It's an age-old gaming question; how much are you willing to put up with when it comes to getting through something? Over time it's clear there are two types of people in this world; those who hear others complaining about a level or boss being "the most infuriating thing ever" and welcome the challenge - and those whod choose to avoid it like the plague. With games making the shift from 2D to 3D the amount of variables that can dictate how immediately pleasurable your experience is going to be have changed drastically. Instead of just controlling a sprite hopping about left to right, managing difficulty in multi-million dollar titles is something that can become an signature trait - or the reason a controller becomes four smaller ones. There are precious few developers who will prioritise relating their experience to that of being incredibly difficult from the get-go, as depending on a great many other factors most cannot afford to take the financial risk of a perturbed fan base. An en masse group of unhappy consumers means returned titles, and the potential of locking away the title's story forevermore, meaning all that work has gone to waste. Well, these are those developers who took those risks. Those renegade programmers who flick a middle-finger at your scrunched-up gamer-rage faces, calmly resetting the level and knowing that if they've done their job well enough, we'll always come crawling back for more.
