Jimquisition: Linearity versus Replayability

personion

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I just watched a guy called Total Biscuit rant for 20 minutes about games not having replay value because they have no mulitplayer, and this was like a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
 

Kahunaburger

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Warlord Timmy said:
Kahunaburger said:
Wow, so replay value is replay value? Good thing we have the hard-hitting jimquisition to tell us that! Keep aiming for those challenging targets, Jim. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAT15I-QnBY]
>missing the entire point of the video
That video barely had a point. He was saying that linear games can have replay value if they're worth replaying - i.e., replay value = replay value. Wow, video game journalism at its finest!
 

intheweeds

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It's simple linguistics really:

re·play (r-pl)
tr.v. re·played, re·play·ing, re·plays
To play over again: replay a tennis match; replay a tape; replay history.
n. (rpl)
1. The act or process of replaying.
2. Something replayed.
3. An instant replay.

Anytime you are playing something you haven't played before (dlc, multiplayer after the main campaign) is inherently not 'replay'. You haven't played it before. It's new. Replay in my eyes is only playing the game you already played - again.
 

Xanadu84

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I think Jim is rather horribly ignoring something important here. Its not that a game needs multiplayer for replayability, or that lack of multiplayer means no replayability. But it sure as hell HELPS. Games are all about learning and experiencing new things. The saddest thing in the world for me to see in games is someone who has played Counterstrike 1.6 every night for the past decade, or someone who has never stopped playing Starcraft or WoW in order to try something new and different. Sure, I love Lord of the Rings, for example, but I don't consider someone who has read the entire LotR trilogy 48 times NEARLY as enriched as a person who has read a breadth of literature. Yes, I played Portal a second time. After about a year. And it was absolutely not as fresh and intriguing an experience as the first time I played it. We, as a community, will rail against publishers for releasing a redundant sequel, and then support replaying the same game again, experiencing a mostly similar experience? The problem here is not to insist that Multiplayer doesn't helps replayability: Is absolutely does. The problem is that we need to realize that memories and experience from a truly fantastic single player are more worthwhile then a thousand hours worth of tacked on multiplayer. Think about it, which game are you more glad to have played: Portal, or a random game that lasted 8 hours?
 

Hitman Dread

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I think Jim is missing the larger problem here: we rate games as if they are a product of practicality. No matter how much a video games enhances your life, it will never be practical, so when we rate games high or low based on things like the amount of time that can be spent on them in relation to the amount of money earned, we are selling are medium short and placing them along aside lawn mowers and tool shed equipment.
 

AgentBJ09

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Jim Sterling said:
Sometimes, Jim wishes he could be you so that he'd also experience the joy of enlightenment each Monday. This week, we look at the mythical struggle between linearity and replayability.
I vote for Jim singing, and dropping a mic if he can, at the end of each episode. That would be truly epic and enjoyable.

------------

In all seriousness though, I do agree with your points about multiplayer getting shoehorned into games that didn't need it, and that it's taking time away from the reason most folks buy games: The Single Player.

As for the idea of replayability, having played through The Warriors maybe 8 or more times in total, I do agree that even if a game is linear, if it's fun, who cares? I go back to that game because I want to punch the puke out of other gang members, toss them through debris, or enjoy the story that Rockstar made around the story of the film, which I have seen maybe ten times already because it's just an awesome movie.

However, that game wouldn't have been complete without the Rumble Mode or even the Co-Op gameplay, so at times, multiplayer makes the game work better as a whole. The thing is it's up to the developers to make the best call on that, but they can be influenced in the wrong directions if they are not careful.
 

Epona

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Sylocat said:
I'm still waiting for him to make any points that haven't already been covered better and funnier by ZP and/or EC.
Can't tolerate content that isn't new?
 

Kahunaburger

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Warlord Timmy said:
Kahunaburger said:
Warlord Timmy said:
Kahunaburger said:
Wow, so replay value is replay value? Good thing we have the hard-hitting jimquisition to tell us that! Keep aiming for those challenging targets, Jim. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAT15I-QnBY]
>missing the entire point of the video
That video barely had a point. He was saying that linear games can have replay value if they're worth replaying - i.e., replay value = replay value. Wow, video game journalism at its finest!
So you're all mad and snarky because he said something that made sense?

What he was getting at was that majority of the gaming industry believes that adding multiplayer gives a game more replay value than making a quality singleplayer, and that this isn't entirley true.
I ain't even mad - just disappointed. He's actually a good writer on Destructoid, but seems to prefer to go for the low-hanging fruit on Jimquisition. It's easy to make an argument that makes sense without having it be completely milquetoast - just look at Extra Punctuation, Extra Credits, or even some of Jim's Destructoid articles.
 

Epona

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So he showed NSMBW as an example but didn't wasn't NSMBW designed around the multiplayer mode and isn't that multiplayer mode irritating as all hell? Doesn't that game fit the "it didn't need multiplayer" mold? Well, atleast not simultaneous multiplayer.
 

Callate

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Le *sigh*

I've played and replayed many of the same games Sterling mentions, and hell yes, I'm all for devs putting their time and effort into making good, solid single-player campaigns with tightly written stories and deep, enjoyable gameplay. Heaven knows it can be hard enough finding a handful of people to play a multiplayer game with, let alone people who will be enjoyable to play a multiplayer game with, without the game you're trying to find those players for being Cooking Mama 6: Decorative Frosting Cannon Free-For-All.

But I really don't feel this kind of vitriol is remotely warranted for people who feel they get more out of their games for having multiplayer or multiple endings or New Game+ modes. When all is said and done, this is a matter of taste and opinion, not something that one can simply sneeringly say "you're wrong" about without looking like a total wanker.

It's fair to point out to people with this mindset if they demanded multiplayer in Bioshock 2 and then griped about it or never played it; it's certainly not unreasonable to wonder if the inclusion of multiplayer diverts resources that would have been better allocated to the "real" game if such seems to have been the arrangement. But while we're on the subject, we might spare a thought to the developers who decided to spend their time and money that way, and recognize that there are other factors in play than just a certain kind of message board complainer. Extending gameplay by these mean is also one more hedge against the bugbear of the used games market, and in the case of multiplayer one more excuse to get players online, and thus one more way to collect information about the player base.

More thinking, less sneering, Jim.
 

Zhukov

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Uhh, well I agree.

...

Except I have never once heard someone say a game lacked replay value due to linearity.

Next week: the sky is actually blue!
 

Stabby Joe

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Metro 2033 was a brilliant and criminally overlooked game because like a good film it had great progression and atmosphere.
 

Lullabye

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You basically could have just showed a copy of SotC for 5 minutes and made the same point.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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Good episode, even though it was rather obvious. Also, cuntmushroom is now my new favorite word for this week.

I won't thank God for you Jim, but I will thank God for that lavalier mic you got. I was getting rather annoyed with the occasional audio drops.