A couple of weeks ago at a Ubisoft press event, I learned that "Far Cry 2" will have multiple difficulty levels. Big deal. But the man telling me this was Clint Hocking, the game's creative director. And Hocking always has an interesting way of putting things.
As Hocking prepared an Xbox 360 version of the game for a demonstration, he and I briefly chatted about the game's easy mode. "We have a tendency to make even the easiest difficulty levels disgustingly hard," he told me.
"Far Cry 2" will have an easy mode that will not disgust. How easy would it be?
Hocking held a 360 controller in front of me. "You should be able to play it with one hand," he said. Meaning: tie one hand behind your back; place the controller on a table; then, with the free hand, use your fingers to point one analog stick forward to walk; then put those fingers on the other stick to aim; then press buttons and pull triggers to fight. All with one hand. The enemies should be tuned in easy mode so that you can do that. Don't worry, the harder modes will be tuned for us real gamers.
I asked Hocking if this was some secret game design tuning technique that all the masters knew. Had I been let into an inner circle of secrets?
Nope. It's just something he thought of.
I rather like it.
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