Community Highlight 001: A Question of Endurance Vs. Age

Good day 4Player Podcast community! Today marks the beginning of a new feature here at 4PlayerPodcast.com. Every Wednesday, I will be delving into the depths of the forums to find the cream of the crop in regards to community discussion and bringing it to the front page! I will scour the forums and also pick articles from a new folder that is designated for submissions. The idea is to generate interesting and relevant discussion among the members of our amazing community and bring it into the spotlight. This time, you guys are the writers and this is your chance contribute to the content on the site. For details on how to submit an article of your own, please see the bottom of this post.

First up, I bring you an interesting discussion that I stumbled on discussing the dwindling endurance levels of "current gen" games and asking the question of whether this is truly a result of poor game design or just a product of the times. The thread was started by member StabbyMcKill. I also posted some interesting responses below it.  If you have any thoughts, head on over to the forum thread and add to the discussion or simply leave some feedback to the community members in the comment section of this post.  So here we go:

StabbyMcKill: I remember playing Monster Bash for months on end as a kid. Never got tired, never got sick of it. I stopped playing it when we lost the... err... floppy disk. (Yeah... I'm old.) Ski Free too, for that matter. There have been very few games, recently, which have been able to catch my attention for more than a week, let alone for a few months. This decrease in attention has either come as I've gotten older, or as games have become more 'advanced', culminating in the next-gen "one dayer" syndrome. (A game's entertainment lasts only a single day, after which point you don't touch it again for a few weeks, if ever.) I've gotten tired of gimmicks that used to be entertaining (Quick-time events), and unnecessary additions for 'atmosphere' (arms turning wheels or flipping switches), because they seem more like time fillers. Has anyone else found that a lot of the newer games don't have the endurance of older ones? And is this because we're no longer five and they can't capture our imagination as well, or is there something in the gimmicks that's playing a part in this?

Darknezz: While I agree that there are tons of games that feature gimmicks, or simply don't capture attention too well, but I don't think it applies to the industry completely. During this drought of new games coming out, I've been playing a game called League of Legends constantly for the past couple weeks. Now, whether it's because it's a multiplayer game that I can play with folks in Ventrilo or because it's an addictive game, but it's there. There are tons of multiplayer games I can think of that I can play forever.

As far as single player games that can capture your attention for longer than a day, I think it really boils down to re-playability. Let's face it; most games' single player portions are campaigns, with a story. Now, if a game gives enough player choice and dynamic changes for it to be interesting to play through multiple times (BioWare games come to mind), or do something really great with the gameplay (such as Portal), it's pretty easy to go through them again. However, your Call of Duty and Gears of War games may not be as enjoyable a second time through, since it's all scripted events you've already seen. If you wanted to, I'm sure you could play through multiple times, but the fact that you know what's happening takes away from the experience.

Older games didn't have stories, or at least not for the most part. It was about getting a high score, and no matter how many times you see the same 8-bit explosion, you don't care. You don't feel like you're being robbed of an experience because there is now a large portion of what made the first playthrough great.

Choice also factors into this. In the late 80's and early 90's, there wasn't a really huge selection of grade-A (or even B or C) titles. The fact that today, you could go finish a game and move on right away means that you don't have to enjoy a game for more than a week or so.

And then there's also length of games, as well as the way games are made. Sonic games had continues, and if you ran out, you're back to the beginning. Driving yourself to get to the end of that game could take months. Call of Duty 4 takes six hours. Both because of length and because of how save systems work, older games may just last longer because of the drive to finish those damn games.

There could be countless factors as to why older games seem to have lasted a lot longer, but I think there are still games around today that can capture people for chunks of time.

Faux: As a seasoned gamer I can vouch for the amount of re-playability that older games have, however I think games today have not lost their mojo to keep me wanting and feeling like I do need to go back to it.

Let us take for example one of my most beloved games from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, "Zombies Ate My Neighbors!" I recall a younger me playing this game for maybe a month nearly every day, Why you ask? Hell if I know all I can recollect is that those were some of the best moments of my life, maybe it was the fact that you were plopped in a random location (Mall, backyard, grocery store) and just could kill zombies for hours on end. Also I can sill come back to this game and have a blast.

But I'll be damned if games have lost their touch; sure there are those games that you beat in a day like the a fore mentioned generic first person shooter games that have no unique or defining gameplay mechanics that make them stand out. The frustrating part is that these games get the most praise why, for being the same? Still there are games that I keep going back to that were released in the last three years or so, a few that come to mind are
Portal(2007), Mirror's Edge(2008; Just beat it moments ago on that note), and Saint's Row 2(2008) just to rattle off a few.
Then there are games which you kind of overdose on (Two to three play throughs, then you are done with it) mainly BioWare and Bethesda games that come to mind where the choices are what keep you going.

Again, games seem to be a very fast evolving form of media. Games that where made fifteen years ago are vastly different from games today, I think way back when it was all about fine tuning the most addicting gameplay qualities with little to no story, while some developers today are trying to effectively include an extraordinary story that forces the gameplay to take a backseat during the development process. Games are a hard media to perfect because of the multiple levels of things you have to do to captivate an audience from graphics to scriptwriting, additionally they are still considered quite a "new" form of media.

"No endurance, Or just old?" Neither you just have to find your niche.

Shortbus: It's probably because older games had simple objectives. Get to the end of the level. Games these days have full-length stories and missions with a lot of explosions and drama. Personally, I lose interest because it's so dramatic and stressful. I could never play the GTA4 storyline over and over like I can Super Mario World...And it's because the objectives in GTA4 are tiring, and extensive.

Also, for me, the "wow-factor" in video games has lost it's value somewhat, because when you're 6 and you have a Super Nintendo, every time you pop a game in, you piss your pants with excitement.. Just like the "wow-factor" for driving a car loses it's value after you drive for a few months.They're just a part of life now, not really as much of a privilege as they used to be.

EDIT: Faux, I have the exact same kind of memories with Zombies Ate My Neighbors. But I came back to it a few years ago, and playing on a keyboard sucked. Then I bought a gamepad so I could be nostalgic, and the game was balls to the wall hard. Maybe it was because I always did co-op with my sister, or I just suck at 16bit games now, but I couldn't get all the neighbors like I used to be able to.

To contribute to this discussion, please visit the forum thread.

To write an article for submission please post the article in the forum.