No not in that way….well maybe I am a bit hehe. What I’m referring too is my preference for playing games on easy mode <gasp> I hear you cry and “What a noob!” (if your harsh) but yes I play on easy and I always will.
No I’m not a casual gamer in that I only play on the Wii on weekends, I don’t play Sing Star once every six months round someone’s house and I certainly don’t like playing Who wants to be a millionaire on the tv at Christmas. I’ve played games for over 20 years, I’m not elitest or showing off but I’ve played a very broad spectrum of games including many obscure and weird games (mostly Japanese). What this all boils down to is, I’ve been around a bit (gaming wise) I know my stuff but I choose to play games the way I want.
I get allot of grief for playing games on easy, old-school gamers who used to struggle through levels in old arcade games see easy mode as wimp mode and think you might as well not play at all or your wasting the game.
I play games for various reasons outside of how hard I make it on myself to enjoy it.
- the story which you get wrapped up in and draws you forward. Final Fantasy for me is all about a story that just happens to be interactive, I’m not really interested in the challenge of the bosses or leveling to max level I just want to be entertained. A recent example is Uncharted 2 which features some of the best acting in a game ever and the story really draws you in.
- the sheer fun (flying down a mountain in SSX Tricky or Driving down the streets of San Fran in Crazy Taxi).
- Sense of progression, I mentioned not slaving away at Final Fantasy for leveling but some games derive their fun from a sense of progression the most obvious being World of Warcraft and other MMO’s (which I am very easily addicted too…sadly).
None of which require me to crank up the difficulty to make them better. Some enjoy the challenge of finishing a game on crazy mode but I don’t, I find it quite jarring to see a story sequence in Uncharted 2 then get shot with a missile and watch it again over and over. Getting killed in games breaks me out of the illusion and gets me grumpy, it makes me want to not play any more.
If you were watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the Cinema and Indy and that kid were shooting down the mine in that cart and instead of looking cool they slammed into a wall both died then the screen flashed and they were twenty feet back again and this time survived it would get a bit old and feel cheap.
There are some games I will probably never see the end of due to them being too hard with no way to make them easier, I’ll probably never get through Little Big Planet…I love the game and would love it more if I could see the end but I just keep falling off the platforms and get grumpy and I have never finished a GTA game purely because I always come up against some chase mission that requires perfect timing and control in one of the games worst vehicles.
My loss with those games and others but still if they were a bit easier I’d enjoy them allot more, to be able to put them aside in a nice completed games pile (or sold if I didn’t like them that much).
So when a game presents me with a choice of easy or normal I will always choose easy and I don’t care!