Cross-post from Half-KIA over on Reddit, reposting here for a signal boost:
With Psychonauts 2 having an invincibility toggle, the debate about video game difficulty has resurfaced, with at least one games journalist proving how incompetent she is by saying she refuses to play on anything other than easy mode. Other topics covered this episode include the new lawsuit against Blizzard, updates on the Chris Avellone allegations, Kotaku embarrassing itself in more than a couple ways yet again, a game developer’s very bizarre Twitter thread about making female characters look less feminine, and plenty more.
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why do games journalists exist? I mean, other than pushing the Progressive Death Cult agenda and organizing head hunts against any reasonable voice?
I can watch a video of gameplay (hopefully without commentary) online. I don't need some failure at life telling me what they think about a game based on their rushed playthrough. Most of them hate games anyway.
This is an important point : The ONLY people who become journalists have failed at capitalism and many more profitable subjects. So their articles are a) idiotic and b) they attack the systems that they have failed at.
Sadly, during that early time frame, reviews were just as bought-and-paid (if not more so) as what we saw with the Dorito Pope. We were just naive enough to not recognize the level of payola and palm-greasing that was going on behind the scenes, what with press junkets for reviews and all the free swag the "reviewers" would score. At least we had a wide swath of review options in the different magazines, so there might be a chance that one of them didn't get paid off when a game was a stinking pile and we'd get a legit review.
Bears mentioning that this is not my content, and I am not affiliated with Scrivonaut. I just really enjoy the podcast he and his wife put together, and feel that they deserve a little more advertisement than just a blurb over on Reddit.
I can't help but connect the dots between easy modes and all forms of relativism. A game with a fixed difficulty is asking you to meet an objective standard. Leftist journos are members of a cult bent on abolishing the very concept of objective standards.
Hell, difficulty modes even represent a form of equity. Everyone who plays the game deserves progress and closure regardless of performance and skill growth, right?
I don't mind easy modes, and I think that's a super unpopular opinion to begin with. Depends on the game and how it challenges you as I prefer puzzles and stats over perfection level reflexes. I've actually had arguments before that puzzles aren't difficult because you can just look them up, but the way I see it if you cheat that's your own fault.
Still though, invincibility? What's the point?
There is nothing wrong with easy mode, but when a person who's singular purpose in life is to review games will only play on the "press A to win" difficulty level, they are being utterly disingenuous with their so called review.
I couldn't count how many games have mechanics that don't even come into play in easy mode. How do you assess balance? Or replayability, or any of the things that actually should matter in a game review.
Yeah I can't remember what but there was a game I played on easy a couple years ago that I thought was pretty blah, but it turns out easy turned off a key mechanic entirely. Didn't even make it unnecessary, just made it not exist.
If I really think about it I usually play easy on games that are either old with mechanics that don't hold up well or just have super cheap ways to increase difficulty. Having 30 extreme sponge characters on you with laser accuracy in a split second or a half dozen grenades land on your head constantly is more of a battle of attrition than actual fun. The age old argument like a Dark Souls with easy mode, yeah I might play it but I'm not sure it makes it any better. I just don't like the game to begin with most of the time. There's some changes I'd make to have it respect your time more, but just making it easy would make it kinda boring.
The average difficulty has changed quite drastically over the years. Games now commonly have a normal mode that would have been "easy" in 2010. And games in 2010 the normal mode would have been the easy mode back in 2000.
In 2000 the "normal" mode was still quite challenging, and hard was usually something close to impossible if you didn't already know the normal mode inside and out.
My reflexes have reduced quite dramatically as I get older, and I can't quite keep up with some of the older games now, but I play anything recent on the highest difficulty or it ends up being a cakewalk.
I can barely manage the first level of Halo 2 on Heroic mode anymore, and I used to play through on Legendary and thought it was fun. The only challenge to be found in most modern games is in broken or intentionally gimped mechanics.
Makes sense that DoubleFine would add a mode for game journos