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On the Pointlessness of "Hours of Gameplay"
KaiEl writes "An article on TotalVideoGames is quoting Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser as saying Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will have 150 hours of gameplay. That's all well and good, but what does it really mean? The way I see it, a game that I enjoy for 20 hours is much better than a game that I hate for 150. So why the obsession in video game media with quantifying gameplay time?"
The way I see it, a game that I enjoy for 20 hours is much better than a game that I hate for 150. So why the obsession in video game media with quantifying gameplay time?"
Just because 150 hours of gameplay is a selling point does not mean that it is necessarily a selling point for you. For fans of the genre, it can be a godsend. Take Disgaea, for example. One of the major selling points of Disgaea was that if complex RPG/Strategy games are your bag, then that one game will let you enjoy one of the pinnacles of your favorite genre for months in one stretch. And that's what the GTA developers are telling their fans. No more "Okay, I shot ten punks... time to shoot ten more punks" or "Okay, I've had Spidey deliver twenty pizzas, now I can... deliver twenty more". If you love GTA's style of gameplay, then they're promising than San Andreas will let you enjoy its main selling point -- its huge, content-rich world -- for as long as you want without doing the same great stuff over and over again until it nauseates you.
If you're not a really big fan of the genre, it doesn't matter to you, but if you are, then it means the world. If someone could promise me 150 hours of Ico and Prince of Persia's puzzle/action gameplay, rather than six or ten hours of it followed by six months of waiting for the next high quality game in that little niche to come out, I'd be there. Just like I was when Disgaea was released.
Slow down walking speed to a crawl to make the game world feel larger (Elder Scrolls III)
A lot of people complained about that. But the walking speed in Morrowind is actually correct - it's other games that have your character moving at ridiculously high speeds, miraculously not even getting tired after running ten miles in as many minutes.
And anyone who doesn't like realism can just go and get the Boots of Blinding Speed, cast "Resist Magicka 100% for 1 second on self", put the boots on, and be happy for the rest of the game. Or just do the Master Index quest, cast Mark in Caldera, and travel anywhere on Vvardenfell in a tenth the time it would have taken otherwise.
Hey, it's not the game's problem if you don't bother to learn how to play it...