Am I just getting old?

corblimey

I took a long hard look at my unfinished game collection end of last year and realised that the reason I have so many unfinished games is less to do with new games coming out and more to do with my losing interest when I can't get past a certain bit. Only after starting GoWIII did I realise that I'd never finished II for that reason, so I threw it back in, and raced through it on easy mostly just to get the story background before I went onto III. This is the fourth game in as many months where I've chosen the easiest difficulty because I want to finish the game and not have it hanging around on my shelf. For those games with replay value, I'll keep them, but ratchet up the difficulty next time so it's more of an experience.

Does anyone else do this, play games at their easiest just to polish them off, or am I now too over the hill to play games at anything but the level for blind children and the feeble minded?

cherryghost

i thought pensionsers were banned here :pac:

jaykhunter

I find that as well, I'd get far into a game and not actually finish it. Sometimes it's because I'm enjoying the game and don't want it to be over yet; or sometimes because i'm stuck/i'm not enjoying it (Wind temple on Zelda : WindWaker)....Happened to me on Mass Effect; i was just getting "pwned" on normal and depressingly had to move to Easy. Haven't played it again after that session!

There's no shame in playing on Easy. I think a lot of games need you to play often, otherwise you get rusty; like playing Guitar Hero....I'd much rather I finish a game than stop halfway through because it's too hard. It does happen when you get older and also when you've not been playing constantly. It happens to every gamer sometime in their life; where they either get bored of games or their skill level isn't what it used to be.

Games aren't about high scores, they're about enjoying the experience! And if you need to dial it back to easy to enjoy it; then that's what to do. There's absolutely no shame in it. It'd be more shameful wasting the game by not playing it!

tman

The only game in recent memory that I've completed on normal difficulty was Bayonetta, and I came VERY close to dropping that down to easy a few times. (a part with 2 statues that I kept breaking because I didn't realise you could just walk by them unmolested:o)
I just don't want to waste my precious free time playing through the same section of a game numerous times, when I could just breeze through it and see what happens next..
Don't think it has anything to do with getting older and softer, but more to do with being in a relationship and an extremely draining job, so considering myself lucky if I get to play a game for 2 hours straight.

It isn't a skill issue at all imo, if I dedicate enough time to a game I can be ****ing good at it! Case point being Super Metroid - played through that recently and barely broke a sweat once, in fact I laughed at how easy the boss battles were (I remember being a complete nervous wreck the first time I beat Crocomire)

Gummy Panda

Sell/trade the ones you'll never come back to. I think i need to cull my collection.

I think with game shop advertisements, multiple games magazines, websites and forums its easier to be informed about new games and get caught up in the hype. We end up buying games we don't have time to play cause we don't want to miss out on the experience others are raving about.

Retr0gamer

I think it depends on the game really. If it's a good story or experience I prefer to blast through it. However some games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry are all about mastering the system and to play them on easy is missing out on what the whole game is about. RPG's are different as well. Even if it's got a terrible battle system like FFVII I don't mind breezing through it for the experience. Recently got into Shin Megami Tensei and the games are tough but it's because the battles really need a lot of strategy to win and get through dungeons. If a game has a difficulty spike where grinding levels is needed then my interest will drop and I'll probably never pick the game up again.

CoalBucket

Getting stuck in a game and trying to get past the point you are stuck at is the purpose of playing games ?

Retr0gamer

It kind of depends on the game. If the part in question is terribly designed and frustrating then it kind of goes against what a game should be.

Fnz

Time is precious. There's nothing wrong with playing a game as a "content tourist". I'm probably going to drop Dante's Inferno down to easy as I don't find the combat terribly rewarding, but still want to see what kind of messed up stuff is going down in hell.

corblimey

CoalBucket wrote: »

Getting stuck in a game and trying to get past the point you are stuck at is the purpose of playing games ?

In the days before I owned multiple consoles and had to wait weeks or months in between releases of games I was interested in, I would have agreed with you. But nowadays, once something becomes too difficult or too annoying or too whatever, there's another quality game waiting right there for my attention. And by the time I'm done with that, there's another one, etc etc.

Fnz wrote: »

Time is precious. There's nothing wrong with playing a game as a "content tourist". I'm probably going to drop Dante's Inferno down to easy as I don't find the combat terribly rewarding, but still want to see what kind of messed up stuff is going down in hell.

I think that's my main problem. I could probably persevere, but in some games, it's seems to be more a case of 'ok, I gotta see what the come up with next' and if the way to do is to play on easy (love the phrase content tourist), then I've started having no qualms about doing that.

I agree that there are some genres of games where this makes no sense - I would have no compunction about playing an RPG or a racing game on easy because they're all about getting better over time and all that - and some games don't even offer the choice, but I'm starting to come around to the fact that time is precious and I don't want to spend 3 hours of it trying to defeat Zeus on Titan.

Dr_Phil

corblimey wrote: »

Does anyone else do this, play games at their easiest just to polish them off, or am I now too over the hill to play games at anything but the level for blind children and the feeble minded?

Yes, I've noticed this when I turned 30+... I blame the lack of time and when I come back from work I'm wrecked and I prefer to read news, chat with my kid, etc.. Same with the PSP, bought a few games and they are all geting nothing but dust

Retr0gamer

Gamefaqs is a ****ing godsend. I remember being stuck for a month on Shining Force 2 because I didn't know to place a piece of wood inside a tree to progress and there was no indication of what to do. Eventually fluked it.

i_am_dogboy

I'm still at the point where I'll play some games on the hardest available setting first time around even at the ripe old age of 26. If it's co-op I'll just play what's comfortable with the other player, if I think I'll be replaying it for whatever reason, like mass effect 2 or bioshock, I'll go at it on medium the first time around.

I do find myself giving up on games more often than I use to though, and I think in my case I'm just not tolerant in games being **** and/or badly designed. Things like being killed in 2 hits by someone who really shouldn't be able to see me(killzone 2) or being killed by someone in a competely unfair(often offscreen) position(modern warfare 2) or constantly being left in a state where I'm getting battered for a few seconds where my character is completely unresponsive and bouncing around(every character action game I've ever played). But difficulty in itself doesn't bother me, as long as difficulty feels like it's genuinely challenging through clever AI or mechanics or whatever, and not that the game is playing cheap tactics and is out to get me.

djkeogh

I'll always play a game on 2nd hardest difficulty first playthrough and then revisit it for the harder difficulty if I find it warrants it. Toying with the idea of doing mass effect on insane but i haven't committed to that idea yet at all. Also Aliens Vs Predator. I started going through this on Nightmare difficulty but there are no checkpoints in at that level and when i died after playing for 20 mins or more and had to restart the mission, i decided enough was enough and turned it off.

I have too many games sitting on the shelf waiting for attention. I really need to stop buying games now until i've caught up with myself.

Fnz

corblimey wrote: »

love the phrase content tourist

You may enjoy the series: A New Taxonomy of Gamers. Iirc, it's where I picked it up.

Retr0gamer

djkeogh wrote: »

Also Aliens Vs Predator. I started going through this on Nightmare difficulty but there are no checkpoints in at that level and when i died after playing for 20 mins or more and had to restart the mission, i decided enough was enough and turned it off.

I turned it off because it was absolute ****.

Elessar

I thought I was the only one!

As much as I love games, my time is precious to me and I couldn't be bothered replaying a level constantly on hard because I keep getting killed or whatever. I am an extremely casual gamer.

I play most of my games on easy/normal and really play to experience the graphics, the story and gameplay. I guess that's why I love polished story driven games like Uncharted 2, Mass Effect, Half Life etc.

No shame in it at all.