Setting the Pace

"Shawn, honestly, I just can't do it."

It's only an instant message, so he has no idea the true agony in my virtual voice as I say these words.

"What kind of a gamer do you think you are?" he challenges. "Just use the quick save and put the damn game to bed. You're practically finished! You've already done all the hard work."

He's right. So I knuckle down and do it. I finish the last 17 minutes of Half Life 2: Episode 2.

The Half Life series - indeed everything that has issued forth from Gabe Newell's savvy and brilliant brain - has been one of the true examples of unmitigated excellence in the game industry. In any industry. While individual releases may have had a bug here and there, it would be ludicrous to find fault with Valve's mastery of game design.

And yet, with 17 minutes to go in their latest iteration, I lost my patience.

I will acknowledge that I am an easily distracted man. Sober, I would claim that this is a function of having a life full of responsibilities, and important demands on my time. After a martini, I would be forced to concede that my ability to dump 80 hours into Oblivion or 20 hours into Team Fortress 2 shows sober-rabbit for the liar he truly is.

I think my gaming ADD is a function of enlightened self-interest. Years and years of playing games have given me a Pavlovian world view: one so conditioned by repeated stimuli that it's difficult to shake, especially when faced with an outlier event like The Great Game Glut of 2007 ™.

This belief system suggests:

  • Most games suck.
  • Those games that don't suck are only interesting until I've seen how pretty they are, or what new gameplay tweak they're pawning off as innovation.
  • Those games that pass step 2 are only interesting so far as they are truly addictive or have a great story to tell.
  • Most truly addictive games wear thin, leaving me with the hollowed out feeling of a junkie coming off a three day binge.
  • Most "great stories" are ultimately disappointing and don't survive the cold clarity of 8 hours sleep and three cups of coffee.

This overwhelming cynicism leads to short attention spans. My personal tolerance for doing something un-fun during an evening of game time is extremely small. Whenever a fellow gamer cajoles me to stick with a game because "after the first few hours, it's really awesome" I nod politely while trying to remember where I put the sleeve so I can get it in the Gamefly envelope as soon as possible.

Because my tolerance isn't a few hours. It's about 20 minutes. I will play something entirely un-fun for twenty minutes before I give up. I thought I was unique in this until I played through Half Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2, and then Portal and Team Fortress 2, with the commentaries enabled. Time and time again Valve's designers talk about how the levels have been tuned not just for playability, but for pacing. Every section of their games seem to be timed to keep the player from becoming "fatigued." It's not a word I'd associated with gaming until I heard it uttered through an in game commentary, but it makes me feel justified in my world view.

What was striking about the near-ending of Episode Two – I don't think it's a surprise or a spoiler to say it's a long, drawn out battle against bad guys – is that it was the first time in dozens of Valve gameplay hours that I had experienced fatigue. This is all the more surprising because Portal, my hands down winner for rabbit-game-of-the-year, was the ultimate in anti-fatigue games. Not only can the entire game be played in an evening, but each identifiable chunk of the game was paced so perfectly that I never, ever felt bored, overtaxed, or frustrated.

But what pulled me through the last knothole of frustration wasn't peer pressure, it was my belief that the story would ultimately be worth it. I pressed through the final 20 minutes and, thankfully, I was indeed rewarded with what will be a top-ten set-piece of game storytelling for the foreseeable future. And of course, had I known I was only 20 minutes from the end, not hours, I would have kept at it all along, instead of procrastinating for nearly two months.

And yet, I can't help feeling like I shouldn't have been put in the position in the first place. I don't believe it's wrong to seek perfection. I don't think it's wrong to expect every minute of every game to be enjoyable and fun. I expect movies to be fun – or at least engaging – from beginning to end. I expect a fine meal to be delicious from appetizer to desert.

I'm not suggesting it's easy, nor do I think many games – even brilliant games - get it right all the time. Bioshock suffered from the occasional fatigue-inducing combat and flow problems that might have crippled a game without such a dominant and compelling narrative. World of Warcraft, like all MMOs, can become mind-numbing and yet survives due to the communal experience and the well-honed incremental rewards that such grinding yields.

Conversely, there are many games – most of them "smaller" games – where pacing is so perfect that it is nearly the whole reason for playing. Lumines, a relatively simple puzzle game, is brilliant precisely because the change-up in the pace of play is perfect from level to level, making it enjoyable to play for hours at a time. Portal succeeds precisely because of its pacing. The best real-time strategy games balance the contemplative nature of strategy and the frenetic pace of battle to create exactly the right level of tension for it to be fun, not frustrating.

I'm not proud of it - I'm endlessly in search of the easy high. I want the maximum amount of fun for the minimum pain. If I knew all the compounds in the alchemical formula for the perfectly paced game, I'd be working on the next Mario Galaxy. I'd be lying on the beach in Vanuatu sipping gin, sharing a laugh with Gabe Newell, and occasionally offering to rub lotion on his creamy-white back.

I wouldn't be sitting here, staring at my stack of games and wondering if I should even bother.

Comments

Wow. I'm the exact opposite. I have no problems at all slogging through a hundred hours of game. I've got a queue up to here with all the big RPG's that came out late last year.

It might be that my own ADD is being managed for me by the short spans that I can get together to play a game at any given time so I don't recognize it as such. I've been trying to get through Final Fantasy VII: Revenent Wings and it's gotten to a point where I've had to take the pace down to one mission per day, usually played while I'm cooking dinner.

Farscry wrote:

God of War, Tales of Symphonia, Banjo-Tooie (despite its utterly perfect and brilliant predecessor), and several other highly-rated games have all fallen prey to the Tedium Effect, inducing gamer fatigue with me. That's a great term, very fitting.

Yeah. I'll have to remember it. Before this, I used to tell my wife that I'd burn out on a game because it was too "gamey". And I think what I meant by that is that a game would reach a certain point where I wasn't having fun so much as jumping through the hoops I was told to jump through. I have to go here to beat this guy to unlock this area. Go to the new area, die a couple times, beat the area then get the thing that lets me backtrack to a prior area. Ugh.

Now I don't feel bad admitting that my last save on HL2 is about halfway through the original. I'm at a point where there are lots of baddies and little ammo so I stopped playing.

I'm like Pharacon and others. I tend not to finish single player FPSs...there's always something that kills the game at some part. I can (and do) dump hours into multiplayer FPSs. Same with simulation and RTS games.

The Fly wrote:

I've really been into casual games lately, in large part because they're often more focused in terms of gameplay, tone, presentation, etc.

Conversely, there are many games – most of them "smaller" games – where pacing is so perfect that it is nearly the whole reason for playing. Lumines, a relatively simple puzzle game, is brilliant precisely because the change-up in the pace of play is perfect from level to level, making it enjoyable to play for hours at a time. Portal succeeds precisely because of its pacing.

Right. Games that successfully present a basic rule set and goal and then thoughtfully explore or build on them over time, without too much fuss, are often the most memorable of enjoyable.

This is one of the main reasons the recent XBLA puzzler Switchball landed in my Top 10 of 2007. The game takes a simple concept, roll a ball through Rube Goldberg-inspired mazes, and builds on the idea while simultaneously retaining the easy pick up and play concept. Complexity is ramped up by introducing morphing balls (marble, steel, dash, inflated) that actually change the rules and methodology of the physics-based puzzles. New obstacles and traps are added to the mix as the game progresses that help to keep it from growing repetitive. Yet the common thread that runs throughout the entire progression of Switchball is a simple Point A to Point B gameplay concept that never changes.

This simple yet elegantly designed game is a attractive alternative to the complex BioShock's, Mass Effect's and World In Conflict's of the gaming landscape. The simplicity of this and other Live Arcade titles is often the perfect recipe for times when I want to game, but I want to be engaged in a less taxing and more casual level.

DSGamer wrote:
Farscry wrote:

God of War, Tales of Symphonia, Banjo-Tooie (despite its utterly perfect and brilliant predecessor), and several other highly-rated games have all fallen prey to the Tedium Effect, inducing gamer fatigue with me. That's a great term, very fitting.

Yeah. I'll have to remember it. Before this, I used to tell my wife that I'd burn out on a game because it was too "gamey". And I think what I meant by that is that a game would reach a certain point where I wasn't having fun so much as jumping through the hoops I was told to jump through. I have to go here to beat this guy to unlock this area. Go to the new area, die a couple times, beat the area then get the thing that lets me backtrack to a prior area. Ugh.

The problem is that the stories are inferior to most books made for 5-year-olds. There's usually zero involvement in the story and zero investment in a character.

Also, the levels don't usually fit into any definition of common sense or something that would flow into the story. The reason WHY the door to Alpha Lab is locked should be tightly integrated into the story and should be something you associate with... something that does not seem like a big stretch. In other words... writing writing writing.

Good read. You and I share similar belief systems.

This is a great article Rabbit. I totally know how you feel about games in general, especially your attitude towards them. I play a game and I know from within the first half-hour usually if I'll finish it or not, or even enjoy playing it. Things used to be so much easier when I was younger and could die time and time again on Blaster Master while still having a blast. :-S

Nice words Rabbit, and although Ep2 didn't affect me that way, although I think I can imagine your fatigue; wandering across the ant infested beaches and headlands during Half Life 2 itself almost had me putting the game down and deciding to go no further. I think the final scene of Ep2 is probably worth any frustration though, once again demonstrating the knack Valve have of bringing even episodic content to wonderful climaxes. Oh how I wish that Bungie in Halo2, Ubisoft in R6V or Epic in UT3 had taken leaves from the Valve guide to playmaking.

momgamer wrote:

I've been trying to get through Final Fantasy VII: Revenent Wings and it's gotten to a point where I've had to take the pace down to one mission per day, usually played while I'm cooking dinner.

All I can say is Wow. I don't know if I could complete a mission while cooking dinner for my family. playing the mission and cooking require two very different kinds of focus. One on not burning things the other on not getting killed, and they really won't exist together cohesively. I can see myself killing the bad guys that have ambushed me while the pasta sauce is bubbling out of the skillet. The only upside being that red is everywhere in both cases.

Good read, and I agree with you - to a point.

Why, just last night, I was playing some COD4 single player, and repeated the last set piece of the Ukraine Sniper mission where you're waiting for the helicopter over, and over, and over again. (I'm playing on the second to highest difficulty setting and didn't have any problems before this part) What was acclaimed as being one of the greatest games of the year totally dropped a few notches in my book because of this - so I can definitely relate to what you're saying.

Frankly, I think your expectations are way, way, way too high. I can't name a single game except for Portal that I played this year that didn't have fatigue inducing moments, and I liked/loved a LOT of them. I don't think I can name a game I played in the last 5 years that didn't have fatigue inducing moments. Hell, I don't think I can name a single move I've seen in the past 5 years that didn't have fatigue inducing moments, let alone any party that I've been to where there was "never a dull moment".

I think that these things are just part of gaming, hell, part of any form of entertainment. There is a difference when games become real grinds (WoW) or force you to repeat an extremely difficult part over and over again (See above, or GH3 on expert, for example). But I never even came close to experiencing anything in HL2E2 that compared to either of those problems. (McChuck was dead-on in his description of the end battle) Plus, games have the advantage of having options that can mitigate such frustration - strategies, hints, tips, etc. on the internet, easier difficulty settings, god mode, etc.

I guess my question back to you would be -do you apply the same rationale to other aspects of your entertainment activities as you do to gaming? If not, why not? And if so - hook me up with your activity planner, man, because I want that easy high too.

Dysplastic wrote:

All I can wonder right now is how you can get through the mundane aspects of life if you're constantly in search of the easy high. Do you apply the same rationale to other aspects of your life/entertainment as you do to gaming?

Games were not meant to mirror all the mundane aspects of life. Games are a form of entertainment, and as such, one expects them to consistently entertain.

When it comes to HL2, frankly, the forced physics puzzles in a freaking FPS syndrome wore me down real fast. Blatant spawning didn't help, and neither did the unkillable helicopters and other all-too-familiar relics of late 20th century game design.

cmitts wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I've been trying to get through Final Fantasy VII: Revenent Wings and it's gotten to a point where I've had to take the pace down to one mission per day, usually played while I'm cooking dinner.

All I can say is Wow. I don't know if I could complete a mission while cooking dinner for my family. playing the mission and cooking require two very different kinds of focus. One on not burning things the other on not getting killed, and they really won't exist together cohesively. I can see myself killing the bad guys that have ambushed me while the pasta sauce is bubbling out of the skillet. The only upside being that red is everywhere in both cases.

I've always been better at things if I'm doing more than one thing at once. It helps to choose the right game. I wouldn't do this with a shooter. Revenent Wings plays more like an RTS. And the scale is very small.

shihonage wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

All I can wonder right now is how you can get through the mundane aspects of life if you're constantly in search of the easy high. Do you apply the same rationale to other aspects of your life/entertainment as you do to gaming?

Games were not meant to mirror all the mundane aspects of life. Games are a form of entertainment, and as such, one expects them to consistently entertain.

Agreed - hence the edit. My real question lies with the mundaneness in all forms of entertainment.

Dysplastic wrote:

Agreed - hence the edit. My real question lies with the mundaneness in all forms of entertainment.

There shouldn't be any. If a form of entertainment fails to provide the "fun" on a continuous basis, and there's no way I can twist it toward that with my playing style, I flush it down the toilet.

Yes, this alienates the vast majority of games that come out, but I believe it doesn't speak of me being burned out on the gaming industry as much as being burned out on its current state.

The percentage of movies I like is astronomically higher than the percentage of games I like, and that is only a reflection of the game industry's blind, shooting-in-the-dark hit-and-miss gameplay+writing designs.

The present time is a time of a really early, really immature era of videogame evolution. Its natural that some of us outgrow it faster than others. One thing I notice as years go by is that more and more people start to share this feeling I have and I feel less and less like a crazy person on this subject.

shihonage wrote:

The percentage of movies I like is astronomically higher than the percentage of games I like, and that is only a reflection of the game industry's blind, shooting-in-the-dark hit-and-miss gameplay+writing designs.

I'm just the opposite - I feel like almost all movies have pandering, cliched, recycled plots that I'm not getting anything new out of. The same could be said for games, but the interactivity is ultimately their saving grace. I can't tell you how many movies I've watched thinking "there goes two hours of my life I'll never get back". With a game, even at the frustrating parts, I still feel like I'm playing or accomplishing something. With a movie, I'm just sitting there.
But even if we disagree there, my main point is that even the good, even the great movies have that one part that sucked, or was boring, or was two slow, or could have been better. These are, for me, "knotholes of frustration" akin to what Rabbit experienced in HL2. I've fast-forwarded through a LOT of bad parts of movies - this would be the equivalent of putting on god mode.
Meh. I'm not even sure what my argument is. I just don't know if i'd get through anything if I stopped whenever there was such a "knothole"

I believe the problem starts to arise when the "knotholes of frustration" are not a few and far between, but akin to "after you get past the first 2 physics puzzles, there's this cool section and then you have another forced f*cking puzzle".

There's really no reason why someone couldn't design a game that is uninterrupted fun. Imagination is limitless, and virtual worlds allow for _anything_ to happen.

The same could be said for games, but the interactivity is ultimately their saving grace. I can't tell you how many movies I've watched thinking "there goes two hours of my life I'll never get back". With a game, even at the frustrating parts, I still feel like I'm playing or accomplishing something. With a movie, I'm just sitting there.

It's funny, because when I play most games I feel my life slipping away because I see exactly what goes on behind the curtain responsible for the gameplay mechanics I'm interacting with. The metal skeleton of matrixes, timers and calculations that so few bother to breathe a soul into, I look at it and I don't see its creator, just a wall.

shihonage wrote:

I believe the problem starts to arise when the "knotholes of frustration" are not a few and far between, but akin to "after you get past the first 2 physics puzzles, there's this cool section and then you have another forced f*cking puzzle".

There's really no reason why someone couldn't design a game that is uninterrupted fun. Imagination is limitless, and virtual worlds allow for _anything_ to happen.

The same could be said for games, but the interactivity is ultimately their saving grace. I can't tell you how many movies I've watched thinking "there goes two hours of my life I'll never get back". With a game, even at the frustrating parts, I still feel like I'm playing or accomplishing something. With a movie, I'm just sitting there.

It's funny, because when I play most games I feel my life slipping away because I see exactly what goes on behind the curtain responsible for the gameplay mechanics I'm interacting with. The metal skeleton of matrixes, timers and calculations that so few bother to breathe a soul into.

Hm. I see your point. I'd say again that your expectations are "too high" - but I guess that's kind of the gist of your and rabbit's arguments - that you have high expectations and you don't see anything wrong with that. I can't disagree there, but can only suggest that future disappointment is likely.

Besides, I'm cranky and negative today. Shouldn't be posting anyways.

My feelings are kind of split on this. I do agree that there are a lot of games that lose their fun factor after the first half hour and the grind/lack of true involvment become apparent. I can (and do) easily forgive a game that has grinding or frustrating parts in it if the story is good enough, but those tend to be few and far between. I have noticed that my tolerance for monotony in games has been decreasing as the amount of time I have for them decreases. I used to be able to play relatively boring games the whole way through, but for the first time last year, I stopped playing a game I'd gotten half way through because it wasn't worth it to me to finish it. I also used to think of cheat codes as diluting my gaming experience, but I now realize that sometimes, a game is either poorly designed or unbalanced enough that the only way to have fun whlie playing it is to use cheats to make it easier and/or less frustrating to play. A good example (for me) is Gothic 3. I cleared out the North and Myrtana of just about every monster, animal, and orc, and got a little way into the desert, got tired of getting killed by a pack of wolves or lions while fighting downhill when I could take out an entire city of orcs by myself (I always thought it was supposed to be easier to fight if you had the high ground, but apparently this doesn't apply when you can't swing your sword up or down, only straight out, go figure), and just stopped playing. I didn't feel it was worth my time anymore, and moved onto a game I enjoyed a lot more. I still half-plan to go back and finish it, but I have no idea how long that will take, or if I even will. I'm sure as time goes on, better games will come out and I'll be far to busy playing catch up with them to go back and play a game that frustrates me.

I personally had no problem getting through any part of Half Life 2 and its episodes. I did get frustrated at the end of Ep 2, but I trusted Valve, and kept trying out different strategies. I didn't think Valve would make something that difficult without a reward that made it worth it, and I really felt like I accomplished something when I finally beat it. As for the ant lion beach in HL2, I really enjoyed that I could play "The Floor is Lava" in a video game and not feel like an 8 year old.

Movies last 2 hours. Even if a plot is cliche and re-used in the end you're out 2 hours or so. With a game you can easily flush 30 hours+ down the drain in the futile attempt to push your way through something you're not actually enjoying. I don't see the point in that.

I only got SP game ADD. I can play MP games for hours on end, slogging through the times I suck badly and am pretty frustrated. Playing with friends even get's the suck out of sucking and I can play all night.

SP games is totally different for me. Although my limit is not as low as Rabbit's (20 minutes), I will stop playing a game when it is not satisfying me anymore. Like The Witcher. All you people say it's such a great game, and get's even better the farther you get in to it, but currently I've put in about 10 hours, and I feel I have not done much special yet. It's all nice, but I don't want nice, I want great. And it seems that only story wise the game will be getting great, and I just don't like the gameplay enough to go further. I will probably never finish the game.

What happens on HL2 EP2 if you don't beat it. Is there like a cutscene of the base beying destroyed or anything cool?

This post has me convinced that I should go remove myself from the "Pile of Shame" thread. There's no shame. I didn't finish Jet Set Radio Future, because I got tired of it. Shadow of the Colossus I'm enjoying, but I don't want it to become a chore. Same with Psychonaughts.

t0W wrote:

What happens on HL2 EP2 if you don't beat it. Is there like a cutscene of the base beying destroyed or anything cool?

No, there's never any cool death reward in a Valve game (that I recall).

Aaron D. wrote:

This is one of the main reasons the recent XBLA puzzler Switchball landed in my Top 10 of 2007 ... Yet the common thread that runs throughout the entire progression of Switchball is a simple Point A to Point B gameplay concept that never changes.

Yeah, there's little question that my love for smaller games has been driven by the frustration with larger games. I've lost many hours to peggle and puzzle quest and all their evil kin.

t0W wrote:

What happens on HL2 EP2 if you don't beat it. Is there like a cutscene of the base beying destroyed or anything cool?

Not really, it's just like every other case where you fail a mission. The base gets blown up like every other building the striders have blown up to that point. The screen then fades to black with a message something like "The Magnussen's lack of faith in The Freeman has been justified". It then picks back up at the last save point.

I'm in the group that had problems with the end of Eps. 2. Personally, I don't blame fatigue as much as I think Valve threw us a curveball at that point by breaking away from their pattern. Usually they do a pretty comprehensive job of introducing weapons and allowing you to practice in-game before they throw a big test your way. Think of HL2 with the series of three succesively more difficult turret placement puzzle/fights. Now look at the end of Eps. 2, where we are introduced to the throwing weapon and using our vehicle and then thrown into the final fight with limited experience. Not everyone has a problem with this sudden shift, but I think others of us do. Valve may have even done this intentionally.

If it weren't for the new issues and ideas introduced with Portal, I'm not sure I'd be interested in further gaming in the HL universe. By itself, I think the main series is rather stale.

Sarkus wrote:

Now look at the end of Eps. 2, where we are introduced to the throwing weapon and using our vehicle and then thrown into the final fight with limited experience. Not everyone has a problem with this sudden shift, but I think others of us do. Valve may have even done this intentionally.

You do get a really awkward end-game tutorial before the final fight. It messes up the pacing. I didn't mind being thrown into a new experience, as most of Ep 2 had felt annoyingly familiar up to that point. I did think the tutorial was silly. Let us learn it under fire, that's exciting, and it can be done.