Do You Complete Games? Lolwut?

Hey all! Hope you're having a great day!

So, I have a question! How many here buy games and actually play them through till the end? If you do, how often?

I end up buying quite a few games, some are years old and I haven't even touched them yet and they are still sealed! Then there's quite a few games I start and never get to the end, because I just lose interest or can't be bothered for whatever reason. I don't know what it is, but I just haven't got the desire to play long story experiences anymore. If a game is is anything above 10 hours long, I start to lose interest usually, unless it's a game I really love (Super Mario Galaxy, I'm looking at you!). If I can get a great game that's about 5 hours long, I'll be super happy and most of the time enjoy it far more than a long drawn out experience.

I quite like episodic games, like The Walking Dead, it's just 2 hour chucks every few months.

I haven't completed a game in years - I think the last one probably was Ocarina 3D or Skyward Sword - many just half done, or less really. I think it's because you can predict when a Nintendo game would be over - like Mario Galaxy, for example, so I try to hold off... for years.

Hmm, I try to. If I'm really enjoying a game, or its a review game I go all the way a lot of the time. Plowing through the Phoenix Wright Trilogy at the mo (what happened to the awesome music in the second game, sounds rubbish ).

Depends. A puzzle title of 300+ stages I can not in any way feel obligated to complete. But if the game has a story I will do all in my power to complete it.

I get as far as I can to complete the story, I've cleared a few games this year, Ultimate NES remix, Resident evil revalations, MGS3 3D, but then I have quite a few half finished games too!

Today, I beat my 4th PS3 game, of somewhat more than 100 games. Steam, about 120 finished, 2449 owned. I don't even want to know my stats for other systems.

Plowing through the Phoenix Wright Trilogy at the mo (what happened to the awesome music in the second game, sounds rubbish

It's different, though grows on you. I was well gutted when they'd changed the court-scene themes, but they are a grower! Storyline wise third one is good, confusing, but wraps up the three really well.

Not very often to be honest, I usually get distracted or don't feel like playing my games, that and University work. Maybe that will change once University's over in May. 

Since I mostly play games for their stories these days, I try to make a lot of effort to get through the majority of my games one way or another. If that means hammering it on easy mode, so be it. There are always exceptions where I will play certain games at normal or higher difficulties, but with less time and more games to get through, I will simply blast through particular ones just to experience the story. It really depends on the game and situation.

There are naturally plenty of games that I just can't be arsed with and throw back on the shelf, and some I pick up just to add to the collection and not necessarily to fully play them. But in general with my main consoles I try to at least blast through the games I buy for them at least once.

As the years have gone on, I have begun to prefer shorter games, but it is still game dependent. You really have to get in the right mood to prepare for a game that will inevitably take a while to finish.

I have to say, I really like games like Mario Kart 8 in a way. Those sort of games you can just jump into at anytime and have blast for a few hours. Like when the new patch comes out, we'll just jump straight back in with no worry of story elements or anything like that.

( Edited 02.04.2015 18:44 by Marzy )

Yeah, non-story games are a completely different mindset. Like I play tons of DOA5. Jump in for an evening lobby, jump off.

Level-based games like Mario you can do a similar thing. Like jb says he's been doing with Galaxy, he can drag it out with no worries.

Story games you really need to play right the way through within a couple of weeks without really jumping between games. Some can juggle multiple, but I rarely find it to be of any benefit. Stick with one and hammer it is usually best.

It's about finding a right balance though. Uncharted 3 was stupidly short at about 8 hours, whereas The Last of Us I wished it went on longer after 20 hours - I was that much into it. Most story games, the 10 hour mark is good, I think, but I expect more from certain games, and hope Uncharted 4 is at least 15 or so. RPGs or big adventures like Zelda I don't want to be pushing too much higher than 30 hours for the story to be done these days. Not unless you are presenting a captivating story and gameplay all the way through, which SS really didn't do.

If I'm reviewing it, I try to complete it. If I'm just playing it for fun, nah... My Dragon Age: Inquisition file has 61 hours on it, but I'm never going to finish the game; for that matter, I've never made it past about level 25 in Skyrim before rolling a new character. The last game I completed was Arkham City or Final Fantasy IV, both of which I 100%'d a few times.

If I haven't seen about 75% of a game's content by the 25 hour mark, then I'm not going to complete it, and I probably won't even finish it. I've got too many things to do than get involved in MMO-style completions if I don't really, really care about the game. I think there's kind of a "sweet spot" for me, where games like Arkham City provide just the right amount of story and just the right amount of side quests, while games like Dragon Age: Inquisition go too far to one extreme and games like Final Fantasy III (DS/Android remake) go too far into the other direction--long, tedious main game or very short, tedious main game. 

Bigger isn't necessarily better, in my opinion, and I'd much rather see Quality over Quantity--one of my main gripes with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Skyrim, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Then there are games like Dragon Age 2 which have atrocious gameplay but stories that are phenomenal and unlike anything else. All in all, I think I'd like a game to be able to hold my attention for 25 hours and then give me about 15 hours of unrelated stuff to do when it inevitably begins to lose my attention. Those are the games I tend to finish.

( Edited 30.05.2015 01:11 by Anema86 )

Me next game to try to complete is probably Splatoon - at least blitz that single player campaign! 

I hadn't seen this thread before . In the past, I would have always tried to complete my games as much as possible, especially more so when I couldn't afford many of them a year, so I had time to concentrate on one at a time. Then when I started buying more games than I could afford time to play them, I would only very rarely complete a game, and since I'm into RPGs, well it would have to be a very good one for me to want to complete it. Xenoblade Chronicles is one fine example of this. These days I start games that I don't even beat anymore, sad but true :/. But occasionally yeah, I'll want to complete one I'm having lots of fun with. I'm just done completing Assassin's Creed IV for example, while I'm pretty much done with Captain Toad, but probably won't "complete" that one, cause while the game is lots of fun, I don't wanna replay through EVERY stage just to beat them fast and beat their target time, when I could have an even more fun experience tackling another game for the first time, from my huge backlog of games to play .

As I grow older, I gravitate towards short games more and more, or towards games I already played before and which I can have another quick playthrough with, the really good stuff from years past that I know so well I can breeze through. I don't go a year without replaying Super Metroid or Banjo-Kazooie .

There's only certain games that I am guaranteed to complete now:

- The main numbered Final Fantasies (not including sequels)
- Main Pokemon games

Everything else is a maybe depending on how much I like them. That and it just takes a lot of motivation. With work, mortgages, family and a wedding to think of it all just wipes you out at the end of the day. :/