didn't code it correctly for the benchmark that is "Bloodwych". :thumbs:

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Too right! Those pesky game designers should calibrate each game to my skill standards LOL! Or FOL's, as he's with me on this (as long as he's not a better gamer than me) :p

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Originally Posted by Bloodwych

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Originally Posted by Harrison

developers didn't code it correctly for the benchmark that is "Bloodwych". :thumbs:

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Too right! Those pesky game designers should calibrate each game to my skill standards LOL! Or FOL's, as he's with me on this (as long as he's not a better gamer than me) :p

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Well, i play a mean game of ZeroHour. Was even called gutsey, as i was getting hammered, by 2 players so i nuked my own base, in an attempt to wipe out the attackers. It didnt work, but hey, great tactic. Now if only Dune2 was multiplayer, :).

I'm not very good at games, but generally go for normal or easy. Unless it's something I've been really, really, REALLY enjoying (like Ouendan) I won't bother with hard mode.

For me the worst game (ie hardest) was Onimusha on the PS2, mainly because of the awful turn and move control system that i really hate.

However, I was even more offended when it offered me 'Super-Easy' mode :(

I tend to pick Normal as I imagine that's how the developers designed it to be.

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Originally Posted by v85rawdeal

For me the worst game (ie hardest) was Onimusha on the PS2, mainly because of the awful turn and move control system that i really hate.

However, I was even more offended when it offered me 'Super-Easy' mode :(

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You know, I actually really enjoyed Onimusha, depite the control system (which I have never liked - I gave up on 'Resident Evil code veronica X 2000 super plus go mega').

I even went as far as going to the effort of unlocking the uber Bashimon sword or whatever it was called (it was totally unnecessary to complete the game and was only available right near the end IIRC). I can't remember if I went for very easy though.... Have a feeling it was just regular easy - it was a loooooong time ago.

:huh2:I never even beat the first boss

That's a shame, it did get a lot better once you started to get different weapons and power them up a bit. No great loss though, you didn't miss out on too much - it was good but not great.

I play through games on normal and if I complete them I will revisit them on more difficult modes. I remember having a competition with my friends on Timesplitters 2 on the PS2 to see who could complete the levels the quickest. After you remebered the enemy patterns you could fly through it very quickly - it was really funny to watch each other do it because you would be killing one person while arming grenades to throw at a specific location to kill someone on patrol by the time you were in front of them - it looked like the whole thing was sped up. I have the Amiga to thank for my memory feats - shadow of the beast makes modern games look easy by comparison!:D

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Originally Posted by v85rawdeal

For me the worst game (ie hardest) was Onimusha on the PS2, mainly because of the awful turn and move control system that i really hate.

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Try Ninja Gaiden (Xbox, or the new Ninja Gaiden Sigma remake on the PS3). That game is sure to make you want to scratch out your eyeballs - even though the controls are quite a bit better than Onimusha, admittedly. Single most frustrating game ever, even on Normal mode.

Games nowadays do generally appear to have become easier, maybe to cater to the masses of casual players.

Always use the normal mode, as I'm only a casual gamer, and other modes are way too hard. I never pick the easy mode, as sometimes they let some things out of games to make them easier to finish, but I want to enjoy the whole thing.

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Originally Posted by Sharingan

Games nowadays do generally appear to have become easier, maybe to cater to the masses of casual players.

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Games nowadays are easier. I can get reasonably far in most modern games, but going back to 16 bit games on UAE, I got my ass handed to me. They are much more challenging and less forgiving.

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Originally Posted by J T

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Originally Posted by Sharingan

Games nowadays do generally appear to have become easier, maybe to cater to the masses of casual players.

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Games nowadays are easier. I can get reasonably far in most modern games, but going back to 16 bit games on UAE, I got my ass handed to me. They are much more challenging and less forgiving.

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Ideed they are, thats why I like them so much.

I have however (after getting my new GFX card) been playing halo, with full gfx settings and hard setting. All I can say is "IT NUTS", bloody hard.

Halo or Halo 2? I found the first game on the xbox much harder on the hard setting than Halo 2 on the same hard setting. Also I got quite bored of the sequel and don't think it is a good Vista launch title as it was dated even when it came out on the Xbox as it didn't really do much new that we hadn't already seen in the original. I still enjoy playing the original game though, somertimes still firing it up on the old xbox, but I do still much prefer the PC version over the Xbox version, mainly due to the better controls of a keyboard and mouse. I never can get on 100% with using a console controller for FPS style games. Always makes the games harder and more fiddly than they should be.

I mostly start playing at normal and then increase the difficulty after a while. Starting at easy can be dangerous as you remove a lot of the challenge and the game can be too easy to complete.

And I agree with JT that games were much harder before. One can just have a look at the Xenon competition at this board to see that. Had a few goes at this game and it didn't go very well. ;)

And as DC mentioned, some games actually remove elements from the game to make them easier on the easy mode so you don't actually get the whole game when playing on such settings in all games.