Gamers play games for different reasons.  Some play for the stories and experience. Some play for the achievements.  Some play to just have fun and get away from the world for a while.  And some play for the challenge.  Games come in all varieties, and the game’s difficulty is one of the ways that developers can try to create an experience that everyone can enjoy.  Some games will scale that difficulty based on how you play (with no actual setting to choose), some will let you change the difficulty while you play, while others will ask you the question that always makes me cringe: What difficulty do you want to play at? Easy, Normal, Hard.  The question is loaded from the start.. Are you a wuss that wants to blow through the game?  Do you want to play it like everyone else? Or do you want to throw your controller through the screen?  Let’s not even get into the fact that you have no idea how a game plays when you’re first making this decision; that’s a whole other article.  What I do want to know is..

What difficulty setting do you usually play a game on for your first playthrough?

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As I imagine you may play different genres at different difficulty levels, pick the genre you play the most, and pick your average. The poll is over-simplified; I’m aware there are often multiple “hard” settings, but often those secondary settings appear after beating the game once on a lower level.  I tend to play on the Hard setting for a variety of reasons: 1) there’s usually more achievements associated with playing on a harder setting, 2) I’ve been playing games a long time, and find myself getting bored when I play on lower settings, and 3) I’m not a wuss.  Don’t get me wrong, I will play a game on Easy from time to time, especially when I want to play it more casually, and enjoy the story more than the action (usually on a second playthrough), but nothing beats the rush of clearing a level on Hard that was kicking your ass multiple times.

I personally feel as though the difficulty selection is a lazy medium that really doesn’t apply to most of today’s games.  It was a necessity many years ago when storage space was at a premium, and you couldn’t waste code coming up with algorithms to determine how the player is playing, and adjust accordingly. It was an easy way for programmers to offer a varied experience without eating up a lot more resources.  But now?

What do you think?  Should developers just do away with the difficulty selector entirely? Do you prefer variable difficulty that adjusts to how you play?  Do you like ensuring a consistent game experience by picking a difficulty level? Let us know in the comments!

View previous ASQ: Game Instruction Manuals - View next ASQ: Staying Alive

A Simple Question (ASQ) is a weekly segment for Platform Nation.  Give a response and let the world know what you think; there is no right or wrong answer here. If you have a suggestion for a question, hit me up on twitter @vttym.

It’s one of the most noted indie titles of all time. It’s gone from home-grown project to Nintendo 3DS, DSiWare, and WiiWare. It’s simple yet addicting, and one of the biggest homages to the 8-bit era. It’s Cave Story, and now it’s available on Steam. Nicalis and Studio Pixel have added a few extras to the Steam release.

Retitled Cave Story+, the Steam description lists these upgrades, alongside with the standard features.

• Original (320×240) graphics and upgraded “HD” graphics
• Remastered music as well as the original soundtrack
• Mix-and-match new/old artwork and music!
• Six new play modes (including Wind Fortress, Boss Rush and more!)
• Over 20 epic boss battles through Mimiga Island
• 15 levels to explore in the vast world
• 10 unique weapons to find and upgrade
• USB controller compatibility
• Four unique endings
• Future content updates

Sneaking up on most of us is End of Nations, an MMORTS from Trion Worlds, creators of RIFT. You know a company is taking gaming seriously when they aim for two massive releases in a single year.

“MMORTS…what is that?” By investigating the official End of Nations website, I saw a very cool piece of information–”take on the opposing faction in epic battles of over 50 players.”

Sweet. The vibe I’m getting from this is Starcraft on an unprecedented scale. Not only that, but one of my favorite RPG features, the skill tree, looks like it could make an appearance. This would allow players even more latitude when customizing their style of gameplay. Undoubtedly, a feature like this would promote creativity beyond stereotypical RTS strategies (i.e. Zergling rush, Carrier mass).

Here’s the icing on the cake. You remember Command and Conquer, don’t you? Those guys who made the original RTS are behind the steering wheel for End of Nations. Yeah, I know.

Things have quieted down a bit lately, but it wasn’t that long ago that groups like Anonymous and LulzSec (among many others) were grabbing headlines for the big corporate and government site takedowns and personal information acquisition.  While the media blasts the group as being reckless and dangerous, there has been an almost resigned acceptance in a lot of the gaming community I follow and communicate with.  No one is happy to have their personal information in the wrong hands, but some might feel this is just hackers being hackers.  It begs the question:

Are you concerned with what the hacking community has been doing lately?

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Personally, having once dabbled in the craft, I see both sides.  I understand the rush that getting into and out of systems can provide, and coming across valuable information while you’re in is even better.  But I never took it to the next level and published that information.  I always saw that information as something of a reward for getting in; frankly, I never wanted to make it known that I was ever there.  So while I understand the motivations behind the act of hacking itself, I’m concerned with the direction some members of the community are taking.  I’m more concerned about the apathy among the online community at large.

Keep an eye out in #PNASQ on Monday when I’ll pose next week’s question. Want to sound off? Vote above, and comment below!

A Simple Question (ASQ) is a weekly segment for Platform Nation. Each week on Monday, I’ll ask a question on Twitter at #PNASQ. Give a response and let the world know what you think; there is no right or wrong answer here. If you have a suggestion for a question, hit me up on twitter @vttym.

Here is more about Dino Rush!

The game
Dino Rush is an endless ‘Run n Jump’ platform game, where you play Dundy the dinosaur who needs to eat all the fruit he can to survive and get as far as he can in the game.
Jump over obstacles, predators, melting lava, or even quicksand and remember to grab all the different bonuses to help Dundy fly, magnify fruit or even smash up his adversaries!

There was an update today on the official Battlefield: Bad Company blog today where they announced the next set of content headed our way. While no official date is being said, the maps will be free to all VIP owners. Here is what will be coming our way:

Map 1: Oasis
Origin: Battlefield: Bad Company multiplayer
Game modes: Rush, Conquest, Squad Rush, Squad Deathmatch

Map 2: Harvest Day
Origin: Battlefield: Bad Company multiplayer
Game modes: Rush, Conquest, Squad Rush, Squad Deathmatch

Map 3: Cold War
Origin: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 singleplayer
Game modes: Rush, Squad Rush, Squad Deathmatch

Map 4: Heavy Metal
Origin: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 singleplayer
Game modes: Conquest, Squad Rush, Squad Deathmatch

I’m excited for this, anytime where FREE and DLC are in the same sentence I get a smile on my face and it’s nice to see the continued support from DICE to what I feel is one of the best shooters to come out this year.

As in it’s the game that I became a true gamer with on the Xbox back in college. The origin. The shinning light. The endless mashing of button A or B and the right trigger until I broke my controller from the heavy usage and had to buy another…ah, good times.

Today I saw a interesting post while searching the net for something that I’d like to write about and behold! Halo Reach LEAKED! According to IGN’s post here, Microsoft is looking into the possible leak and how to prevent it from spreading like wildfire.

The leak news was spread by the actual perpetrators that somehow managed to get a download of the game from Microsoft by hacking into their systems. How tough could this be? Well personally I don’t know but I’m sure some of you have your own opinions.

So how do we all react to this news? Do we avoid all the gaming forums and websites, recluse into our rooms, never to see the light of day until the game releases on September 14?

Not that we don’t do this sometimes already, everybody has a cave.

I do think that it will be hard to avoid everything about the leak, and you know there’ll be pictures, YouTube videos, and premature explanations of what to do on what level and when from someone who doesn’t truly appreciate the Halo franchise.

If you are like me you will not search the news, play whatever is keeping you busy now and when it does come out on the 14th, be ready for a unspoiled, brand new game with a spectacular story and a multiplayer that will forever hook you into online multiplayer gaming!

Hackers out there, why do you try to ruin it for the rest of us? Do you feel needy or get a special rush for knowing you stole something like this — which, by the way, makes you just a common thief? I have read that these kinds of thefts happen because they are poor or “just want to try the game out first.” Lame excuse, man. If you are so poor how did you manage to get computer to hack with in the first place and then be able to buy all that software to hide your IP address and the like so you can’t get caught? Hmm?

Halo fans, don’t be alarmed, I think we will able to control ourselves and wait for this one to come out. Besides, the multiplayer is the other half of the game, and no matter how early you manage to steal this game, the real Spartans will show up and kick your ass online! Oh yeah, Game on. Remember Reach!

Review: Eclipse touchmouse
Manufacturer: Mad Catz
MSRP: $59.99

The first thing you are going to notice about the Eclipse touchmouse is how different it looks. It’s aluminum finish, smooth design, and minimalist features all make the touchmouse a beautiful little device. Even the eclipse logo looks good (although they need to fix their keyboard’s shift key to get some capital letters in there). It’s sleek, futuristic design definitely makes it stand out from the competition. Mad Catz has hit it out of the park on a purely aesthetic level, but do the mouse’s other features live up to its look?

The touchmouse works very well for what it is designed for. While it probably isn’t up to snuff for hardcore PC gamers that need to get that zerg rush set up ASAP, it isn’t claiming that it is. It is designed for office or school work and browsing the web. For those things the mouse is responsive and crisp.

The biggest feature Mad Catz is pushing with this mouse is the touch scroll pad. In place of a more traditional scroll wheel, the touchmouse sports a smooth pad. Simply slide your finger over the pad to scroll up, down, left or right. Using it to browse the web, the scroll pad is very fast and responsive. It worked just as well as any wheel I have used on other mice. The left and right scrolling is a fun feature but it isn’t as nice as the up and down. There isn’t a lot of real estate on the scroll pad for left and right so it isn’t as useful.

The other unique feature of the touchmouse is the quicktouch (am I saying touch too much?) controls. Pressing down and holding the touch scroll pad and moving the mouse up, down, left or right will give different commands to your computer. Up will open the browser, down is refresh the page, right is forward page and left is back page. These commands are a nice touch and make browsing the web smoother. It will take a little getting used to but I was quickly able to use the commands effectively. It is nice being able to quickly go back a page without even having to click.

Before you buy the touchmouse you have to do some homework. The mouse connects using bluetooth. That is good if your computer has bluetooth because the mouse wont take up a USB. But if your computer doesn’t have bluetooth you will need an adapter in order to connect it. If you have a newer computer this might not be a problem but most don’t have bluetooth built in. If anything can kill the impulse to buy a gadget it is finding out you have to make another purchase just to make it work.

Another drawback is that the mouse takes AA batteries. It’s a small gripe but the design made me expect a rechargeable battery. Mad Catz makes sure that the battery will last a long time. You can turn the mouse off when you aren’t using it. Still, for a mouse being advertised for people on the go, rechargeable batteries would have been a nice feature.

Bobby’s Take: The touchmouse is an excellent mouse. It is responsive, fast, and great for web browsing and office work. The design is great. It is hard to be a sexy looking mouse, but the touchmouse definitely is. The price might make or break the touchmouse in people’s minds (I personally wouldn’t spend $60 dollars on a mouse). If you don’t blink at the price tag then this mouse brings a lot of great features to the table to put it a step above the competition.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ‘ VIP Map Pack 5 has dropped on Xbox 360 and PS3 today. The pack offers White Pass in Rush mode, and on Nelson Bay in Conquest.

The VIP map packs are free for those who bought the game new, for those who bought the game used you will sadly need to buy a a VIP pass on the Xbox Marketplace for 1200 Points ($15).

So if your craving a little bit of something new to BFBC2 download the VIP Map Pack 5 today.