I have resently been posting and talking to friends about the upcoming Hitman and it got me thinking about hardcore and hardcore games.
Its weird becuase generally I don't really go for the whole hardcore thing. I normally find it tedious and no fun, I just can't be bothered to do the same thing over and over or retry the same boss 20 times. It just pisses me off. I'd say there's a difference between something being too difficult and being challenging. Too difficult means that you just get stuck on sections and can't get past them. It locks the rest of the game from you and makes you scream at the screen and get generally quite upset. As I said, I don't like this, how can you? It overshadows anything that's good about the game because your concentrating so hard on just getting though it. I don't get any satisfaction out of completing or passing a section simply because instead I'm so relieved when actually get past it, I'm just glad its over. To me it just seems to be similar to self-harm, it just winds you up. And don't bullshit me saying "oh I Neeeever had any problems with this game, it was easy". We've all broken (or almost broken) stuff in fits of rage its like an annoying part of gaming life.
Something being challenging on the other hand is good. It means when you get though a game you feel good about it. Its a proper accomplishment without all the hassle. It fleshes out the gameplay and makes you properly explore the mechanics. A game that's too easy means that you stop really focusing on the combat or whatever because you don't have to, it just becomes systematic.
But then how do you define a difference between the two? Where's the cut off point for when a game is too hard? I don't think people should remove hard difficulty settings, that would be stupid, but things like veteran on COD WAW were just fucking retarded. Grenades everywhere, constant instant deaths and everyone always shooting at you, instead of the three or four other squad mates around you.
Although having said all that I'm a great fan of the hitman series. I enjoy the need to stop and think about your surroundings, targets and arsenal. In fact I even kinda enjoy dying then trying to figure out what to do next time to stop that from happening. I like the limited saves because it meant you had to plan and take steps instead of just saving every time you did something right until you completed the level. I'm not completely sure why I like the hitman series and completed them on their hardest difficulties and yet I get absolutely no pleasure from Demons Souls.
From the little I played of it (Demons Souls) I just didn't like it at all. It just felt like all the enemies you fought were overbalanced towards their favour. It felt like the developers had a personal vendetta towards me. It just got tedious after the nteanth time I died. I really don't understand how people found that fun.
Anyway I've said most of what I want to say and am pondering what the communities response will be. No doubt later on I'll think of something else to say but for now I'm off to play some Beyond Good and Evil HD.