Yes please! Does anybody have a link to the T-Rex sound they were referencing?
What irks me about the From difficulty discourse is how defensive many people get at the mere suggestion that the difficulty isn’t perfect for everyone. Something that should be obvious from the start, since just glancing at threads about the games (including Sekiro and other adjacent games like Nioh) reveals that people think they’re everything from mindbogglingly difficult, to challenging, to easy. Wow, it’s almost as if a one size fits all approach isn’t always that great!
Now, there is obviously a reason for the games being challenging, which defenders of the difficulty are quick to point out. Challenge can indeed spur you to engage with systems, set a mood for the narrative and give you a sweet release once you conquer a challenge that previously stumped you. I may not have enjoyed Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox as much if it didn’t force me to learn its systems to move on so I certainly understand this.
But difficulty isn’t absolute, it’s relative. As stated earlier, two persons can play the same game at the same difficulty but have to put in different amounts of effort to beat them. So as far as engaging with a game goes, a single and fixed difficulty can never give everyone that “designed” experience. This experience is a myth, constructed from a misguided attempt of wanting everyone to share one’s own experience with the game as a platonic ideal.
PS! I’ve seen the comparison to movies pop up several times in the few threads I’ve read about this recently, and I’d like to state that although I don’t think the two are incomparable, movies and games do challenge us in different ways. Cinematic literacy is definitely a thing you have to learn, just as playing games, but I don’t think the comparisons are straightforward.
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@BantamSam @jccalhoun it’s this video (based on Patrick’s read of the comment from this one)
which is a looped version of the audio sourced from this clip:
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I’m curious if the crew’s Stadia skepticism extends to Microsoft’s streaming initiative. Is it just Google that’s making people wary or is the technology a nonstarter? Personally, I am excited at the possibility of streaming Xbox games to my phone.
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