It very quickly became a “Check out the length of my e-penis by reading this list of hard games I found easy” thread. Pity. I love easy games and there are so few of them out there.
Painkiller was very mellow on the easiest difficulty level, if you had any rudimentary FPS skills.
Didn’t know that it was on the PS2, tho :\
There’s a surprising number of fun, easy games out there, if you actually play them on easy. Unfortunately, the cruel taunting in many difficulty selection screens seems to be successfully stopping people from ever trying it. It’s time that designers write their difficulty descriptions using non-hurtful words that affirm and celebrate the casual player’s lack of abilities.
Calling God of War or Painkiller easy seems just wrong. An easy game is one that anyone can pick up and play. Yes, I can finish GoW and Painkiller, but so what? My wife couldn’t. She couldn’t get halfway through those games, if that.
Sly 2 and 3 are quite easy. Even the “challenges” in sly 3, which were regular missions with harder objectives, usually only took one or two tries to master. Sly 1 had those one hit kills which made it less of a cake walk
Also gitaroo man and god hand are incredibly easy
just finished dog’s life. great game, lots of funny little comments by the dog. a happy ending but what they did to the villain was pretty f–ked up, especially since this seems like it is geared for kids. otherwise good wholesome fun. my nieces loved making the dog poop and pee and getting the skunk to spray the dog.
ratchet and crank has conflicting descriptions. after dying you keep your weapons and trinkets, but someone said the checkpoints were too far away. i should just stick with the sequels or something?
There’s a surprising number of fun, easy games out there, if you actually play them on easy. Unfortunately, the cruel taunting in many difficulty selection screens seems to be successfully stopping people from ever trying it. It’s time that designers write their difficulty descriptions using non-hurtful words that affirm and celebrate the casual player’s lack of abilities.
i don’t think people care about level descriptions anymore than game designers care what i, er…i mean, what people say about their mom after dying for the fifth time because they move the camera at the exact instant i am forced to jump. (see god of war below)
god of war? seriously, that game totally turned me off with those stupid insta-kill platform levels and the weapon changeup at the end. despite loving the other parts (story, setting, combat) i promised myself i wouldn’t buy the sequel because the frustrating parts killed the fun i was having with the game.
thanks for the lists. i’ll check them out after getting through some of my backlog and if i see them in a game shop.
Well, it’s good you have a thick skin. Whenever Guile would beat me in Street Fighter 2 and ask, “Are you man enough to fight with me?”, I’d burst into tears.
Seriously, though, there are a lot of games (maybe not God of War) that have “Easy” levels that get overlooked, but would be perfectly suited to either casual gamers, or to guys who just want to experience a game with minimal challenge. I don’t know how many times I’ve said, “Play it on Easy!” when recommending games to friends who I know would start on Normal, hit the frustration wall at the halfway point, then drop the game entirely.
The first three Silent Hill games are pretty easy.
Indeed. And the best part about the Silent Hill games is they they have separate difficulty scales for combat and puzzle difficulty - if you played old school adventure games, bumping down the combat and bumping up the puzzle difficulty is like a step back in time.
I thought Lego Star Wars was pretty easy.
Dynasty Warriors is only easy until you meet Lu Bu.
Gust RPGs. Atelier Iris 1-3 and Ar Tonelico. Almost vapidly easy games, but localized the way I like, good music, and lots of 2D sprites. Atelier Iris 3 also does some thinks to make the experience feel less lightweight, so right now I’m playing it obsessively when really I should be working on other things. Oh well.
For anyone who cares: Gust actually made fairly challenging sims at one point, but stopped when the games were no longer big hits. They’re doing a game for the DS, Atelier Lise, that looks to be in the style of their original sims. I hope it gets localized.
Sadly, if you’re talking about the PS2 versions (I’ve not played them on the PC or XBox so maybe they’re different), only SH2 has the two separate difficulty settings. SH1 and 3 have only one setting, and it affects both puzzles and combat.
And in addition to only having one setting, the fourth game also has the worst puzzles by far. If you’re hoping to scratch the adventure game itch, I’d go nowhere near SH4.
Oblivion wasn’t easy all the way through but now that my character is completely overpowered he pretty much has the run of the place. People talk a lot about balance, and mostly that is a good thing, but occasionally it’s nice to be totally unbalanced in a game. That’s something I enjoyed about the end of Half-Life 2, as well, with the souped-up gravity gun. I felt like a superhero.
It’s been a while since I played them so I’m sure it’s my memory that’s faulty here. It’s been even longer since I played the original on ps1 - I thought it had separate difficulty sliders as well, but I may be wrong. I haven’t played the fourth though it seems to be fairly commonly regarded as a poor chapter.
Untrue, sir. SH3 has the separate settings.
SH4, IIRC, does not, but SH4 is also balls hard on any difficulty other than Easy, so it’s not relevant to the thread.
Grandia 3 was pretty easy.
I personally think Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne was easy, but only because I took notes when I played. All you need to do is pay attention to the strengths and weakness of each monster, and juggled your set of posse accordingly. If you don’t even want to pay attention, and just hit the WIN button, then this game is not for you.
Spyro the Dragon series and Crash Bandicoot series (including CTR) are THE best easy games! Love them!
It’s a shame that this thread is specifically about PS2 games. We could have co-opted it to talk about modern easy games.
Start a new thread!
I can’t believe I called SMT3 easy. Plus, I missed the OP saying that God of War is hard…although I wouldn’t call it hard, I remember some lava part to be frustrating because of all the failing and restarting.