Paige FTW: In Praise Of Easy Mode
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I like easy mode.
My style of gaming is very … deliberate. I like turn-based RPGs or strategy titles — where I can ponder my next move with strategy rather than immediate, hair-trigger reflexes. The fast pace of a first-person shooter is ill suited for me.
In a strategy-heavy game, you can plan things out and then see the whole plan as it unfolds, so when things go wrong, well, you can be ready for it.
Otherwise, I end up in situations like Metro 2033, where I almost died in literally the tutorial because I got swarmed and didn’t react fast enough (or aim well enough) to fight off the horde.
“What do you mean you ran out of bullets?” my boyfriend asked in disbelief.
(The sad thing is that I was playing on easy there…)
When I play games, I’m after … the experience, sometimes. I was mostly interested in The Last of Us’ story, for example, so I had no qualms about dropping the difficulty so I had enough bullets to see me through.
Sometimes, I just want to relax, as I do when I play Assassin’s Creed — collecting things and clearing the map is very soothing to me, so I prefer to breeze through the combat so I can wander around and explore.
Sometimes, I’m just physically too bad at the game to even see the cool finishing moves (or, you know, finish the game), as I am in Bayonetta, so I set it to easy just so I could experience all the neat finishers that I otherwise would die before getting.
And sometimes, I just don’t have time to replay levels over and over — which is why I reluctantly turn off permadeath in Fire Emblem now, because the games take me 30-40 hours to finish and I can’t waste another 10 replaying every time someone dies.
All game should ship with an easy mode — and a very hard mode — to please everyone for all their varying motives. This has been a Paige hot take.
