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Operation Flashpoint and Project IGI don’t feature a quicksave button.
Max Payne, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and now Medal of Honor Allied Assault do feature the option of a quicksave.
It’s just a button, but it makes all the difference.
Is quicksave a gaming godsend or a tension eliminator?
Flashpoint and IGI are both very difficult to complete as levels are big and health pick-ups are sometimes at a premium.
Fighting through a huge level only to die near the end can be very frustrating, as you must restart the level from the beginning again (it happened to me loads in IGI).
Can this make you a better gamer, or is it just annoying?
Flashpoint does contain retry points and one save option per level, but still remains a very tension filled game where one hit can kill.
Quicksave can remove any tension and atmosphere from a game.
Example: in IGI, a huge snow-filled level.
I managed to clear the first baddie infested area, but ended up low on health.
I then climbed up to a look out point, only to see bigger baddie base further down the mountain.
So with my puny health level I managed to complete a very nervy and tension filled second half to the level, where one or two shots would have killed me.
An option to quicksave would have eliminated all that tension and danger.
Take Max Payne, Half-Life, RtCW and MoH;
Quicksave the game,
Run down a corridor, and wait outside the baddie infested room,
Run inside said room and get blown away by baddies (especially those shotgun toting baddies from Max Payne),
Reload and try section again & again & again till you get it right, always having that trusty quicksave button to fall back on.
It basically makes you invincible throughout the game, as you can retry sections as much as you want until you are happy with your performance. It make the games very simple and sometimes even monotonous.
This was most apparent in Max Payne, where villainous and extremely pugnacious henchmen would fill you full of lead before your “Bullet-Time” leap had ended.
In Half-Life, I eventually found myself quicksaving after every baddie, removing all the tension.
Don’t get me wrong though, these games are some of the best I have ever played in my long games playing career.
Quicksave can be useful to people who haven’t got loads of time to play games, so they can do small sections at a time, but doing that just loses coherence and atmosphere in a game.
I don’t really like having to start an entire level from the level from the beginning or keep quickloading when I muck up, so what’s the answer?
If I new that I would sell the idea to games developers and live it up as a playboy/bachelor.
But I would say Flashpoint’s save game system is the best, with set retry points and the one single save option to use a your disposal.
What do you think, is quicksave good and helpful or does it eliminate danger and tension from a game?
Or are games that don’t feature quicksave annoying in that you have to restart a level when killed?
(Or is this just an incredibly boring topic about two buttons on a keyboard?!)
Jack kicked open the door, and thrust his machine gun through the doorway.
"Freeze assholes!" he yelled.
His warning was greeted with a hail if uzi fire, which peppered his helpless body as it jerked about like a puppet on a string, before finally collapsing to the ground. He didn't move.
His partner was screaming into his walkie talkie.
"Man Down! Jack's been hit! Somebody get the reload button, now!"
The world blurred, and with a flash of white light, it reformed. Jack stood there again, machine gun in hand.
"That was a close one." He said. "Don't you dare let me open that door again..."
I haven't really been in this forum a lot, so I missed this. Can I just say, first of all, 'well done' on an interesting and original post.
QuickSave... well, for me it depends largely on the games 'balance'. Yes, QS can add to the tension - it worked incredibly well in Project IGI. However, if it's a particularly difficult game, then the lack of QS can put you right off, due to frustration.
I hate taking ages going through a difficult area of a game, only to be killed right at the last by something or someone that I didn't see or wasn't there. This can be especially infuriating if, as in some games, you're certain you've cleared the path behind you, only for an enemy to appear out of nowhere and blind-side you while you're concentrating on what lies ahead.
Project IGI was okay, because the levels weren't too hard. In fact themost frustrating thing about IGI for me was that my HD died and cost me the saves, so I have to start all over again. :-(
In MoH:AA though, I'm glad of the QS option - even on Medium difficulty I have had some real problem areas which have taken me hours to get past. If I'm honest, getting past these areas and then having to do them again because some Nazi jumped out of a wardrobe behind me while I was tracking a sniper, would have long since had me giving up on the game.
I think maybe restricting the player to one or two QuickSave's per level would be better. Personally, though, a QS option doesn't detract from the immersiveness of a game for me. Even though I've save after every major battle in MoH, I still find myself sneaking around and taking great care - really getting lost in the atmosphere of the game.
And that, I think, is a major point... if a game is good enough to build such an atmosphere, a QuickSave option doesn't make it any less tense. So at the end of the day (for me, anyway) it's all about the quality of the game - if it drags you into its world enough, nothing else matters.
Your right, in a sense, the save point is basically a form of cheating isnt it? So okay, we ourselves, the gamer, should only save at the beginning of each level? But its just too tempting to save wherever we want.
Did you know the PS2 version of Max payne doesnt feature the quicksave? Thats more down to the PS2 having limited storage capacity on memory cards, and the game got slated by some people for not having this feature. So its really a No win situation.
Operation Flashpoint and Project IGI don’t feature a quicksave button.
Max Payne, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and now Medal of Honor Allied Assault do feature the option of a quicksave.
It’s just a button, but it makes all the difference.
Is quicksave a gaming godsend or a tension eliminator?
Flashpoint and IGI are both very difficult to complete as levels are big and health pick-ups are sometimes at a premium.
Fighting through a huge level only to die near the end can be very frustrating, as you must restart the level from the beginning again (it happened to me loads in IGI).
Can this make you a better gamer, or is it just annoying?
Flashpoint does contain retry points and one save option per level, but still remains a very tension filled game where one hit can kill.
Quicksave can remove any tension and atmosphere from a game.
Example: in IGI, a huge snow-filled level.
I managed to clear the first baddie infested area, but ended up low on health.
I then climbed up to a look out point, only to see bigger baddie base further down the mountain.
So with my puny health level I managed to complete a very nervy and tension filled second half to the level, where one or two shots would have killed me.
An option to quicksave would have eliminated all that tension and danger.
Take Max Payne, Half-Life, RtCW and MoH;
Quicksave the game,
Run down a corridor, and wait outside the baddie infested room,
Run inside said room and get blown away by baddies (especially those shotgun toting baddies from Max Payne),
Reload and try section again & again & again till you get it right, always having that trusty quicksave button to fall back on.
It basically makes you invincible throughout the game, as you can retry sections as much as you want until you are happy with your performance. It make the games very simple and sometimes even monotonous.
This was most apparent in Max Payne, where villainous and extremely pugnacious henchmen would fill you full of lead before your “Bullet-Time” leap had ended.
In Half-Life, I eventually found myself quicksaving after every baddie, removing all the tension.
Don’t get me wrong though, these games are some of the best I have ever played in my long games playing career.
Quicksave can be useful to people who haven’t got loads of time to play games, so they can do small sections at a time, but doing that just loses coherence and atmosphere in a game.
I don’t really like having to start an entire level from the level from the beginning or keep quickloading when I muck up, so what’s the answer?
If I new that I would sell the idea to games developers and live it up as a playboy/bachelor.
But I would say Flashpoint’s save game system is the best, with set retry points and the one single save option to use a your disposal.
What do you think, is quicksave good and helpful or does it eliminate danger and tension from a game?
Or are games that don’t feature quicksave annoying in that you have to restart a level when killed?
(Or is this just an incredibly boring topic about two buttons on a keyboard?!)