I gave normal mode a try late last night. I caught up to my previous game in a third of the time, and didn’t even come close to losing any of the fights.

Bleh.

Look, if you enjoy playing your games on normal, more power to you. I’m certainly not going to tell you “you’re doing it wrong”. You paid for the game, however you want to enjoy it is the right way for you to enjoy it.

There are a lot of games out there, and not a ton of time to play them all… especially in the holiday season when great titles are dropping every week. I very rarely play a game a second time through, so I want to get the most out of the first playthrough as possible… it’s why I always go for the hardmodes. Just going through the motions to get to the next cutscene, without any challenge, feels too much like a mouse learning to press a button for a piece of cheese. I don’t play games “just for the story.” If I just want to sit back and be entertained, I can read a book.

I love Batman, I loved Arkham Asylum, and I want to love Arkham City. It’s not making it easy though.