New Game - Choose Difficulty ! !

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So you just purchased a new game and once again your faced with the choice Easy, Normal or Hard.

Are you the sort of person to play through on easy, then tell everyone how you rinsed through and it sucked because it was too easy ??
Do you crank it up to the hardest setting straight off the bat due to your "mad skills", to find yourself pulling you hair out at the first boss ??
Or maybe you like to go through them each one after another to get the most out of a game ??

I only ask because my flatmate does very much the top, will never play a game on anything higher then easy and then won't shut up during conversations about said game and how easy it is ! ! This really boils my blood...
Where as I on the other hand, I tend to put it on the second hardest unless it's a game I've been playing for years (DOOM for example), as this gives me the option to make it harder should I choose it's way to easy and it also gives me an excuse to play through again should I really enjoy it.

Was just curious why and what other people do

It really depends on the game for me. Some games have a nice balance, whereas others don't. I tend to go for the easiest difficulty at first, and on subsequent playthroughs(if I enjoyed it enough the first time around) I'll make a decision.

I find games like Fallout 3 and New Vegas challenging enough already at very easy, but more so because I tend to stray off the beaten path and explore places I shouldn't really go to yet, and I enjoy that. Seems similar in design to the first Zelda game.

Halo Reach in particular is not one I like on higher difficulty settings, in most part due to what I consider to be "psychic AI". Most enemies are alright, but the Elites are just too smart to really be believable. It's terribly aggravating.

Then there are some without difficulty settings that I wish were harder, such as the later Zelda games(well, starting with OoT anyway). Doing a 6 heart run through Hero mode in Skyward Sword was good, but I still did not get a single game over. However, this has forced me to find more creative ways to challenge myself, such as the 6/3 heart runs, sequence breaking and glitching. I've done a run through Twilight Princess wherein I glitched to keep the wooden sword throughout, and mostly went without a shield. Have also found ways to do levels in Super Mario Galaxy without intended power-ups.

It depends. I usually start on "normal" and then adjust as needed.

I have very little interest in devoting large portions of my life to developing sub-millisecond timing to beat some "twitch" game. But I will up the level of a game with a pseudo-AI so that they don't just stand there while I tear off one of their arms and beat them to death with it.

What it comes down to is that I want the game to be fun. Far too many games just speed up, reduce the timing tolerances or give the enemies unrealistic advantages when you increase the difficulty. In my opinion, that's not fun. I may do it if there's some achievement involved or it unlocks some new feature. But it becomes what I refer to as "Dragon's Lair Syndrome" (for those of you who didn't frequent arcades in the late 80s, Dragon's Lair was a laserdisc based game where the way to win was just to memorize the moves for each scenario. There was very little skill involved, it was just memorization and timing. You'd just keep hammering away at it until you got it right.) I'll generally only go through a game at multiple difficulty levels if it substantially changes the strategy or game play, not simply to make myself do the same thing more accurately or faster.

(With that said, when there are badges/achievments/rewards, I do tend to get a little OCD about it and I will try to get every single one. I'm ashamed to say that I usually regret spending so much time and effort to do it, but I can't stand seeing those things just taunting me

Normal. The first time through, I like to play the game the way the developers intended, including the difficulty they felt was balanced/reasonable. If I enjoyed it, I could always play it again in hard mode.

If im familiar with the game system, hard. If im completely new to the system, easy until i get the hang of the controls. Otherwise normal then hard as i progress.
If theres an option, like in dead island, to play the game with its intended controls or an easier version (analogue fighting mode) then i'll always take the intended controls regardless of how long it takes to get used to it.

If Doom was porn, I'd rather go with "Hey, Not Too Rough."
Anyway I start on easy and work up if possible. I wouldn't brag about how easy a game is and if I were to mention it. I'd only need to say this once.

DOOM has to be played on Nightmare, or GTFO

I'll usually pick the hardest difficulty available, unless I haven't played any similar games before. I like having to work for my victories. I also like games that punish you decently for dieing.

Normal.
I always choose the medium difficulty on games because that seems to be the sweet spot where the programmers didn't ramp up the cheating too far and the game is usually more forgiving for my lack of skill...

I usually start at the easiest and work my through the harder difficulties, unless it is a sequel then I might skip up to normal/hard.

I play on normal and, if it feels too easy, take it a step up. I almost never play on easy though, only in the beginning of Prototype did I do easy.

BTW, there are vids of some guy totally beating that game on Nightmare (forgot the links). He used really neat tricks, like having monsters fight each other (yes, it is possible in Doom) and just speed running to power ups before taking out all monsters.

Man, more power to you but nightmare is just flat out BS to the point of being unfair, to me at least. Especially try playing Plutonia or something where the levels are hard enough...can't even think of some of the custom wads. I haven't Doomed in years though.

Nothing funner then making four imps take out a baron then mopping up with the chainsaw
It's a handy tactic if you're trying to run through with just a pistol too.
Oh wow someone speed playing, ill have to take a look later

Generally speaking I would start on "normal" or "medium" the first time I play a game. If that's proving a nightmare, I'd do it on easy. Once I beat it on normal I'd try to beat it on hard, then on "very hard" or "impossible" if there is such a setting.