Sadly, there are games that I will never finish once I have started them regardless of whether I have paid for them or not. I have tried started and restarted Super Mario Galaxy several different times, but I can't bring myself to seal the deal with that game. The same goes for Mass Effect 3. I played through the first and second games with relative ease, but I couldn't bring myself to keep playing past a certain point. This isn't a new thing for me. Sometimes games just don't hold my interest for long enough, but sometimes it's just the daunting depth that overcomes me.
I used to obsessively finish everything. Most of the bigger games I start I complete, but more and more if I find myself uninterested with the game I just forget about it. It's more common that I don't finish smaller PC games I have gotten off Steam, and PS+ means I pick away at games I probably wouldn't have bought anyways.
My policy is pretty much the same. I will always finish a game if I play more than an hour or two of it, regardless of quality. It's important, to me, to play through games that don't necessarily blow you away. Only playing through games that blow your mind and are amazing in every way is a recipe for snobbery. You can't just live on gourmet, it's important to have perspective.
I used to do that constantly. Not because the game was necessarily bad, but because something new and fresh would come up and I'd drop my current game for that one. It's a bad habit, so lately I've been making an effort to finish every game that isn't actively bad. It's been going well, I feel like my game experiences are much more potent this way.
If I'm just not having fun with a game, though, I don't have any problem with putting it down. And I think that's completely fine - if a game isn't expensive, I think it's worth giving it a try even if it looks only somewhat interesting.
Patrick's talks about how he plays through (just about) every game he gets his hands on regardless of quality. Recently, past year or two, I decided to kinda except this way of playing where prior to college I would get a game, didn't grab me in the first hour, set it on the shelf and eventually sell it. I just couldn't do that anymore as I got older and now just about every game once I start it, I try to finish it. Now it's easier for me to slog through a game if the story is engaging me (PL: Curious Village the recent example of me being sick of the puzzles but really enjoyed the story). But I try my hardest not to put a game down unless I literally become broken, pissed, or uninterested. As a huge Zelda fan I never thought I would get so frustrated with any of their games but Skyward Sword just did everything wrong and now just sits on my shelf staring at me and I stare back knowing I probably will never beat it.
So I'm curious how the community approaches game completion and is it important to you to actually finish the game.
If I like certain aspects of a game I'll usually try to finish it no matter what, as I dislike leaving games unbeaten. for example, it took me 3 goes to get into FarCry 2, as some of the gameplay elements were very annoying. Then I got back into it this summer - it really sunk its hooks to me and I beat it, and was glad to do so. But if a game is actively unenjoyable i'm not going to bother finishing it.
I just remembered I didn't even finish Skyrim, despite playing something like 150 hours and declaring it my GOTY last year. Welp, never gonna happen now.
At some point I'll eventually get around to finishing a game that I buy. Even if it turns out to be the worse game ever. It might not be for a year or two but I shall see the ending of the story at least. For whatever reason my ratio of beating a game is a lot higher with games I rent. Since I have a time limit on a rented game it makes me want to finish the game faster.
I'm the opposite. If I don't like it I have better things to do with my time
Yep. If i'm not enjoying a game I have no problem punching out. I stop playing many games that seem thoroughly 'OK' because they aren't gripping me in any way. If it doesn't feel like it's hooking me, i just move on to the next game. There are more games out there than I will ever play, so i don't waste time on ones I don't really like.
I don't think I will ever be able to complete all games I play because I just have this urge to see all kinds of different, unique things, to play different types of games.
The point at which it becomes a chore is the point at which I stop playing. I play games because I enjoy them, not because I'm obligated to play them. It is a bummer to spend money on something and not get your money's worth, but that happens with all sorts of different things. It's unavoidable.
I like the idea of finishing every game I play, but I'm not going to force myself to finish something just to finish it. If I'm not enjoying a game, I'll stop. There are so many other things I could be doing instead of playing a game I don't like.
I don't understand why you would play a puzzle game if you get tired of puzzles? I mean it's called a PUZZLE game, what else did you expect? Sorry, I just love Professor Layton, and the first is really magical.
I have enough games that I can play constantly without getting bored, so if I run into one that I don't feel like finishing, I'll just fire one of those up. Neither boredom nor buyer's remorse has been a big problem; I have my tastes pretty locked down so I usually can tell if something is going to rub me the wrong way before I purchase it. If one slips through the net, I don't bother trying to force it down.
I put the game down and uninstall the moment it stops being fun. I get 1-2 hours on a really good weekday a couple days a week to play. For a game reviewer, yeah you can play terrible games to get a better feel for what is good / bad. I'm at 6 games this year on x360/ps3 and 4 or so on PC that I dropped because they sucked in the first hour.
But most people will have preferences in the types of games they like, and it makes no sense at all to play anything less than something that is good (by your taste).
I used to play every game start to to finish regardless of quality. Now I have less tolerance for shit because it wastes time I could be spending on a good game. The last game I gave up on was Inversion. Now I'm playing Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010). Seems smarter to me.
If I buy a game I feel like I need to finish it. That said, I have a lot of unfinished game because a lot of games lose their momentum long before they are done.
I own a ton of games I haven't even touched and about a dozen that I've gotten about an hour into. I try real hard to not start new games before finishing the last one and I'm starting to make progress. I beat Blue Dragon a couple of days ago.
I try to finish every game I play, but if I'm bored I just junk it (like I did with Final Fantasy XIII, for instance). It's so much more difficult for me to play through a game I hate than, say, watch a shitty movie or whatever.
If the game is really good, I'll play through it until completion. However, there are many games sitting in my drawer that I have given up on. Most I will go back to and complete eventually, but they aren't a high priority.
I will stop playing a game the exact moment I'm no longer enjoying it on balance. I think the worst instance of this for me was Syndicate. I literally played to the last boss and just set it aside because he was a cheesy motherfucker and I had no patience.
I find it extremely difficult to finish modern games due to their autosave structure. I've had to restart Red Dead Redemption and Oblivion numerous times due to the game accidentally loading an older save, followed by overwriting my real newer save with data taken from the old one. Or in the case of Borderlands, PSN auto-uploading a far older save, thereby ruining my game after switching to a newer ps3. Halo 2 I could never finish because its progress auto saves only mattered when you die...turning off the game removes all of those checkpoints. I got stuck in both God of War 3 and Zelda Wind Waker at spots their own prima strategy books tell me how to advance on,
I don't buy bad games so it is never a problem for me. I finish them every time. A couple of times it has felt like a chore though, like with Dead Island and Kingdoms of Amalur.
I tried that, then I got far too many Steam games. For now I'm working on a "play till I know I hate it" policy. When I'm finished with the backlog, then I'll make sure to only get games I intend on actually playing.
Probably close to 85% of the games that I have started I have also completed. It was higher until I got PS+. They just throw games at you so fast that if something isn't good you don't feel bad about not playing it.
I'm the same way -- XBLA and Steam really kill my completion rate. I download random sale stuff or stuff to use my odd leftover points and never come back. Plus, things like the humble bundle I buy because of the cause and there are a few on each I probably never touch. GameFly is another thing that killed my rate. If I paid for it I am more likely to finish it but if I can send it back and get something else I usually choose that option on subpar games.
Too many games and too little time! This is especially true around this time of year.
I'm the opposite. If I don't like it I have better things to do with my time
Pretty much this. But this is also why I cherry pick what games I play. In terms of big releases I usually only buy games when I know i'll be able to beat them. I wait for the games I missed when they are cheaper, or just straight up skip them sometimes.
With that said I am pretty bad at buying cheap indie games and never beating them. I have about 30 hours in binding of issac, and never beat mom. I have about the same in FTL and never beat the last boss. I might just suck at these kinds of games...
I only complete games that hold my interest for most of the story. If I'm not intrigued by the story beats or entertained by the gameplay, I would probably play another game.
To be quite honest I like playing through a wide variety of games. Most often I randomly pick up games on my backlog and play them to see if I want to go through them. Most recent example was beating three N64 games I haven't played for a while in Banjo Kazooie, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, and Spider-Man. I personally do not want to force myself to play a game because I'd much rather take my time with them, and focus on playing the ones that really catch my attention.
I've been having to buckle down as far as buying games are concerned since I don't have the funds to spend $60-$100 a month like I used to. In it's own way that kind of restriction has me wanting to go play the games I already got instead of buying a game, playing it for an hour, and put it back on the shelf to focus on the newest thing.
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