BlogBanter: When Is A Game Truly ‘Finished’ For You?

Posted on 31 March, 2011 by exterminat

blogbanter game over

BlogBanter

When is a game truly ‘finished’ for you?

Do you finish all your games – or just move on?

by exterminat

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

In our present video game age of infamous five hour tours and over-saturation of multiplayer, the meaning of finishing a game has become quite convoluted.

Are we finished when we’ve completed the static aspect? Or are we finished when we doom it to the shelf for untold millennia, moving on to the next great thing?

BlogBanter is a combined effort between a multitude of gaming and personal interst sites that are given a monthly topic to write on, with each giving their own views on the specified ‘monthly’ subject matter, and ultimately linking to them together in order to tap into a wider audience.

This iteration of OXCGN’s participation will [attempt to] dissect what I personally mean when I say “I’ve completed a game”.

Goodbye, but not the end

While retreating from the Philippines in World War II, United States Army General Douglas MacArthur said, “I shall return.”

When I say I’ve “finished” a title, I generally mean it in the sense that the single player component has been completed.

Typically, I do not replay games. As they move more and more toward linear, scripted, bloody screen (SO REAL!) war scenarios, there’s less and less of an incentive to even consider a second revisit.

The only titles I have truly replayed this generation were Okami, Call of Duty 2 and 4, Uncharted 2 and the original Mass Effect. You may be wondering why I only mentioned the first Mass Effect, and not the second.

Sometimes, the amount of content in a game can be overwhelming. Overwhelming to the point that you never want to replay it again, which would cause you to reattempt the feats you previously so valiantly accomplished.

In my save file of Mass Effect 2, I did everything there was to do, beat every piece of downloadable content available and got around thirty-five hours out of it.

I am sufficiently prepared to continue that story in the third title, and have no desire to change what I have done. Compare my opinion on Mass Effect 2 to that of the second Uncharted title, though, and you’ll find me quite the hypocrite.

The lush, resplendent environments combined with the fluid platforming and sharp writing always keep me coming back for rerun after rerun (even on the harder difficulties).

Each game has its own respective qualities that appeal to the senses and help us decide if we are drawn back in or utterly repulsed.

So long… for now

When returning after several years, General Douglas MacArthur said, “I have returned.” He was the epitome of class, if you didn’t know.

I think it’s a very bold statement to say that you’re ever actually “finished” with a game.

Sure, you’ve got 100% in the single player mode, played the multiplayer portion decently and then put it back on the shelf, but you know you’ll come back to it one day.

Last week, I started playing Call of Duty 2 for the first time since 2007, and it aged much better than I ever thought it would (dare I say, it became better when stacked up with today’s shooters). But it still held its own given its ‘vintage’, and was one of the awakening titles that heralded the Xbox 360 into ‘This-Gen’ of gaming wonderness.

Multiplayer is the saving grace of sorts in modern titles, but it’s also what is plaguing our industry with regards to many newer titles hitting our consoles, but let’s not get started on that right now. Suffice to say, it does seem the SinglePlayer side of some games are suffering due to this ‘current’ situation or Multiplayer Madness.

When this console generation began in 2005 with the Xbox 360, online gaming finally got the boom it deserved. It became an accepted, commonplace thing and reached a wider audience, enticing more players than ever before to ‘get connected’ and play with people across the world, all from the comfort of their couches.

Multiplayer, while having its pros and cons, in many cases extends the life of a game beyond the single playthrough.

I probably put more hours into Call of Duty 2 than I have put in the most recent thirty titles that I have purchased. I’ve played Gears of War‘s campaign close to a hundred times, simply for the fact that the cooperative aspects of the game are unique, and far too much fun for me to put it aside. SO have I really, truly ‘fiinshed’ the game – probably not.

The summer after Gears of War released, a huge number of my friends and I did nothing but bury ourselves in the game all day long for at least a month. So when you couple addictive multiplayer aspects along with modern day innovations, such as achievements and trophies, pour all that into a current video game, then one could say that you can never really, or truly be finished with the game.

Generic goodbye phrase here

To summarize in a clear-coated manner what I’ve said on this iteration of BlogBanter, I say I’ve finished a game when I’m done with the stagnant unchanging single-player aspect.

“Finished” is a bold statement that is very relative at its core, and possibly does not exist due to the design and almost future-proof “mentality” of standard games these days. Especially when you consider DLC content released later as well.

If I truly had to explain when something is 100% finished, it means I’ve gotten 100% in the single player, hit max stats in multiplayer and gotten all of the achivements/trophies.

But once that happens, it’s only the beginning of the “tranquil” period where you sit back, relax, admire your achievements (no pun intended) and play worry-free.