Widescreen Gaming Forum

I've been playing through BG1 lately. Never finished it properly back in the day. Never even made it to Baldur's Gate, for that matter.

Good god is this game a time drainer. I've been hacking at it for four weeks straight and only today have I reached Baldur's Gate.

I've been playing through BG1 lately. Never finished it properly back in the day. Never even made it to Baldur's Gate, for that matter.

Good god is this game a time drainer. I've been hacking at it for four weeks straight and only today have I reached Baldur's Gate.

As much as we see "too short" as a complaint now-a-days, I am firmly of the opinion that games in the old days were too long.

[quote]I've been playing through BG1 lately. Never finished it properly back in the day. Never even made it to Baldur's Gate, for that matter.

Good god is this game a time drainer. I've been hacking at it for four weeks straight and only today have I reached Baldur's Gate.

As much as we see "too short" as a complaint now-a-days, I am firmly of the opinion that games in the old days were too long.

RPGs tend to be a bit of a different beast in terms of game length vs. things like FPSs and TPSs and other games...

So for example the Witcher was pretty huge (~50hrs+). Oblivion (100+ easy). Fallout 3 (~30hrs). Vampire the Masq: Bloodlines (~40hrs). Gothic 3 (~100hrs+)

None of that is too different to older RPGs. E.g. Baldur's gate, icewind dale, gothic, planescape: torment, fallout, daggerfall, kotor etc.

Also older FPSs and TPSs weren't that long. I guess a big question would be what is considered "old". Is thief an "old" TPS? Are we talking Half-life, System Shock, Deus Ex, American McGee's Alice? Or are we talking about Wolfenstein, Doom, etc. era?

NB: please note all times quoted are in reference to my own experience and may not represent your own experience, as it highly depends on how you play the game.

But yeah... i think i might just be posting for the sake of posting...

But i totally understand that a short, sweet, high quality experience is better than a dreadfully long, boring and painful one. But there are quite a few games that are very very long and very very good. Not that these things are related or always inclusive of one another... I just think some games suffer from a lack of content (e.g. Mass Effect, not that i'm saying ME is crap, because it is not, it was HIGHLY enjoyable. But it could have been insane and much more memorable if there was more to do, but i also understand that that might just be unreasonable and not economically sensible to do today with current engines and game develoment strategies.)

Action games from 10 years ago do seem to be a lot longer on average than ones today. All of the games you mentioned, aside from Alice, lasted me at least 2 weeks, though a lot can be beaten much faster if you know what you're doing. Some much longer than that (especially Deus Ex). Your average action game nowadays I can beat in a weekend.

I'm definitely enjoying progressing through Baldur's Gate. But the sheer size of it feels intimidating.

I personally like an FPS to be about 8-10 hours and an RPG to be about 40-50, unless it is highly focused on exploration like Fallout 3, and then I can play it forever.

When I go back to play older shooters I often find they take 15 hours to complete, or even longer, and personally I am ready to move on way before that, yet I also want to finish the game.

I find a tightly focused and well-paced shorter game to be more fun than a game that feels drawn out to add time to the clock... think Mirror's Edge versus Doom 3.

That said, there is always exceptions.

I think as long as it doesn't get tedious, the longer the better. Granted, the longer it is, the harder it is to keep it from getting tedious, but games like Doom, Half-Life, and Deus Ex managed to keep me entertained for weeks without ever getting boring or too drawn out.

I think as long as it doesn't get tedious, the longer the better. Granted, the longer it is, the harder it is to keep it from getting tedious, but games like Doom, Half-Life, and Deus Ex managed to keep me entertained for weeks without ever getting boring or too drawn out.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 did a great job of keeping me entertained all the way through, despite being longer. I know some complain about certain sections being drawn out, but I enjoyed all of it.

As you say, it depends on how well the developers balance the repetition and such over the course of the game. Doom 3 is probably the ultimate example of a game that is too long... I don't even mind the monster closets and flashlight stuff, it just went on too long for how simple the game was.

Hours aren't really the only measure to take into account. Beyond the type of game in relations to how long it takes to finish, you also have to consider what makes it that long.

Example, Loki, nice game but artificially extended by having you do the entire game 3 times to get the 'real' ending. Many other games use that multiple-playthrough (censored) as well.

I suppose some consider that to extend replayability but I find a shorter game thats made better usually ends up more fun then a hyper-extended version that fails to keep my interest even in the first time through.