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At what point does beating/100%ing a game turn into a waste of time for you? [roundtable]
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I recently went on a rant about Smash Bros Wii U's single-player/Challenges section after getting infuriated with it last night, and it got me thinking about how I use my free time for gaming. Pretty much everyone here is an adult, and as adults, we have a lot less free time than we did as kids. Do you find that your gaming habits have changed in terms of what you spend your time on now? Were you the type that got all 120 stars in Mario 64 when you were 11, but now can't be bothered to finish (or even open) half the games you buy? Or is it more of a game-by-game thing, where you try to 100% complete your favorites and simply do a quick run through of other games? I still try to go for 100%, but I have to admit that it seems kind of pointless nowadays if I'm not really enjoying myself. In the back of my mind, I kind of think "It'd be great to have this fully complete and show people or something," but I know that'll never happen--no one cares if I get every doodad in a platformer! Aging is kind of a freaky thing. I used to spend hours in games' edit modes, like Mario Paint's song creator, and Warcraft 2's stage builder. Nowadays, I'd rather spend that time creating something I can use in real life (art, music, candy ideas, etc). I guess what I'm trying to ask is, at what point do you throw your hands up with a game and decide that your time is better spent on another game, or on work, etc? URL to share (right click and copy)
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03/04/15, 19:31 |
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I've been pretty good about only buying games that I'm definitely going to want to beat, even in this age of budget games and my own increased spending power. And then actually playing them and beating them and enjoying myself usually isn't a problem. If I still want to keep playing, I'll try the extra challenges or content. canonj said:I'll only 100% a game if I'm having fun doing it. As soon as it feels like a chore then that's when I stop. I'm not the type of person who wants to play as many different games as possible; I'll spend a long time on a single game to finish it completely if I enjoy doing it. I've always been like that, and it hasn't changed as I've grown older. Yeah, this is where I'm at, though I do have stretches where I'll play a handful of short games in between the big ones I concentrate on. Usually these stretches occur shortly after a Steam sale... Using the Smash example, I'd love to go for all the extra challenges, but they take so long to finish and are just way less fun than playing online, so why bother? It's tougher in a game like Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, where the initial run is quite fun, and going back for all the hidden music and figures will surely be worthwhile, but I'm suspicious that the extra 1-minute challenges will feel tedious, and collecting all those little stars for the gold medals isn't really my style... |
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Yea, if a game is really grabbing me, I'll try to 100% it. Doesn't mean I'll be able to. Like in Xenoblade, I didn't get some off the missable side quests and I never killed some of the super high level enemies. But I still enjoyed myself doing my best and I don't feel like I blew it by not getting there.
With Smash, it just feels right to at least try, given how much effort they put into filling the game with goodies. Plus I'll be playing the game for years to come, so it's not like I need to rush. I 100%ed Brawl very quickly, making a Sticker factory and everything. If I'd just been patient, I would have done it naturally. Not sure I'll be able to get through all the challenges (Dr. Mario doesn't seem to be getting any better at destroying Trophy blocks), but I'm not going to give up so easily.
Generally, though, it depends on what kind of challenges there are. Scanning everything in Metroid Prime never appealed to me in the slightest. Getting all the stars in a Mario game is just obvious, it's hard to even think of it as 100%ing, it's really just experiencing everything the game has to offer. Something like getting all the Zelda hearts is somewhere in between. Whether I do it or not depends a lot on how much I'm enjoying that particular entry in the series (definitely did it in LBW for example). In most games, if something really feels optional and I'm not completely hooked, I'll stop at the credits. That especially goes for score attack type stuff. Not my bag. |
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I have a bad habit of continuing to try and 100% games long after I stop having fun. I'm trying to get better at recognizing stuff like that, because there have been times that it has completely soured my experience with certain game. For a while it made me dread playing Smash U. I generally tend to try and 100% Nintendo games because I like them so much, but I'll also do it with other games if I'm close by the time I finish. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother though.
Like with Arkham Origins, I got to 97% or something and then those last few riddler trophies were going to be a pain in the ass, so I spent about 4-6 hours working at something that isn't intrinsically enjoyable, has no real meaningful extrinsic reward, and I didn't even finish. Same thing with getting all the blast shards in Infamous 2, but I actually finished that. No idea why I did, though. I didn't need them and you don't get anything for it. There were there and getting them wasn't that laborious; just time consuming. So I just did it. It's not like, say, Banjo Kazooie, where getting the individual collectables feels good on its own AND getting to them is a joy. It's not even like 100%ing Pikmin 2 or a 3D Mario, where it feels like you've accomplished something. Looking back on some of this stuff, I feel like a really wasted my time. I didn't even question why I was getting those riddler trophies or blast shard pieces. This is something I try to be mindful of now because I have less time and I've been burned enough time to realize that I should switch on to completionist autopilot. There have been several cases where I caught myself going down this road again and stopped before it was too late. |
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