Goodness gracious, the irony. Here's me, attempting to introduce a feature about games that are too long for their own good, forced to grapple with the fact that introductory paragraphs are often pointless extrapolations on a self-explanatory headline. Do yourself a favour - print this out and cut the top bit off. Do it for the dignity of writing.
All lopped and chopped? Excellent. Now I can write what I like, secure against reprisal. I could tell you about that time I found a Smartie up my nose as a child, for instance, or what I think of Matt's face, gloomily poised over a mug of cooling tea. Ha ha ha! Or I could shut the hell up, get off my self-reflexive podium and get on with - OK, I will. Enough flim-flammery. The buck stops here. The feature begins... there. Watch out for spoilers.
1. Final Fantasy XIII
Show us a role-playing game that's devoid of filler, and we'll die fulfilled (and thinner) men, but Final Fantasy XIII takes the Michael most. Plot considerations aside, you could snip off its first third and lose very, very little save some fancy-dan crystalline sets and a lot of waffle about filial obligations. It's a fun game if you've got the patience, but a deeply self-indulgent one. Hours are lost waltzing you down fetchingly decorated, identikit corridors, lingering to show Lightning clobber Snow in a cutscene, or spoon-feeding you aspects of the Active Time Battle system you could digest quite easily in five minutes.
2. Bioshock
Irrational's aquamarine shooter has one of the finest, most twisted endings ever, an ending that doesn't merely startle but derails. For hours, you've been jogging down leaky corridors under the foolish apprehension that you're master of your own destiny, that you're head-hunting the megalomaniac Andrew Ryan for the sake of democracy, mom and apple pie. Then you actually meet Ryan, and he informs you that you're a vat-grown drone hard-wired to unthinkingly obey any order prefaced by the phrase "would you kindly". A wind-up toy with delusions of grandeur. Then, to demonstrate his greater freedom of action, he asks you kindly to kill him.
And while you're reeling from that, the game taps you on the shoulder, spins you round and hits you with the revelation that this corresponds exactly to the plight of every first-person shooter protagonist ever. Linear games reduce the player to the level of an on-rails gun, leaping through hoops and firing when they're told to. It's not just an ending for Bioshock - it's an ending for a certain way of thinking about games. There's just one problem: Irrational refuses to accept its own findings. It makes one of mainstream gaming's few genuine intellectual breakthroughs, and then it... carries on.
3. Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 2 is a lot tighter and sparser than its Babylon 5 meets Eastenders presentation would have you believe. Surplus role-playing subsystems are gone; the Citadel hub has been boiled down to a single albeit complex Ward; and vehicular exploration has been tided under the carpet. That it manages to do all this without diminishing the experience noticeably is a triumph. But it does settle for meaningless padding at times.
22 comments so far...
SidTheSloth on 15 Feb '12 said:
Good Article Ed, this is yet another that is pushing the FF sequel further and further down my 'want' list despite being a self confessed J-RPG addict!
(Edited because i can't read it seems, bad day keeps getting better!)
Clanger67 on 15 Feb '12 said:
Hey no don't call bioshock i love that game.I actually had another blast on it before xmas and once you know where everything is it's suprising how you can rattle through it.
msbhvn on 15 Feb '12 said:
The very end of BioShock was a let down after "would you kindly" and even the devs regret the final boss. It's still my favourite FPS, though, and I can't wait for Infinite.
LA Noire got so much wrong that I'm surprised I liked it so much. The whole last desk was terrible and should have been placed earlier in the game or cut altogether. The ending sucked gorilla balls, too.
Plamsa wing on 15 Feb '12 said:
Mass Effect 2? Bioshock? Oh look i've found a witch and she turned me into a newt. A particulary smart one at that since it appears I can use a computer.
Agreed.
Clanger67 on 15 Feb '12 said:
I got better,lol.
Bezza89 on 15 Feb '12 said:
So it's a list of games that should have bits cut out? Not as catchy headline then. LA Noire sucked a lot after homicide. Bioshocks boss battle was crap, but the coping with random plasmids was brilliant. The library should have been made into a cutscene in Halo, oh I hate that level, still yet to do heroic without dying.
ME2s planet scanning was better than pressing X,Y, etc in a certain order, the only problem was if you didn't import a profile you didn't get 10000 extra resources for each, even then you would only need to scan planets that had side quests and find the ones whilst walking to buy all upgrades, and the shadow broker one gives you handy mines on planets locations for quick cash.
comabob on 15 Feb '12 said:
Games need to be longer not bloody shorter!!
The one single game i have played this gen that i just wanted to be over was Bayonetta - that was definitely at least an hour too long
Grummy on 15 Feb '12 said:
Really not sure where you're going with Amalur. What your saying is fair enough, but it doesn't really specify why its lovely generic setting means it needs to be shorter. Unless of course its just because you don't like it very much or you get bored quickly, but then that is just a personal thing and can be applied to ANY game for anybody. Your other 4 choices all make perfect sense however, irrelevant of personal opinion on the games, the reasons stated why the should be shorter make perfect sense. Its just Amalur I'm struggling to see.
havoc of smeg on 15 Feb '12 said:
Portal 2 should be there too. Having played and enjoyed the first, the second got tired and repetitive around chapter 5, even with its new gels and ever good dialogue. Was up to chapter 7, and got so bored of it that it'll be a while before I can be bothered to finish it off.
ATATCCU on 15 Feb '12 said:
Oh cheers you bastard! There was me thinking I smashed Andrew Ryan's head in because I hated golf AND NOW I know it was something I was always going to do. AND yeah the ending was a bit of a damp squib, still my favourite game though and with a really good headset...no, better than the one you bought cheap in Sainsburys, a really, really good headset, the game leaps out of the screen and into your mind. I just love all the audible special effects, that's the way to go. Scare me out of my wits visually and audibly and I'll be your mate for life...Dead Space did that to me, still twitching about that game. Then TWO comes along and it's here we go again. I really didn't want to go into that church, or even get out of the ventilation trunking, allowing my straight jacket to be removed was daft...it all kicked off because of that!
Maybe a Skyrim DLC, for us grown ups to enjoy could include some of the proper scary stuff. Ooer!
CunningSmile on 16 Feb '12 said:
Agreed, but I think Ed's point is that there is no point making games longer unless you have enough game to warrent it being longer. Sticking an old fashion boss battle onto the end of Bioshock was a huge mistake motivated by someone at the publisher saying they needed a boss battle, planet scanning was useless padding and no one (especially you from previous posts) likes pointless fetch quests. Sometimes short is sweet.
But seriously if you want pointlessly long look at films. Did you know there is an extended Directors Cut of 2001? Instead of nothing happening for three hours nothing happens for five. The seven hour (no joke) cut of Dances With Wolves is something I hope never to see.
Gerishnakov on 16 Feb '12 said:
Add Red Dead Redemption to that list. I still haven't completed it because it gets so boring. Every mission is exactly the same. Literally the only thingsthat keeps me going through that game are the scenery and the cut scenes.
Clanger67 on 16 Feb '12 said:
I totally disagree i thought it should have been longer.I never got bored once in between missions you have all your ranks to get for sharp shooter,treasure hunter etc.And it is a bit like skyrim in that if you go off exploring you usually find something that is a suprise.
lawsond28 on 16 Feb '12 said:
You know, there might be one or two folks out there who've yet to experience the joys of Bioshock, not that they'll need to now that OXM have completely ruined the much lauded plot twist at the end of the game. What ever happened to spoiler alerts, or is Bioshock's twist deeemed to be such common knowledge that no such alert is now considered to be necessary? (EDIT - OK, OK, so there was a big bold alert there all along!)
For me, I would have been happy if Bioshock had been twice as long. At the time it was quite simply the best FPS that had ever been created. It's still up there with the best of them but even now 'it' (or do we refer to 'it' as a 'she'....like a cruise liner) is starting to show it's age.
Here's one game that went on a bit...and on...and on...Alice: Madness Returns. I rented it (from a well known online place which charges £5.99 a month) and I played to what I think was the half way point before realising that I'd had the game at home for almost 3 months. I had a couple of other 'under 2 yr old distractions' at home, it's not like I was l playing it daily or anything, but it would still have been cheaper to buy a preowned copy of the damn game. One day I'll get around to finishing it....and Mass Effect....and all those others....
NinthGeorgesw on 16 Feb '12 said:
It does say at the top of the page, in bold writing, that there are spoilers.
lawsond28 on 16 Feb '12 said:
So it does. Either I didn't spot that earlier (did I mention I have small children, I'm very tired) or OXM has just added it in response to my post. We'll never know the truth....
OXM ETboy on 16 Feb '12 said:
Spoiler warning was there from the get-go, yep. As was the Final Fantasy XIII-2 typo I edited out late last night. Stealthily does it...
exhausted on 16 Feb '12 said:
you should stick at it. The ending is fantastic
SidTheSloth on 16 Feb '12 said:
The spoiler warning was certainly there... But i too didn't see it first time, hence the somewhat hastily edited first post!
Portal 2 being probably my favourite game of last year on balance i was initially quite at odds with this, but thinking about it i kinda know what you mean. I could do the normal puzzle rooms and listen to wheatley/glados bitch each other all day, but those warehouse-esque type rooms were drab, grey and went on far too long now i think back, good call!
And Ed sorry, i must have been asleep reading this yesterday because as well as the spoiler warning i missed this:
"The worst thing about planet probing is that it's genuinely moreish, like videogame popcorn."
Moreish? In the same way that striking your temple with a clawhammer is?!
OggyWicks on 20 Feb '12 said:
An awesome feature! Thoroughly enjoyed reading it (Sad to say I disagree with your opinions on LA Noire!)
If you have the time, and can get around writing another introductory paragraph, I would love to see the OXM team's verdicts on 'Five games that should be longer'? ... Please
Grummy on 21 Feb '12 said:
...yes, yes we will, as it was there when I first read the article which was before you made your post.
bongmaster00 on 21 Feb '12 said:
while it certainly wasnt the best final fantasy, i still got alot of enjoyment out of final fantasy 13. It certainly isnt the worst one, but sadly alot of people gave it alot of unfair hate. Still play it to this day, as i donot have enough time for games as much as i would like. (ball and chain, work etc) and have amassed a game time of 125hours. Definatly would not like this game to be shorter. Neither Bioshock, my number #1 fps of this gen. personally i liked the ending, but wont spoil it for anyone who has yet to enjoy such a great game