It’s time to make a ‘confession’ that will potentially see me getting shunned by some gamers. I have no shame in doing so, though, and I hope that by making this known about myself maybe others will also have the confidence to come forward too. Right, here goes.

Sometimes I play games on Easy difficulty.

Now, before you round up a posse to descend on the comments section and call me a games “journalist” with quote marks (a cutting attack so devastatingly original that it happens… well, every day really), hear me out, because I happen to have very good reasons for this.

There’s no need for me to “git gud”, because I’m happy enough with my current level of “gudness”, thanks very much

Firstly, let me get the obligatory credentials out of the way: not for the sake of boasting or anything, but just to eliminate the inevitable “git gud” nonsense that will come with a statement like this. I’ve been gaming for nearly 35 years, I’ve been playing Nintendo games since before the NES even launched in the UK and I’ve reviewed literally thousands of games in a career spanning nearly a decade-and-a-half.

I don’t usually blow my own trumpet because the internet has enough show-offs as it is, but please excuse a little toot-toot in this instance. This isn’t a situation where someone new to gaming is struggling to cope or anything like that: there’s no need for me to “git gud”, because I’m happy enough with my current level of “gudness”, thanks very much.

So what’s the main reason? Simply put, life’s too short, and the older I get the clearer this becomes. There used to be a time (mainly when I was in my late teens and early twenties) when I would happily play games all day and night. I still have vivid memories of a three-day Dreamcast binge at my first uni flat in which we played for so long we ended up accidentally inventing Danger Doubles, a four-player version of Virtua Tennis where you had to keep nudging your partner to stop them falling asleep.

I’m now 37 and the idea of pulling an all-nighter – let alone three in a row – is laughable. I’m juggling my freelance work, my own site, my book-writing career, my 9-to-5 job and the small matter of a two-year-old daughter, so free time is very much at a premium these days. I wouldn’t change any of it, either: this is my life now, and I’m delighted with it. What it does mean, however, is that I have to be more careful with how I spend what little free time I have. On some nights I’ll be lucky to get a spare hour or two to play games, and I need to make that time count. This is where Easy difficulty comes into it.

Many of these people have no problem playing on Hard, even though presumably the true artistic vision would be the Normal difficulty level

When I’m playing games, I want to make sure I’m at least making some sort of progress. I want to turn off my game after my session and be satisfied that I’m working my way towards the end. If it turns out I’ve only got 90 minutes to myself that evening, I don’t want to spend that entire time doing the same level over and over again because of a particularly tricky section. If I’m on the fourth mission and by the end of the night I’m still on the fourth mission, that’s a wasted night in my book. That’s why I’ll happily drop the difficulty: that way I may be on mission seven or eight by the end of the night instead.

Most of these games have stories, too. Most of the time I’m just more interested in seeing where the story goes than in any sort of serious challenge. Various people took the time to write a game’s dialogue, perform that dialogue, create the necessary assets, make an ending and the like. Some of the people who own these games will never see the back halves of them because they’ll bump the difficulty up to Hard, get burnt out playing the same levels multiple times, and move onto a different game before they reach the end.

There will be some who baulk at the idea of an Easy difficulty level, and bleat on about how it ruins the “artistic vision” of the game. Oddly, many of these people have no problem playing on Hard, even though presumably the true artistic vision would be the Normal difficulty level. It seems if you’re willing to make things more difficult than the default you’re doing nothing wrong, but if you want to make things a bit easier you’re somehow spitting in the developers’ faces.

Here’s the deal with artistic visions, though: if I know a game is going to take up a huge chunk of my free time and consist of repeating difficult sections over and over again, I’m probably going to give it a miss entirely and play something else instead. If you’re so concerned about me experiencing a developer’s artistic vision as intended, surely you’d rather I played through it in a slightly easier state than not playing it at all? I’ve never played Dark Souls and I’d absolutely love to because by all accounts the lore is brilliant, but I just don’t have the time to put up with all its cheap tricks; I fully appreciate that many players love that aspect of the game, but I just want to get on with it.

Both my dad and a self-appointed ‘hardcore’ gamer paid the same amount of money for the game, and both thoroughly enjoyed it in their own way

There are degrees to this, of course. It’s not like I want the game to play itself or anything like that. You may remember features like the Super Guide in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the Cosmic Guide in Super Mario Galaxy 2, where the game will offer to play through a level for you if you can’t beat it. I’ll always turn something like that down because that’s taking it too far in my opinion (although, crucially, I’d always fight to keep it in there, because others may need it and who am I to decide where the line is?).

That’s the whole point, I suppose: difficulty is subjective. What might be considered too hard for you may be a cakewalk for me, or vice versa. My dad loves his Xbox One and particularly loves the Call of Duty campaigns, but if they didn’t have the easier ‘Recruit’ difficulty levels, he’d have given up on playing them a long time ago. As it is he’s played through practically all of them and loved every minute of it. And here’s the secret: him doing that had absolutely zero impact on people playing through it on Veteran difficulty. Both my dad and a self-appointed ‘hardcore’ gamer paid the same amount of money for the game, and both thoroughly enjoyed it in their own way. That’s how it should be.

Naturally, there are plenty of times when I don’t play on Easy. Whenever I’m reviewing a game for Nintendo Life, my own site or anyone else, I always play through it on its default difficulty: after all, it’s only fair to judge games on what the developer feels is the best way to play it. And there are still times when I actually feel like a challenge and I’ll pop on Mega Man 2 or play something online.

People play games for different reasons. Some play them because they want to test their abilities, others play them to relax and escape the stresses of the real world. I’m very much in the latter camp these days. I’m at the point in my gaming life where I no longer feel the need to justify my skill level: I’m content knowing that I’m good enough to play through a difficult game if I ever need to. It’s just that, right now, I really don’t want to: I’d much rather make my way through my backlog and enjoy a bunch of shorter, simpler adventures than spend a while slowly making progress on just one of them.

Ultimately, my message should be an obvious one (but it isn’t, because the internet). You play your games your way, and let me play my games my way. I don’t question the young bucks who still have enough free time to pump 30 hours into a game on a weekend and test their skills to the limit; if you’re enjoying the challenge, go for it. Just appreciate that not everyone is in the same boat and many of us just like to sail ours on the river without going through the rapids and over the waterfalls. As I approach my 40s, life gives me enough stress without the games I play adding to it.

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MechWarrior 5 is the first game to roll mod support into its Epic Games Store page as Epic moves the feature into beta testing.

The Epic Games Store has been slowly trialing and launching new features since its somewhat barebones debut back in 2018, and mod support looks to be one of the latest developments Epic is looking to bring to its Steam competitor.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries launched mod support on its Epic Games Store page this week, noting in a blog post that the game is the very first to do so under the freshly launched Epic Games Store Mods beta.

There’s a dozen or so mods already listed for the game, created either by the MCM Team themselves or by community modders. For those looking to bring their own mods to the Epic Games Store, or for developers curious about how the whole process works, MechWarrior 5’s listing now includes a Modding Toolkit tab that explores the ins and outs of the process.

In the case of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, purchasing the game automatically pushes the MechWarrior 5 mod editor to a buyer’s EGS library. That tool is similar to what the dev team used during the game’s creation, but minus access to source code and code modification.

Epic hasn’t yet said what games the beta program will welcome next, but an update to the Epic Games Store’s public roadmap notes that “more game titles and more polish and features [are] to come!”

Microsoft and 343 Industries look to be taking a page from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s standalone and free-to-play Warzone mode for their upcoming launch of Halo Infinite.

While previous Halo games have locked access to multiplayer behind a full game purchase, the Halo team announced via tweet that Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode will be free-to-play.

“Halo is for everyone,” reads that tweet. “We can confirm Halo Infinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later!”

This follows recent rumors that Halo Infinite would bring its multiplayer out from behind the paywall, information that first leaked via since-pulled details on a store listing. Only two elements of the full leak were confirmed today, however. The leak (via The Verge) originally noted Infinite would have free-to-play multiplayer, 120 FPS on Series X, a battle pass system, and new character customization options.

Both the battle pass and customization remain unconfirmed, but if true the former feature would explain how Halo Infinite would monetize a free-to-play multiplayer mode and bring the game in line with the many others that are opting for a battle pass system rather than purely microtransaction-led monetization.

Team Alto has announced that it will be bundling its award-winning games Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey into one complete package, launching them on Switch as The Alto Collection.

The Alto games have you setting off on an endless snowboarding journey through beautiful landscapes such as villages, ancient woodlands, and long-abandoned ruins. The areas you explore are procedurally-generated, and it’s said to feature “fluid, graceful and exhilarating physics-based” gameplay.

Here’s an official description:

The Alto Collection brings both the critically acclaimed and beloved Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey into one experience for the first time. A whole new group of players will finally be able to see what millions of others have discovered as they explore the ivory snows and the endless desert on the big screen in one collection.

Join mountain shepherd Alto and friends as they set out to rescue their escaped llamas and find the adventure of a lifetime. In this collection, you will journey across the beautiful alpine hills of their native wilderness and soar above windswept dunes in a fantastical place far from home. Each procedurally-generated run provides new inspiration and a fresh set of challenges that seamlessly blends our unique landscapes together.

“It’s such a thrill to see how far Alto has come from his humble beginnings,” says Harry Nesbitt, Alto’s lead artist and developer. “Even though Adventure started out life on a tiny screen, we’ve always believed the minimalist and immersive sensibilities of both games translate wonderfully to PC and consoles. We’re so happy to finally get this opportunity to share our games with a wider audience.”

The collection launches on other consoles on 13th August for $9.99, and will “soon follow” on Nintendo Switch. We’ll keep an eye out for more news on the Switch release over the coming weeks.

@geordie
Growing up with books has instilled in me a passion for collecting a “library” of my hobbies. From tea sets, books and art books to my favorite games, I enjoy collecting physical tokens and mementos of things that I love. Quality box art alone is worth paying for the physical copies in my opinion.

Plus, like @zool mentioned, you will have more control over your games after Nintendo has moved on to another console generation, either for resale or for keepsakes. Digital storefronts are too fickle, reserving the right to remove the game from your digital library at any time for any reason, with no explanation or recourse since you have already agreed to give over your rights by purchasing in the first place.

Summary: To make a Python one-liner out of any multi-line Python script, replace the new lines with a new line character '\n' and pass the result into the exec(...) function. You can run this script from the outside (command line, shell, terminal) by using the command python -c "exec(...)".

Problem: Given a multi-line code script in Python. How to execute this multi-line script in a single line of Python code? How to do it from the command line?

Example: Say, you have the following for loop with a nested if statement in the for loop body. You want to run this in a single line from your command line?

x = 10

for i in range(5): if x%2 == 0: print(i) else: print(x) x = x - 1 '''

0

9

2

7

4 '''

The code prints five numbers to the shell. It only prints the odd values of x. If x takes an even value, it prints the loop variable i.

Let’s have a look at the three methods to solve this problem!

Method 1: exec()

You can write any source code into a string and run the string using the built-in exec() function in Python. This is little known—yet, hackers often use this to pack malicious code into a single line that’s seemingly harmless.

If you have code that spans multiple lines, you can pack it into a single-line string by using the newline character '\n' in your string:

# Method 1

exec('x = 10\nfor i in range(5):\n if x%2 ==0: print(i)\n else: print(x)\n x = x-1')

This one-liner code snippet is semantically equivalent to the above nested for loop that requires seven lines of code! The output is the same:

'''

0

9

2

7

4 '''

Try it yourself in our interactive code shell:

Exercise: Remove the else branch of this code. What’s the output? Run the code to check if you were right!

Method 2: From Command-Line | python -c + exec()

Of course, you can also run this code from your Win/Linux/Mac command line or shell.

Just make sure to use the python -c prefix and then pack the single-line multi-liner into a string value that is passed as an argument to the python program.

This is how it looks in my Win 10 powershell:

PS C:\Users\xcent> python -c "exec('x = 10\nfor i in range(5):\n if x%2 ==0: print(i)\n else: print(x)\n x = x-1')"

0

9

2

7

4

Method 3: Use Ternary Operator to One-Linerize the Code

Of course, you can also create your own semantically-equivalent one-liner using a bit of creativity and Python One-Liner skills (e.g., acquired through reading my book “Python One-Liners” from NoStarch)!

In this code, you use the ternary operator:

# Method 3

for i in range(5): print(10-i) if i%2 else print(i)

You can easily convince yourself that the code does the same thing in a single line!

Python One-Liners Book

Python programmers will improve their computer science skills with these useful one-liners.

Python One-Liners will teach you how to read and write “one-liners”: concise statements of useful functionality packed into a single line of code. You’ll learn how to systematically unpack and understand any line of Python code, and write eloquent, powerfully compressed Python like an expert.

The book’s five chapters cover tips and tricks, regular expressions, machine learning, core data science topics, and useful algorithms. Detailed explanations of one-liners introduce key computer science concepts and boost your coding and analytical skills. You’ll learn about advanced Python features such as list comprehension, slicing, lambda functions, regular expressions, map and reduce functions, and slice assignments. You’ll also learn how to:

•  Leverage data structures to solve real-world problems, like using Boolean indexing to find cities with above-average pollution
•  Use NumPy basics such as array, shape, axis, type, broadcasting, advanced indexing, slicing, sorting, searching, aggregating, and statistics
•  Calculate basic statistics of multidimensional data arrays and the K-Means algorithms for unsupervised learning
•  Create more advanced regular expressions using grouping and named groups, negative lookaheads, escaped characters, whitespaces, character sets (and negative characters sets), and greedy/nongreedy operators
•  Understand a wide range of computer science topics, including anagrams, palindromes, supersets, permutations, factorials, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, obfuscation, searching, and algorithmic sorting

By the end of the book, you’ll know how to write Python at its most refined, and create concise, beautiful pieces of “Python art” in merely a single line.

Get your Python One-Liners Now!!