2013 game, hth. 

ah ok, saving was pretty new back then so i guess that's why. 

You make it sound like saving is a technical issue and not a game design decision. 

for me, it is very much a technical issue. i don't give a crap about game design when it comes to things like this. when i leave the game, it should save my progress. saving progress for me is basic functionality.

i've seen some drivel about how not being able to save serves some gameplay function while i was looking for a hack or config change to enable saving; it was completely irrelevant. 

Saving is a fundamental human right. 

Yeah, game designs that rely on no saving are always hindered by it. I play a lot of rogue likes and roguelites, and it always seems they just couldn't be arsed doing a proper save system as opposed to following some higher design aesthetic. 

I think saving and pausing should be standard by now. Even roguelikes should have saving IMO. I guess this is a design decision for the most part, if saving exists then I bet you could cheat your way to victory (just copy/paste save files so you dont lose progress if you die). 

isn't there a checkpoint like every 2 minutes in that game? How much progress did you really lose by quitting in the middle of a combat? 

7376: Roguelikes are a very niche game, catering to a specific gamer. I don't play roguelikes because I can't stand not being able to save, but that's ok because a roguelike is not my niche.
Bioshock Infinite annoys me because it is a AAA game aimed at (supposedly?) a wide range of gamers and that's what I expected of it.

7377: I must have bad luck then because I was going about 30 minutes between checkpoints.
Also, the checkpoint save is hard to see because it's just this little spinny thing in the corner of the screen. Obviously this is to make it unintrusive, but because of the way the save system works, it should actually be the complete opposite to clearly let you know the game saved and you are free to quit. As it was, I missed that it had saved twice, and each time it was 10-15 minutes past that point when I tried to quit so I kept playing the extra 10-15 minutes to get to the next.

Even though I dislike it, I thought FTL hit a good balance between the two extremes with the autosave when quitting and this is what I would expect at the least from a game aimed at the masses. 

There is a difference between not being able to save/suspsend your progress and the "quick save before each door" style of thing, I'd hope... 

what are we moaning about here? The lack of a "save anywhere" quicksave in Bioshock Infinite? (I've never played that game). 

i can play a game without quick saving, as long as progress is saved when i quit.
this is why i was saying FTL works well because you can't save during play and reload if you die, but when you leave the game, it saves your progress and you can do that at any time. there's nothing forcing you to continue playing (other than that you want to of course).

bioshock has nothing. if you quit you lose all progress from the last checkpoint you hit which may or may not be a while ago.

to be clear, i'm not overly angry about it, but it does have the odd effect of making me not want to play because i know i might not have enough to make any progress. 

I agree that being able to save before every door feels a bit like cheating. (I do it all the time regardless)

Maybe saving should be integral to the game's design rather than something that gets tacked on to let the player quit anytime he/she wants?

I think the ideal system might be to not have manual saves at all but just have the game save automatically after each 'challenge' bit. On higher difficulties the saves should be less frequent etc.

The game wouldn't let you load individual saves but have a tree of playthroughs. You could start a 'new game' in each branch of the tree, similar to selecting a chapter in HL2 for example, just with more levels of granularity.

Oh, and I haven't played Bioshock. 

bioshock has nothing. if you quit you lose all progress from the last checkpoint you hit which may or may not be a while ago.

But that's how all checkpoint games work, right? If you don't reach a new checkpoint before quitting, well...tough titty? 

 

Yeah, if that's the way it works, and checkpoints are too far apart I agree it's shit design. 

Checkpoints were indeed too far apart in BInf. Partly this is because the nature of the game encouraged certain player types (me) to squirrel around for a while within a given area, exploring and looking for consumables to hoover up.

To add insult to injury, that's the only game I've had technical issues with... it was a random crasher.

I'm still glad I worked my way through it, but at least having a save-on quit option would have been great. 

(P.S. obviously not the only game I've EVER had issues with, but the only one on my current game system that I've had for several years now. Frustrating.) 

yeah if you haven't played it can seem kind of of a silly complaint but it's not just a straight up shooter. there is a lot of detailed areas to explore so while a checkpoint may only be 10 minutes away, for myself it can be 30 to 45 minutes depending on how much time i spend exploring and picking up items and such.
restarting from a checkpoint means having to go back and pick up everything again which is just tedious and has nothing to do with gameplay.

i've been lucky so far and haven't gotten any crashes, but i've heard there are some bugs too and since you can't have more than 1 save, you can get to a point where a bug is present in your save game and you can't revert to an earlier save. 

it saves frequently, there's a lot of checkpoints and if you exit in an area you will pick up at that exact point the next time you boot up... although the lack of a pause function is a bit annoying it makes sense as the game is actually perpetually online. 

there's a big difference though. dark souls is celebrated for it's extreme difficulty and the save system is a given for this type of game.

bioshock infinite is not marketed as that type of game yet it has the same hardcore saving scheme. 

that aspect in Dark Souls is explicable and contributes to the project. I get it, and it has conditioned me as a player.
I felt similar to Necros. Along with other issues I had with the game, there were definitely times when I was frustrated, where my immersion was hindered, and where my interest in progressing was at least partially undercut by the situation. 

A great bundle of free games (in your face, "without money there is not art" %$%�s): http://odditie-s.tumblr.com/post/81109325064/the-pirate-bay-bundle 

 

excellent story, not that great of a game (but not bad either).

still don't know why i can't save whenever i want as the game isn't even that difficult and if you do die, you just respawn a short distance away. in fact, it would be harder to reload a save than it would be to just continue playing because you can just zerg an area down by repeatedly charging if you suck that much. (yes, i am still stuck on this, it's just needlessly annoying!)

miniboss monsters have weak spots, but i usually just opted to use explosives on them or i couldn't tell when i was actually hitting the weak spot? i know i scored a few solid hits with the hand cannon on handyman weak spots, but they didn't seem to react? this needed more visual feedback (or if there was feedback, it needed to be highlighted more the first time).

also, hand cannon is my favourite gun ever. feel like clint eastwood with that thing.

really liked how the limitations of the medium are used to highlight the story.

really hate how the limitations of the game are taken to an extreme because of the story, but can forgive it because the story was worth it.

i can tell they spent a lot of time coding elizabeth, but it wasn't enough. some really silly stuff still happens like booker delivering this very dramatic line and elizabeth replying with 'i found some money!' with a big bright smile.
she's also on an extremely short leash and routinely teleports all over the place.
otoh, elizabeth is extremely dynamic (unlike hl2 alyx which is mainly the illusion of dynamic) so maybe i'm just being too hard on irrational.

playing again on hard now... want to see the story from a different perspective.