Because I just progressed like 3 minutes and ANOTHER room where you're locked in and endless waves spawn.
EXCEPT this time they're actually not endless and you just have to hang around a while and kill stuff.
What the fuck! 

TL, DR: Unreal was awesome. 

I gave up playing it after wandering round in circles in that fucking tower for ages.

I missed the game the first time round and played it halfway through before realising 'I got better stuff to do'.

The game is very front-loaded - the experience gets worse the longer you play it. 

That's why games have gotten progressively shorter over the years. Or, at least, one of the reasons. Nobody finishes a 40 hour shooter so the developer doesn't care that much about the later content and it's a bit of a spiral.

A tight, contained 6-10 hour experience can be polished and cared for start to finish. 

I always thought it was because in recent years they seem to devote most of their effort to cut scenes and quick time events instead of creating user playable content. 

Or, chasing the visuals.

It costs more and more to keep up with the imaginary standard of AAA quality, so you have to reduce spending elsewhere.

Cut scenes / QTE are a symptom of this - you've got loads of nice looking art, now show it off. But you already downsized design, so what's an easy way?

These rising costs and the emergence of tablet gaming (eg. Candy Crush) have seriously reduced AAA's slice of the pie. I suspect that visuals have plateaued as well. Realistically, games aren't going to look significantly better than anything previously created at this point.

Sweeping statements like 'nobody finishes...' tend to be uttered as a justification - surprised to hear you say it Willem.

'Nobody will get this far so let's not bother doing it properly' is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

If you're making 40 hour FPS games then you've already made a big steaming decision all over the meeting room floor. 

 

Ha ha I have 644 hours played on Skyrim. Apparently I spent 40 hours playing Bioshock Infinite, 105 hours on Deus Ex: HR, 123 hours on Dishonored and that lying bastard Steam claims I've spent almost 900 hours playing Fallout New Vegas. 

He beat bioshock infinite in one sitting, took about 9 hours. 

Well, I finished Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 in just 9 hours, never played it again and will never buy another Call of Duty game.

On the other hand, big games with interesting places like Bioshock Infinite, I tend to waste a lot of time just poking around and exploring.

Fallout New Vegas, I've never actually finished, but I've played it on multiple characters up to the level cap, doing the majority of quests and visiting most locations. 

I put 180 hrs into skyrim and both expansion, found every locale (244 i think?) and beat all main quests and expansions.

I think I beat MW2 in 4-5 hours. The game is tiny.

Bioshock1, which IMO is far better than Infinite, took about 10-12 hours. mmmm, I like that game. 

On the other hand, big games with interesting places, I tend to waste a lot of time just poking around and exploring.

My gaming modus operandi! Even better if there are optional things to kill/collect in the areas you poke around in.

Most FPSes I play for AT LEAST 1.5 times as long as the general status quo of how long most people say they are, and at least 2-3 times as long as the whining twats who always bleat on about "OMG xxxx is such a shit single player game I completed it in 6 hours" whatfuckingever like I care if you semi-speedran it and now feel short-changed you piece of DICK.

Some of Unreal was a bit long winded but it made up for it being being fucking awesome. Bluff Eversmoking was fairly late in the game right? Took me about 2 hours for that one level and it was 2 hours of great gaming. Fuck you all. 

"I always thought it was because in recent years they seem to devote most of their effort to cut scenes and quick time events instead of creating user playable content."

That's certainly another theory! 

Maybe I need to try Unreal again? I tried it like 3 times but frankly it just bored me. I feel like I need to like it because I really fucking love UT... 

it was great at the time IMO.

I think it's something that I cannot honestly judge objectively now because I have such a deep nostalgic love for it. I mean, I got the game at the same time as I got a voodoo 2... the damn thing blew my mind from start to finish. 

Recently started playing the latest Tomb Raider for the first time because of the high praise it tends to get. Unfortunately I'm close to skipping this one because it's plagued with those insta-death QTE sequences. They're simply no fun for me and sour everything else about the game, despite the platforming/exploration being quite fun. :(

So I've been playing Witcher 2 instead (on Hard difficulty). Had a rough start figuring out group combat but now have a blast everytime I jump into it. Until the QTEs... but not nearly as hair tearing.

It's sad because I absolutely loved both Shenmue titles, stuffed with QTE sequences... but at least not every failed QTE meant game-over though. 

I still think QTE can be done well.

But it seems I'm on my own there. 

There should always be a "just show me the video version" option for QTEs. Seriously, they suck.

The first time I played Tomb Raider I had a lot of trouble with the QTEs. There seems to be some issues on the PC with certain video settings or something. The buttons simply don't respond. The second time I played, it wasn't so bad for whatever reason.

I highly recommend sticking with it. I absolutely hate 3rd person shooters, yet I would rank Tomb Raider 2013 as one of the best games I've ever played. 

Bluff Eversmoking is some fine video gaming in and of itself. Love that map.

BlOps2 took me only 8 hours, but then I discovered I got an ending I didn't like, and realized the game had 16 different endings. So that made me appreciate it a little bit more. That and I liked the ability to configure my abilities and inventory before every level.

I actually did "finish" Fallout New Vegas. Got my character to the base game max level, did most of the quests in each area, and completed the primary story arc for the NCR. Got 86 hours of that game, slow start but I really enjoyed it. 

Quakis it is worth persisting. The QTEs are fucking pointless shit (and very obviously so, god knows how they got left in), BUT they do get sparser later in the game and the pure atmosphere / spectacle more than compensates for them. 

havent played it for a while but it was one of the great games, and some of the community maps/packs (albeit mostly needing UT) were of staggering quality. 

Been Playing this game called

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem:_Avenging_Angel

It's like a cross between Quake II and Undying and it's pretty good.

It's on Isozone, and it runs on Win 7 using wndmode.

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Requiem:_Avenging_Angel 

Was pretty good fun at the time. Turn to salt power especially. 

Great game. Received it on a CD when I purchased an ATI Radeon card for my old Macintosh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Cop:_LAPD