All Too Easy

I'm not a great gamer.
I mean, I'm okay, but not 'The Best'.
I don't have high scores. Sometimes, I can't even complete the game.
I don't know when those 'high score' boards lost fashion in games. Probably about the same time as games stopped keeping score, actually.
I remember usually being midway down on those ol' scoreboards. I was never #1. But I was okay with that. I had my place in life. It was midway. Neither winner nor loser. There was a balance in the force.

Somebody is good at Solitaire (and it ain't me).  (source)

Things are different now. I thought I knew where I stood, but no. The waters are muddy. The answers aren't clear. The world is askew.


I have been playing the cyberpunk themed "stealth/science fiction action role-playing video game" Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's pretty beast. I'm enjoying it, and I should probably do a 'My Take' on it, even though there's volumes already written on the subject by better analysts than myself (I bet they're at the top of the scoreboards).

Knowing that I was a 'midway' gamer, I wanted to play the game on a normal difficulty setting. So..

WHOA there hoss! Not so fast. You have some choices to make here before you go selecting a difficulty! This ain't any ordinary game. This is modern! Hip! Dynamic!
You don't just PLAY this game, you 'experience it'! You don't PLAY ruggedly handsome Adam Jensen - you ARE ruggedly handsome Adam Jensen.

Intensity level: Hardcore  (source)

There's a phenomenon in the fashion industry known as 'vanity sizing'.  Basically, it's the idea that as the western world gets fatter, the clothing industry has to make clothes that are larger, but they realize that if they want to make the western consumer happy, they should label the clothes as smaller than they really measure to make us all feel good about ourselves and our outrageous avarice.
So some guy that was waist size 36" in high school can still boast that he wears a size 36" when he's in mid-life, not because he could actually ever squeeze back into his high school pants, but because the industry labels the now 38"-41" as a 36".  You liars flatterers, you, fashion industry!

And that was what I felt as I selected the difficulty level in Deus Ex: Human Revolution - that I was being pandered to (just a little) and patronized to (just a tad).

A clever person wrote:

Most video games have adjustable Difficulty Levels so as to provide more of a challenge to good players while allowing poor players the satisfaction of finishing and finding out how the story ends. Traditionally, they would just be called Easy, Medium, and Hard (and possibly Expert). However, a recurring clever idea is to name them in a way reflecting of your game's style or plot.
Of course, if you use more than one word, everyone will call them "Easy", "Medium" and "Hard", but it does help establish continuity...

There are three difficulty settings in Deus Ex: Human Revolution:

"Tell Me A Story", "Give Me A Challenge", "Give Me Deus Ex".


I must have hovered my mouse over the three selections for a good 10 minutes.
Tell me a story? What, like a bed-time story? Are you calling me a baby? Is this sissy setting? Should I be ashamed of this one? PASS.
Give me a challenge? Of course I want to be challenged. Why else would I play a game? Is this going to be a challenge like finding two matching socks in the morning? Like talking to women? Or like actually winning the QWOP race? Challenging how?
Give me Deus Ex? I bought the game. Give it to me. I paid good money for it. You want a breach-of-contract suit? Hand the damn game over.

I figured the three descriptions meant, in effect, Easy, Normal, and Hard, but they surely don't say that. As surely as that guy isn't going to fit into his highschool bellbottoms, the fatty.
Why did they vanity size the game?

We all KNOW what the three settings represent, but I felt a little condescended to while deciding. I KNOW that "Tell Me a Story" means I'm on the 'easiest' setting - so just call it 'easy'. Don't pretend I'm still hardcore, but just need some alone time, and perhaps a bubble bath.
On this setting, I'm not hardcore. I'm a pansy.

In ancient times, games were straight up. They let you KNOW you were a pussy:

Wolfenstein 3D  (source)

DOOM   (source)

In all, I felt the difficulty setting descriptions in Human Revolution were a little too vague, flowery, and not mutually exclusive. When playing this much-anticipated game I wanted not only to be told a story, and to be challenged, but also to get the real 'Deus Ex' that was promised.
If this complaint seems nit-picky, it's because it is.
But, my argument is that if you're trying to establish continuity or reflect your plot, using vague, inclusive, placating, soft language in a game where you're supposed to cripple, injure, maim, gouge, chop, slice, and potentially massacre human beings, I think you've erred somewhere.
Why not make the choices as gritty as Adam's voice?

'Tell me a story'. JEEZ.

---


PS: If one wants to know what exactly the different selections really represent, one should go here. 
PPS: The settings themselves varied the gameplay to a satisfying and sensible degree. It is the descriptions that are the fail, to me.