My name is Nick and I am a Gamer. I guess you would classify me as a casual to intermediate gamer. I enjoy a good game just as much as the next guy. It all started with Super Mario and progressed from there. I played the old-school Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Paperboy. I liked video games. I remember getting our Super Nintendo when I was in the 3rd grade. That thing rocked. We played Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, The Lion King (one of the hardest games I have ever played, to this day I still haven't beaten it), Super Star Wars, and a million others. I would say that I was a very casual gamer until I got my Playstation and started playing Final Fantasy VII.
I was in love with a game and I wanted more. I started grabbing every RPG I could find. I played Final Fantasy, Wild Arms, Legend of Legaia, Lunar: Silver Star Story, and so many more. My love expanded and I had to have more of the RPG. I got a Playstation 2 and ate up games like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X. I stand behind games like Legaia to this day for being great games with engrossing stories, imaginative game play, and hours of it. This love of RPG's has caused me some grief in the recent years. For some reason I can't feel the same way about games like Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Let's take Final Fantasy VII (arguably the best game ever to grace video gaming systems, and I do mean ever) versus Fallout: New Vegas. Both of these games have an engaging story that keeps you wanting for more but here is the problem with Fallout, sometimes you get lost in the non-linear game play. You find yourself performing side quest after side quest that you forget there is an actual story to be finished. I literally played for 18 hours before getting much farther in the main story line then being sent out to talk to Benny, the guy who shoots you at the beginning. Whereas in FFVII at 18 hours you were fully immersed in the story, most likely starting the second disc, and well on your way to saving the world from Sephiroth and Jenova. Sure they had side quests but the game could be fully realized without doing any of them.
See the problem with open world games is that you need to perform side missions if you want to feel as if you have really completed the game. I have not had the pleasure of playing Skyrim yet (and until it sells for somewhere closer to $20 I won't) and when I do I know I will feel like a puny human to it's awesome man crushing strength, breadth, and depth. Lately I have been playing more of Fallout 3 and I have only progressed so far and mostly by accident. Why does it have to take me 300+ hours to finish a game?
Many have complained that Final Fantasy XIII was to linear, and I don't disagree. Yet why is it so bad to have a game that can be fully realized without 400+ side quests. Back in the day you had mini-games and the occasional run and fetch quest but nothing as daunting or time consuming as some of the quests I have had to go on in Fallout. Why must there be so many side quests? One side quest wants you to do A without messing with B, but if you do A and don't mess with B you lose the opportunity to try C and D. So now you have to find E and F and not be able to accomplish G and H. Yet if you do E and F before A and B then you can still do C and D. Yet there is no way of knowing this until you do it. When will it end?
I just want to play my RPG and kill the final boss. That is something else I miss, boss battles. That is another side quest I might never get to.
Friday (with a little bit of Saturday thrown in).
0 concerns:
Post a Comment