One thing that No Game New Year has taught me: I don’t like
Role-playing games as much as I think I do.
To put this into perspective, I have several: Fables 2 and
3, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon’s Dogma, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Skyrim,
Dark Souls, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Fallout 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And
that’s only the ones that definitely count as RPGs. Out of those twelve games,
I’ve seen two of them through to the end – Fallout 3 and Fable 2. Of those two,
Fallout 3 I completed in the summer of 2013 when I played nothing else for a
month, and Fable 2 was a result of many re-starts and ‘coming back to it.’
After a while since I last played it, I did the final third of the game earlier
in NGNY.
As for the rest of them, they’re great games,[1] but
whenever I attempted a play-through I’d find myself playing for a while,
sometimes 10-12 hours into it, and then wanting to play something else. I’d
save my game, intending to come back to it later, but I never did. And if I do,
I always start the game again, thinking I’ll do it better with a different
character.
So, it’s quite rare that I see these games through to the
end, and I think their length has a lot to do with it. With some of them
requiring 50-100 hours worth of investment just to see the end credits, never
mind all the content, it can be a struggle to feel like you’re making progress
in the game. Dark Souls is very hard and makes no apology for that, but with
the other games, it’s not often I feel like I’ve made a difference or advanced
the plot in one session (2-3 hours, for me.) Nothing wrong with that; that’s
the way those games are designed, but it feels like I’m trying to paint a wall
with an artist’s brush; the sense of achievement from having done a little bit
isn’t there.
Contrast this with BattleBlock Theatre. The levels are over
in moments, you don’t have to spend ages travelling between each one, and
you’ve got an excellent way of keeping track of your progress built in to the
game. The same applies to Lego Star Wars, though the levels are longer. Fighting
games like Street fighter can be over in 20 minutes if you’re good enough. Even
the XCOM games have the gameplay divided up into missions that take 20-30
minutes each, and because of the way those games work, the game itself always progresses
whether you win or lose. By the time I turn my Xbox 360 off having played those
games, I always feel like I’ve managed something,
even if it’s just a little. Consequently I’ve been having a lot more fun
with those games than I have with the RPGs, no matter how many different ones I
buy.
Maybe that makes me a ‘casual gamer.’ I don’t necessarily
like the labelling, but I think this is part of the reason that out of all the
so-called ‘next-gen’ consoles, it’s the Wii U that’s piqued my interest so far.
Is that console full of ‘casual’ games? Maybe, but it looks like a lot of fun
nonetheless, and with the Xbox One and the PS4 apparently forgetting that they
are games consoles, I think it might be time to exit the Triple-A market for a
while, get a Wii U and have some fun playing games. That’s certainly the plan
for next year!
On the other hand, perhaps I should re-assess how I’m
playing RPGs. Perhaps not look for ways to advance the plot, and actually have
some fun with it. Set some short term goals. Do one or two quests. Clear one
level of a dungeon. Try and make it so that by the time I’ve finished, I’ve
achieved what I want, even if the game doesn’t necessarily agree. After all,
I’ve learned from pen-and-paper RPGs that the games are as fun as you make
them.
And perhaps run them alongside a couple of shorter games as
well, for when I need a break…
We’ll see.
[1]
Apart from Mass Effect 2, which I’ve never played so I don’t know one way or
the other.
