Why Don't We Finish More Video Games?

[darth los]

Just some light weekend reading for you crazy kids. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/113/1135264p1.html

[Tricky]

I'm guilty of this, I can list Doom 3, silent hunter 3, the first Far Cry, Boiling point, Crysis, Ground control 2 & Quake 4 on my shelf that I have played a fair bit of but never actually finished. I also have Medieval 2 that I have finished, but only with one of the factions, I've only dabbled with the other ones & havent unlocked much of the game. I have less gaming time now than I did as a teenager, and like it says in the article, I have more money to spend on games these days so I tend to buy new ones before I complete other ones. Also quite often I put a game on, play a few minutes of it, then think "actually I cant be bothered" and I'll switch it off again. It takes a good game to hook me now, especially when I'm not actually in a gaming mood and im only playing it to fight off boredom on a week night. I can only play left 4 dead 2 for about half an hour as well, its a great game but you can quickly get bored of it, I have completed all the campaigns though on that one

[Mr. Clean]

Yeah I'm guilty too. I dropped Black Ops for AC Brotherhood. I'll go back to playing it though in a few weeks though. I been getting super pissed at the Multiplayer on Brotherhood. It's fun but can get super annoying.

[SymphonicX]

I'm not guilty of anything - the video games industry however, is 100% guilty for not holding my attention for long enough. Single player campaigns have been getting more and more neglected as time progresses. My "guilt list" of games I haven't completed only really stretches to rubbish like Transformers: War for Cybertron and Halo: Reach - and the fallout games but we'll come to that soon. The bottom line is the single player campaigns to games like COD and HALO have been nothing short of a massive let down - so if people aren't bothered to finish them, it's more than likely down to a weak single player mode which fails to deliver expectations let alone exceed them. Back in the days of old, these games were WORTH finishing - Rainbow Six Vegas, Gears of War, The Darkness, etc etc etc all had compelling stories and characters that made the player look forward to seeing what's in store with the next play through. Now we get shit like Reach and COD where the story happens in your centre speaker whilst you're playing the game, with plot relevant points getting lost amid manic gunfire and explosions. Games like Fallout however - different issue - the RPGs such as that, New Vegas, Oblivion etc didn't require the game to be finished - the reward is actually in the experience. The end for these types of games (and I assume, Mass Effect) is usually a 15 second montage of still images or maybe a small FMV sequence then 10 solid minutes of credits which we all sit through in case there's some sort of "you have been awarded" type of thing which gives the player a different experience next time around. Note to games makers: If you have ever considered putting easter eggs at the end of the credits, then fuck you - all it's taken is for one idiot games manufacturer to implement this idea and now we're all watching the credits like MONKEYS just to see if there's something we might skip past because we can't be arsed to read your self indulgent "special thanks" messages (gears of war 2 anyone?). Go fuck yourselves!

[Eyebiter]

Tricky - Silent Hunter III with the Grey Wolves mod installed is excellent. http://www.thegreywolves.com/ http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=102096

[darth los]

I'm not guilty of anything - the video games industry however, is 100% guilty for not holding my attention for long enough. Single player campaigns have been getting more and more neglected as time progresses. My "guilt list" of games I haven't completed only really stretches to rubbish like Transformers: War for Cybertron and Halo: Reach - and the fallout games but we'll come to that soon. The bottom line is the single player campaigns to games like COD and HALO have been nothing short of a massive let down - so if people aren't bothered to finish them, it's more than likely down to a weak single player mode which fails to deliver expectations let alone exceed them. Back in the days of old, these games were WORTH finishing - Rainbow Six Vegas, Gears of War, The Darkness, etc etc etc all had compelling stories and characters that made the player look forward to seeing what's in store with the next play through. Now we get shit like Reach and COD where the story happens in your centre speaker whilst you're playing the game, with plot relevant points getting lost amid manic gunfire and explosions. Games like Fallout however - different issue - the RPGs such as that, New Vegas, Oblivion etc didn't require the game to be finished - the reward is actually in the experience. The end for these types of games (and I assume, Mass Effect) is usually a 15 second montage of still images or maybe a small FMV sequence then 10 solid minutes of credits which we all sit through in case there's some sort of "you have been awarded" type of thing which gives the player a different experience next time around. Note to games makers: If you have ever considered putting easter eggs at the end of the credits, then fuck you - all it's taken is for one idiot games manufacturer to implement this idea and now we're all watching the credits like MONKEYS just to see if there's something we might skip past because we can't be arsed to read your self indulgent "special thanks" messages (gears of war 2 anyone?). Go fuck yourselves! Yeah those closing credits are way too long, Thanking everyone from their wife and kids to their 5th grade guidance counselor. And we'l lsit there wacthing it on the off chance that we'll miss an easter egg or some sort of obscure code to enter or phone number to call when really all you have to do is a google search or You tube it.

[Danny]

the only game that comes to mind that ive never seen the credits roll on, so to speak, is gauntlet. fucking impossible.

[AcesandEights]

the only game that comes to mind that ive never seen the credits roll on, so to speak, is gauntlet. fucking impossible. Hellsing needs food badly!

[JDFP]

I don't know that I've ever "finished" a video game. I was never very good at them when I used to play them (and this was back in the early 90's as the last game system I had was the Super Nintendo). I remember I used to play "The Legend of Zelda" all the time and it took me about a good year or so (with game genie, I kept getting killed otherwise) to eventually beat it. I was extremely excited about that at the time. I think I might have beaten a few of the Mario games too, but I don't recall. I know I'm definitely in the minority here, but I just don't really get into video games -- so completing them probably wouldn't bother me too much (as I probably wouldn't make it that far without my character being killed anyway unless I cheated). Not that I have anything against video games, but I'd much rather watch a movie, read a book, or go to my bar. j.p.