Video Games Are Better The Second Time You Play Them

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
For me, the majority of the games I play are NOT "better" the second time you play them. I'm a big fan of shooters but I like a good story as well and the second time you play a game, for the most part, the story has already been revealed to you. So, to me at least, that takes a bit away from the game the second time through. What are your thoughts?

I love to replay games. It’s something my colleagues occasionally give me crap for. They worry I’m sacrificing time I could otherwise spend on new games re-experiencing old ones. I do play games for a living, so I always try to maintain a healthy mix of new ones in my rotation. But I’m almost always replaying something. In fact, I generally enjoy replying the older games more than breaking in the new ones.
 
I guess it really depends. Sometimes I play old school RPGs from the PSX. I probably missed a lot of the plot due to me being a little kid and not understanding anything. As for replaying games that you've played as an adult, the novelty is gone after the first time.
 
Depends on the game. For the ones that rely on plot twists and developments, probably not.
For some that involve a lot of technique, it can be a lot more fun to experience the game without having to learn how everything works.
Personally, I like the concept of NG+.
 
I have to say I do understand where the author is coming from. Growing up I can't tell you the amount of time I spent beating megaman 2/3/4/5 over and over, or how many times I played the original final Fantasy just to try a different group (3 fighters and a white mage for an easy time cash wise).

Many new games dont give me that same sense of fun.
 
For me its most of the Zelda series due to catch more little things in the story or characters. In general RPG's with heavy story are like this.
 
Oh, and don't get me wrong, if there is an alternate ending / different patch, I always do them...but, as Armenius pointed out, it didn't make the game "better" the second time through. In fact, I found myself bored / trying to hurry through parts because I knew the outcome already. Shooters are worse because you second time through, you know where the enemies are and all that.
 
Domingo said:
Depends on the game. For the ones that rely on plot twists and developments, probably not.
For some that involve a lot of technique, it can be a lot more fun to experience the game without having to learn how everything works.
Personally, I like the concept of NG+.
Click to expand...

Agreed...Some games are fun to replay from scratch where you can focus on the game rather than learning the game. Other games are a ton of fun with the NG+ concept where you can walk around like a god in the "starter" levels.
 
I disagree. The only games that I find more fun the more times I go back to them are strategy games or other complex games where every time you play you learn more about the game and get better at playing them. Linear story based games though? Not at all. I like not knowing what to expect from a game so if I'm replaying it's usually just for nostalgia purposes or simply because it was fun the first time and I want to play it again even if it will be a lesser experience. I tend not to replay a lot of games because of that. I want to keep my initial experiences with a game in tact.
 
deepends on the game and especial the story. most shooter i dont see to go through the story again.
Howeveer strategy games i play multiple time just because it makes you able to experiment with different strategies and the stuff your learned through your prior session.
 
I just concluded one of the endings in Fallout New Vegas, and I wasn't very happy with it.

(Yes, that game sat in my steam library forever before I installed it)

I want to go back to an earlier save and try a different ending, but I don't know if I have it in me. After 63 hours in the wastes (the first 50 or so of which were quite enjoyable) I'm tired of being a desert errand boy. I just need a break.

I had planned to start Fallout 4 after I was done, but I think I just need a break for a while... I have no idea what I'm going to play next.
 
Last edited:
Assuming I actually ever got around to finishing the game the first time, that is. I would say the only game I have that I replay often is Return to Castle Wolfenstein. That game was the best to me.
 
I think it largely depends on the game. There are games I played when I was younger that I now have a far greater appreciation for.

FF7 comes to mind as a game I enjoyed my first time through but didn't fully appreciate until my second or third playing it.
 
I think it probably applies to more of the newer generation of gamers, in which the end all appears to be "Beat the game" as fast as possible and post all the story to prove you beat it. I've never viewed it as beating the game. I either finish a game or I don't. So I enjoy a more leisurely pace when playing single player mode. But I could be completely wrong, like Steve, I rarely play single player twice.
 
specially if the game has multiple histories, then yes, it is nice and could be better the 2nd time is played. I could do that with Mass Effect a lot.
 
I can't get behind 'better'. Yes branching stories make it fun to play another time, but plot twists and making choices without knowing the outcome is always better than the next time through. second play throughs usually involve a lot of sequence skipping or in the case of a shooter, throwing a grenade into an area you know enemies are spawning. I myself have never felt a game was better the second time, maybe resident evil 5 because you would have more weapons unlocked so you could just go all duke nukem on the level, but that is pushing it.
 
The anti-Apple clickbait is bad enough, but now you’re linking Kotaku seriously? Can we get a sitewide policy on this stuff?
 
I hardly have time to beat games once. I'll never clear my backlog if I replay them.
 
It really depends on the game for me. If it's a linear first person shooter with a story then yeah the first play-through is usually the best. Then there are games where it's mostly about the gameplay and game systems (strategy games being the obvious example) where a lot of the fun is in trying different tactics/builds/etc. Dark Souls is another example of a game like that, and I have played through the 3 games at least a dozen times total.

Then there are also games that have a central narrative but you can mostly ignore it (Elder Scrolls/Grand Theft Auto). I spent over 100 hours in Skyrim and maybe 10 hours at most was spent on story related stuff. Most of it was just wandering around an open world which is just as fun after you "finished" the story.

Then there are multiplayer games, which are usually terrible the first time you play them. You just get stomped on and don't know what just happened. :p
 
Rarely play a game twice through except for action RPGs like Path of Exile, Diablo, Titan Quest etc where you can build your character very differently. I'll pick up old multiplayer games and replay at LAN parties but I don't have any interest in replaying single player stories on 95% of the games I play.
 
Depends, a great video game ages like fine wine. Played MGS1 in 1998 and again in 2008 and suddenly the nostalgia factor just rushes in and you just start to remember tiny details but not quite as you remember it. Sure it looks a little worse than your memory imagined it but just so many good memories came from back then that I honestly did it enjoy it more the second time.
 
NickJames said:
Depends, a great video game ages like fine wine. Played MGS1 in 1998 and again in 2008 and suddenly the nostalgia factor just rushes in and you just start to remember tiny details but not quite as you remember it. Sure it looks a little worse than your memory imagined it but just so many good memories came from back then that I honestly did it enjoy it more the second time.
Click to expand...

Yeah I still replay some older games every few years. I don't know if it is just nostalgia or if they are still just great games though. The original Half-Life and Mario Bros 3 are the most common ones I replay.
 
Well I played X-Rebirth 5 times now and every time I am reminded how the company screwed me over for 45 dollars. Unlocking achievements is the only reason I have not deleted it from steam yet.
 
I may replay a game if there is a long awaited sequel coming out. For instance, I would like to replay Dishonored again before the next installment, but as someone stated above, I also have very little time to play. If I have to choose due to my limited time, I would rather experience something new.
That being said, The Stanley Parable was a great game to play multiple times. Although I could argue that I did not play through it multiple times as the game was designed to make you "start over".

When I was a kid I would play games multiple times probably for two reasons: I had more time, and I could not go out and buy a game whenever I wanted one. If my parents gave me a game it was a big deal (reward, Christmas, or birthday). All that said, I do have a couple of games that I have played multiple times and probably will pick up every once and a while to play through. Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Contra(NES), Devil May Cry 1, Unreal, Half Life Series. I have tried to replay some of the old Square and Enix titles (from when they were separate companies) from when I was a kid, but I have found that I do not have the patience. Hell, I have tried multiple times to play through the original YS Book 1 & 2 and just can not make myself complete it.
 
a single player game that is on rails so to speak with one ending... likley was not that much fun the first time. re-rolling a character trying to get some secret level or item that did not drop in the first play through? or skyrim going back and starting through the next day would real like work but how many people have gone into an airport while waiting for a flight that had an old arcade that you wasted ten bucks on then ran to catch you flight?

I played through MW3 campaign until I could do it half asleep looking for errors... the most fun we had was free for all death match I don't even know which would be the second time you play that. Once bored with I have copies of the game I don't play anymore but I re-play old open world games when I get bored. I have a blizzard account that I created for diablo 1, when they were still using dirext x 3, I still play wow when they create new content to see if is fun. Some times it is and some times all it is repetitive grind to slow down the people trying to be the first to finish all the content...

Though if you have a high end rig it is worth loading up the starter account just to see how much they have upgraded the graphics since 2004. that was twelve years ago. TV shows consider it a major achievement to make it ten years.
 
It all depends on your gameplay style for this to hold any water.

I mostly play through a game the first time with mainly the main story/objectives in mind and I don't bother with optional/side objectives until my second play through. So for me, the second play through ends up more worthwhile like in Doom when I used my second play through to get all the runes, upgrades,collectibles, etc.. On my first play through with Doom I still had a blast getting through all the levels with most runes and most upgrades but it wasn't until the second play through that I got more out of it.

That's just me though. I have such a poor attention span when it comes to games so if I end up taking too long on my first play through by getting all the optional/side stuff, I may never finish it. So I blaze through on my first go to get the gist then I really play through a second time if the game was good enough.
 
It's not that the game gets better the nth time. It's that you appreciate it more, when you can still find new secrets or new ways of doing things on the 10th play-trough. And in that department nothing beats DeusEx. And I mean the original, not the reboot, that still a good game, but can't hold the candle to the original. Even IW was better than HR.
 
Nothing beats the first playthrough of a good game where everything is fresh and new. However I often replay games and do enjoy finding new things that I missed the first time or things that I did see the first time but were lacking context.
 
Depends on the game for me. Some games I have played over and over and notice some nuance almost every time I play it. Other games are more of a one and done.

Could say the same thing about women I suppose.
 
I'm easy to please so I do replay games I like many times. I compare the second playthrough and onwards like using god mode cheat code because you pretty much know how the game works.
 
Bad games suck the second time you play it, while good games are better. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Doom and examples of games I won't play a second time. Dark Souls 3 and Fallout 4 are games I've played more than once. Probably played Dark Souls 3 like 15 times.
 
DukenukemX said:
Bad games suck the second time you play it, while good games are better. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Doom and examples of games I won't play a second time. Dark Souls 3 and Fallout 4 are games I've played more than once. Probably played Dark Souls 3 like 15 times.
Click to expand...

Interesting you chose Rise of the Tomb Raider and Doom as examples. Those are games that I definitely had a better time with the second time around and, for me, a long game like Fallout 4 would simply be too tedious to play a second time. All gamers definitely are not created equal yet Kotaku seems to think so.
 
Some games are worth playing through more than once. Most are not. Recent games I've played through more than once include: GTA V (2 times), Fallout 4 (1.5 times and going), Borderlands 2 (2 times, all expansions). My record for completions is 16, which I got playing Chrono Trigger and I only consider total playthroughs, the times I jumped through the Lavos gate to get different endings and then reloaded back the last save don't count.

But I find very few games hold my interest enough to play through more than twice these days. I suppose if someone wanted to coop the entire game with my I'd play Borderlands 2 though again I guess.
 
Arkham City is better on NG+ since you don't have to do any of the bajillion Riddler trophies again.
 
For most parts, playing a second time has a few perks:

1. It let's you understand the plot better. Since you know the outcome of a story, playing through a second time allows you to appreciate certain plot elements that might have been insignificant to you.

The conversation choices you had with a certain kid would lead to how the end boss justifies his actions to you, which is probably more appreciated only AFTER you find out the kid you were baby sitting earlier and end game are one and the same.

2. Playing the second time round let's you understand some mechanics better, and thus some parts of the game which may not have been enjoyable can be alleviated.

3. "How the hell did I miss this before"? Playing through New Vegas a second time, I realised there was a LOT of side quests I was missing, hidden unique weapons, merchants, interactions etc.

That's my take on it. Sometimes I don't find being spoiled for plot actually deters my enjoyment of the game that much.
 
I agree in general, although there are exceptions.

Some games such as rogue-likes are meant to be played multiple times, they get more fun the more you play and gain experience and character/item unlocks etc. So I'd say depends on the game really, if it's designed with replay-ability in mind or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top