icame said:
Also, while I disagree on both points of Half life and mass effect, fine, lets assume for a second that you do indeed have to try to get into them. There's a difference between 2 hours or so, and TWENTYFIVE TO THIRTY.
I would like to point out that even fans of the game say it takes about four to six hours. Heck, some people like it from the beginning, hate it, then end up loving it again which isn't
exactly a bad thing. I mean, I can think of parts in most Zelda games that I don't care too much for and their loved by almost everyone.
My point is, a slow start isn't reason for dismissal. If it was really twenty to thirty hours, I'd concur. Completely. That's too much. But it takes about six hours for each disc when you're taking it slow, and the game starts to gain interest right before disc two. It's during disc two where I can honestly say it wowed me. And I expected to despise this game being a die-hard fan of JRPGS such as FFIX, Xenogears, Lost Odyssey and the Tales franchise.
People in reviews aren't exaggerating when they say it gets
really great twenty hours in. Twenty hours in is about the time you put in disc three and the world become wide open where the player gets access to complete free-roam, missions, and even goals to work towards. Once there, you realize that the whole game had been prepping the player for that part in general, so that they wouldn't have to master the battle system whilst trying to get lost, nor would they have to worry about setting up the story in a free-roam environment. It was actually a smart development choice that tried to satisfy both fans of the linear FFX and the nonlinear FFXII. It's just that the game requires commitment.
Also, I agree with you about HL2 and ME. However, I let friends borrow those games and it took a lot of effort for them because, unlike us, they don't play a lot of games. Thus, I was speaking purely from past experience.
