Why Play On Hard?

[notyouraveragejoe]

I play on hard to challange myself.

Bragging rights too. If you're into that sort of melarky

Same as. Also I don't like a game to bore me if its too easy. I mean I don't want to be frustrated to the point of hating it but I do want to feel the challenge of repeating a section. Plus if I beat the part thats been giving me trouble it tastes so much sweeter on hard.

 

[X3heartless]

Well,I personally enjoy being challenged,and it helps when you go from playing a game on a harder difficulty to playing multiplayer.

 

[Marowit]

I play most games on Normal for precisely that reason.

I want to have fun, and experience a story when I play single player games. Not to get frustrated and throw the controller, because the game can bend mechanics to make my die more often...

 

[Huupertti]

It isn't for achievement points.

Hard is fun! Not so hard you can't play it, but hard enough you have to think fast is great.

Game devs don't seem to realise nowadays that frustration is fun.[footnote]Before anyone else angrily quotes me, what I mean by good frustration in games is 'Seemingly insurmountable challenge that provides great frustration UNTIL you beat it'[/footnote] I spent the last hour having my ass kicked by the bots in Perfect Dark because they're JUST TOO FUCKING FAST and I had the time of my life.

I find hard way more fun than normal, and easy isn't fun at all. Extreme (assuming that game has it) is too much though.

I gotta agree with ye...

 

[Eldarion]

So Escapist why do you play on hard (If you do)? Are achievement points really worth a broken controller.

Some people can play on the harder difficulties and not lose/die/rage.

 

[AboveUp]

I have a question. Why play on Easy?

I want a game to at least give me a bit of a challenge, make me work for getting to the end. That way I can put down the controller and feel accomplished at what I have just done. If a game is too easy, it's barely even memorable to me. Partially because my mind starts to float to other things while I play through it on auto-pilot.

 

[Robert Mason]

Most games are too easy on the lower difficulties so usually I at least tend to go for medium.

 

[Benj17]

I just thought it was common practise that if there were 4 levels of difficulty that you go to Hard then once thats been finished you move onto expert/insane/veteran/feckin' hard etc

Although saying that, Gears of War 2 has me stumped at the moment to the "throw your controller" extent, damn bloodmounts ¬¬

 

[Outright Villainy]

Depends on the game, but if a game isn't somewhat challenging all the fun is usually sucked out. Playing something like f-zero Gx on anything other than master is doing the game a huge disservice too, because it's perfectly balanced at that stage, the training wheels are off and there's no fake difficulty, just your skill.
Something like call of duty isn't really fun at all on veteran though, when most of the time is spent behind a wall. It just slows the whole thing down.

 

[Leviathan_]

Play it hard for the challenge, normal to just cruise around in the game.

 

[Hedberger]

So the games last for at least some while. I finished bad company 2 yesterday on hard and even then it only lasted 7-8ish hours. It's also fun when you master games to that degree so you can play on the normal difficulty setting and laughing at it. First time i played F.E.A.R.(several years after) i played it on normal and the challenge wasn't to beat it. It was to beat it ironman style without dying.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

I play on hard to challange myself.

Bragging rights too. If you're into that sort of melarky

Same as. Also I don't like a game to bore me if its too easy. I mean I don't want to be frustrated to the point of hating it but I do want to feel the challenge of repeating a section. Plus if I beat the part thats been giving me trouble it tastes so much sweeter on hard.

I usually switch the difficulty alot in Bioshock since, well. It's much more fun to play in easy mode. Getting to the first boss who then murders you hundreds of times and when you finally get them to low health they murder you again and instantly recover at a health station as you make your way to them is not my idea of fun.

 

[Turbulenssi]

Some games are just too easy on normal, Torchlight is the perfect example of this.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I RARELY go through games on the hard difficulties. I have to be a big fan of the game in question in order to put myself through that. I'm also more likely to do it if it's a real "hard" level as opposed to a "hard for the sake of being hard and frustrating you." I can understand the feeling of accomplishment, but often I find all the frustration and such to make it not worth it. A game is supposed to be FUN, and if I'm no longer having FUN, why am I subjecting myself to this? That's why it needs to be a really good game to keep me going. The ones that stand out to me are Bioshock, Batman: AA, and Gears of War, with Gears on Insanity being so hard that I actually needed a teammate to beat the final boss, but godDAMN was it satisfying to do so. Gears 2 was frustrating enough on the Hard level, so I'm not going to bother with torturing myself for the sake of some achievement points, especially when I can play other games and have fun with them.

 

[rekabdarb]

cause beating god of war in god/titan/chaos mode is hard despite the mind numbing rage it causes

 

[dazed871]

I love getting my ass kicked at something only to figure out the way to finally do it 2 hours later. Instant satisfaction right there.

Wouldn't that be 2 hour satisfaction?

Not quite. The time spent to try and figure out what to do is kinda fun, but the actual satisfaction only comes when you actually beat whatever you're trying to accomplish.

If you just waltz through a game you get neither the fun of figuring things out nor the satisfaction of having accomplished a hard task.

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

Because I am masochistic.

Heh heh.

I was going to go on about how I wanted a greater challenge, bigger sense of accomplishment etc...

...but in retrospect... yeah, masochism.

 

[fesc]

When I was younger, I played on Easy. Then I started listening to metal, and I started playing games on Normal from the start. Will try to play through as many of my games on the higher difficulties, too, even if only for the trophies.

I might not finish Uncharted 2 on Hard and Crushing though, since it didn't register my first Hard walkthrough, which was not very pleasant (say what you want, it's not as fun as the first).

 

[sunpop]

I usually blow through a game on easy the first time to get in the story, if I liked it I play through again on hard for the challenge. I always find that the story is better when you don't see the same scene 100 times from getting killed, so it's easier to tell if the story is crap or not on easy.