Checkpoints

raddevon

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Edited By raddevon

Once this thing has killed me, I will not have to trek across the entire city to try again.

When inFAMOUS was the shiny new thing, I thought I wanted every game to have its checkpoints. If you happen to die, you lose practically no progress whatsoever. It made me incredibly frustrated to go back and play a game like GTA IV. Not only do I lose a lot of progress when I die, but I have to go back to the character who gives me the mission then drive to the mission itself before I can actually try again. This is, without a doubt, a flawed system. Then, along came Shadow Complex...

You're going to have to re-play some to get back here... but that may be what pushes you forward.

Shadow Complex hits a middle ground between inFAMOUS and GTA. You will lose progress in this game. However, you will lose, at most, 5-10 minutes. Intuitively, it would seem that it is always bad, but I feel Shadow Complex uses this to its advantage. I come to points in the game where I think I may want to quit, but I am often between checkpoints. I don't want to lose the progress I have made toward the next checkpoint so I push on. Many times, by the time I have reached the next checkpoint, the game has recaptured me and I repeat this process. This is what led to my playing five or six hours of the game yesterday.

Having experienced the frustration of GTA IV (I have all but given up on actually finishing the game in spite of the fact that I have only a few story missions remaining.), I would never have considered there might be a game in which fewer checkpoints would be a positive. Now, I'm not so sure. There are isolated times when I die, reload, and realize I don't have the patience to cover the same ground again. That leads to a break from the game. Usually, by the time I have re-played whatever section led to that, I find that I could have taken another path to reach a checkpoint before I died the last time; it just so happened that I took the wrong path.

Where do you stand on checkpoints? Is more always better, or does it depend upon the game? I'm going on record to say the amount of progress that can be lost in the latest GTA is always inexcusable. Under no circumstance should I be forced into 15 minutes of play just to begin the mission on which I was previously killed.

14 years ago

raddevon

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#1 Edited By raddevon

When inFAMOUS was the shiny new thing, I thought I wanted every game to have its checkpoints. If you happen to die, you lose practically no progress whatsoever. It made me incredibly frustrated to go back and play a game like GTA IV. Not only do I lose a lot of progress when I die, but I have to go back to the character who gives me the mission then drive to the mission itself before I can actually try again. This is, without a doubt, a flawed system. Then, along came Shadow Complex...

Shadow Complex hits a middle ground between inFAMOUS and GTA. You will lose progress in this game. However, you will lose, at most, 5-10 minutes. Intuitively, it would seem that it is always bad, but I feel Shadow Complex uses this to its advantage. I come to points in the game where I think I may want to quit, but I am often between checkpoints. I don't want to lose the progress I have made toward the next checkpoint so I push on. Many times, by the time I have reached the next checkpoint, the game has recaptured me and I repeat this process. This is what led to my playing five or six hours of the game yesterday.

Having experienced the frustration of GTA IV (I have all but given up on actually finishing the game in spite of the fact that I have only a few story missions remaining.), I would never have considered there might be a game in which fewer checkpoints would be a positive. Now, I'm not so sure. There are isolated times when I die, reload, and realize I don't have the patience to cover the same ground again. That leads to a break from the game. Usually, by the time I have re-played whatever section led to that, I find that I could have taken another path to reach a checkpoint before I died the last time; it just so happened that I took the wrong path.

Where do you stand on checkpoints? Is more always better, or does it depend upon the game? I'm going on record to say the amount of progress that can be lost in the latest GTA is always inexcusable. Under no circumstance should I be forced into 15 minutes of play just to begin the mission on which I was previously killed.

14 years ago

CL60

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#2 Edited By CL60

I've lost all faith in humanity if somebody can't finish GTAIV because it's to hard.

And you realize in GTAIV you can just open the phone and hit retry mission? And with Lost and The Damned you restart at the place you die.

14 years ago

Bigandtasty

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#3 Edited By Bigandtasty

Shadow Complex's checkpoints are indeed a pretty sweet spot.

As for checkpoints in general, I'd say it's mostly dependent on the game. Whatever fits the style and feel of the game...

14 years ago

raddevon

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#4 Edited By raddevon

@CL60: You still have to drive back to the mission from the hospital even if you retry. I don't have Lost and The Damned.

So, you have lost your faith in humanity because I am not as proficient at killing people as you? I'm struggling to understand.

14 years ago

raddevon

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#5 Edited By raddevon

@Bigandtasty said:

"As for checkpoints in general, I'd say it's mostly dependent on the game. Whatever fits the style and feel of the game... "

This is where I stand currently. It seems there are multiple ways to do it right.

14 years ago

breadfan

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#6 Edited By breadfan

@raddevon said:

You still have to drive back to the mission from the hospital even if you retry.

Nope, just pop up your phone and select retry mission and it takes you back to the beginning. You don't even need Lost & Damned to do it

14 years ago

raddevon

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#7 Edited By raddevon

@Br3adfan: Hmm. Apparently, my memory needs more checkpoints.

14 years ago

GunstarRed

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#8 Edited By GunstarRed

GTA IV has the shittiest checkpointing..as in NONE until the very last mission, probably the only really high profile release I haven't finished without using the phone cheats. it's pretty unreasonable to demand so much in a game that has such a high level of randomness like getting stuck in a bit of scenery, a friend drowning for no reason a car that swerves out in front of you making you fly into the water only to get gang raped bysnipers from every angle.
I am not bad at games, I'm all for challenge, I thoroughly enjoyed the hardcore nature of splosion man or bionic commando but even they have checkpoints that are mostly reasonable.

shadow complex has a pretty good/transparent save system and despite me moaning about how far away some checkpoints were I realized it was only because I had lost progress due to dying whilst being overly exploratory...although to some degree that is against the design of the game...

maybe some games should have different checkpoints for different difficulties..... anything is better than the NON-checkpoint checkpoints from rise of cobra... fuck you rise of cobra!

14 years ago

CL60

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#9 Edited By CL60

@raddevon said:

" @CL60: You still have to drive back to the mission from the hospital even if you retry. I don't have Lost and The Damned. So, you have lost your faith in humanity because I am not as proficient at killing people as you? I'm struggling to understand. "

No you don't.

And because GTAIV really isn't that difficult of a game and if somebody can't beat it because it's too difficult for them so they give up....sigh...

14 years ago

Bigandtasty

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#10 Edited By Bigandtasty

@marioncobretti said:

" shadow complex has a pretty good/transparent save system and despite me moaning about how far away some checkpoints were I realized it was only because I had lost progress due to dying whilst being overly exploratory...although to some degree that is against the design of the game...! "

Yeah I agree somewhat; I had a tendency to go straight for the save point and avoid exploration if I was low on health.

14 years ago

Baillie

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#11 Edited By Baillie

I gave up on GTAIV because it was too difficult to understand why it was such a shit game. This isn't about GTA though is it? It's about checkpoints, stay on topic.

I agree with the sentiments on GTA, the checkpoints are annoying, infamous was good, but that kind of had no drawback to dying. I haven't played shadow complex, but it does sound like a sweet spot for checkpoints.

14 years ago

Claude

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#12 Edited By Claude

I only had a few missions to go in GTA IV and quit. I sold the game and never looked back, because as a gamer in this game, I would fail and start over and over and over. I like a save anywhere game, screw checkpoints.

14 years ago

raddevon

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#13 Edited By raddevon

@Claude: That's an approach I hadn't even thought about for this post. Save anytime to essentially make your own checkpoints. I think I like this method coupled with a checkpoint saving system a la Fallout 3 in case my memory fails.

14 years ago

Lowbrow

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#14 Edited By Lowbrow

I think the logic here is a bit flawed.

The saving system in Shadow Complex works very well for Shadow complex because its a series of rooms. Clear one room move onto the next. Every 10-15 rooms, save point.They basically pace the game for you. You save when the developers thought it was a good idea for you to save. The game is very structured in nature, and so are the saves.

GTAIV doesn't have the same type of save system because the game is laid out differently.

The only way you could possibly try to make them the same is if you had the game save for you automatically every 10 - 15 minutes.

The only time you really lose progress to a frustrating degree in GTAIV is when you get arrested because the cops take your weapons. That's pretty much it. Then you just need to grab a car, pickup some guns, pop your phone open, and reload the mission. Easy peasy.

And if you don't wanna spend the cash on more guns, and were smart about it, you headed back to a safehouse after each mission to save. Don't wanna drive there?

Press start. Make a waypoint. Get in a cab. Skip the ride back home. Voila.

14 years ago

raddevon

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#15 Edited By raddevon

@Lowbrow: I see that Shadow Complex is more linear, but, once you are in a mission in GTA, you are essentially on a linear progression to the end of the mission. There could be milestones in the mission that would trigger a checkpoint without resorting to arbitrary checkpoints based on playtime in a given mission. I think there is room to make the comparison.

14 years ago

Bigvic785

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#16 Edited By Bigvic785

@CL60 said:

" I've lost all faith in humanity if somebody can't finish GTAIV because it's to hard.

This.

GTAIV is one of the easiest game released. Its driving autoaiming and cover system. You can free roam too so if your low on health just get to a burger shot or hot dog stand. You deserve to start over if you die in GTA IV. The game was made easy so you could enjoy the story and immerse yourself in the characters. Who are you, Brad?

14 years ago

raddevon

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#17 Edited By raddevon

Had no idea I was creating a thread for everyone else to waggle their e-penises about how awesome they are at GTA! Does anyone have anything to say about fucking checkpoints instead of how ridiculously stupid I am for not having an easy go at GTA? Why don't you guys just post some pics of your actual penises next to a ruler. Let's cut the foreplay. Jesus Christ!

There's a whole forum about GTA. Start a topic and post about how awesome you are at the game. Tell us how quickly you can beat the game and how stupid anyone else is because they aren't as good or fast as you. See the title of this thread? It is "Checkpoints." How about we talk about those?

14 years ago

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