Game Length: A rant about PLAYING games

[spagmasterswift]

Of course the best thing about Burnout3 is that once you get back into the racing ALL THIS IS FORGOTTEN! All that matters is what you want to hit and what you want to avoid...and are you going as fast as you possibly can.

[Leon Retro]

If arcade games messed people around so much, they would have never been so popular.

[rjpageuk]

But arcade games arent particuarly popular here, and almost every one of the top sellers in this country include such "messing about" . Why is this?

Is it a case of the developers getting the wrong end of the stick and consumers just putting up with it, or is it that this is genuinely what people want?

[phresh]

The biggest crime is when games that have time-trial or similar short modes (burnouts crash mode) have loading times for a quick restart. I play quite a lot of time-trial games, and when I press pause>down>A (or X etc), I expect to be able to start that race or event again instantly, if I can't then it's pointless and extremely frustrating. The Burnout 3 crash mode is a brilliant example, excellent, if not sublime gameplay mechanics, ruined by the need to spend more than two thirds of your time in loading/saving screens.

Back on subject somewhat, I haveto agree with the over emphasis on extending gameplay. I find it quite hard to really get into a game that requires lengthy play times (replaying ToS at the moment mind), and often want a game I can just stick in for half an hour an get a decent amount of gameplay in. Luigis Mansion is a perfect examle, short, but with good, fun gameplay mechanics that don't require you to keep repeating the same tasks. My favourite short play game is Sin & Punishment, takes about 45 minutes to complete, but it is more or less non stop action for that entire time. I get more gameplay out of it than I do playing many other games for hours on end.

It's also worth noting that a lot of people who dislike loading times play Nintendo consoles a lot, me included.

One last point, I actually think that developers are a bit lazy with loading times. When CD consoles were introduced loading times were incredibly slow, and I think that the consumer has come to almost except this, allowing the developers to be a bit lazy in this regard. A good parallel is with PC software, where consumers have become so used to patches and the like that games are almost expected to be released unfinished and with bugs etc (Don't get mestarted on that though!).

[mr_fantazmo]

in the same way bussin Zoom in muscle posses when you Rainbow Viewtiful a stage in Joe isn't.

EH?

[IcePak]

I couldn't agree more with your original post rjpageuk. Very well said. I suggest you pass this on to other "more informed" gaming forums like this, with the hope that some developers will take notice of this, and realise we want to play games, not have to sit-through mandetory cut-scenes or lots of loading screens.

[spagmasterswift]

EH?

Check page 83 of the Viewtiful Joe thread in First Play for a run down of ways that you can mess with the mechanics of every bodies favourite Super Hero!!!

Saurian was giving a master class!

SLOW + ZOOM and hold it in when the Rainbow V comes up and the crowd cheers - It's pure cheese but IT's LAW!

Once you start with that stuff its very hard to stop...

[Crispin]

But arcade games arent particuarly popular here, and almost every one of the top sellers in this country include such "messing about" . Why is this?

Is it a case of the developers getting the wrong end of the stick and consumers just putting up with it, or is it that this is genuinely what people want?

Great thread BTW. I really like this sort of thing. Phantom Crash is one of the finest Xbox titles to date (yes, yes, I know it's not as good as AC, Cacophanus , let's leave that for another thread). Half of it is just pouring through page after page of statistics. What happens if I do this, is twin lasering a good idea, or not? Which of the three base models should I go for? Should I trade off OC time against the recharge rate, etc? I'm as happy as larry when I'm mucking through all these screens. And yet, according to you I'm not playing the game. And the game would be even better with more options, more tuning, more menus etc, etc. The combat is repetitive, but knowing you just twatted that Scooby operator who previously wiped the floor with you is very satisfying. There is a sort of gamer who enjoys the statistics, managing, thinking about the game without even playing it. It's part of the reason I love Pokemon so much.

I spent about the same amount of time reading all the Prima manuals, breeding lists and move lists as I did actually "playing" the game. When not playing it (i.e. after the light got dark - no SP or GameBoy GC player!) I was thinking about it, pouring over the manuals. The excitement of realising that the Snorlax experiment had exceeded my wildest expectations. The disappointment of realising that whilst Poliwrath with Mind Reader and Fissure was doable, as a pokemon it sucked because the trade off with missing Hydro Pump.

SSBM and Halo are fine, fine games. Yet these provide options for messing about.

Of course, clunky menu design is evil. Single line, "marquee" style info should be banned. Should be a case of select the menu option and peruse it at your leisure. Not a case of waiting for the bit to come round again.

If anyone plays a game for any other reason than the gameplay experience, then they are the ones with a problem, maybe they should read a book.

Right, so you didn't carry on playing Disgaea several hours longer in a night than you planned to because you were so absorbed in the story. Disgaea has lots of clever little things. Subtleties that don't reveal themselves either at first or not at all. Without GameFAQs there is no way you could possibly learn everything there is to know. The story helps one get further into the game, where they begin to finally work out how to powerlevel etc. By the time you've seen the end of a story arc, etc, you're closer to appreciating how clever the game is.

And I know **** all about Disgaea. There is stuff I would never have known.

And FFX rocked. Yes, the combat was insultingly simple, with no depth, but you play it for the story. The right level of interaction and story telling can really work wonders for making a player care about the characters' plights.

[rjpageuk]

Thanks for that Crispin.

I also loved Pokemon (Red/Blue for me, I am a bit older than you ) and I too spent time away from the game planning my Pokemon and what moves they would have and all that stuff.

Pokemon doesnt force you through pages and pages of statistics before it lets you play. If you want to tinker you can, and if you want to play you can. You choose.

Thats not what my rant was about - nor was it about being able to spend hours looking at statistics, or profile editing etc. The main point I wanted to make is that this stuff should be optional. Sure if they want to include a story with big cut scenes no problem - just dont force the player to view them because you think they will like them.

[Leon Retro]

If you are happy to play a videogame primarily for the story, then you clearly have forgotten what a game is.

If the strongest part of a game is it's story, then the developer has lost sight of what a game is.

Gameplay is king, without it there is no game worth playing. Stories and extras add to the experience, but they are in no way vital.

I would say I'm a purist when it comes to gameplay. Chess, Darts, all games should have a tight set of rules that push the player to achieve.

A lot of videogames are imo not games, but either primitive interactive cinema or just simple toy-sets that have little right to be labelled ' Games '

I have no problem with people enjoying what ever they want. Some adults still play with toy-soldiers etc... I just wish people would realise that arcade games have and always will be indentified by the way they put the gameplay first and foremost. I just wish people stopped calling FinalFantasy and the like, games, and used a more approproate term to describe them.

[Super Stu]

Roleplaying games?

[John Beaulieu]

*rant*

quite possibly the strangest rant yet ... 'games' with story-lines shouldn't be called games?

surreal

[Papercut]

camps judges rants.

thats surreal.

[John Beaulieu]

still bitter it didn't get 10/10 then?

[Papercut]

just amused by the rampant ego.