Editor's note: Gamers should be able to enjoy their games on whatever difficulty level they desire. Ben points out that while games may have settings that cater to the casual and the hardcore, they rarely have something for those in between. -Jason

Like many others, I enjoy something that challenges me to think creatively or that pushes me to my limits -- but then, with some perseverance, rewards me with something that's well worth the effort.

However, it seems that games are sometimes unable to straddle the risk-reward gap effectively. Some games, such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, showcase exactly what happens when difficulty settings are just a little bit too far apart.

Starting out on normal, I quickly realized that the visual indicators above enemy’s heads would likely make combat far too easy for the average gamer. If you know exactly when to hit a button, doesn’t combat transform into one long quick-time event, albeit one with slightly subtler prompts? Regardless, I persevered into my first stealth section, hoping that these would provide more of a challenge.

Short answer? Nope. Long answer? Hell, no.

The enemies were so brain dead that they didn't seem to notice an extremely burly man dressed in a cape walking around right behind them. The only time that they did notice me was when the last in a group turned around, petrified with fear, and unloaded almost an entire clip into Batman’s chest -- before falling over with just one punch.

Christ Almighty, I thought -- if Batman can take that much punishment, what's the point of stealth in a game designed with stealth as its key mechanic? I could just as easily make a racket and succeed.

So I decided to try again on hard, and dear lord, did that make a difference. Without those blue sparks, combat felt much more natural. I had to rely on my own sight to tell whether an enemy was going to punch me or not. The stealth sections become so much more rewarding when you know that even a second of gunfire could send you to a screen where Mark Hamill's Joker gloats at you for not being careful and letting an enemy see you punching one of his mate’s lights out on a catwalk.

Arkham Asylum’s hard mode made the game feel more like the experience the developers wanted it to be, rather than the watered down “My First Stealth Game” feel of normal. I'd hate to think what easy would've been like.

This got me thinking -- what difficulty is the right mix of challenge and reward? Surely God Hand, Clover’s beat-em-up extravaganza, is downright sadistic. You've got to pay attention after killing the last enemy in a room -- a blue demon rises from his body and will destroy you if you aren't playing a perfect game of dodge-and-hit.

That kind of game design needs to be taken to the nearest Swiss clinic and shoved through the door against its will, never to be seen again.

However, you get the opposite of this in games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- Turtles in Time Re-shelled, which provide so little challenge that clearing the entire game in one life seems not so much an achievement as a marketing bullet point.

Games need to find a sense of equilibrium when it comes to difficulty, be it dynamic difficulty like the first (and only) Sin episode, Emergence, or quite simply the God of War approach, which simply asks you (once you fail enough times) whether you want to try an easier option.

Difficulty in games is a tough subject. When it comes to difficulty in a game, what do you prefer -- getting punished or having your hands held? Or do you prefer something in the middle, which seems to be the road less traveled, but one that's more rewarding in the long term.