When do you consider a game beaten?

[modest9797]

I looked over my xbox games earlier today and I relized I only beat about 1/4 of my games. Some games it is obvious when you beat them like Halo 3, Kameo, Amped 3, ect. So when do you consider games like sport games and highscore games. Are they beaten when you get the super bowl in Madden games?

So when do you consider games to be "beaten?"

[Haoie]

When you've finished it, on a normal setting, and gotten at least 1 ending. Or some variant of that.

It's much hard to figure out for open ended games, like Sim City or what not.

[Iron Draggon]

when I buy it and it's been stored with the rest of the games in my collection

[modest9797]

What about sport games?

and when do you consider open-ended games completed?

[TurboGenesis]

The thing about game like shoot them up and puzzle is that they may never be completed…

These games there is always room for improvement and they have everlasting replay value. That is the main draw for fans of such games. With score based games the challenge is to score better than the last play through and if one is truly that good at scoring, then a challenge for the world record is in order…

[ryborg]

What about sport games?

For sports games that have a finite endpoint, I consider it "beaten" if I've completed the last game/level/whatever at the highest difficulty (if available). Examples are Double Dribble, Virtua Tennis, Tecmo Super Bowl, etc.

For open-ended sports games, like most EA Sports games' Franchise mode, I never consider them completely beaten, even if I've slogged through all the available years in the franchise mode. That's why they have such a high replay value to me.

[calthaer]

My criteria for "beaten" has recently changed because I read Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun for Game Design."

http://www.theoryoffun.com/

He talks about games as being learning vehicles...where, typically, games are about learning and utilizing a certain subset of skills / tools. When your skill level is such that the game no longer offers any more lessons - and is merely a matter of putting into use the tools / skills one has already learned - then the game has already served its purpose.

I find more and more that there are lots of games where I just don't want to finish them. The first quarter or half of the game complete, but I have no drive to keep going. The more I look at it, the more I can see that it's because I have nothing more to learn from the game - it's just greater and greater application of things I've already learned.

Like Final Fantasy X. The story, honestly, is nothing to write home about - but the character-building RPG gameboard thing they have going on there is really interesting. The thing is that, once I had already pretty much figured that out and at least sampled a fair percentage of the board - I had no desire to keep playing the game. I didn't care about the characters or story, which I personally found not very compelling. Sure, it was good to look at - but I can get better visuals from a movie.

Or some of the Super Mario games. By the time I've hit World 8, I don't particularly care whether the princess gets saved or not. I've already mastered their thumb-twitching precision of jumping, and by the time World 8 comes around they're pretty much just remixing all the hardest parts of the earlier worlds - leaving me with a "been there, done that" sort of feeling. I've already learned what I need to from the game, and the only thing left is to do some rote memorization of enemy patterns for the last level so that I can slog through it. Boring.

So - I used to consider a game "beaten" when the credits rolled. Nowadays, I consider it "beaten" when I've seen just about every type of interesting challenge and / or meaningful decision the game has to offer. If it's just jumping through hoops that are of various varieties (different colors, different heights off the ground, on fire, etc.), then I start getting bored and want to go do some other type of activity.

That's why I like to play flash games nowadays, lots of the time. You can get to the ludemes pretty quickly, they don't take long to complete, and you can actually complete the game by the time you've mastered all the skills. They're not bloated, inflated pieces of level-content like most other games seem to be nowadays.

This is one reason why I wanted to try Braid. It seems like this guy wanted to make sure that each section of content had a corresponding and unique challenge / lesson - there was no "fat" in that game.

[Malon_Forever]

I don't consider sport games ever beaten. I play them to have fun, with no end to them. Example: Lost Odyssey is a decent RPG that I beat, and I have no desire to play it again unless I started it over (unlikely). NHL 08 I just keep playing until a new one comes out, or I get bored of it. That's the fun of it. It doesn't end...

[garagesaleking!!]

ya when im bored of it i consider it beaten

[modest9797]

ya when im bored of it i consider it beaten

Wow! I beat Gears of war in record time!

[Sudo]

I consider it beaten when the credits are rolling. For puzzle games, sports games etc. that don't really have an ending, I don't ever consider them beaten.

[Narifia]

I used to consider a game beaten when I'd completed the main goal of the game, or beaten the main boss. Anything after that I considered extra and optional; for example The Legend of Zelda quest 2 was optional to me.

When I was a kid, I considered a Pokemon game beaten when I defeated the elite four, but since newer Pokemon games have come out I've started to see more and more to DO to complete the games. Especially if you want a complete Pokedex (which I thought was optional as a kid, too, but now I realise that's the point of the game in the first place :P).

So, really, a game may be "beaten" but isn't truly "completed" to me until there's nothing left to do in the game, period. As for puzzle games and the like, that has more to do with improving your skills in the game than finishing the game itself, but also consider that you can consider them beaten when there's no possible way you can improve your skills any further.

In light of saying this, I now realise there's few games I've actually had the patience to truly beat ^.^;

[Therealqtip]

when I see the ending of the game

[jb143]

When playing an actual sport when do you consider it won? When you beat the other team of course. The same could be said of sports games. Unless it's a tournament, then you've won when you've won the tournament. You could think of it as playing a chess game as well. Just becasue you get to play another game right after beating the computer doesn't mean that you havn't beaten it.