6-7 hours now standard SP gameplay?

K

KickAssCop

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Mar 19, 2003
Messages
8,330
Looking back this year, I went through tons of 6-7 hour games. Even with their offering of MP it was just never compelling to get in to MP and do something different. This year, for me, marked the worst in terms of SP value out of a game. Some notable examples are:

Dead Space 2 (7 hrs)
Crysis 2 (7 hrs)
Homefront (3.8 hrs)
Portal 2 (6.5 hrs)
Sonic Generations (shouldn't take more than 6 hrs apparently)
Red Faction Armageddon (7 hrs)
Modern Warfare 3 (6 hrs)
Gears of War 3 (8 hrs)
Uncharted 3 (7 hrs)
Killzone 3 (6 hrs)
BF3 (4 hrs)
NFS The Run (2-3 hrs)
Bulletstorm (6 hrs)
Driver San Frans (8 hrs)
Warhammer 40k Space Marine (7 hrs)
Duke Nukem Forever (3.5 hrs)

Wtf.
 
Skyrim and Xenoblade Chronicles make up for my short time in SP with other games. But, they are admittedly outliers.

I understand games cost more now than before, so you can't make a game as long in the same amount of time or for the same amount of money. But, some of these companies are making more money than ever before. Then again, most gamers don't finish games even when they are only three hours long. Shrug, I see both sides. I want longer single player games, but don't want a whole bunch of filler crap. Empty filler crap is what leads to me not completing a game.
 
These days, you're going to have to switch genres to get a longer SP experience. In the past year, I've played for the first time:

KOTOR - 45 hours
Mass Effect - 44 hours
Mass Effect 2 - 65 hours
Borderlands - 62 hours
Zelda: SS - 30 hours and counting

I've had a great SP year, without even playing Skyrim. But I've mostly avoided FPS!
 
This is why I wait for the price to drop. $50-$60 ain't worth it for just the SP campaign.
 
Shantarr.Dalrae said:
You're playing the wrong games.
Click to expand...

Indubitably. There are some atrocious games on that list I wouldn't touch with a 10 mile stick.

Only single player game I've truly enjoyed this year was Deus Ex: HR and I spent a cool 50 hours on my first game. Going to get Skyrim during, what I hope is, a Christmas sale and I have no doubt I'll log 100+ hours in that easily.
 
Luckily I didn't always purchase all of them at full price but hot damn, they still cost a buck or few 100$.
 
drako said:
These days, you're going to have to switch genres to get a longer SP experience. In the past year, I've played for the first time:

KOTOR - 45 hours
Mass Effect - 44 hours
Mass Effect 2 - 65 hours
Borderlands - 62 hours
Zelda: SS - 30 hours and counting

I've had a great SP year, without even playing Skyrim. But I've mostly avoided FPS!
Click to expand...

Don't forget about Deus Ex. I had 40 hours or so in it
 
Well this trend (at least for me) continues with most RPGs as well. For example I finished Deus Ex in 24 hours (did all side missions except 1 that I missed because I wasn't there on time or some crap). Witcher 2 took me about 25 hours. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (consider it an RPG on many levels) took me only about 14 hours (may have missed a few stupid side missions) and so on.

Other examples up there like Mass Effect 2 was a 26 hours affair, Dungeon Siege 3 was a 14 hours affair, Gothic 4 was an 18 hour romp, and so on.

But generally, SP is just getting very short especially for shooter / 3rd person action adventure games.
 
Is this really a thread about game duration complaint or epeen stroking on how fast you can finish a game? Not everyone's a power gamer. Go outside once in awhile.
 
Caelum Atra said:
Don't forget about Deus Ex. I had 40 hours or so in it
Click to expand...
Ah yes! I need to get around to playing that.

And those are not normal completion times for some of those RPG. I can rush through games too and then complain that they aren't long enough, but that'd be silly.
 
What do you expect?

A substantially big chunk of players NEVER finish single player games that go past those lengths.

Why spend millions of dollars to extend out a single player experience for a few hours when you can look at stats that say 90% of your expected user base won't progress that far?

Save your self money, sell a better, albeit shorter experience, and make more money. Sounds like economic wins all around to me.

Blame yourselves and your peers, not the developers, for encouraging these kinds of games.
 
Where is the 90% statistic coming from? Maybe that begs a new poll in this forum to test if people finish their games or not. Hmm.
 
Azhar said:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-17/...t-software-association-avid-gamers?_s=PM:TECH
Click to expand...
Well that was depressing. Either way, I finish most of my games still even though I work 14-16 hr days on average. However, I can see the 90% even more so because I have tons of games on Steam that are just sitting there, will probably never get finished or even played or even installed. However, I make a point to finish up all high profile titles that come out within 12 months of release (except Bethesda games).
 
Wrong games buddy. But thats not to say short games are bad, shmups are some of the shortest and best games out there. You can complete the whole game in less than an hour if you have needed skills (credit feeding not allowed).

SS3 - 11h normal run
Batman AC - 18h
Deus Ex - 20h
Dark Souls - 50h
 
you can go to steam and check achievements stats for any of those that have steamworks. if you compare early achivements to end game ones, you'll find that vast majority of players rarely finish long games. but this is true imo because long games usually suck, not because they're too long. grindy mechanics and mindless filler is what makes people bored, not the length of the game itself.
 
Try to take over every bit of land for yourself in Mount and Blade: Warband, without cheating, on normal difficulty.
 
Well I must admit that I missed out all the open world games in my post. Examples include SR3, ACRev, ACB, Bat AC, Deus Ex HR, Castlevania, and the likes. However, felt that there is a lot more coming out that is shorter in length than longer games like old days when average was around 10 hours.
 
Well the new one. Was a bit open world since you could go back and revisit levels and crap. Also you had to get some powers to go back and access areas of previous levels. Not exactly your typical open world game but tons of content added in just by revisiting areas to get crystals, keys and all sorts of other crap. However, I never finished that game lol.
 
Those may be "normal" completion times for, but by whose standards, and on what difficulty? I've played the below games pulled from the list and with the exception of Homefront and BF3 I could tack at least a couple hours onto most of those. I normally play on a difficulty above normal but below "dick smashingly hard" and try to find any extra goodies and such while playing.

I think Portal 2 felt like the perfect length, funny, varied without being terribly repetitive, and with the added co-op felt it provided more than enough content for what it was.

Homefront was positively awful and I wanted to burn the disc 30 minutes in.

MW3, I don't know how many more disjointed one-off set-pieces they could have included to pad it out, but I was ready for it to be over when it was.

I don't know how long you like your shooters but it seems like if they were all 10+ hours, shit would be beyond old, and given how similar most shooters are and how little they can really diverge anymore, the way they are is about perfect. I think there are plenty of open-world, sandbox and RPG games that provide extra long experiences to not need the shooter genre to start bloating itself unnecessarily just to add time.

Dead Space 2 (7 hrs)
Homefront (3.8 hrs)
Portal 2 (6.5 hrs)
Modern Warfare 3 (6 hrs)
Gears of War 3 (8 hrs)
BF3 (4 hrs)
Bulletstorm (6 hrs)
Duke Nukem Forever (3.5 hrs)
 
Kahnvex said:
Those may be "normal" completion times for, but by whose standards, and on what difficulty? I've played the below games pulled from the list and with the exception of Homefront and BF3 I could tack at least a couple hours onto most of those. I normally play on a difficulty above normal but below "dick smashingly hard" and try to find any extra goodies and such while playing.

I think Portal 2 felt like the perfect length, funny, varied without being terribly repetitive, and with the added co-op felt it provided more than enough content for what it was.

Homefront was positively awful and I wanted to burn the disc 30 minutes in.

MW3, I don't know how many more disjointed one-off set-pieces they could have included to pad it out, but I was ready for it to be over when it was.

I don't know how long you like your shooters but it seems like if they were all 10+ hours, shit would be beyond old, and given how similar most shooters are and how little they can really diverge anymore, the way they are is about perfect. I think there are plenty of open-world, sandbox and RPG games that provide extra long experiences to not need the shooter genre to start bloating itself unnecessarily just to add time.

Dead Space 2 (7 hrs)
Homefront (3.8 hrs)
Portal 2 (6.5 hrs)
Modern Warfare 3 (6 hrs)
Gears of War 3 (8 hrs)
BF3 (4 hrs)
Bulletstorm (6 hrs)
Duke Nukem Forever (3.5 hrs)
Click to expand...

is duke really that short or did you run through?
 
I think, as others have said, it's really genre-specific. FPS games just don't have very long SP campaigns these days as the focus is on their MP aspects. I was very satisfied with Portal 2 and its SP length. Some recent disappointments were Homefront and Medal of Honor. I am currently about 30 hours into BF3 MP but have not touched the SP campaign.
 
A game should only be as long as it needs to be, IMHO. Padding a game with mass amounts of shallow, or worse, procedurally generated content isn't automatically better than a shorter 8-10 hour experience with 100% unique content and a coherent story.

When you go much over the 20 hour mark you start getting into Padsville for most games. Sandbox shooters and RPGs are notorious for having mass amounts of fluff that only appeals to completionists.

So comparing the number of hours is a bit disingenuous unless you're taking a hardcore quantity over quality approach.
 
To put some questions to rest here. I game on normal difficulty (hard only when known that normal is too easy e.g., recently in Gears of War 3 and Uncharted 3 punched hard difficulty setting) and I was indeed talking about both quality and quantity. I hate mindless filler crap as much as the next guy.
 
Older games were pretty short too. Couldn't many NES/SNES/gensis games be completed in a few hours?
 
Serious Sam 3 16hours and still counting for first play through on Serious
Fallout 3 60-80hours
Fallout NV 50-60hours
Borderlands 70hours plus with DLCs
Deus Ex 1 easily over 40 hours

Others are pretty much online games for then or I can't recall what I've played recently :p:
Didn't count the battlefield 3 because I think it's SP is basically extended tutorial for MP.

SS3 has amazed me thus far, didn't quite expect it's SP campaign to last this long lol.
 
this is the console kiddie era. Short attention spans, like killing hookers and playing mindless games, like MP games that don't involve much thinking and have tons of action. Very few story driven games would sell well. The current "story-driven" games are mostly crappy cliche'd stories and characters with more focus on the action(sorry uncharted). How many great RPGs have been released lately compared to the past? How many games lately have had a great story?

Its not even about length, its about content. Difficulty to add length usually just adds some more mindless gameplay to find patterns in recent games and lots of games have used this recently to increase play-time.
 
Last edited:
ive managed to make ss3 11hrs so far, and i feel like im a little over half way through the game.

yes, im exploring,
yes, im enjoying the environments
yes, im taking my time

goty,
 
i might be late,
i would rather play a good 6-7 game, then a boring repetitive 9-10 game personally.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top