Jimquisition: Linearity versus Replayability

Simalacrum

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Apr 17, 2008
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Nnnnnno. I completely disagree with what has been claimed in this video.

I'm sorry, but it is an obvious fact of life that repetition is boring, and that, especially in this day and age where people are so used to constantly changing entertainment that this natural irk from the same old is extended even further, that any type of entertainment, not just games, have limited replayability.

Sure, playing a game once, twice, or more times can continue to be fun - but after a while it will inevitably get boring.

You know why games continue to be fun? BECAUSE THEY'RE CONSTANTLY CHANGING. good games are good partially because they lack repetition - under the argument that the 'same old' is a good thing, then games wouldn't change; it's BECAUSE people get bored of repetition and entertainment in general lack complete (as in, you never tire of it) replayability that people keep churning out new and different things.

The reasons why multiplayer games often (note OFTEN, not always) have more replayability than single player games is because the unpredictable element of humans means that you end up with constantly shifting scenarios; while with NPC's you can eventually work out where they will come out of and how they will fight you (in violence games at least, that's just one example), in multiplayer games you never know where the next guy/gal will be; which increases the replayability.

Sure, eventually you can begin to predict where people will be in games and whatnot ("he's always in the plane cockpit..."), but a) I'm arguing that no game has total replayability, and b) it still adds significantly to how long a game can be played without the encroachment of boredom.
 

FallenMessiah88

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Jan 8, 2010
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You hit the nail on the head with this one Jim. I would take a well crafted singple player campaign over multiplayer any day.

Granted, if the multiplayer is good I will probably end of spending some time with it. If it feels tacked on or just sloppy, I'll mostly lose interest after a few rounds.

I would also have liked to see some of your suggestions as to how we could perhaps solve this unfortunate situation, but still you raise a good point.

Keep up the good work!
 

xAtomicHero

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Dec 17, 2009
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You heard it here first, if you like multiplayer games, you're brain dead. Maybe you should come up with some intelligent arguments instead of spending your time trying to be funny, while even doing a poor job at that.
 

SonofaJohannes

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I agree with you completely. In fact, I always get a new game primarily for the single player. And that FFIX cutscene made me a bit nostalgic. I had forgotten how hot Kuja was.
 

Swifteye

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Treblaine said:
Swifteye said:
Frozen Donkey Wheel2 said:
OK Jim, here's the thing: I agree with you about 95% of the time, but....listen carefully here...YOU DON'T HAVE TO ACT LIKE A DICK TO BE ENTERTAINING. It's not like if you stop ripping off Yahtzee we'll all just lose interest, OK? You're a smart guy. PLEASE start acting like one.
That's his character. he's not a new guy who is getting his start here this character previously existed elsewhere. Besides Jim is narcissistic while yahtzee is the cynic and Daniel is the nice smart guy.
It's not like we are going to mix him up with anyone else.

I loved him last week when he took off the black coat, discarded the shades and talked to us as Jim Sterling, not "Jimquisition". That was him being his own passionate self and be was effective and distinct.

He doesn't need a "gimmick", this isn't prime-time TV where everything must make sense to the dumbest guy in the room.

What is Movie-Bob's angle? He doesn't have one, he does not need one. He's just Bob. Same with Jim.
Movie bob does have an angle. On that particular show it's being a movie snob (although how much of it is genuine and how much of it is theatrics for humorous effect is to be discerned) in his big picture and the overthinker he gets to show off the primary nature of his character which is him being a giant nerd. When jim took off his jacket and spoke frank that was a special moment but it wasn't really like he changed his character really he was just a bit more direct and bit less sarcastic but he still used all the insults and the funny little photoshop pictures just like every other video he's made.

The act of making a show for the sake of entertainment is a little more complex than "make this pap enough to where the mindless drolls get it" although I understand how you might think that given that this is a rather snobby place which holds such beliefs to be self evident. It requires looking at what sort of audience you want and how you wish to approach them. This is the style that Jim has chosen, one that irks and annoys people but that's exactly what the character is supposed to do. Be irksome and annoying but also show a level of intelligence that makes one think (oh this guy is pretty smart but I wish he'd stop acting like a jerk) which I find amusing cause to be honest a lot of people on this website are like Jim. Really smart people who's arrogance and ego are really off putting but they do deserve credit for what they say.

And that is the core of Jim's character. He represents the egotistical bravado that infest places like the escapist where one can get so full of themselves that they can think they are better than everyone else and show it by saying ignorant arrogant things as they rant about stuff they know little about or stuff they know a lot about but has so little value that in the grand scheme of things makes that person look like a big idiot.
 

RobfromtheGulag

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I agree with the points brought up, but I wonder if there isn't some other reason for superficial added features. It is a highlight for people that are perhaps more casual.
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"You'll notice he's listening to Ace of Base" -South Park, The Prehistoric Cave Man
 

KhakiHat

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Good point Jim. You still sound like a prick, but at least your a prick with a point.
Wait... Urm...
 

Alcamonic

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I always enjoyed the FEAR series. The feeling you get by executing squads of enemies and hearing them shout "No fucking way!" as you trample over them is great.

Combat is fun, story is alright. Have not tried multiplayer on Fear 3 yet, but the co-op seems... well alright I guess, but it really ruins the atmosphear of the game.

I fully agree on certain other games like Bioshock 2. Story was really lacking.

Edit: I thank God for Jim every Sunday, and every Monday he blesses me with another episode.
 

Hugga_Bear

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May 13, 2010
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Aureliano said:
So, to recap: FF9, Portal and Bioshock are all good games?!?! Holy crap! It's not like there are video game critics out there by the hundreds who could have told me that, so I never would have known without you. [/sarCASM]

Seriously though: telling me that time-honored video game classics are good is like telling me that swearing in public is a bad idea. Not only does every functioning member of society over the age of ten know that, but you are also going to be wrong sometimes.

Take a risk, show us some video games we might not have tried before that are awesome and linear. Defend games commonly considered to be bad and show why they're awesome and game critics are stupids. But I really don't care that you think Mario is fun.
I get the feeling you may have missed the point. It wasn't "good games are good lolol" it was good games don't need multiplayer/cheap gimmicks to have replayability but have the replay value by virtue of being good.

I liked the video but I would love to see a multiplayer Bioshock done well. When Bioshock 2 worked it worked really well but it would often descend into cheap shots and same tactics over and over. Some aspects were brilliant though and some of the plasmid/weapon mixes worked really well. If they went to town on it with nice dedicated servers and a good population playing it I reckon it would be an amazing multiplayer game. Unfortunately I doubt the customer base is there and it would be costly, difficult too, especially with balancing.

Anyway, FF9 rocks ass. I have probably spent more time on single player games but it's quite close, between MAG and CoD4 particularly I've amassed a lot of hours online...still, good game is a good game. Much time spent on FO3 and New Vegas and so long spent on FF7 and 9 that I wonder how my younger self found the time.
 

NerfedFalcon

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Mar 23, 2011
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Jim, your show tends to be pretty hit-or-miss, but this was cutting-the-arrow-already-in-the-bullseye-in-half hit. Wanna go for a hat-trick?
 

PunkRex

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My God FF9 was fun, not to mention its aesthetics. Its story was as batshit bonkers as any other FF but definatly fun timez, FF10-2 aswell... except for playing Shinra at that crappy sphere break game... little prick.
 

internetzealot1

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Okay, just because you can replay a game does not necessarily mean that it has replay value. It just means that you didn't fully exhaust to entertainment value present during your first playthrough. For example, I've played through Dead Space 1, an exceptionally linear game, four times. Each playthrough was less enjoyable than the previous, and by the fourth playthrough I had to struggle to finish (only did it to get the achievement for beating it on Insane). Why? Because with each playthrough, the game became less organic and more rigid. It fell into a recognizable pattern. Now, I'd say that replay value is the ability of a game to disrupt that pattern. A game like Dead Space does very little to disrupt the pattern, therefore giving it little "replay value," even though there may be alot of potential "entertainment value" to be gained by replaying the game.
 

ZexionSephiroth

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Apr 7, 2011
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Normally the times I replay a game (or do anything again) is when I have spent some time away from it and have a dulled memory that's packed with emotional content, and I want to remind myself what it felt like.

...Call it...Nostalgia.

Of course that's just about all I feel strongly nowdays: Nostalgia. That's why I'm now dedicated to makeing new experiences, so I can dig them up in a year or so and feel the strong emotions I rarely feel day to day.

Seriously, I watched six whole seasons of Digimon in the last few months just because it was the first anime I watched... And doing so made me realise just how much I loved it. I'd do the same for kingdom hearts but then I'd have to find it... and stuff I lost has practicaly flung off the face of the earth.
 

CardinalPiggles

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I have to point out a flaw in your logic here, Portal 2 was an amazing game for me, but yet I never played it more than once, played the co op only once through too. I just can't be bothered to play it again, however much I liked it. Puzzle games (or puzzles in general) have no replay value. Once you have finished them, they are redundant.

Also, I find him more annoying now than before, why are people taking a shine to someone who is trying his hardest to insult them? It doesn't make sense. He's also just trying to say what people are already thinking subconsciously, thus making people think he is smart.

Thank God, for me :/
 

McMarbles

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When Jim's right, he's right.

I've always thought of online multiplayer not as replayability, but the illusion of replayability.
 

bombadilillo

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I maintain the world would be a better place if games were SP or MP only. I hate getting watered down nonsensical SP games because 3/4ths of the resources went to the multiplayer. Have your COD MP game. Go for it. Just dont pretent its a standalone game s well.
 

camazotz

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Ah, the voice of cold hard reason! Totally agree as usual. All of my favorite games became such for their single player campaigns, not their multiplayer--Mass Effect, Fallout 3, RE 1-4, Silent Hill (all of them), etc.

Thank god for Jim!

;)
 

camazotz

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CardinalPiggles said:
I have to point out a flaw in your logic here, Portal 2 was an amazing game for me, but yet I never played it more than once, played the co op only once through too. I just can't be bothered to play it again, however much I liked it. Puzzle games (or puzzles in general) have no replay value. Once you have finished them, they are redundant.

Also, I find him more annoying now than before, why are people taking a shine to someone who is trying his hardest to insult them? It doesn't make sense. He's also just trying to say what people are already thinking subconsciously, thus making people think he is smart.

Thank God, for me :/
Whether he intends it or not, Jim Sterling is falling under what I call the "Kaufmanesque" brand of satire and comedy. I can't take umbrage with him, because I know he's hamming it up, making it outrageous and (amidst all the showmanship) making a good point. It's apparently something the internet has a hard time recognizing for what it is: putting on a good show, sometimes at the willing expense of the audience.

Think of it like this: you go to a stand up comedy show, and the guy on stage is integrating jokes with the audience, making fun of some individuals. It's part of his act, and most of us recognize it. It may not seem so obvious here (thus why I liken him to Andy Kaufman, who had a habit in his shows of blurring the lines between reality and performance) but attacking im for doing what he does is comparable to getting pissed at the comedian on stage and attacking him with a beer bottle.

There's a place for this in comedy and stage, and to be honest Jim and Yatzhee both do variants of it, and it works.
 

Metalrocks

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i agree strongly with him. i always get sick when i hear people say that the game sucks just because it has no MP.
"oh, this game is not good because it has no MP and therefor not worth the money". so f***ing stupid.
damn, how many times have i replayed the half life games. mass effect 1+2. doom games (besides part 3), assassins creed 2 and brotherhood.
damn, even mirrors edge i have replayed so many times because i have simply fun playing it. how many people said there, it is not worth the money because of the lack of MP.
im not even fond of MP. the only MP game i really enjoy is TF2.