The prospect of a forty-hour role playing game fills me with absolute dread, but thankfully not every game requires a mammoth investment of your time. In fact, when we broke the news that Journey could be completed in three hours that revelation brought a sense of relief and joy.
However, the comments that surfaced at the weekend after NowGamer suggested Killzone 3 can be beaten in four and a half hours completely baffled me. Aside from not actually being wholly correct, the news that a AAA first person shooter could be wrapped up in half a day provoked a stunning response from the internet.
“Well its just typical isn’t it!” exclaimed the commentor on the NowGamer piece. “All the hype non stop hype about this game… and they end up giving us a measly few hours playtime. Bulls**t. ”
Some of the comments on the N4G article were similar in theme, with a few questioning the reviews published at the time based on the playtime reported by NowGamer. Even if it was true, the question really should be ‘why does it matter’?
If you’re a die-hard Killzone fan, chances are you won’t be rushing through the game on Normal anyway (which should take between six and eight hours) – rather plumping for a higher difficulty level, but that’s not really the point – if Killzone 3 was just four hours long, why would that a) affect your decision to buy the game and b) affect any of the already published scores?
Game length shouldn’t be dictated by the current market, rather the other way around. Developers that elongate their single player campaigns should only do so when they’ve got more story to tell, not artificially to please the baying masses, and whilst Killzone 3’s plot won’t win any awards, at least it’s concise and exact.
Filler is the plague of many a console game, fetch and collect quests peppering an otherwise enjoyable story bore me senseless – I no longer have time to hunt out anything that’s extraneous to completion of the story so if Killzone 3 asked me to fanny around looking for token collectables I’d have not been impressed: save that for the likes of inFamous – at least the blast shards could be done away from the main missions.
As it stands, whatever time it takes you to get through Sev’s latest adventure, you can be sure that there’s nothing in there that’s not meaty. Sure, it’s far from perfect, but it’s the equal of any of the recent Call of Duty games with regards to exposition and – besides – isn’t Killzone 3 all about the massive online portion?
So why does it matter how long a game lasts? The misconception that games are getting shorter is exactly that: my earliest memories of gaming include some really short experiences and I’m not alone: Peter said Sonic took him four hours back in the day and that’s with a lot of restarts.
And the perception of value? £40 for Killzone 3 gets you (assuming you play it through more than once and try Elite) around fifteen hours or so of single player campaign, countless hours of co-op, the huge Botzone mode and then there’s online multiplayer, which will presumably run as long as Killzone 2’s did – that is, for at least a couple of years.
Games are, and always have been, good value for money. Relatively or otherwise – think how much a ticket to the cinema costs and how long that lasts…
gazzagb
I don’t really care about length, it’s more about if I enjoyed the game that counts for me.
I love the assassins creed games, and can plough a good amount of hours into that (I think it was about 30 for AC2, and 20 for ACB), but I can have just as much fun ploughing though a game which is only a few hours long (COD4 + MW2 had 2 of the best campaigns I’ve ever played, and I actually kinda enjoyed Terminator Salvation that was only about 5 hours.)
peespee63
Longevity for me is a bit of an issue. I enjoy playing FPS games, but I often feel that because I don’t partake overmuch in the online side of the games, at least until after I’ve finished the singleplayer mode anyway, that I am being stiffed out of content.
I hate filler as much as the next guy, but more than a few hours solitary campaign in a AAA FPS would be nice.
I recently managed to breeze through Medal Of Honor in about 6 hours, with retries and taking things at a moderate pace, this was disappointing, as the previous games in the series seemed to go all out on the missions, offering up at the very least 10 hours of soild gameplay.
While I will pick up KZ3 (as I thoroughly enjoyed KZ2 Campaign and Online), I don’t want to feel that I’m being screwed over because I’m not a hardcore online freak (which probably won’t happen, to be honest).
I do know that demand in the market is such that online competitive is currently dominating FPSs, but I’m sure there are more gamers like me who enjoy a strong narrative, immersive storytelling and gameplay and a thoroughly enjoyable gaming experience, which some games tend to gloss over in order to cater for the killstreakers.
The Solid one
I love long RPGS with a excellent story as i am crap online. I think a third of my colletions are RPGs. Metal Gear Solid is still to this day one of my faverito games despite the short lenght. The Final Fantasys tend to be more than 40 hours long. Of cours if the game is long and crap then it’s not worths it. I go for games with a excellent story and length as there is so many times i can replay something.
thedriffter50
I want games to be long. A good 20 hour game is better then a good 4 hour game.
Besides as a gamer I want value for money. Having short games will force us all to move to ps4/720 which isnt a good thing.
Dange
For me anything that last over 5 hours in single player and has a decent multiplayer is good value. I was fine with the length of Blops. besides I usually take my time enjoying a game and so a 5 hour game would = 8 or 9 hours on my playthrough.
Long games I rarely finish as something else comes along, I have a short attention span unless a game really grabs me.
Saying that I’m really looking forward to picking up Mass Effect 2 on PS3 and I hear that’s a good 40 hours plus :D
Rocket_345
I am not bothered about a short campaign. Personally I will always get my money’s worth out of a game no matter how long it is.