Recentely I was thinking about something which I''ve been considering for a while: some games are simply too long. People don''t like sitting through 4 hour movies, so why do companies think that 80000000 hours of gameplay is neccasarily a good thing? Obviousely players deserve to get a lot for there money -- but I think all but the most hardcore players will eventually become bored with games that take too long to complete. I''d love to here some thoughts on the subject. --TheGoop

i couldn''t agree with you more then this. Take half-life the real world is totally cool but the other world is too long so i stopped. Internet is the magic word!

SigwarthSoft
sigwarthsoft@hotmail.com
icq#: 62538030
Maastricht, Netherlands
Stefan Sigwarth

Well, I can agree that it''s annoying when a game gets repititive and the same thing over and over (same with movies, i like them, but i don''t like watching 7 hours of them). But, i believe if the game changes AND it still follows the storyline, then it''s worth playing.

I could not disagree more,
First of all,new comercial games cost 8 or nine times as much as going to a movie, and two to three times as much as buying a movie. So there should be more content in a game, in order to get your moneys worth at all. Personally If I bought a new $60 game and beat it in half an hour, or even in one day I would be royally upset. In order to make a game worth buying or even just downloading there must be some challenge that takes more than an afternoon or some value that makes it worth playing again and again. In essence this is what all games must seek, some bit of multiplayer or plot twisting or just damn cool graphics taht will make people want to play. As a random plus, marshmallow duel is the smallest game I have yet found that never get''s tiring after playing it for hours and hours.

-fnj

I''m not saying games should be that short. I too would be pissed off if I beat the game in a day and there were no plot twists. What I''m saying is that games which take 1.5-2 months to beat are too long. By then I''m usually sick of the game.

Note: I''m talking single player here, multiplayer is a different story.

--TheGoop

I think to a degree this can be dependant on the style of game. I have recently been playing Baldur''s Gate which is great fun. That goes on quite a while, but your characters are continually developing and it follows an actual plot which is (reasonably) interesting. I thought that was worth playing for a long time, it was well developed.

I would have to agree with a previous post on Half-Life though. Whilst the alien section at the end might indeed be plot-related, the game was clearly repetitive and losing interest by that point.

In the end I think there is a place for all action games that maybe do not have so much plot and could be shorter in lenght (and preferably cheaper!!) but you can have some great games that DO take a long time to complete and still are worth every penny.

Woop

I''ll agree with Woop. I just finished TombRaider III and it took me over a month to finish. The thing that kept me with it was that the scenery kept changing, I was always trying to figure out how to do something, and the plot progressed as I went along. There were a few places where there was to much redundancy. Especialy the places where you''re trying to get the right combinations of switches, or figuring out how to get through a maze. But for the most part, I think it was worth the $50, or whatever I payed for it.

E:cb woof!

I don''t have a problem with a game that has lots of game play.

What I have a problem with is games that don''t provide good stopping points. I don''t always have the time to sit and play for four hours at a sitting, and some games just don''t lend themselves to short sittings (45-60 minutes).

The other problem with having lots of gameplay time is that it all needs to be fun. Once it stops being fun, once the player is saying, "Been there, done that", then it just get''s boring or monotonous, and the player begins to think the game is too long.

If the game is really fun, and it takes you into the story, it can''t be too long. Final Fantasy VII, was too short for me. I wanted to beat it, but when I did, I felt that there should have been more.

Domini

i love playing aventure/action games but many of them are ust worthless, many games these days are to repetitive(figuring key combinations, puzzles, and stuff that does not make sense, ) these days. also who came up with the idea to guive puzzles without hints in games!!!