I don’t like how Get good became toxic and as a rational human being I can understand how much of a problem it can be to people with disability or other limitations to hear that said to them.

[...]I published an article on jaunty Kotaku tribute site Rock Paper Shotgun. Calling for a button that allowed players to skip boss fights[...]

There is a six-year old child vying for your attention and you play a video game? Give him a controller, for crying out loud...

It’s not fun for you. Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy difficulty.  People have fun in different ways.

How old is it when you get to that phase? Because I’m 40, and I still enjoy playing some video games for the difficulty. Sometimes I don’t just want to finish the game for the sake of seeing a game over screen, sometimes I actually want to play a game because I find the gameplay enthralling.

I mean, extreme difficulty can be fun for some people! It’s not really why I play games these days but I don’t want to ignore the fact that some people look for games because they want to challenge themselves. Plus, some games are explicitly designed to be difficult as a core feature of the game and I think that’s…

There’s a noodle place near me (guess it’s what I was thinking of in my example) that lets you do that, but has a disclaimer suggesting people not order it without the spice because it basically loses all its flavor and they were getting bad reviews from people saying the dish was bland.

Hard agree, except of course for games where their difficulty of their gameplay is the spiel and lowering it makes the experience dull or fall apart.
But outside of that?
Yes please, let me skip shitty filler sections that do not give me enjoyment.
No, just because boss battles were always hard, it is not necessary to…

Agree that the toxic culture you’ve described shouldn’t exist. And that challenge shouldn’t be about exclusivity or bragging rights. But isn’t it fair to say some games are designed with that challenge in mind, and removing it would basically ruin the game’s integral design? (rendering it not fun or successful in its…

I’ll make an argument against - while it is of course possible to complete these games without doing any parrying or backstabbing, it’s kind of like eating a steak with your fingers. Nailing a riposte feels so good, man. So much more so than 2-handed clubbing to death, or ranged attacks (which can be very effective,…

I think sekiro is much more generous with it's parry windows.

Yep. I found myself as a two-handed weapon user through these games. I don’t even equip a shield anymore and I’ve finished all the Soulsborne games with that playstyle. I appreciate these tips articles, but they really boil down to “this is what worked for ME” editorials. I’ve pretty much eschewed starting…

I’m like a parry god in the first Dark Souls, but no matter how much I practice in the second and third games, I can never get the timing right. Bloodborne was kind of hit or miss, pun intended, and only because I would spam the pistol two or three times before getting the chunky parry sound.
Still, it’s totally true…

Cosigned.

I'd add a small addendum to one tip: don't worry about it if you suck at parrying. I've finished every souls game able to count on one hand the number of enemies I've parried, I'm terrible at them and I can't get a backstab off to save my life, and it's not a big deal.

Hard disagree on the performance differential. We'll have to wait for benchmarks and graphical comparisons but the numbers don't paint a picture where the Xbox will be noticeably better in any way the average person can observe.

Better hardware? The Xbox isn’t meaningfully better than the PS5.

maybe? You assume having a trainer means guaranteed gains. The trainer is only there to help you stay consistent but it’s still up to you to actually give the effort. Plus body composition plays a huge role, women are naturally higher in body fat.

I’m a rock climber and the ladies who are BETTER than me can only do…

YOU’RE A DUDE? You astonish me.

I would argue that the shortlist should also include Baseball Stars, Tecmo Super Bowl, and NBA Live ‘95, each of which raised the bar for videogame representations of their respective sports.