A.D.D. of the G.A.M.E.
Games just don’t hold my attention. At least, not for very long. Maybe I’m just not playing the right games, or maybe it’s my compulsive need to play a game for five hours straight, only to become sick of it.
All things in moderation, the World of Warcraft loading screen tip once said to me. I’m afraid I don’t follow that rule when I get a new game. No, I like to play it non-stop. I often find I enjoy the game while I’m playing. It’s not until the end of my several hour stretch that I realize I’m tired of it.
I’m not going to sit here and say developers aren’t doing a good job, the games I play are enthralling enough to keep my attention for that length of time. I think the problem resides more within myself. After such a long stretch I don’t want to come back to it. I’ve worn out my tolerance by running it into the ground.
Another part of the problem is within the games, in the balance of mechanics and story. Often I find that if a game has an awesome mechanic that I enjoy playing with, it isn’t very story driven. I just don’t feel the need to progress in the game because all I’m really doing is playing around with this mechanic.
Games that are very story driven have the opposite problem. I love a good story, which is what I got when I picked up Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, etc. But these games, are almost just stories. No matter how good the story is, you need to have gameplay to back it up. Both of these are essentially just a standard shooter.
What I would love to see in new games is a good balancing act. I want to see games that offer both. A few off the top of my head that I think did it right would be de Blob and Bioshock. de Blob offered an interesting colour mechanic as well as a hilarious story to back it up.
Bioshock offered an amazingly haunting story, with beautiful atmosphere. At the same time it offered players the new plasma system. It gave us a stunning visual world, as well as a fun toy to use in it.
As much as I think the blame resides in myself for not being able to complete games, I believe that there is something to be said for how games are made. If games could find a nice central balance, I think it would give me a lot more incentive to finish a game. And I know I’m not alone on this.
Yeah, I agree with what you’re saying. I think games are getting better about this though. I would include Fallout 3 and Mass Effect in the same category as you put BioShock in myself.
Fallout 3 wasn’t anything close to a “standard shooter” for me, not that I think it’s unreasonable to say it is. I have no idea why the developer and press promoted V.A.T.S. so much – I really thought the game tended to get boring, tedious, and numbingly easy when I used it. Eventually, I decided to pretend V.A.T.S. wasn’t there, and the game became fantastic. Sure, sometimes when you hit an enemy, the math behind the game says you missed, but who cares. Put more points in Small Guns.
For me, I couldn’t play a lot of Fallout 3. I couldn’t get over how entirely mediocre the game play was for me. It seemed standard and uninspired. The perks were cool but they just slightly modified the way you shot things.
Again the story was great, I just couldn’t stand having to play that to get the story. Fallout 3 novel, I’d be in for.
I just loved seeing a group of enemies in the near distance, and deciding what weapons to use to take them on with. But what weapons you chose depended on your ammo supplies and weapon conditions, so the situation was always different. Sure, you could pull out the Assault Rifle, but you only have one clip left. Will I need it for a tougher encounter later?
When you really started getting low on ammo and explosives, it really exaggerated that sense of survival that the environment and story projected. That was the forte of the game for me.