Has "extras unlocking" gone too far in games?

[kainemaxwell]

Anyone think that the tasks to unlock all the extras and bonuses in games have gone too far past fun and reaching motonany nowadays?

[wberdan]

personally i think it is completely ridiculous... but i suppose its good for those kids that can only get like one game a month or two ya know,,,, it gives them a chance to find more cool stuff after theyve beeten the game.
other than that it seems pointless

willie

[jaybird]

I like games that have stuff to unlock - but that also have codes that allow you to unlock everything if you don't have time/will to do it without "cheating".

That way, if you just rent it, you can experience all the game has to offer.

[davidbrit2]

I've always been more of a fan of the old fashioned way of doing it. You know, having hidden stuff to find throughout the game. The warp zones from Super Mario Bros. are a textbook example. Two of the most pointless "unlocks" would be the not-so-hidden Pac-Attack and Pac-Mania in the newest Namco Museum for Gamecube et. al.

[threeoclockhigh]

It depends on what you got to do to unlock the stuff, really. If the task involved is fun and goes along with the game, I'm ok with it. If it is pointless and time consuming, then no.

For example, unlocking stuff in a wrestling game by winning belts, matches or doing certain moves is something I don't mind, sometimes it's fun. Unlocking things in Soul Calibur is also cool because going through what you need to do it really tests you and makes you show how good you really are (like beating an enemy while on a small platform with high speed winds trying to blow you both off).

As far as tedious crap to unlock things, just look at Evil Zone on Playstation. Anyone who plays this knows. Trying to unlock all the voices and narrations will give you a damn ulcer. You have to go into the 1P Battle Mode and fight through 50 battles, beating each of the 10 characters 5 times. You have to use every move (special and normal, including magic) of your character at least once to end a battle, which is sometimes tough as some of them depend on where you and the opponent both are. It takes well over an hour to unlock stuff for just one character (and you need to do it for all 10 to unlock other extras). 50 fights is way too much and gets boring, you can't even save your progress in the 1P Battle Mode either. You have to do it all in one fell swoop.
It should be more like story mode, beat every opponent just once.

[ashbourn]

This was just brought up on atari age
In some ways it has gone crasy like needing to spend 120 hours on something. ***K that I get in only 2 or 3 at most.

[Charlie]

I brought this up last year on the old DP board... I think it's way out of hand... a way to bump up the replay value for a game that would otherwise have none. And even good games like Smash Bros. Melee rely to heavyly on it.

Look at Perfect Dark, for example. Over 80% of the multiplayer game requires some form of unlocking, and that's just plain bullshit. You've already paid for the game, and most people (like me) bought it just for the multiplayer aspects of it. Not everyone has the time, let alone wants to waste the time it requires just to have every gun and every level that you've already fucking paid unlocked. But it's a trend I don't see going away, and it's getting worse.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

It has gone way too far. In a way, this feeds into my ongoing gripe about the biggest racket in the modern age of video games: the strategy guide racket. When you practically can't play the damned games without the strategy guides or the magazines, count me out. It started out as a mildly cool idea with the Infocom Invisiclues booklets, but the strategy guide racket, hand-in-hand with the unlockable stuff element, has gone overboard in a big way.

It's no longer about strategy and skill. It's about whether or not you can afford the game and the strategy guide.

This particular subject makes me really cranky.

[GENESISNES]

i love unlocking stuff! thats one of the main reasons i got SSBM!

[Charlie]

i love unlocking stuff! thats one of the main reasons i got SSBM!

Now see, when I finally unlocked everything in SSBM, no less then DP himself asked me if it was worth it? Well, I'm happy that I beat all the challenges and stuff, but I would have done that anyway. I want all the levels and all the characters playable for multiplayer right out of the box. I'm not saying ALL unlockables are bad. Beat the game, get the sound test open. That's a nice thing. Beat the game, get 95% of the multiplayer levels and characters unlocked? Fuck that.

SSBM, there is just wayyyy to much shit to unlock. The trophy thing was a great idea. That's a lot of stuff to unlock and sure, I throughly enjoyed getting them all. Why on Earth with a thing as cool as the trophy collection did Hal feel that unlocking like 10 characters and like 10 or more extra maps just had to be included? Outrageous...

[ghsqb]

I agree with the majority, in many cases it has gone too far.

Games like MOHAA for example, I like. You can unlock extras as you go, just in the course of playing your game.

One of the otherthings I think has gone overboard is the tendency to ship games that have multiple endings.

IIRC, some games have like 7 different endings which is just plain stupid IMHO.

[Sylentwulf]

The best/worst example I've seen was when I played Tony hawk 3 and realized there are like a hundred players, and you expect me to beat every level with every one of them? Even had I wanted to I would have killed myself after beating it with 2-3 of them (I beat it with one, then played around for a bit)

[Ascending Wordsmith]

It depends on what can be unlocked, and how it has to be unlocked.

:) --- SNK Metal Slug art galleries, in my opinion, are worth unlocking. Add to that, the mini games (over 20) were fun to play anyway. Hopping on flying missiles, slicing mutants, and shooting aliens with a machine gun that's strapped on a camel were all very amusing mini games.

x_x --- Ace Combat 3 easily has the most tedious unlock requirements. With 36 missions, AND a grading scale of your performance, this is an example of how NOT to withhold extras. Just to get the music player, you must beat the game on the easy difficulty (35 missions). To get the mission simulator, beat the game on the normal difficulty (35 missions). To get secret aircraft (X-49, UI-4054), you must beat the game on the normal difficulty with straight 'A' performances, as well as unlock a secret mission (36 missions). If you unlock this secret mission, and get an 'A' performance, you unlock another secret plane (XR-900). Beat the game on the hard difficulty, with straight A's in all 36 missions, and you unlock a new weapon (OSL). Just think, you have to play through at least 35 missions three times to get the game's extras, and two of those three times, your performance must be top notch. That in itself is extremely hard to pull off thanks to the game's unreal expectations. I've done it but it took a bunch of swearing and a bunch restarts. Thanks Namco, you basically suck ass.

I don't mind unlocking things, as long as the requirements do ask me to play through the game repeatedly.

[MankeyMan]

The unlocking in TS2 pissed me off no end. Especially seeing as you have to get Platinum on all of the challenges to unlock every character, weapon, gun and scenario. I only got this game for the multiplayer, seeing as the storyline was never going to be brilliant. Now I have to play for about 20 hours just to have a decent multiplayer game.
The medals system for unlocking extra levels on Rogue Leader was also un-needed. Especially as the game is so damn hard.

[maxlords]

I'm sick to death of hidden minigames and pointless sidequests, especially in RPGs. It's getting so silliy in most games though, that there's just no point. I'm not spending an extra 20-30+ hours unlocking piddly crap that has nothing to do with the story. When it's like Jet Set Radio Future and finding the stuff is incorporated well into the game, and you don't REALLY need to get everything, that's fun...I liked getting some of hte graffiti souls, but I felt no compelling need ot get them all however. But when it's like the FF series is now, with hundreds of side quests that gain you nothing, bah! The only RPG series I did the side quests on is the SUikoden series, because every character you unlock adds a bit more to the story, and that makes it interesting. Plus, in Suikoden 3, if you get everyone, it unlocks a cool extra story mode that's a couple hours long :)

But for most games...BLECH!

[gamergary]

It depends on what can be unlocked, and how it has to be unlocked.

:) --- SNK Metal Slug art galleries, in my opinion, are worth unlocking. Add to that, the mini games (over 20) were fun to play anyway. Hopping on flying missiles, slicing mutants, and shooting aliens with a machine gun that's strapped on a camel were all very amusing mini games.

I don't mind unlocking things, as long as the requirements do ask me to play through the game repeatedly.

I agree with PC if what you unlock is worth it the time like the case in Metal Slug that i don't mind playing through the game once or twice but then again I play and beat Metal Slug X once every 2 days or so anyway. But in the case of Perfect Dark i would just use a gameshark because I would not play through the game just to get all the multiplayer levels.

[Lady Jaye]

unlocking or no unlocking? It depends on the game. I think that the unlockable games in Sonic Collection (GameCube) should be available from the start (I wanna play Flicky, dammit!). I prefer it when the unlockables are either boosts of some sort (as in a lot of racing and sports game, in career mode) or extras like movies (ie. Spiderman or Activision Anthology).

Make it worthwhile, and I will like it. Make an unlockable out of something that should've been available from the start, such as extra games/mini-games, and that's annoying.

Let's face it: how many people unlocked all the games from Sonic Collection by merely playing the Sonic games, not by restarting the loading of the games? If the number of loads required was low (like 10 or 20 loads), it'd be okay, but 50? That's wayyyy too tedious for what it is.

[kainemaxwell]

I don't mind some mini games to pass the time in-between level building and plot advancement but to have to do insane amounts of stuff to get certain items or to unlock other games is insane.