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It seems strange to pay £40 for something you perhaps get 4 weeks worth of gaming from. Perhaps games companies realise this when they build in extra levels or difficulty settings, but for the most part, some genres create games that you won’t want to go back to once you’ve finished.
This makes it awkward to decide what to buy, of course, but you can offset this with the fact that you will get a great sense of relief once you’ve actually completed the game. But perhaps we are missing the point. People buy DVD movies to watch them many times and, bar the occasional one with a different ending sequence, the plot doesn’t change much and the action stays the same each time it’s watched. But even though the Blair Witch project is best the first time you watch it, people will still buy it on DVD or watch it again on TV, why? Well, one answer is because they like it so much that they just want to watch it again, by themselves or showing a friend their favourite films. Some films are perfect for group viewing, such as cult hits that everyone knows off by heart. After all, TV companies wouldn’t get so many viewers if you only wanted to watch a film the once.
Why not, then, play an adventure or RPG game more than once when it’s completed? The story will stay the same in most cases, but even then there are chances that you’ve missed something, or in an RPG missed some side missions that would take you down a completely different route. This would add to the length of the game you paid a lot of money for, especially when you compare the media to films or music.
The other option is to go for the games that don’t have an ending as such, like arcade games. Even if they do, most of these games rely on you getting higher scores or beating your friends in multiplayer mayhem. This is my preferred type of game, to be honest, but just going for these means I would ignore some of the best games out there, such as Halo or Warcraft 3.
Designers and programmers can help with this too, they could come up with more ways to play these type of games. GTA3 is a perfect example of this sort of thing. Even when you’ve completed all the missions and visited every area, you can still play around with the vigilante or taxi modes and try to rack up a good score. There is always so much to do in the game that you could keep coming back to it forever. Halo has it’s multiplayer, but programmers could have also gone for a berserker mode, similar to Unreal Tournament, where you can just mow things down with no other set objectives than trying for the largest headcount. RPGs could have much a more open structure that allows for many different endings or paths, the only limit being the FMV, speech or pre-rendered sequences that so often go with these.
Of course, the last option a games player has is to trade the game in, getting back some of the money from the game. This is a great idea, but perhaps we should all work on keeping the game for longer before doing this, I’m sure there are always parts you miss out if you don’t.
This makes it awkward to decide what to buy, of course, but you can offset this with the fact that you will get a great sense of relief once you’ve actually completed the game. But perhaps we are missing the point. People buy DVD movies to watch them many times and, bar the occasional one with a different ending sequence, the plot doesn’t change much and the action stays the same each time it’s watched. But even though the Blair Witch project is best the first time you watch it, people will still buy it on DVD or watch it again on TV, why? Well, one answer is because they like it so much that they just want to watch it again, by themselves or showing a friend their favourite films. Some films are perfect for group viewing, such as cult hits that everyone knows off by heart. After all, TV companies wouldn’t get so many viewers if you only wanted to watch a film the once.
Why not, then, play an adventure or RPG game more than once when it’s completed? The story will stay the same in most cases, but even then there are chances that you’ve missed something, or in an RPG missed some side missions that would take you down a completely different route. This would add to the length of the game you paid a lot of money for, especially when you compare the media to films or music.
The other option is to go for the games that don’t have an ending as such, like arcade games. Even if they do, most of these games rely on you getting higher scores or beating your friends in multiplayer mayhem. This is my preferred type of game, to be honest, but just going for these means I would ignore some of the best games out there, such as Halo or Warcraft 3.
Designers and programmers can help with this too, they could come up with more ways to play these type of games. GTA3 is a perfect example of this sort of thing. Even when you’ve completed all the missions and visited every area, you can still play around with the vigilante or taxi modes and try to rack up a good score. There is always so much to do in the game that you could keep coming back to it forever. Halo has it’s multiplayer, but programmers could have also gone for a berserker mode, similar to Unreal Tournament, where you can just mow things down with no other set objectives than trying for the largest headcount. RPGs could have much a more open structure that allows for many different endings or paths, the only limit being the FMV, speech or pre-rendered sequences that so often go with these.
Of course, the last option a games player has is to trade the game in, getting back some of the money from the game. This is a great idea, but perhaps we should all work on keeping the game for longer before doing this, I’m sure there are always parts you miss out if you don’t.
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It seems strange to pay £40 for something you perhaps get 4 weeks worth of gaming from. Perhaps games companies realise this when they build in extra levels or difficulty settings, but for the most part, some genres create games that you won’t want to go back to once you’ve finished.
This makes it awkward to decide what to buy, of course, but you can offset this with the fact that you will get a great sense of relief once you’ve actually completed the game. But perhaps we are missing the point. People buy DVD movies to watch them many times and, bar the occasional one with a different ending sequence, the plot doesn’t change much and the action stays the same each time it’s watched. But even though the Blair Witch project is best the first time you watch it, people will still buy it on DVD or watch it again on TV, why? Well, one answer is because they like it so much that they just want to watch it again, by themselves or showing a friend their favourite films. Some films are perfect for group viewing, such as cult hits that everyone knows off by heart. After all, TV companies wouldn’t get so many viewers if you only wanted to watch a film the once.
Why not, then, play an adventure or RPG game more than once when it’s completed? The story will stay the same in most cases, but even then there are chances that you’ve missed something, or in an RPG missed some side missions that would take you down a completely different route. This would add to the length of the game you paid a lot of money for, especially when you compare the media to films or music.
The other option is to go for the games that don’t have an ending as such, like arcade games. Even if they do, most of these games rely on you getting higher scores or beating your friends in multiplayer mayhem. This is my preferred type of game, to be honest, but just going for these means I would ignore some of the best games out there, such as Halo or Warcraft 3.
Designers and programmers can help with this too, they could come up with more ways to play these type of games. GTA3 is a perfect example of this sort of thing. Even when you’ve completed all the missions and visited every area, you can still play around with the vigilante or taxi modes and try to rack up a good score. There is always so much to do in the game that you could keep coming back to it forever. Halo has it’s multiplayer, but programmers could have also gone for a berserker mode, similar to Unreal Tournament, where you can just mow things down with no other set objectives than trying for the largest headcount. RPGs could have much a more open structure that allows for many different endings or paths, the only limit being the FMV, speech or pre-rendered sequences that so often go with these.
Of course, the last option a games player has is to trade the game in, getting back some of the money from the game. This is a great idea, but perhaps we should all work on keeping the game for longer before doing this, I’m sure there are always parts you miss out if you don’t.
This makes it awkward to decide what to buy, of course, but you can offset this with the fact that you will get a great sense of relief once you’ve actually completed the game. But perhaps we are missing the point. People buy DVD movies to watch them many times and, bar the occasional one with a different ending sequence, the plot doesn’t change much and the action stays the same each time it’s watched. But even though the Blair Witch project is best the first time you watch it, people will still buy it on DVD or watch it again on TV, why? Well, one answer is because they like it so much that they just want to watch it again, by themselves or showing a friend their favourite films. Some films are perfect for group viewing, such as cult hits that everyone knows off by heart. After all, TV companies wouldn’t get so many viewers if you only wanted to watch a film the once.
Why not, then, play an adventure or RPG game more than once when it’s completed? The story will stay the same in most cases, but even then there are chances that you’ve missed something, or in an RPG missed some side missions that would take you down a completely different route. This would add to the length of the game you paid a lot of money for, especially when you compare the media to films or music.
The other option is to go for the games that don’t have an ending as such, like arcade games. Even if they do, most of these games rely on you getting higher scores or beating your friends in multiplayer mayhem. This is my preferred type of game, to be honest, but just going for these means I would ignore some of the best games out there, such as Halo or Warcraft 3.
Designers and programmers can help with this too, they could come up with more ways to play these type of games. GTA3 is a perfect example of this sort of thing. Even when you’ve completed all the missions and visited every area, you can still play around with the vigilante or taxi modes and try to rack up a good score. There is always so much to do in the game that you could keep coming back to it forever. Halo has it’s multiplayer, but programmers could have also gone for a berserker mode, similar to Unreal Tournament, where you can just mow things down with no other set objectives than trying for the largest headcount. RPGs could have much a more open structure that allows for many different endings or paths, the only limit being the FMV, speech or pre-rendered sequences that so often go with these.
Of course, the last option a games player has is to trade the game in, getting back some of the money from the game. This is a great idea, but perhaps we should all work on keeping the game for longer before doing this, I’m sure there are always parts you miss out if you don’t.