This was a hard one. Well, it was for me; Murdo found it pretty easy and Colin timed himself the whole way, whilst thinking that it was of an average difficulty. Read on to find out what each of us think about certain difficulty levels and which games get it right.
Blair: As I was playing Worms 2 a few weeks ago, I realised something: I found the later levels very hard. I was stuck on one for hours, but I enjoyed it. I like difficult games. I don’t know what it is, but that immense satisfaction you get after completing a part of a game that you’ve been stuck on for a while is awesome. What about you guys, do you prefer playing your games on hard for the satisfaction or on an easier difficulty to just get through the game?
Murdo: I always check the trophy list first. If there’s something to do with completing the game on normal, I’ll play that. If not, I’ll stick with easy and enjoy the story. From time to time, I will go back and complete a game on hard for a trophy if I really enjoy the game though.
Colin: I always start a game on normal difficulty and see how it goes. I want games to challenge me but not at a level that makes me want to throw my controller through the TV. I don’t go back and play games through on a harder difficulty often as it normally replaces the fun with frustration.
Blair: You’re both boring. I love a challenge. Started God of War III on Titan for that reason, think I’d have been disappointed if I had just cut through the enemies like paper.
Murdo: Some of the games I remember going back to include the last few in the Call of Duty franchise. World at War’s later levels were insanely difficult but, for the platinum, completely worth it.
Blair: Oh, Call of Duty got it completely wrong. Difficulty means harder enemies and less health, not ‘thousands of grenades’.
Murdo: I like to enjoy the story though. Frustration distracts me. I’m stuck (and have been since launch) on God Of War III on normal. I really enjoyed the story but got too annoyed with the consistent dying.
Colin: The exact same thing happened with me and I ended up trading it in as it wasn’t fun anymore. I see why people like the greater difficulty though; you get a greater sense of achievement after completing it.
Murdo: The reason I haven’t completed most single-player games is because of the difficulty. At one point, it ramps right up and I hate it and give up.
Blair: I do hate when they ramp it up at the end just to extend the longevity of the game. But that’s what difficulty levels are for, right?
Murdo: Some games, like Flight Control (although it’s a different genre), get the difficulty bang on. It steadily increases and challenges me.
Colin: The difficulty level has to be right for the type of game it is, otherwise it ruins the game. F1 2009 on PSP got it horribly wrong and, in my opinion, ruined it. A game like that I want to be challenged, I don’t want to win the world championship with ease while driving a Torro Rosso on Hard.
Murdo: Games can be too easy as well. I don’t want to feel like I’m simply moving a character through a movie scene, I want there to be some necessity for my presence.
Blair: Zelda is perfect (here I go again). It’s not difficult, you can basically complete the game without dying, but the puzzles are a challenge and the entire journey is just fun.
Colin: Kane and Lynch 2 is another game that got the difficulty a bit off. On normal you die quite a bit, especially when playing with a useless co-op partner.
Blair: I heard that the entire game was a ‘bit off’.
Murdo: That game is hard to play in an entirely different way.
Colin: I liked it but enemies seem to be able to take more bullets than you which becomes quite annoying.
Murdo: And you get shot in cover. And you can’t see the ground in front of you when you run. It’s just hard on all settings.
Colin: Good thing the trophies unlock on easy though.
Murdo: iPhone games are almost always perfect with the difficulty. Angry Birds brilliantly introduces the new birds and increases the puzzle difficulty at a steady pace. One of the reasons it’s so addictive.
Blair: Yeah, it’s great. You’ve been playing thinking “I can beat this!” then you slowly get better and the game slowly gets harder. Then you can’t improve, but you’re sure you can still beat it! Have you heard of the new bird? The ‘Mighty Eagle’: you pay for it and it completes the level for you if you’re completely stuck.
Murdo: That’s like those unlock on EA games giving players all the unlockables, ruining the whole experience. Absolutely no challenge involved.
Colin: I hate those. Split/Second had the unlockable car pack at launch, it defeats the point of having an unlock system. It’s there for a reason and completely ignoring it for people who can’t be bothered to play through the game at a challenging level.
Blair: I like the idea of it in Angry Birds, as you don’t have to pay for it and you don’t get the same rewards if you do use it. There’s that feeling again, when you finally complete a level that you’ve spent a while on. With this, the feeling is completely lost.
Blair: How about when things are extremely hard, and it’s not the difficulty level? Such as Time Trials in racing games, or Mirror’s Edge. What about time limits? I don’t like them, they do provide a challenge but I hate being put against the clock; I like taking things as my own pace.
Colin: I like Time Trials; we’ve had some good ones on TSA recently. The challenge is different as it’s you trying to beat a time set to test and show your skills or attempting to beat your own. They also allow competition between other players which is almost always a good thing.
Murdo: I enjoyed being timed but not one that that runs out, I prefer ones that have an aim that you can then go over.
Murdo: I forgot to enter the MW2 one but I hope to see more of them soon.
Colin: I prefer that too, it allows you to see how far off you were and gauge how much you need to improve.
Blair: I guess it’s not so bad as long as it doesn’t stop you in your tracks and stop you from playing. Anyway, we’ve rambled on for long enough – this is getting difficult. Do our lovely readers like it hard or are they easy?
cc_star
In story driven adventures like Uncharted or God Of War I tend to choose easy to normal… I don’t want to endlessly be repeating levels/chapters when the story is paramount.
On other games like racers or sports games I choose a difficulty that I find challenging, so that I do become stuck for a while but not for a frustrating length of time.
bajere
yea, i do the same, think that its the best way to go. certain games where you start off and can drop the level are good. means you wont ever get stuck…think god of war does it
RadicalMave07
i can see why you would want the story to advance,but what i do is i always choose the hard setting at the beginning of the game(no matter which game it is).i feel as if i have accomplished so much when i defeat the game,i feel very proud and it allows me bragging rights to my friends who are still on normal difficulties.
to sum up i appreciate that many games have a choice of difficulty at the beginning,this allows all people to experience the game fully even if they are just starting to play games in general.(it also allows us to unlock trophies faster)
another perk when challenging yourself is that you can feel yourself becoming a better gamer,this is one of the main reasons i always choose hard.
ico
Agree with cc_star that story driven games should be played through on a comfortable level. If you keep having to replay a certain level / part of the game then you become less immersed in the story.
I think a decent learning curve / tutorial can really help with higher difficulties. Whilst I appreciate Portal only has one difficulty level (ignoring the advanced rooms) I recently replayed Portal and though the learning curve was outstanding and perfect.
Halo Reach is a good example I feel. Completed it (a little too easy for my liking) on Normal in co-op but am really enjoying going through it again on Heroic (and then may do Legendary but will crawl before I can walk). It’s nice as it’s not an axcessively long game so multiple playthroughs are not so daunting. The difficulty levels are well pitched as Bungie really know their AI and it doesn’t feel unfair on the harder levels as you feel if you play a tactical game (rather than all guns blazinf Rambo style) then you’ve always got a chance of out smarting the enemy.
Like blair said in the articel CoD games can get it wrong as on harder difficulties the AI just spam a seemingly infinite amount of grenades like they’re being magicked out of a hat!
ico
Sorry about the typos!
sanmartinez
Most shooters I play on the hardest difficulty, just because normal or hard isn’t enough of a challenge. Games like God of War i’m not that good in, or don’t really know how to play, mostly start on normal or either hard (after reading through some reviews and opinions). I like the challenge, and as Blair states: I like difficult games. I don’t know what it is, but that immense satisfaction you get after completing a part of a game that you’ve been stuck on for a while is awesome. Thats so true
3shirts
While I agree with that, too many games fall down because they mistake frustrating for challenging
Michi
for sure, there is dfifficult, then there is stupid
Example, MW2 on veteran!
tonycawley
Mw2 was a piece of Piss on vet when compared to w@w which just cheated. I’ve completed both on vet so feel it’s fair for me to compare.
bunimomike
“Do our lovely readers like it hard”
Where’s tuffcub when you need an emphatic reply?
3shirts
I am like Colin. I start on Normal then if it’s too easy, switch up or too hard, switch it down.
The exception is if there are trophies for completing on hard then I will usually persevere a little more with that before giving up and going to normal.
citizeninsane45
Ditto! I find the easy setting on most games way too easy. Normal is about right with hard being pretty hard. How it should be really.
XisTG
i always play a game on normal first. always.
i remember playing Killzone 2 on normal, and the last battles before the end were so brutal that i almost gave up. i think that “normal” was way to hard for me.
on the other hand, i recently finished Darksiders and let me tell you that playing it on hard is pretty much easy. Only died a couple of times on boss fights.
I am now replaying Dante’s Inferno and i believe this is a well balanced game in its difficulty modes.
carson321
I dont like it when you have to play a game through on the hardest difficulty available to begin with, to then open up an even harder difficulty setting! what is the point in that??
And I don’t know if there are any out there, but if they added a trophy for completing the game on the harder, unlocked difficulty setting, that would just be taking the piss!
cc_star
Think Uncharted 2 had a trophy each for 2 different difficulty levels
carson321
yeah but you could play on the harder difficulty and it would unlock the easier one as well, so that was ok for me
Severn2j
I can think of three that do this, Uncharted (1&2) and Dead Space, you then have to go through the game again on that Crushing/Nightmare mode to get the trophy for it.. It is annoying, but it got me to play them on Hard first which gave a better challenge, imo. Although, I’m still working my way through Dead Space on Hard (doing the “One Gun” trophy as well, which makes it extra tricky).
3shirts
I don’t mind this IF the game is worth a second go. I do however think that it should unlock all difficulty modes once you complete one playthrough on ANY difficulty.
I played the first uncharted on normal. That meant I had to do it again on Hard to unlock Crushing and then do that. It is a great game but I didn’t really enjoy the last playthrough as much cos it felt like I was kinda forced.
On U2, I did my first play on Hard so I could unlock Crushing. I would have preferred to take it a bit easier on Normal but I didn’t really want to do it 3 times.
stueeeee
It was an awesome game so I didn’t mind replaying it a few times, much like the first one. However it does just get ridiculous on Crushing. Starts to sap enjoyment out of it when your inches awayfrom the telly ready to ram your controller through it….. :-)
bunimomike
I play a game on normal. Simple as that. It’s worked 99% of the time for me. The only one I found too hard to enjoy was Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Talk about trying to break you. Sod that. Game sold two days later.
Danza Di Fuoco E Ghiaccio
Ah difficulty I just play on easy till it gets so easy thus putting the difficulty up a notch alas there are one’s that tend to go old-school and not bother with difficulty they’re are the gems of my gaming life I can’t give up.
Monster Hunter is crazy… now that I haven’t got a wired connection anymore I can’t join online guild guests to take on hi-rank Rathalos…. which would literally take 40mins it just depends on the equipment and if you haven’t got the right one you’ll be wyvern well-done steak.
Its as if the game is punishing you XD much like Demon’s Soul’s if you haven’t upgraded anything.
bigdon23
i almost always start a game on easy, having fun and really enjoying the game is the most important thing to me. im doing cod waw on vet and it just gives me chest pain, and im only 26