Ah, the difficulty select screen. Where boys are made into men, and men are brought to rage after fighting Tartarus for 4 consecutive hours.
Seriously. Fuck you.
That fucker aside, the difficulty selection screen is a timeless staple and tradition. It's always been the goal to beat everything on the highest possible difficulty you can for the biggest achievement. But everyone has their own skill, and their own tolerances for how many times they can get bashed by a gravity hammer before the accomplishment is no longer worth the infinite frustration. Dare you try it again, or give up and accept your status as a filthy scrub who does everything on easy mode?
Over the years I've noticed a trend with myself of not worrying so much about completing everything on as high a difficulty as I can. It depends on the game, I suppose; something like a Mass Effect where the experience is more in the narrative, I find myself enjoying it much more by turning down the difficulty on the admittedly good gameplay so I can focus more on the characters and the story.
Not counting the first game, which plays like a drunken toaster in some regards.
Actually, no, I am counting the first Mass Effect, ad I'd argue the clunky mechanics make casual mode more difficult enough, already. When it comes to the good 'ol FPS though, I'm still one to go into Halo on Legendary or Gears on insane, or... Call of Duty on... suicidal? I don't play CoD so I'm assuming I'm correct on that one. Destiny 2 is another interesting outlier, as while my squad was adamant on doing all the raids in the first game on hard mode, we've yet to tackle the hard mode in any of Destiny 2's raids. Maybe it's because 2's raids are hard enough without a more challenging mode, or perhaps we just don't need that extra little bit of self-gratification anymore? It's hard to say, and I can't speak to all of us, but we are all busy working adults, some of us with children, even. So perhaps we get enough out of spending our already limited time doing things the easier way.
I'd also like to posit a question: what, exactly, is wrong with enjoying things on easy mode anyway? There's such a big stigma about being a noob scrub who can't tough it out like real gamers, and that bullshit attitude has got to go. Games mean something different to everyone, and not everyone has the same skill set, and I truly don't understand the purpose of shaming someone for not studying the controller while we were out partying. Let people enjoy games however they want, and if they'd rather stroll through the journey without much adversity, then no one should have the right to tell them that their accomplishments are invalid or that they shouldn't get to share these worlds with us. I find myself leaning more into taking things a bit easier these days, as time becomes more limited and I care more about enjoying the ride itself than having to fight to overcome it. Especially once Halo: The Master Chief Collection hits PC and it's time to take on Tartarus again...
Fuck you so, so much...
To challenge Casey to 1v1 you for his honour, find him @DSMobius
