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Subject: 'The single-player is too short.'

Quick as a razor, sharp as a bullet.

It's a common complaint against games these days. Generally leveled at linear, story-driven shooters these days, maybe it was platformers in the '90s.

So tell me, ever-dissatisfied, ever-correct netizens of The Flood, what would be a good, nay, great length for these games? Most of them I can complete in an average day, setting all else aside, and maybe have an hour or two with my thoughts afterwards, certainly if I knew what I was doing the whole time, which isn't always the case with something like Portal.

But there's only so long a narrative or gameplay constant can last before it's developed, and the game shifts gears, and there are only so many of those, in narrative terms 'acts', that can reasonably fit into a single piece without making it feel bloated and like it's overstaying its welcome. Perhaps it's something to do with our helplessly inherent attention span.

Have you ever played a game that felt too long? To be honest, I thought Bayonetta was nearing its end when she visited Paradiso. Seemed quite ultimate to me. But no, the game pressed on back to Purgatorio, and it took me a quite exhausting three days to complete the first time. It's a fantastic game, but the length is just unnecessary and makes it feel padded and overlong.

So how about you all stop your -blam!-ing and appreciate what developers put into a game, rather than moaning when they fail to live up to the epic journeys you had playing Mario and Crash Bandicoot (Playstation generation, represent) as a child, perhaps because, you know, you were bad back then and things therefore took longer to complete? This isn't aimed at people who criticise the empty bombast of the likes of Call of Dutys 4-, this is for you folk who cried foul of BioShock's stunted final act, when another level or two would have been utterly redundant without a different story (which I actually started to write at one point, but man, encounter design is hard, and that's before testing).

[Edited on 12.15.2012 4:01 PM PST]

  • 12.15.2012 4:00 PM PDT

tl;dr

  • 12.15.2012 4:00 PM PDT

Vote for me for a free cookie.

Developers are focusing way too much on multiplayer.

[Edited on 12.15.2012 4:01 PM PST]

  • 12.15.2012 4:01 PM PDT

"Right now it is raining methane on Titan. The planet Uranus is, hilariously, orbiting the sun sideways while Venus spins backwards. We sit here on a planet marked with collisions, rocked by earthquakes, shaken by storms. A planet doomed to be fried in radiation as its magnetic fields collapse, until the sun grows and leaves nothing of the earth but dust. Here we sit, glasses on our noses, inhalers in our pockets, braces on our teeth, and we say "Behold the perfect ORDER of it all!""

Sonic 06 was a terrible game.

But I should appreciate what developers put into it. According to you anyway.

  • 12.15.2012 4:01 PM PDT
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06' Master Race.

Posted by: Tartan 118
Have you ever played a game that felt too long?


I was ready for Halo 2 to be over around the Gravemind level.

  • 12.15.2012 4:02 PM PDT

All I can say is, most JRPGs do it right. A 30-40 hour story, plus plenty of extra stuff to do. Shooters= 8 hour story + a few hours of repetitive multiplayer that gets boring fast.

  • 12.15.2012 4:02 PM PDT

XxXD3LuuX3 X luuC1d17YXxX


Posted by: Silverback Elite
Posted by: Tartan 118
Have you ever played a game that felt too long?


I was ready for Halo 2 to be over around the Gravemind level.


Heresy!

  • 12.15.2012 4:02 PM PDT

Linear games should be at least 12-15 hours long.

  • 12.15.2012 4:02 PM PDT

Quick as a razor, sharp as a bullet.

Posted by: Fat Man 3000
But I should appreciate what developers put into it. According to you anyway.

I'm talking about quality over quantity, not -blam!- over quality.

  • 12.15.2012 4:03 PM PDT

If I ever get AIDS, I'm going to sleep with another AIDS person so my AIDS cancel each other out, or I'm going to make the AIDS I already have worse.

Far Cry 3's length

  • 12.15.2012 4:04 PM PDT
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Half life 2 in its entirety is probably 15-20 hours long, and people still want more. I want games to have long single player, because some people (like people without Internet or Xbox live) don't want to drop 60 bucks for a game that lasts 5-6 hours.

  • 12.15.2012 4:04 PM PDT

1st ban on 7-10-2011

Dont you worry about _____ let me worry about ____

You have been sent a warning from x Foman123 x. This warning's text is below:
Incomprehensible gibberish.

But BioShock had a horribly tacked on extra levels on both of them. (Getting big daddy parts and getting adam from sisters)

  • 12.15.2012 4:04 PM PDT

I'm an Indonesian Halo (and other games) gamer!
Bhineka Tunggal Ika!!

Journey was pretty damn short, but the length is perfect.

I guess it just depends on the gameplay and story. If the story could still be explored some more, I guess 7+ hours could be fine.

  • 12.15.2012 4:06 PM PDT

My brother gave me Skyward Sword for christmas, and I already know I'll be putting 60+ hours in the game.

  • 12.15.2012 4:07 PM PDT
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Posted by: evilcam
Bobcast is paid in MILF blind dates.

Single-player length doesn't really bother me as long as it has an engaging story. The problem occurs, like The S bot 9000 said when levels just get tacked on to make it longer.

  • 12.15.2012 4:10 PM PDT

quality>quantity

Intrusion 2 is a great example of this. Pure quality all the way through, but very short. Rather have an extremely well made 5 hour campaign where everything feels unique than a 20 hour one that grows dull and repetitive.

[Edited on 12.15.2012 4:11 PM PST]

  • 12.15.2012 4:11 PM PDT

It really depends on a genre. A 100 hour shooter would be stupid but a 100 hour RPG would be appropriate. For shooters, I think 10-12 hours is the sweet spot. I felt Halo 4 was shorter than Reach and Halo 3. For RPGs, it really varies. Some are fine with 30-40 hours. Others should be 100+. Games these days are getting shorter. I think it has to do with how much effort it takes to make the game. Visual quality over more numerous missions.

  • 12.15.2012 4:11 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

Halo 4 ... just kidding that needed at least one more level.

OT - As someone else already said Bayonetta seemed to take a lot of time to finish. Red Dead Redemption took too long but in an awesome way.

  • 12.15.2012 4:13 PM PDT

Quick as a razor, sharp as a bullet.

Posted by: nemesishunter7
Visual quality over more numerous missions.

That is arguably one reason. I mean, look at Super Meat Boy and Halo 4. Maybe as many as 200 levels for SMB, eight for H4. To be fair, the former doesn't have a serious story to be well arranged across gameplay, and that is an argument in favour of shorter games.

  • 12.15.2012 4:16 PM PDT

Please note that the following post takes into account only gameplay length. I know how extremely hard it would be to make some of these games longer.

It depends on the length. Dishonored was about 6 hours and that was entirely too short. It felt like the game was only about halfway through when the final act rolled around. Spec Ops: The Line, however, had a similar length, but it fit perfectly. Borderlands 2, if you count both playthroughs, is anywhere in the 30-50 hour range, and that length fits perfectly. If that was a 15-hour game, I would probably be up in arms. Hell, my first playthrough of Persona 3 clocked in at more than 80 hours. That length felt exactly right for what I had done in the game. If I remember correctly, Call of Duty 4 was about 10 hours, but they did everything they needed to in those 10 hours.

There isn't a one-size fits all answer, not even by genre. However, there are plenty of games that are too short.

  • 12.15.2012 4:19 PM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

"Insert generic signature here"

IF FPS/Shooter = 20+ hours of OC OR 10+ hours with re-playability (no multiplayer)
Everything else = 20+ hours

Multiplayer games are excluded as they can either offer 8 or 800 hours of re-playability.

Also, stop adding a -blam!- campaign to a multiplayer game and vice versa.

  • 12.15.2012 4:40 PM PDT
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Posted by: Slayer1878
All I can say is, most JRPGs do it right. A 30-40 hour story, plus plenty of extra stuff to do. Shooters= 8 hour story + a few hours of repetitive multiplayer that gets boring fast.
Your comparing a RPG like Mass Effect to a FPS like Halo??

Are you nuts?

  • 12.15.2012 4:45 PM PDT
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11-13 hours for a linear story driven game.

  • 12.15.2012 4:46 PM PDT
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Posted by: omg a bannana
Far Cry 3's length
He is on about FPS games, things like Far cry, GTA and Saints row are much larger because they are sandbox games based in a large explorable world.

Not linear experiences like FPS titles.

  • 12.15.2012 4:46 PM PDT

Far Cry 2 had a 50 hour story.

That would be nice.

  • 12.15.2012 4:47 PM PDT

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