A really nice 8-12 hour romp. Not too long, maybe slightly short.

Max Payne 2 - 3 hours of kind-of-okay gameplay and crappy melodramatic tripe (but with SLO MO!!)

I heard those games were okay.

BTW - I don't actually know what the argument is, so I'm not on anybody's side. 

Right, instead they say "You know, guys, we're not as good as Valve, why don't we take our five hours of solid designs and add another 15 hours of repetitious bullshit so that we can boast we have 20 hours of gameplay!" 

Are you talking about Halo? 

If metlslime is talking about Halo (1 or 2), I really think he is too harsh... Visually both versions are quite good, and even if it they are very linear, I had fun playing in coop mode... Not so bad in fact...
And the concept to have only one weapon avalaible instead of the "big" arsenal is quite realistic.. as well for ennemy weapons use! Note that this concept is also used Call Of Duty 2 which is IMHO one of the best immersive game I played since Doom3... (and I still play... ggrrr... not yet finished in veteran mode... :D...) 

And the concept to have only one weapon avalaible

please read :

And the concept to have only two weapon avalaible

sorry for this.. 

Wrath, no game studio on earth is gonna say "You know, guys, we're not as good as Valve, why don't we just make a five hour thing and call it good?"
Lunaran, you think I don't know that? And as far as I'm concerned, them not saying that is why most game studios are never going to get a shot at becoming as good as valve.

I know that most studios are little more than indentured servants to their publisher. And I know it's alot easier to rant on some message board in the ass-ward parts of the internet, than it is to run a studio with integrity and pro-active strategies. But that's a dumb reason not to point out where they go wrong.

But quite frankly, most game studios turn out five hours of uninspired but solid design stretched to 20 hours, just like metl said. And I don't have the patience or time to play through 20 hours of that, and neither does most gamers.

If instead they had released their five hours and lowered the price to �15 or �20 I'd probably buy it. Hell, even fabled valve is taking this route 

Well I have short attention span and dont want very long games either. And not so much free time these days.
Another thing to mention - many console games stretch the playtime by not having a quicksave.Thus you have to replay from the savepoint or even the very start of the level. For example I absolutely dont want replay the missions in GTA from the very start... this is even worse method of prolonging game-hrs

Actually I dont complain about games being too long - I just lay them off. Just keep the save to return later... may be. (played hl2 in the period of ~6 months) 

If you read that article carefully, the guy never says that the gameplay sucks. He simply says that he stopped playing because he couldn't envision himself coming to the end. He makes no mention of the game being repetitive, tedious, or anything like that. In fact he says, quote:

As I gushed at the time, Legend was the first genuinely superb Lara Croft game in years, with a reinvigorated control system, elegant puzzles, and an epic storyline involving one of Lara's long-vanished colleagues. I was hooked -- and eager to finish the game and solve the mystery.

That is why the article is fucking stupid. If he came out and said "I stopped playing because it wasn't fun anymore because the gameplay is too repetitve" then I would agree and say "yes, I too hate games that become repetitive and a chore to finish" *cough*Doom 3*cough* *cough*F.E.A.R.*cough*

But he never says that...maybe he was trying to infer that because he didn't want to hurt the feelings of the nice people at Crystal Dynamics, but nonetheless he doesn't indicate that as being his reason. That is shitty journalism written from a perspective I can't relate to at all.

Using an example of two games I love...I could pay 50$ for Sonic the Hedgehog II or 50$ for Shining Force II. They're both great games but Sonic II will maybe give you 12-15 hours of gameplay, 20 if you die a lot. Shining Force II will give you 80+ hours...maybe more depending on whether or not you want to explore.

Shining Force II is like playing 20 long ass games of a chess-hybrid with a pretty good story between each one to keep you engaged and wanting to move forward .

Sonic II is like an extended game of pinball with a fair-enough story to keep you playing and no replay value.

Completely regardless of age, race, sex, political party, or whatever other excuse you want to make, if you only have 50$ to spend and you like both genres equally, why on earth wouldn't you spend the money on the game that is going to give you the longer, more dynamic, and ultimately more fulfiling gaming experience? 

I beg to differ sir -- I was playing some quite recently, and having a blast. Still fucking forget about the robots that crash through the wall on the Aquatic Ruin level... 

Those games boasting about having 40+ hours of gameplay really need to look at World of Wacraft. It's not uncommon at all for a lvl60 character in WOW to have 50+ DAYS of invested playtime and yet players are still finding stuff to do in the game. 

Multiplayer is a bit different though, isn't it? I mean, ask the typical competitive QW player how many years he has invested in QW servers, and he's still only played 5-6 maps! 

I don't dare think how many hours I have spent in that game. I have it on an emulator for my phone and usually pull it out when I'm on a bus or something. 

A game that NEVER ends?! My god, man, who would play that? 

A game that NEVER ends?! My god, man, who would play that?

Errr.. Immortal people ? 

JC, Mohammed, Moses, Khrisna and I have been playing Go on a fractal based board that seems go on endlessly. There is one player who never makes good moves because he is always smoking pot.
I'll never tell who it is though at the risk of offending millions of his fallowers. 

 

410+ hours play time so far and I haven't finished it (penultimate mission is a bitch).

Admittedly I've explored a hell of a lot and played really slowly and done a bit of farming and stuff....but still... 

1) you are forgetting the monthly fee for MMORPG

2) what rpg said

3) WoW is for ppl willing to trade (huge chunk of) real life for a virtual drug. 

One place to find game related texts that aren't just news and reviews is The escapist magazine:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/

They usually have at least something interesting in each issue. 

Oblivion. I've spent about 220 hours in it so far, on one character, and it still absolutely rocks. I may even get around to trying the Mages Guild quests at some point. Game of the Decade for me, at any rate. 

yeah, bear, this is usually pretty good. although warren spector's got an article up there right now about how games don't need to be fun, and I can't really figure out wtf they'd be instead. 

I read it as that what he was trying to communicate is that a) fun is a too vague word to be very usable when trying to talk about the "fun-factor" in games and that it might be beneficial to try to break it down into more specific aspects of exactly what makes the game desireable to play and b) maybe games doesn't have to aspire to be fun (as in entertaining) to be interesting like other forms of art that are consumed for other reasons.

Basically I think a) is just about getting better at describing/thinking about game mechanics and what makes it work or not and when it comes to b) I'm sure there are already games like that but then again it all depends on a) - what you consider as fun, entertaining as opposed to or in combination of being fulfulling in some other way. 

I can't really figure out wtf they'd be instead.
Inspiring, thought-provoking, beautiful, teaching, communicating a statement. Meditative. Some games could try a little bit harder to be important. 

but why 'instead' 

One "short" game with great replay value was Square's evil stepchild, Vagrant Story. The SP is really short, however it had an innovative combat system, great level design, very ominous story, dozens of cool monsters and an item combining/upgrading system (there were smithies/shops throughout the game to upgrade the stuff you found in the dungeon.)

Best of all, during the first playthrough, I'd come upon doors that said "Sealed with the Rood Inverse". I couldn't make heads or tails of it, as it is something from the game's story that you get at the very end. I always thought it might be some kind of artifact, but it isn't. The whole game I went, "what is that thing they keep talking about?" Finally seeing what it really was was SO cool, because it was there all the time. Well, those doors only open in the second play through, after you got the Rood Inverse. Thus some of the most interesting areas (and the top-level smithy) aren't even accessible when you first play it.

I always thought that was so cool. I love that game, and someday I'll find it again. I foolishly sold it.