About Playing on Easy
Welcome, wandering reader! My name is Peter and I shall be your guide during the backstage tour of this publication. I started Playing on Easy to discuss the Xbox gaming experience from the perspective of a fan who isn't a completely hardcore gamer (whatever that really means these days). Of course, I do enjoy jumping into the latest games like Gears of War 2 or Fallout 3 as much as the next person, but it will probably take me a few weeks (i.e. "months") to finish them - on the easiest difficulty (and possibly with a peek at a walkthrough here and there). You know, life, job, sleep (?!) and so forth. At the same time, I love gaming and I definitely have a lot of opinions about developments in the industry as a whole and when it comes to Microsoft gaming in particular. I believe that it's not always all about finishing a game after a gruelling 40 hours - sometimes what matters more is the fun you have trying to get there, even if you quit midway through to move on to the next game (as I inevitably do at some point). Of course, sometimes quitting halfway through is the result of bad game design. Or just a really annoying set of game menu structures and loading screens.
While I might talk a bit about new games, ponder industry news, and throw out a plethora of suggestions to game developers, you won't find in-depth multi-page game reviews here. Instead, I cover what my first impressions were, whether a game seems like fun or not, and if I think I might ever attempt to finish it. As a rare treat, I occasionally post some closing remarks about the few games that I actually do play all the way through. I also tend to think I come up with spectacular original ideas that need to be implemented into my favorite products this very second, so there are a lot of those scattered around as well. Finally, what would a good fan publication be without harsh criticism of the very products/companies/services/sandwiches being adored? Up to its ears in sponsor money, you say? Well, keep that to yourself!
My gaming history dates back to my single-digit years when my parents presented me with an Atari 800XL. In between trying to write a few programs in BASIC without the pesky tape drive losing all his data, I played such "classic gems" like The Last Starfighter, Pole Position, N.Y.C. The Big Apple, E.T. Phone Home, Crystal Castles, and some others, which I really can't recall at this point. Talk about long - and frequently interrupted - load times!
Shortly thereafter, there was some basic gaming on early Macintoshes (mostly demos like Spear of Destiny that came with Mac magazines). After that - nothing for a long time, then a PlayStation 2 in college. The DVD drive gave out just after the warranty expired, which led to yet another break in gaming, until the original Xbox came out - and I spent far too much money at the Times Square Toys"R"Us in New York City during the launch weekend. Since then, I have been a big fan of all things Xbox - and now the Xbox 360.
These days it is my primary piece of gaming hardware, along with a Wii, a Nintendo DS, and some PSP action here and there. Some of my recent favorite games include all three Halo games, the Burnout series, the Gears of War games, the Call of Duty series, Mario Kart on the DS and Wii, anything to do with Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Batman, and the hysterically funny Rayman Raving Rabbids games. I also like more substantial and longer-winded RPG games like Mass Effect and Fable II, but unfortunately I rarely have the time or patience to finish them. I am also very fond of Xbox Live Arcade for quick pick-up-and-play treats.
Serving as a special correspondent and our household's even more casual gamer is my extremely supportive wife Monica, whose earliest gaming experiences took place during her elementary school years - both on a Tandy 1000, gifted by her grandfather, and on her NES, purchased in a moment of weakness by her parents.
Gaming on the Tandy was extremely limited - make that limited to Solitare as it came with the machine. Later, when she upgraded to an IBM Aptiva, her computer gaming progressed to include Hover!, and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, as those came with the machine as well. On the NES, Monica enjoyed playing Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, and later Tetris (purchased because Monica's mom felt it was "educational"). She especially loved playing with the Zapper as she attempted to shoot the dog, never understanding why she wasn't successful. Monica also occasionally played various Sonic games on a friend's Sega Genesis system, as well as Doom on another friend's much faster computer.
Flash forward to Monica's college years where she met me and was introduced to the exhilarating world of then-current gaming systems. She occasionally played on my PlayStation 2 (until it died), and most recently on various portable systems including GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. Monica also enjoyed playing on the Xbox, and now on the Xbox 360. She loves girly games like Hello Kitty Roller Rescue and Super Mario Sunshine, which she played on her GameCube, and story games like Fable II. Her most recent favorite games include Animal Crossing: City Folk on the Nintendo Wii, and the Nancy Drew and MySims series on the Nintendo DS. Similar to my own, Monica's attention span can be pretty short, and she rarely finishes games (with the exception of Hello Kitty Roller Rescue and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but she loves to play when the mood strikes anyway.
As a married couple, we have a lot of fun with co-op games like Halo 3, Gears of War 2, and Left 4 Dead. Needless to say, we are also big fans of digital recreations of family board games like Carcassonne, Monopoly, and Ticket to Ride - mostly because we are too lazy to clean up after the real versions.