Abandoning games to start new ones

[dug]

It's something I'm sure we've all done. I've done it plenty of times; in fact I just abandoned Resident Evil Zero half-way through to start Tales of Symphonia.

Does this show a lack of patience on my part? Or is it that my choice of games isn't up to standard? Surely if the game you're playing is good enough, you would finish it before starting the next one.

Some of the games I abandoned in the past include Advance Wars, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour. Pretty good games, most of you will agree (possibly), but I stopped playing them in order to play whatever new game it was that distracted me and I've never gone back to them. So I don't really think it's the quality of the games I buy that's causing me to stop playing them.

Thing is though, I now feel that I can't really go back to them unless I start again from the beginning, which I'm not really willing to do. That means they'll probably just sit on my shelf gathering dust until the hypothetical day I decide to give them another go.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let's raise our glasses to those games we haven't finished - and probably never will...

[Tom Salter]

It's been a long time since I've played a game through to the end in one go, without dabbling with others. I started Resident Evil 0 on the GC, then went onto Ico, left that pretty sharpish and went onto Zelda 4 Swords, got bored of that and went onto Deus Ex 2...the list goes on. I just can't seem to get into a game enough to finish it - so I tend to play twitch games now. It doesn't make me feel as guilty when I don't 'finish' them :P

[mid]

What, you mean you normally just play one single game from start to finish without even occasionally loading something else? I don't think I could handle that - I never know if I'll want to play an FPS, a driving game, a shmup, a fighter or whatever from one moment to the next.

[dug]

My usual way of playing games is to start a game and play that one exclusively until I finish it. Except of course if another game comes along that I just have to start playing now. In which case, it's extremely unlikely that I'll go back to the old one.

The big exception to all this is of course multiplayer games. If a couple of mates are around, then anything could happen.

[chevkoch]

For one, there's the peril of oversaturation which comes from too many titles being available at any given moment that's making me leave one game world prematurely and start a flirt with another. Exceptions do happen when there are no long gaps inbetween gaming sessions (due to having to deal with work/family life that's become rare) and the atmosphere of a particular title triggers a must-finish-in-one-go compulsion.

[Concept]

Edit: Wrong thread.

[dug]

For one, there's the peril of oversaturation which comes from too many titles being available at any given moment that's making me leave one game world prematurely and start a flirt with another.

That's it. Could it be that there are too many good games around at the moment?

[Adam Stone]

The games that appeal to me the most are the games that can engross me from start to finish. I like the odd arcade game here and there (like PNO3, Ikaruga and Viewtiful Joe) and fighters like Soul Calibur 1+2 to prone those skills...

But these games rarely get anything more then 30mins in a single sit - but i'll happily come back to these time and time again in-between playing other games.

However, when im deeply into a game, i cant stop playing until its finished and no newly purchased game changes this. Tales of Symphonia didnt leave my Cube until i had beat it. Other games most recently have been Beyond Good and Evil, Pikmin 2 and Mario & Luigi... before that Resident Evil Remake, Zero, Eternal Darkness amongst others.

However, this is only because they were able to grip me. Four Swords despite how much i enjoyed playing it, failed to sink its teeth into me, and i sold it half completed. Prince of Persia is another that i just didnt feel the need to complete and moved on to another...

Currently, Halo has been in my Xbox and i haven?t played anything else... i'm on the last section of the last level now. Have loved every moment and just haven?t been able to keep away...

So, to put it shortly, if a game truly grips me, then i simply cant just move on to another before its complete.

[lostn]

I make every effort to finish a game, even if I'm not liking it. And I make every effort to make sure the game is actually good before I begin playing it (I check multiple reviews for a consensus). But on occasion I still give up on a game if I get totally frustrated with it, or lose interest.

Where I lose out is when everyone says a game is good, and I didn't like it.

I didn't play much of Metroid Prime. Biggest waste of $50.

[Shotski]

For me i cannot play only one game straight until its compleated i'll play till i get bored and come back to it in a few days when i'm bored with the new game and so on.

[crazylegs]

i have a classic case:gta vice city
i got this one christmas and i didnt play anything else for months.i was studing a lot for my third year exams at the time and gta was the one bright spark in my life.then i unlocked the 2nd island and i just got bored!
i couldnt be bothered completing the rest of the missions.
soon after i got opposing force the exspansion pack for half-life and that was i could look at
i still havent completed vice city 2 years later

[Robster]

Im guilty of this too.


I have only played a few games thru from start to finish. I honestly cant decide what games to play, what I tend to do is start an RPg then if i feel im getting a little bored play some racing,platformers,shmup that are easily picked up and put down.


Last night for example I played POP, PGR2 then Metal Slug because i couldnt force my self to play KOTOR. Im hoping to give KOTOR some serious hours tonight but probs wont touch it until the weekend when I can sit up all night and play.

[mid]

Curiously, I went back to Vice City last weekend; cleaned out a whole bunch of missions after previously getting stuck and abandoning it for six months. Seems to be the way I do games generally, really.

[Len]

I used to be a classic case of this syndrome, though if a game hooked me I will always finish it, but at the beginning of the year I forced myself into the have 4/5 games on the go and your not allowed to begin anotherf until you've completed any of the other titles scenario.

Works a treat, especially when you have some (read lots) of new games in shiny wrapping crying out at you as well as giving a nice sense of satisfaction...

[lostn]

A good tip if you've got a huge backlog is to figure out generally how many hours each game takes to beat, and do the short ones first. You'll end up abandoning some, but you'll get through more of them this way.

You might never get around to those long RPGs, but missing out on one game is better than missing out on 5.