The beginning of a literary empire.

Welcome, everyone, to the first post. Pretty much everyone that's going to be seeing these beginning posts already knows what type of content to expect, but let me refresh you anyway. My last blog, located here, was primarily about gaming. While you're going to see a lot of that here, I also plan on covering my other hobbies as well. Without further ado, let's get this going.

Finally, after months of anticipation, the dam which holds the fall game releases has sprung a leak. I've been trying to figure out what titles to go with, and I've finally started to narrow down my list to something slightly more reasonable. Now I only have to sell one of my kidneys. My first purchase is probably going to be this week with Mega Man ZX for the DS. It's been looking good in all the previews I've seen as of late, and reviews are coming in fairly positive(it's averaging an 86% on Game Rankings). Not only that, but it also features an easy difficulty setting. An easy difficulty setting, which, believe it or not, actually is what it claims to be. Gaming manliness be damned, I'm pretty excited knowing that I won't have to made rude gestures at Capcom from halfway around the globe before biting my DS in a fit of reploid-hating madness. For anyone who owns a GBA/DS and doesn't understand what I'm talking about, go pick up a copy of one of the Mega Man Zero titles. Don't play it around people you love.

On the topic of difficult video games, Jeff Green, Editor-In-Chief of Computer Gaming World, had an interesting write-up on just that in the October issue. He talked about how many gamers today believe that games are too easy, and how he disagrees with them. He believes that games aren't getting easier, but that they are becoming more friendly. I wholeheartedly agree. I can think of a number of current-gen games that kick most gamers asses.

Now, I'm not the best gamer in the world(far from it), but I know that Ninja Gaiden is hard. It was an extremely fun game, but it was so hard that I gave up on ever beating it. Most games offer an easy difficulty. Ninja Gaiden didn't. It offered the back of it's hand instead. However, it did offer a training ground of sorts at the beginning of the game where you could get a feel for things before the simulated rape began. It was friendly(it had to lure you into the windowless van somehow). Tips and instructions were made available to you within the first few minutes of game with how to perform a certain action, and you would then be presented with a situation in which to act it out. Many older games didn't offer that sort of help unless you read the instruction manual.

Jeff made use of a much better example that I did, though. He cited Prey(recently released for PC and Xbox 360). You see, you can never actually die in Prey. When your health bar is completely depleted you enter a spirit realm of sorts, and you can enter the regular world momentarily after, enemy damager still intact. This is an extremely friendly environment(sans the game environment itself - biomechanical aliens on a corpse-spewing spaceship). Jeff enjoyed it because the game never forced him to start back from an earlier point again, therefore not having to deal with more loading screens and the obvious repitition.

Admittedly, Prey does sound pretty easy because of this, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Dying and starting a level over can really break up the continuity of some games, and that's something that can hurt when a game is story-driven. Developers today are much better about offering check points close enough together that dying and restarting doesn't become a chore, but this isn't the case for all games.

I've never understood gamers complaints about today's games being to easy. Some are easier, sure, but there are enough hard games(and offered difficulties) out there for anyone who wants them. I, however, want an easy mode included as well. If a game is too hard, or I simply don't have the time to replay levels over and over, I want to be able to switch to something a bit more forgiving. Don't take this the wrong way, though. I want harder difficulties included just as much as I want an easy one. I finish most games on the standard difficulty setting, and I often go back to tackle something more challenging.