Thread: 'Games should be more linear, shorter'

And I agree for the most part - so long as they're as awesome as games like Batman Arkham Asylum & Modern Warfare. Articles with these arguments.

I don't have an issue with branching and alternate story lines, so long as it's not what we now consider an 'open world' or 'sandbox' single player experience.

Bam Stroker outright disagreed with this sentiment, until he actually played the 6 hour Modern Warfare 2 campaign.



A Rare Argument For More Linear Video Game Stories:

“What we found is that if you over-branch the storylines [is that] if there was one route you went down and got one reaction – and a completely different route got another reaction – we found that people would get really disappointed. They always felt they were on the wrong path. They always felt, ah, I wanted to see the dragon!”

Counterpoint: God of War III is too long, boring:

It's rare that anyone complains about a game being too long. Sure, game designer Randy Smith argued as much in his recent GDC rant, but you never hear us regular gamer-types arguing that we got too much for our money. I've never personally complained that a game was too long, so long as I liked its basic gameplay.

Never, that is, until God of War III.

During my first few hours with God of War III, I loved it. I loved controlling Kratos again, loved figuring out the new combos, loved hurtling through ridiculously epic set pieces and doing unforgivably brutal things to people. About five hours later, however, I was less enthused. Why was the game still going when its story promised me an intense buildup to a satisfyingly bloody vengeance? Why was I still getting into the exact same fights with the exact same enemies, capped off with the exact same QTE finishers?

Why, in other words, is God of War III so needlessly long?

You play multiplayer games, you have no need to complain... but you do and I agree with most of your statements. Watch this rec, I think you'll agree with a lot of it : Good Game Stories - Story Telling