Teeny Chick's Adventures in New York City, for PC? :D

Since tlarkin's post started a bit of something on the quality of games, I wanted to throw something in.

What ever happened to the longevity of games? Most of the games I play these days are ones that I can beat in one night. Serious.

I bought GRAW for the 360. One night and it was down. Same with God of War. There are a few others, but the names escape me at the moment.

What ever happened to games like Final Fantasy 7 or Xenogears, where you could easily empty upwards of 75 hours into it?

Not even today's RPGs last that long.

Since you mention a camera, I'll throw my hat in the direction of an EyeToy-based PS2 game? And since there's a dearth of such games, I'll say EyeToy-Play.

Can I get a double-choc-chip cookie if I'm right? I'll pay the postage to the UK! :D


Hear hear for FFVII. I remember staying up all night when I first got it, and only just got out of Midgar (~7hrs gameplay). I (naively) thought that I'd almost completed it. It was many months before I'd got a 'Knights of the Round' materia to Master level...!

Cutscenes + grinding == 40+ hours of gameplay. Xenogears was rather famous for grinding. FF7 was no stranger to it. "Modern" RPGs tend not to have much grinding, compared to the older style RPGs (FF7 and its predecessors, Dragon Warrior, Chrono Trigger), because that era passed. No one wants a 20 hours of play tacked on because of grinding. (I enjoyed the Japanese FF3 release for the DS partially because of lots of random battles, but I grew up playing those kinds of RPGs and know how to work the system.)

Negative, it's not an EyeToy game.

MMMMMM THESE COOKIES ARE TASTY

But that isn't the same as having a game that takes a while to beat. Anti was complaining about beating God of War in a single sitting, which is completely different than collecting every last little item in a game built around grinding to get levels and items. KoR equipment was just extra stuff thrown in to appease the grinders.

Don't get me wrong. I made sure to get every single awesome weapon in FF3. But I'm not going to fault Gears of War if it isn't a 40-hour grindfest.

Sure, some games are just actually long. That's awesome. But it's simply not possible (or reasonable) for every game made to be amazing and take 30 or 40 hours to beat.

COOKIE HINT

Its big brother didn't suck.

Point taken. I think it was about three weeks worth (~50 hrs) of play before I first finished FFVII - I recall that Cloud was only level 31, and everyone else was 20-25.

As for 'grinding', some games have pointless tasks that are added purely to make the game 'longer'. FFVII (and probably a lot of other RPGs) had a lot of stuff which was fun (e.g. additional characters which weren't intergral to the completion of the game). Yes, maxing out the character's levels and materia is 'grinding', but things like breeding the black chocobo and finding the 'Knights of the Round' materia isn't (in my book).

Then again, I'm a kind of 'collector' when it comes to playing games - I have to get everything. Not necessarily high-scores, just stuff like special weapons, hidden items, secret levels, etc. Saying that though, I won't do it if it's boring (I completed Abe's Odyssey three times in two days, the second two times I freed all but two of his people - I really wanted to free them all, but the third play was a major slog and I never touched it again).

The biggest disappointment in terms of length for me was the first 'Metal Gear Solid' on PS2 (I forget the number). It was pathetically short, and not that good given all the pre-release hype.

Play the games on a harder setting then. And if you are, then be happy in the fact that you are a highly skilled gamer. Or rent games rather than buy them, if you know you'll complete them in one or two sittings.

I've just realised that you could be referring to the in-game camera. I'm now officially stumped. And hungry...

Must be on a portable system then?

This is why the XBL achievements system rocks. Take a normal game, design extra tasks and challenges within it, and award points/medals to players for doing them. It's win/win!

We drew up the list of achievements for Marathon and found that we had basically three full gameplay experiences: beating the game; beating the game on the hardest difficulty, never leaving a BOB alive on a level, and punching all switches; and reading all the terminals in the game, which usually means a player replays the game a couple of times trying to find them all.

Edit: That's not to say achievements are an excuse to be lazy and make stuff up that didn't take any time to design, of course. They're just good to have.

Maybe it's a spinoff on the PC or a regular console.

Does it happen to be one of these games :D?
(hey, it's not cheating, I just want some cookies :p)
Grand Theft Auto III
PS2
Half-Life
PC
Final Fantasy VII
PS
Gran Turismo
PS
Chrono Trigger
Super NES
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
PC
The Legend of Zelda
Super NES
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
PC
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
PC
Doom
PC
The Sims
PC
Freespace 2
PC
Super Mario Kart
Super NES
Planescape: Torment
PC
Final Fantasy II
Super NES
Master of Orion
PC
System Shock 2
PC
Phantasy Star II
Genesis
Diablo
PC
Tribes
PC
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
NES
Metroid
NES
EverQuest
PC
Contra
NES
Tekken 2
PS
Star Raiders
Atari 400/800
Sensible World of Soccer
Amiga
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
PC
M.U.L.E.
Atari 800
Super Mario Bros. 3
NES
Civilization
PC
Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix
PS
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
PS
MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
PC
Day of the Tentacle
PC
X-Men: The Arcade Game
Arcade
Smash TV
Arcade
Darklands
PC
Defender
Arcade
Total Annihilation
PC
Pitfall!
2600
Archon
Goblins, Golems, and Doppelgangers and Not a Single 20-Sided
NES
The Revenge of Shinobi
Genesis
Ys Book I & II
TurboGrafx-16
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
GEN
Neuromancer
Amiga
California Games
Lynx
Theme Park
PC
Oregon Trail
PC
Thief: The Dark Project
PC
SimCity
PC
Samurai Shodown II
NeoGeo
ActRaiser
Super NES
Marble Madness
NES
Myth: The Fallen Lords
PC
NFL Blitz '99
Double Dragon
Arcade
Dragon Force
Saturn
Rayman 2: The Great Escape
PC
Mega Man 2
NES
Quake
PC
Bionic Commando
NES
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
PC
Grim Fandango
PC
Wipeout XL
PS
Mortal Kombat II
Arcade
Final Fantasy Tactics
PS
X-COM: UFO Defense
PC
Fallout
PC
Tecmo Bowl
NES
Counter-Strike
PC
Twisted Metal 2
PS
Super Mario World
Super NES
Pac-Man
Nearly everything
Tetris
Nearly everything
Star Control II
PC
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
Arcade
Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War
PC
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Nintendo 64
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
PS
Lode Runner
Atari 400/800/1200XL

I used to love playing Defender in the arcades but man I sucked.

Lode Runner was cool too. I have a vague memory of playing this on my mono-orange screened MicroBee.

What is that, the "awesomest games of all time" list?

It's actually the Greatest Games of All Times List, from Gamespot.com, and it took me like 10 minutes to remove all the comments and dates from the list :p

Wild shot in the dark at Mikey-San's description, but I'm going to try Bioshock.

(Unsure of what time "a while back" is...)

bioshock ruled, most original game to come out in a while

Wouldn't be that 3D Xbox version of Oddworld?

I was pretty cut that it was exclusive to Xbox until I actually saw the game in play and realised I wasn't missing anything.

I meant Munch's Oddysee not Stranger's Wrath. Show's how out of touch I am, I didn't even know Stranger's Wrath had been released.

Bioshock: The Fountainhead + Zombie AI

(Bioshock's camera was just fine. Are you sure you weren't playing Daikatana, Anti?)

Edit: Don't get me wrong. Bioshock was a great game, but the AI just wasn't impressive.

It's Marble Blast, the Camera Rocks!

Could it be from anything on Nintendo?? Maybe GB or GBA (not SP)?