Games these days are too big.

[Charlie]

Someone in the "too much unlocking" thread mentioned how too often games pratically require that you shell out $15 extra dollars on top of the game to buy the guide so you actually know what you're supposed to do. I agree totally...

And there is a reason for that, and you may think I'm nuts or something, but I believe it's because the games are too damn big. Yeah I said it... someone fucking had to. Look at Zelda: Ocarina of Time or *any* Nintendo 64 game made by Rare. Big games... ooooh, ah. Lots of stuff to collect. Whoopie.

As far as I'm concerned, the bigger the game (in terms of size and not hours required to complete... actual area here), the more down time the game has, and that down time comes from wandering around aimlessly. You only have a vague idea of where to go and what you're supposed to do, but often times you've missed something in the 500 miles of game space that you've traveled and you need to experience that event before you can move forward in the game.

It's scary actually that someone can find entertainment in walking around IN A VIDEO GAME and doing NOTHING. It's a sign that the newer generation is just too easily amused and have set the bar for entertainment low. God bless Metroid Prime, because I want a linear quest by god. I want to be told where to go and how to get there without the aid of guide. A good game should be like a good book: When you get done with the page, you turn it. And god bless Vice City for giving you something to do while you walk around aimlessly: cap innocent citizens.

The worst offender ever has to be Donkey Kong 64. This game was just awful on so many levels. It had the potential to be good, but there was just way too much downtime and backtracking... by time you got to where you were supposed to be, you were already bored. That's pretty much my stance on most modern epics. Bigger is not better. That's what I tell everyone when they say "Why do you even bother buying old Atari and Nintendo games?" Because those games are fun and most of the new shit that comes out is utter crap.

Then you have what thankfully hasn't turned into the new fad: randomized maps and dungeons. People talk about how "it's a different experience everytime." Well folks, we had books like that when I was 10. Turn to page 63 or page 31. And they sucked then, and this concept sucks now. Some people call it a masterpiece in design, but I am going to flat out say that it's laziness on the part of the production team. Instead of finely crafting an epic story with memorable dungeons and levels, they just throw together some generic textures and switch around the locations of items, bosses, etc. You're not getting a new experience... you're getting the same exact experience as you did before: wandering around aimlessly killing the same shit and looking for the same things. This is a bug that thankfully looks like it's been squashed.

Another thing that I can't stand: alternate endings. You play a game and it takes you 60 hours to beat the fucker and you get a weak ass ending becaues you didn't do it fast enough. It makes me want to track down the fucker who thought up that idea and hang him by his thumbs while evil goatee wearing midgets tickle-torture him with banana leafs. Most of the time, the game is so boring that you have to drink a six pack of pepsi just to stay awake. Total horse shit.

[buttasuperb]

I wish more games would go back to 2D.

[Charlie]

I have no problem with 3-D games... I certainly wish more 2-D games would come out, but a 3-D game when done right (Mario Sunshine for example) is simply awesome. I think most of the anti-3D attitude from gamers is because the games themselves aren't paticularly well produced.

Most 3-D games use a generic templet with the same old themes. Run around, collect shit, open up an exit, fight a boss, repeat. Only they mess everything up. The textures don't change from level to level, the enemies are either too dumb or too hard, the goals remain the same, etc. Well hell, even 2-D games suffer from the same thing. Except for 2-D doesn't suffer from the that most 3-D games that suck contain: Downtime.

People can complain about camera problems until they are blue in the face, but the thing that decides whether a 3-D game is good or not to me is how much downtime it contains. In Mario Sunshine, there is always something to do. In Metroid Prime, you're fighting shit non-stop and you know what you have to do and with another patience you'll figure out how to do it.

But in games like, say, DK 64, you spend most of your time wandering around trying to figure out where the next level where all the action is at. In any of the N64 Zelda games, you wander around an overworld where nothing happens.

On the subject of camera problems in 3-D games, people just need to concede that it will always be there, especially in the platform genre. The only way to eliminate it would be to not place any point of action or searching in a place where the camera can lose you or get stuck. So bascially, it would mean roaming around in a giant field with no fences to climb, mountains to scale, lakes to swim in, or caves to explore. Booooring. 3-D games are my favorite non-puzzle genre... as long as they are done right.

[Arrrhalomynn]

I agree with size being a bad thing in a videogame. There aren't much things more annoying than finishing a game in 12 hours, while you know you could have finished it in 3 hours if you didn't have to wander around all the time. It's cheap and you feel raped by (usually capcom!!) the developer.

Talking about endings, something I can't stand is an ending that's pretty much already the start of the sequal. Games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and devil may cry have that for example. You just spend like 6 hours finishing the way too short game and then you find out they didn't even put all their energy in it. Instead of focusing on one bad ass game, they rather make 2 short games to take some more of your money.

[YoshiM]

Personally I like big games. Makes me feel I got my money's worth. With adventure games (the Banjo Kazooie's, the Conkers, the SMBs, etc.) travelling is what makes it an ADVENTURE-the journey is what makes it great, not the end. I do agree the need to collect X number of items to move on is tiresome but if the game is really fun I overlook it. I feel jipped if on my first say few hours I beat a $50 game.

Now if the game was REALLY huge (The Elder Scrolls games usually take 2 real time days to cross from one end of the world to the other ON FOOT) and had no other way to speed up getting from place to place then yeah I agree that would suck. Especially if there was nothing to interact with on the way. Thankfully the above mentioned Bethesda games do give you stuff to run into when you go out for a long trek without the use of a silt strider or a wagon.

[kainemaxwell]

I agree that more games should be brought back to 2d. It also seems thanks to Mario 64 most 3d games do woek in the template Charlie described in an earlier post and everyone's jumped onto the bandwagon with it.

it's a shame that most the younger generation never experinced the games that had quality and gameplay to them instea dof the games now where you're not sure where to go and what to do.

[jaybird]

I agree games are too big & take too long to finish these days. I just don't have the time anymore to spend 30 hours on one game.

I asked the question in this poll:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8277&highlight=

and got thoroughly outvoted by the people who prefer 16 hours or more from their games.

I guess gamers do want big games...

[Raccoon Lad]

I was just thinking the same thing recently. the "non-linear" gameplay that the developers all think is so freakiln' popular, just leads to lots of wandering around aimlessly. Give me 3D on rails, you can't waste 10 minutes getting lost in the middle of a level that way.

[Sylentwulf]

Why, back in MY DAY, Mario had to walk up hill both ways through the snow, just to get to bowser's castle, and THEN they told you to go to another castle! I tell ya, games these days...

[kainemaxwell]

I was just thinking the same thing recently. the "non-linear" gameplay that the developers all think is so freakiln' popular, just leads to lots of wandering around aimlessly. Give me 3D on rails, you can't waste 10 minutes getting lost in the middle of a level that way.
Ah yes, the days of Starfox...

[Kamisama]

I like big games when they are really enjoyable. I remember the 70-80 Hours i spend with Final Fantasy 7 for example. But I would never spend so much time for an average game...

[threeoclockhigh]

About the dungeons comment at the top, i go along with that on top of the fact that there can only be so many 'random' dungeons before the exact same ones come up again and again.

As for alternate endings and getting a bad ending for doing things too slow, I hate that, too. I know where everything is and how to make it through but I really like to blow the piss out of every last enemy (even spiders and crows) in the Resident Evil games but I always end up with a bad score.

Last gripe. The games are so big that if you go a week or two without playing it (it does happen!!!!!) you dont even remember where you are, where you have been or what you need to do. Before I turn off a game, I always have to write down specific 'to do' lists for the next time I play some of the big, complicated games, fold them up and put them in the manual, otherwise I would be totally lost and never finish.

[maxlords]

Give me 2.5D anyday. I'm really sad that those style games never took off...stuff like Pandemonium and Klonoa. Imagine a Castlevania in 2.5D! Wowsers! 2D style was so much more fun that 3D cause you didn't have to worry about those pesky cameras. That's the main downfall of modern gaming...it's almost impossible to get the perfect camera.

[Alex Kidd]

Well, I don't mind a big gameworld, as long as there is stuff in it.

Multiple endings are either good or bad.

If you get different ending on how fast you did it, or how many stars you collected on the way, thats bad. Cause you repeatedly play the same game over and over.
But, if you get different ending based on choices you made, that's cool, cause you can go back and make different choices, so you get a different ending and somewhat different gameplay.

But yes, Me too... I never owned a PSX and when I did play them I cursed camera angles to no end. Spyo The Dragon got some playing time outta me, I will say it was fun. but it pissed me off how you were running forwards, then you turn left, in the few seconds it take to spin the camera, you could run straight into a hole, an enemy, etc. OR the controls are screwy, press up to go forward, press left to turn left, wait, tell your left is actually facing forward on screen, then press forward... nothin worse then trying to run away from a boss and trying to decode in your brain, 'ok, I'm facing down, and want to turn left, do I press right or left... then I want to keep running that way, do I keep pressing left/right, or do I know press up.. but I was going down... ARGHHHHH'

2D all the way.... tho I must say, Sonic Adventure on the DC is pretty good, but only cause they did ONE thing that saved it all... Homing Attack. Unlike Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis, where you had to try and land yourself on the enemy, let processor calculate the physics for ya!

And by 2.5D do you guys mean games like VectorMan where the swinging hooks would swing "in and out" of the screen or in the style of the old shooters like Doom? I dug that the style of having things go in and out of the screen, I think Bug! on the Saturn was a good way of making a 3D game, took that pseudo 3D effect from games like VectorMan and improved on it enough so it was 3D, but still the "on rails" style too.

Alex Kidd

[Tritoch]

Now if the game was REALLY huge (The Elder Scrolls games usually take 2 real time days to cross from one end of the world to the other ON FOOT) and had no other way to speed up getting from place to place then yeah I agree that would suck. Especially if there was nothing to interact with on the way. Thankfully the above mentioned Bethesda games do give you stuff to run into when you go out for a long trek without the use of a silt strider or a wagon.

I loved Morrowind for that reason. I've beaten it, finished all of the Hlaalu quests and almost all of the other quests (didn't do the vampire stuff and a bug prevents me from completing one other) and I STILL have probably 30-40% of the world to explore. Who knows what kind of things lurk in those still-blackened out areas on the map? :hmm:

[YoshiM]

I agree with many of you about game endings. The fact that I have to play the game again, over and over, to get the "right" endings is just a pain. Silent Hill is a good example of this. Sure you get to see some new areas if you try to get the better endings, but the effect that the developers wanted to portray is gone. So its more frustrating than naught having to slog through areas you know like the back of your hand.

Besides, multiple endings don't really "do it" for me. If the game itself was good and gave many hours of entertainment initially, why try and "Value add" other endings? Doesn't that screw up any future direct sequel?

Look at Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Dark Forces 2). You could end it as either a bright shiny good guy or become a part of the dark side depening on your actions. In Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast it shows that Katarn gave up his ways of the Force. What if a person who played and beat the prequel got the Dark Side ending? Not that it's a big deal, but I'm sure you see what I mean.

With endings "back in the day", one of the things that I thought was genius (frustrating, but still genius) was the fact that some of the games could not be properly beaten in "easy" mode. I think Golden Axe for sure had this and I can't think of any others. You could only get so far and the screen would say "now try playing on [insert next difficulty level here]" or something like that. I cussed the TV but I bumped up the level and tried again. It forced me to get better at the game. I wonder if something like that would fly these days.

[Kairi]

I wish more games would go back to 2D.

Me too sometimes.


On the subject of camera problems in 3-D games, people just need to concede that it will always be there, especially in the platform genre. The only way to eliminate it would be to not place any point of action or searching in a place where the camera can lose you or get stuck. So bascially, it would mean roaming around in a giant field with no fences to climb, mountains to scale, lakes to swim in, or caves to explore. Booooring. 3-D games are my favorite non-puzzle genre... as long as they are done right.

Games with sucky camera angles or non-controllable camera angles suck. Like I love Suikoden III but sometimes you get a crappy camera angle and it's a bish. They could atleast give you the option of controlling the camera angle like .hack.

only thing I find BAD about a big game is when you get no real information on where to go and you have such a large area to wonder to try to continue story line. There is nothing worse to me than buying a $50 game and getting 10 hr of game play in my opinion. I feel violated. Like Bloodrayne. I loved the game and graphics of it but it was real short. And on the subject of multi endings... it gives it replay value.

[Tempest]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I like random dungeons. Games like Diablo would have been boring much faster if the dungeons weren't randomly generated. The coolest use of this I ever saw was in a text game called Beyond Zork. There were actually certain regions in the game that were randomized and the items were randomized in their locations too. This was really cool because it was an all text game. It certainly made it more interesting.

Am I the only one that thinks 3D has got to go? God I can't stand it anymore...

Tempest

[digitalpress]

Personally I don't think the PROBLEM is "3D". I think the problem is simply poor game design.

I can play a REALLY BIG 3D game like "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City", I have no complaints, I love the fact that the game is so huge. If the designers who did Croc III or Banjo-Me-Too or Super Mario Super 3D World 64 would just make their worlds a little more interactive, I'd play them. But like you, I just don't like wandering around. I want action.

I've played 2D games with the same problem.

And if they do away with 3D, I will never have sex with Kate Moss. Please don't make me explain the series of events that lead from now until that moment again, and please don't deny me my dream. Let 3D be.

[bargora]

It looks like we have three distinct complaints going on at the same time here:
1) Games that take too long to finish (so you don't finish them)
2) Games with levels that are so large that you can't figure out WTF is going on or where to go.
3) Games with multiple endings that you don't think are worth playing through again to see.

And then there's the camera complaints and the cries of bring back 2-D. Whew.

I just want to chime in on the multiple endings thing. YoshiM mentioned Silent Hill, pointing out that the initial effect is gone once you've played through, so it seems silly to require you to go through the game again to get a better ending. I'm in the middle of Silent Hill right now, and I tend to agree. Unless there's going to be new stuff the second time through (or third or fourth), I may not ever get around to doing a game like that again just to get a better ending. If I had more time than games, though, I might, so I suppose it's not a terrible thing, AS LONG AS I can input a cheat to see the "good ending" (and other endings) if I can't be bothered to do the game again.

On the other hand, I think Colony Wars (the first one) was a game that used a multiple endings approach the right way. That game had branching story paths that you went down depending on whether you were successful in your assigned mission tasks. There were over 30 cutscenes in the game, but you would only see about 6 or 7 of them on a given run through the game, before you got one of 6(?) endings. After viewing a cutscene, you went through a series of (typically) 3-5 missions, the outcome of which determined which cutscene and set of missions you got afterward.

Because the difficulty was well graded, I ended up getting the worst ending (i.e.,your uprising is crushed), then the second worst, and so on, until I finally got the best ending. While there was some repetition, especially in the early parts, each play through sends you on a different mission path (unless you win and lose the same battles), which gives you a reason to play the game again other than just to see a different ending. When you finally got the best ending (or entered password Commander*Jeffer) you could view the entire mission tree and start the game from any point.

Colony Wars: Vengeance used a similar system, but to a lesser extent (fewer branching paths).

Of course, that's a mission-based game. Looking back, though, I'm still astonished at the effort Psygnosis went to to produce such an epic scale game (if you have a spare afternoon, browse through the huge databases on the discs, which have a ton of backstory that never really comes into play.) I think that it is possible to implement branching storylines with multiple endings into other genres like survival horror, but it would be a lot more work than using the largely linear plotting that seems to be the current standard.

[Ruudos]

When I saw this topic I immediately thought about something.

I don't have a cube myself, and haven't played a game on it (yet), but I've read interviews with Miyamoto that he wants more short games. There are already some made, such as Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin. But what complaints to these games generally get?
They're too short.

Euhmz @_@

[Captain Wrong]

Charlie, I agree with you 100%. Esp, about DK64. Man, that game was tedious.

That's the thing, I have yet to play a really long game that didn't get EXTREMELY tedious. It's like do this, now do it again, and again, and again...

It seems like too many games are big for the sake of being big. Like you could have trimmed 20 hours of mindless exploring out and had a better game.

But I think it has to do with people's attitudes towards games in general. Back in my day, we bought say Pitfall and got replay value. Sure it was a short game, but it's one that even though you found all the treasures and "beat" it, you could still enjoy playing it and you fully intended to continue playing it.

Nowadays, people seem to think of games as one shot deals where once you've beat it, you're never gonna touch it again. That's why people crab when a game is beatable in "only" 15 hours, or some such. They know once those 15 hours are over, they're never going to touch it again.

That's why I just don't buy new games anymore. One, I have a life and I can't spend 80 hours to finish the damn thing. Two, I'm not going to rub up against every surface, back track with 23 different characters, fight the same battles 500 times to collect all the golden farts so I get a different color hat next time I play. And three, I just don't need to spend $50 on a game I'm going to spend a month playing and never touch again.

[YoshiM]

Ruudos brings up an interesting point, I remember reading about that too. You have to wonder how the reviewers and players who complain base longevity on. Personally I thought Luigi's Mansion was of decent size. Too much more and it would have been stressed out to the point of blandness and too little would give the game a rushed (as in to complete, not in design) feel.

I wonder sometimes what people's expectations are. Should a platformer be 60 hours long? That better be a damn good game to keep my attention for that long. Take Banjo Kazooie. It's a long ass game with all that collecting of notes and Jinjos. For me it had enough going for it that kept me playing-funny story, good characters, wanting to see what the next transformation makes me, seeing what's beyond that puzzle I banged my head against for a long time, etc. It kept me entertained with rarely a lull, even with travelling. A game like Shadowman hardly had anything to keep me entertained. It was like I had to go and FIND a conflict just to get the impression that I'm playing a game, let alone having fun.

If the game gives me a wild, fun ride that kept me glued to it from beginning to end-I feel I got my money's worth. This has been my philosophy for years with games. If it's only 10 hours long in game play time, but it had me glued to the TV playing it every chance I got-worth the price of admission. Best example is Metal Gear Solid. Short game, hella fun and a great story to boot. I think common gamers these days just want more in their games just to have it. They may never even get into the extra stuff, but knowing that it's there seems to justify the purchase no matter how sucky the game is or how tired the franchise it's from is. Kinda like people who download tons of MP3's and movies off the P2P networks-how many of them actually LISTEN to all 5 years of music time they have? I betcha it's not many, but hey at least the HAVE it. Oy.