Yeah I’m just not usually that much of a masochist.
But then again the main thing I like about games just going through them, exploring, stuff like that, rather than going in it for a challenge and getting my back side handed to me. Depending on the game I usually push up the difficulty and go for the challenge after my first play through.

Good luck to anyone who’s actually going for it, especially on their first go. I wonder what the chances are of actually getting through the whole game without dying.

as long as game plays fair then this mode is pretty awesome. might play it... it will really spice the game up.

They're thinking "hardcore mode Diablo 2", hell, we've all played games like this and it is an optional difficulty.

Aliasalpha makes an excellent point, something like The Force Unleashed just dials up the damage to "ridiculous" and gives the AI lower reaction time (probably adds HP, not sure). This is "harder" but it just means "if I play on this difficulty I consent to dying, spawning a few feet away at the last save point and trying again, A LOT." That's only one brand of hard and not even a particularly interesting one.
The 60 hours has me all atwitter as well.

I love Hardcore mod. ToEE had one, I used it at my first play, then to my second, then to my third. Still had not finished the game. Then I made a "safe save" at the end of the village (after all the pacifist quests), which were tedious, and carried on playing hardcore. After 10 attempt, I died at what I believe was the final boss. Never finished the game, but that was some impressive fun.

Red Baron also had an hardcore mode. Well, that was the only mode available. I cheated when I felt a death was "unfair" (which of course tend to be very subjective), but sometimes I didn't. It was a thrill.

I finished JA2, WC 1 and WC 2 (but not their expansions), both FreeSpace, all campaigns of PG3, and most campaigns of Battle for Wesnoth in self-imposed hard-core mode.That was fun. You discover new things when you play like this, like you use the insurance for your soldiers in JA2 (anyone not playing Hardcore ever used it) and you get to read the lines of Mercs not wanting to work for you due to the death toll. Strategy games are outstanding in HardCore, 'cause this means that you will lose troops on the way on not finish the game with completely elite troops with max xps

The trick is to disconnect the "Hardcore mode" from the difficulty. I seriously hope that in Witcher 2, you don't have to play the Hardcore modes with as much enemies as in the Hard difficulty. 'Cause hard difficulties often means "unfair".

There had better be an Achievement for this.

...

Or maybe not.