Guest Post: Not Hardcore Enough for Hardcore?
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Back in October last year I was having a conversation with an Xbox Live friend of mine about playing through the single player campaign on Halo 3. Of course as soon as I had eagerly booted my 360 up and selected campaign from the menu I went straight for the Legendary difficulty setting. It was an automatic decision for me and no other setting crossed my mind. But I noticed that my friend was playing it on Easy. Now, before I’m quickly labelled as a gaming elitist, this friend of mine is no casual gamer. Shooters are his game of choice, and he’d frequently pick me off from the other side of the map with the Longshot on Gears of War, or fill me full of bullets in Calypso Casino on Rainbow Six Vegas.
So I asked him why he was playing on such an easy setting relative to his gaming skill. He said that he preferred to play that way so that he could get used to the controls and the way the game worked, and once he’d completed Easy he’d then ramp up the difficulty and play through again. Now, aside from the fact that Halo 3 played exactly like Halo 2 before it, I’m sure that a gamer of his skill has no trouble picking up a pad and adapting to what is a pretty standard FPS control scheme. I know I can quickly get to grips with any new game and its controls, assuming of course they aren’t fatally flawed, and we are both of a similar skill level. But even if this wasn’t the case most games these days allow you to customise the controls to your heart’s content.
Then there’s the actual time required to play through a game several times, ramping up the difficulty level on subsequent plays. With most 360 games featuring stacked achievements (don’t get me started on games that don’t – I’m looking at you Command & Conquer 3!) there’s no need to play a game several times for points, and I don’t know about you but after a couple of times through a game tedium usually starts to set in, especially in shooters.
But for me the biggest downside of this style of play is the loss of atmosphere and above all challenge that results from playing on the harder difficulty settings in shooters. Take Call of Duty 4 for example, probably my favourite 360 game of recent times, at least until Mass Effect stole my life. The Call of Duty series is famous for its particularly hard Veteran setting, and so for me this was how I was introduced to the game (and indeed the series, this being my first Call of Duty title). And boy was I in for a challenge! Apparently this game looks rather nice but I had no time for admiring the scenery; I was too busy crouched behind a burnt out car sheltering from grenades while bullets whizzed over my head. The intense atmosphere of this game that Infinity Ward have managed to get so right was instantly enhanced by the sheer lethality of the experience on Veteran. I was actually really tired after the first few missions, but the grin on my face as I played more than made up for it. In my opinion this is the way to play games; for me it’s all about the challenge, and the subsequent overcoming of said challenge through skill and, I’ll admit, the occasional bloody-mindedness to try and try again. Going back to my friend and Halo 3, I asked him if he had even died during his time on the game. The answer? Not once. So what exactly is a hardcore gamer getting out of it?
I know Rockers enjoyed the exhilaration of Call of Duty 4 on Veteran as much as me, and that she had a similar discussion with a couple of people that found it too hard and so turned the difficulty down. If it’s too hard to the point of ruining your enjoyment then fair enough, but I don’t see the point of playing on a setting so easy for you it’s not a challenge. And when you do come to switch to Veteran, you’ve played it so much that you know exactly what’s coming and how to handle it so it further ruins the challenge of the game.
My final point is slightly off on a tangent, but it’s about loving the kudos of completing particularly difficult games on hard settings. With the achievement point system being cheapened by boosters and cheaters there are very few ways to show your skill and dedication to gaming, so it’s almost a point of pride for me to complete a game on its hardest setting (damn you Command & Conquer 3!). Now all that remains is to complete Mile High Club on Veteran. Wish me luck!
This was a guest post written by Loud78
