Hard modes

[Angrist]

Most of the games these days are becoming easier. Compare a new Mario with SMB 1, 2 & 3 and you'll know what I mean. Or the newest Kirby, where you cannot die. Ever. Keep walking into enemies, nothing happens. Fall into a pit and you'll be fished out of it.

Fortunately there are still games that offer hard modes. With names like Brutal, Hardcore and Insane they only appear to get harder and harder. Starcraft II for example has 4 difficulties: Casual, Normal, Hard, Brutal. Metroid Prime 3 has 3 (1 unlockable): Normal, Veteran, Hyper. Good stuff.

Right?

I felt cheated when I found out these games were not any harder than their predecessors. Metroid Prime 1 & 2 only had 2 difficulty settings, normal and hard. With Metroid Prime 3, there was a 3rd one... only it was easier than the previously normal ones. Hyper was the new Hard, Hard was the new Normal... and Normal was added for casual players.
Exception? No, take SC2 as an example. Warcraft 3 and its expansion The Frozen Throne had 2 difficulties: normal and hard. Hard was really really hard, some levels were almost impossible. So when Starcraft 2 offered Brutal difficulty on top of Hard, at first I feared it a little bit. Until I remembered Metroid Prime 3.
So I started playing SC2 on Hard difficulty, which wasn't hard at all. I actually tried Normal after that and it was incredibly boring. I was right, they added lower difficulty settings and renamed them. A few weeks ago I started SC2 on Brutal. Guess what? It's even easier than WC3 on Hard.

Games want to look hard, but they're actually getting easier. Give us something that's really a challange!!