why are these new games so short?

[Yukon Trooper]

I wouldn't say they're all short. Lots of huge blockbuster titles mentioned in this thread that are plenty long. The titles that you chose to mention (COD4, Crysis) are multi-player games first and foremost. The episodic content for Half-Life 2 was meant to be released in short installments. Episode 1, 2 and 3 were meant to be seen kind of as a single game together. Put them together and you have a decently long game. We haven't even seen Episode 3 yet, but I imagine they are going to put out all stops for the finale.

 

If you want my advice go and play some old school single player games. I just played Thief 2: Metal Age because I hadn't played it yet. It's like from the late 90's I believe. I had only played the original Thief back in 2002 or something but remembered how much I enjoyed it, so I went and played the second installment. Right now I am starting the Hitman series from the beginning. I had only played Hitman: Contracts (3) about a year after release and am now playing Hitman: Codenmame 47 (1). After that I plan on playing Hitman: Silent Assassin (2) and Hitman: Blood Money (4). Some other suggestions to you would be the Max Payne series, System Shock 2 and the Deus Ex series. Also remember all the expansions and mods for certain games. I still have to go play the expansions for Doom 3 because I've only played the original so far.

 

I'm also playing the Witcher ATM which is a fantastic game. It's a fairly linear RTS game but I like it. I get lost in all the things to do in say a game like Oblivion. Witcher is done in chapters where you move to one zone, do all the quests, then move to the next zone. Great game so far.

[jaz]

i was just telling Thaxz, I'm starting to warm up to stalker. It's a totaly different game from anything I've ever played, and has a learning curve. But once you get to know what's up it becomes more fun. It didn't like me ocing my card though. For some reason it wants it to play at stock...lol.

 

But you made a good point. But i will be trying to find some of the more graphics intense games like doom expansion pack, fear extraction point,..etc. I got totaly spoiled by 1/2 life2. I loved it so much I played it 5 times already. But i won't see any improvements over my old setup with an ati x800xt PE and a mobile amd 4000+ @2.8 and 2gb of ocz pc500.

 

I was looking at witcher too.

[Yukon Trooper]

STALKER is great. I started playing it and got a few hours in, but decided to wait on a true next gen card to play it fully max at 60fps constant. I have an 8800GTS 640MB and I managed to get great clocks out of it, but I still get the occasional really low dip. It seems to happen inside more then outside, which is kind of odd. I'm playing at 1920X1200 but STALKER does scale well with higher resolutions anyways. No worries though because I'm still catching up on a lot of games I missed between 2000-2005.

 

Half-Life 2. Yah, WOW. I didn't play the original and EP1 until a few months ago, and played EP2 soon as it came out. It's amazing how the Source engine has stood the test of time. The graphics are great but the best part is definitely the physics and "feel" of the game. Best game I have played since the Splinter Cell series on Xbox. My main multi-player game is Day of Defeat: Source.

[Branjo]

Yeah 50 bucks for a 10-20 hour game really does suck, but as long as there is a multiplayer to it then its not so bad. Plus all those old games look and feel now the way they should have when they were released for cards like the 9800pro's and X800's etc.

Sucks that the latest card and latest game rarely go hand in hand, but give it a year or two and its a whole different game with all that eye candy goodness.

 

HL2 was an amazing game with graphics that were both awesome and easy on the GPU. The sound was a big plus for me, the echoing streets really gave that feeling of solitude, like it was just you in a huge city. Then when you run into the odd person hiding in a pipe you have a real need to talk to them from loneliness..lol.

 

Doom3 was another great game when you played it at 2am in a dark room, I don't think you could play that game first time and not be jumping in your seat every 5-10 minutes,

I think I smoked more while playing that game just to calm my nerves. definite Hall of Fame games for me anyway.

 

Im looking forward to BioShock and Stalker.

[Oceanborn]

Oblivion, my favorite game all around

bought it almost two years ago and still playing...so many mods that make the game even more interesting

[Angry_Games]

STALKER = turn off dynamic lighting and watch your fps jump up to 200+ (instead of the 10-50fps that it gives you with dynamic lighting on)

 

I still love STALKER and think it's the best FPS game I've played in a long time, followed easily by COD4 which is just incredible (technodan always gets killed in the first 9 seconds of the mission so that's why he thinks it sucks)

[Guest SuppA-SnipA]

are u following the story to STALKER? its pretty amazing, i really liked it

[Fogel]

I'd have to agree with the original point. Not too many games come out anymore with awesome Single player campaigns and great Multiplayer action.

 

CoD4 and Halo3 = 6hr single player campaign, as someone said... multiplayer only

 

I point out those two games because those are two games most of the geeks were yammering about years before they even came out. Seeing as how Halo 3 was the final game I don't see how I would rank it so high like most reviewers did. Great thing about games with good single player campaigns was skilling up on the single play mode. Typically gave you an edge against those who didn't and just went straight into multiplayer.

 

If STALKER comes to 360 like it is guessed to, I may give it a try but right now my current computer would never handle it. I can speak to Bioshock, and that is excellent game with enough length to make it worth your time.

[jaz]

I'm following exactly in AG's footsteps. At 1st I was really dissapointed that i wasn't going to like it, everything is different, I couldn't kill a pile of dogturd with a double barrel shotgun, but as i kept at it, trying to give it a chance, the more i liked it. Now, as i posted somewhere else, I got the latest patch (10005) that fixes a LOT of bugs, AND, I'm using a mod called faiakes 1.9 from file planet. you can read all about it there. Very popular.

 

Also in the online guide there you can edit the startup icon to avoid the intro and prefetch crap, and get right to the game. (It still loads everything up ok. Even better, they say.)

[Angry_Games]

I'd have to agree with the original point. Not too many games come out anymore with awesome Single player campaigns and great Multiplayer action.

 

CoD4 and Halo3 = 6hr single player campaign, as someone said... multiplayer only

 

I point out those two games because those are two games most of the geeks were yammering about years before they even came out. Seeing as how Halo 3 was the final game I don't see how I would rank it so high like most reviewers did. Great thing about games with good single player campaigns was skilling up on the single play mode. Typically gave you an edge against those who didn't and just went straight into multiplayer.

 

If STALKER comes to 360 like it is guessed to, I may give it a try but right now my current computer would never handle it. I can speak to Bioshock, and that is excellent game with enough length to make it worth your time.

turn off dynamic lighting and almost ANY pc can handle STALKER. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't take away from the experience in the least, and in fact adds to it because it doesn't hit areas that drag down to 10fps (considering even on my 8800GTS 320MB + 3Ghz Core2 + 2GB RAM with the game running 1280x1024 it does this).

 

edit: definitely going to install STALKER again after I'm done with Mass Effect on the 360

[suedenim]

Got part way into STALKER but then other games distracted me. One I will certainly be going back to, same for these games too that I haven't got round to finishing.

Oblivion + both expansions

Dark corners of the earth

Dark Messiah

Supreme Commander + Forged Alliance

Prince of Persia T2T

 

I also have COD4, Crysis, Gears of War and The Witcher waiting to be even installed. I need to not sleep, eat and get some cloning as its been a real good time for gamers recently.

 

I can get STALKER to run at almost max settings on my rig at 1680x1050. Hop over to tweakguides for some good tips. Unplug the internet and turn off your AV, firewalls and get friendly with the Task and Services Manager.

 

Just finished HL2 EP2, Portal and NWN2 this week. All brilliant and some of them were short which for a game junkie like myself can be a god send when you have little time to yourself. I hate not completing games as it seems like a waste of money and time unless, of course, it sucks and blows chunks big time.

[jaz]

"Unplug the internet and turn off your AV, firewalls and get friendly with the Task and Services Manager."

 

Good advice. I always do this with all gaming, even using the "services" to turn off security center and my antivirus, or it (AV) won't shut down in task manager. Also i practically copied Blackvipers xp windows service configuration settings for optimal gameplay.