The Video Game Critic

How many times can you lose a game and retry before you get frustrated and quit?

Depends on the game. If I'm playing Action 52, I'm not too persistent. Different story with Ghosts n Goblins. Also, how much work do I have to do to get back to the previous spot? Does it send me all the way back to the beginning, or do I get to pick up right where I left off?

I wondered this because I was playing Final Fantasy 13 the past couple days, and I've gotten to a boss that is really trying my patience. He's got a crap ton of health, and it takes forever to whittle it down, but I eventually figured out the best way to fight him and was confident that if I kept at it, I would eventually beat him. Then, I find out that the fight is actually timed, and if you take too long he'll use a Doom spell, which will start ticking down and then one hit kill you.

I'm absolutely willing to keep going through a challenging or difficult situation in a game as long it doesn't feel overly cheap or random. I remember giving up on the second form of the final boss in No More Heroes 2 after about 30 tries because it was such a poorly designed fight - once you got the boss down to about half health he essentially begins doing nonstop fullscreen M. Bison-style Psycho Crushers that hit you even when you're trying to get back on your feet. I got the boss down to a sliver of health on a few different occasions (and, had I known that your could temporarily revive yourself by violently shaking the Wiimote when Travis Touchdown is going through his death animation, I would have beaten him), but at a certain point I quit and just watched the ending on Youtube. The Binding of Isaac certainly can feel unfair at times, but because the game is a roguelike with randomly generated layouts you accept the possibility of rolling a bad hand and have fun trying to overcome the handicaps the game places on you.

Unlike Vexxer, I'm not terribly resilient insofar as completing games - at least not anymore. Once upon a time I'd be willing to struggle through a game I didn't like much because either I didn't have any other options (I willingly replayed a lot of bad NES games as a kid simply because I couldn't afford to rent or buy a better game) or because I felt I had to get my money's worth. Being a bit older and having both more responsibilities and interests means that I'm rarely willing to complete a game that I'm not having a lot of fun with anymore - if my enjoyment drops below a certain level and it doesn't look like things are going to get more involving I'll just put the game aside until I feel like giving it another shot, which is something that may or may not happen. This used to bother me, but now I just figure that the money is already spent anyway and that I'd rather just cut my losses than waste the limited free time I have being bored - especially now that I can go on Steam or GOG and purchase a great game for literally $2. I realize that sometimes games do improve in their latter half, but I'm willing to miss out from time to time if the tradeoff is that I don't have to slog through a bunch of repetitious garbage to find those rare gems - not to mention that I can go on Youtube and spend a fraction of the time I would've needed to beat the game to watch the cutscenes instead.

[QUOTE=velcrozombie] Unlike Vexxer, I'm not terribly resilient insofar as completing games - at least not anymore. Once upon a time I'd be willing to struggle through a game I didn't like much because either I didn't have any other options (I willingly replayed a lot of bad NES games as a kid simply because I couldn't afford to rent or buy a better game) or because I felt I had to get my money's worth. Being a bit older and having both more responsibilities and interests means that I'm rarely willing to complete a game that I'm not having a lot of fun with anymore. This used to bother me, but now I just figure that the money is already spent anyway and that I'd rather just cut my losses than waste the limited free time I have being bored [/QUOTE]

I walk the same road.   When my responsibilities were small, my game library was small, and my gaming time large, a game got played.   Not now.  I will gladly give up on a wilting video game or a television series (hello Battlestar Galactica), since just slogging along to finish it could be investing dozens of hours better spent elsewhere.   Sunk costs can never be recovered.  Cut your losses, sell your losers, reinvest elsewhere. 

Another way is if you are one of those (and maybe there is only one of those) that think video games are *only* about gameplay, then once you've played a small part of it, you have finished it since there is no story.  This track, that track, this level, that level, all just gameplay regurgitation. 

Its like a meal.  Once you have had a taste of whats on the plate, the rest is just more of the same.  Once you've played the first level of a one course meal like Space Invaders, other levels are just minor variations.  For several course meals, maybe the developers make you eat your veggies before you get dessert.  Even so, you've probably tasted dessert pretty early on.

This is doubly true for DLC for a complete game before hand.  If the original game is heralded as complete, then DLC is just variation of the same menu with different spices - a bit more pepper, some old bay, maybe a little garlic, whatever.  Maybe that is why multiplayer has risen in popularity - at least if you have eat the same meal day after day, changing dinner companions help.

Its also a reason why having some diehard biases for a particular publisher, or against mobile games, seems so limiting and childish.  Some kids only eat mac and cheese, or use ketchup on everything, until they grow up and begin to sample other cuisine. If all you ever eat is Japanese food, and try to tell everyone else that not only is Japanese food the best but all the other types of food are awful, then you should at least realize you have a limited palette.  No one is saying Japanese food is bad, it just they are saying to go have a New York bagel, have some Texas chili, or a slice of Chicago deep dish pizza, have some DC General Tso's chicken with an eggroll or a nice polish kielbasa.

[QUOTE=DaHeckIzDat]I wondered this because I was playing Final Fantasy 13 the past couple days, and I've gotten to a boss that is really trying my patience. He's got a crap ton of health, and it takes forever to whittle it down, but I eventually figured out the best way to fight him and was confident that if I kept at it, I would eventually beat him. Then, I find out that the fight is actually timed, and if you take too long he'll use a Doom spell, which will start ticking down and then one hit kill you.[/QUOTE]

I wonder if this is a case of art imitating life, or video games being useful in training you for real life.  You can probably imagine a situation were a person is really trying your patience, seems to have a crap load of ego/time, and it takes forever to whittle him down.  You keep trying, looking for the best way, confident that if you keep a it, you'll eventually make some headway.   That's generally real life.  

I wonder if the opposite is also true.  In video games we role play the lone hero - the plumber who is fated to take the hero's journey, over and over, or the faceless man with the big gun who is a one man army.  If you are in a video game, and you are running toward what everyone else is running from, or you believe one thing when everyone else believes something else, that's the hero's journey.  That's generally not real life.

[QUOTE=Oltobaz]Scotty,

Great post, all around. I know which boss our boss is referring to, while I'm
also aware of the timer. I would never have thought about the real life analogy,
yet I can't think of a better way to put this. [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=scotland17][QUOTE=DaHeckIzDat]I wondered this because I was playing Final Fantasy 13 the past couple days, and I've gotten to a boss that is really trying my patience. He's got a crap ton of health, and it takes forever to whittle it down, but I eventually figured out the best way to fight him and was confident that if I kept at it, I would eventually beat him. Then, I find out that the fight is actually timed, and if you take too long he'll use a Doom spell, which will start ticking down and then one hit kill you.[/QUOTE]

I wonder if this is a case of art imitating life, or video games being useful in training you for real life.  You can probably imagine a situation were a person is really trying your patience, seems to have a crap load of ego/time, and it takes forever to whittle him down.  You keep trying, looking for the best way, confident that if you keep a it, you'll eventually make some headway.   That's generally real life.  

I wonder if the opposite is also true.  In video games we role play the lone hero - the plumber who is fated to take the hero's journey, over and over, or the faceless man with the big gun who is a one man army.  If you are in a video game, and you are running toward what everyone else is running from, or you believe one thing when everyone else believes something else, that's the hero's journey.  That's generally not real life.[/QUOTE]

Haha, I work at Walmart so if anyone needs that lesson, it's me. But anyway, SCREW YOU, Barthandelus! I'm just running back and forth between the level to max out my characters.

I never felt like my time was wasted even if I played all the way through a bad game like Ride to Hell(which did give me enough unintentional laughs to not feel like a total waste of time), in the past there were some games that I did give up on and got rid of, only for me to end re-buying them again at a later date because I just had to find out for myself what happened next(watching the cutscenes on Youtube just doesn't cut it for me, and they were so cheap on Amazon and Ebay that I didn't really mind), now there's just no way I can give up on a game before finishing it(by "finish" I mean getting the ending(s), there are some games like Jak 2 and 3 where I'll finish them, but I won't bother with getting 100% on stuff like time trials), because I know if I don't beat it myself then it's just going to eat away at the back of my mind until I do.