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Games with great pacing

The Hermit

The Hermit

Member
I was reading the Does Half Life 2 drag on too long trhead and realized that most of my favorite games suffer a bit of that (Metroid Prime,Shadow of Colossus, Ocarina of Time etc).

So I was wondering, what games have great/ perfect pacing?

Portal 1 came immediately to my mind. Such a short game yet so engaging. It never let you go, there always something in the corner that make us go there until its over.

What other games are like that?
 
Uncharted 2 comes to mind, and I will throw RE4 in that short list, even though I do so begrudgingly because I never finished it.
 
Resident Evil 4

Defined areas with tons of things to do in each chapter, story is cheesy but suspenfull enough that you want to see how it ends and there is truly never a dull moment.
 
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne. Barely any explanations before you're balls deep into the game.

You know what a sword is? Great. Here's half of one. Go get 'em!
 
If Last of Us had fewer raft sections and the Boston trek was about 20 minutes shorter, it would be just about perfect in that regard. Left Behind pretty much nails it.
 
Super Metroid is pretty superb, good pacing is very rare for longer games.
 
I agree with Resident Evil 4 and the Naughty Dog recommendations. These games expertly mixed intense moments with action-packed moments with quiet moments to create games that never dragged or make you wish they were over.
 
Resident Evil 4. The game just leads you from one scenario to another without ever boring you and gradually doling out different ways for you to kick suplex the shit out of bad guys.
 
Chrono Trigger, Resident Evil 4, Undertale all come to mind. Probably not a coincidence that they're comparatively short games.
 
Enter the Dragon Punch said:
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne. Barely any explanations before you're balls deep into the game.

You know what a sword is? Great. Here's half of one. Go get 'em!
Click to expand...
To be fair Dark Souls and Dark Souls II kind of have some pacing problems, mostly because some areas are... idk, let's call them rough.
 
Mainline Ratchet & Clank games. Those games have such a nice rhythm to them. as great a game as A Crack in Time is imo the hover board mechanic didn't allow for the same kind of pacing.


Fletch said:
Wolfenstein The New Order
Click to expand...


For me the big flaw with that game is the fetch type missions they send you on when you're in the house that serves as a sort of base of operations. Those killed the pacing for me
 
Portal and RE4 are the obvious ones.

I'd also argue Bioshock, up until the end (where it drops pretty hard), and Chrono Trigger, besides one section
right after Chrono dies when the world suddenly opens up without much direction
.

Others are harder to define, as pacing is sort of wobbly on games that are non-linear or segmented into levels. I think a game with good pacing is easy to judge if you can, or at least wish you could, finish the game in one sitting (given a weekend or so), so the definition also gets rough on games more than 20 hours or so. I think there are many other games I want to put on that list (N64 Zeldas, for example), but it's hard to tell when I have to break it up into play sessions over a couple weeks.

I disagree with Uncharted and The Last of Us though. Those games really slogged for me when it got more action heavy (or God forbid those awful "puzzles" they throw at you). It needs character moments to shine. It has many of them, but a bit too much "game-iness" in between for the pacing to be smooth for me.
 
Sword Of Doom said:
For me the big flaw with that game is the fetch type missions they send you on when you're in the house that serves as a sort of base of operations. Those killed the pacing for me
Click to expand...

I actually really liked those. They broke up the balls-to-the-wall action and gave you moments of quiet and solitude, which is perfect for a shooter.

Uncharted 2 was already mentioned but I thought it had top-tier pacing. Probably the best of any Naughty Dog game.

This one might be a little controversial but I thought the Tomb Raider reboot was pretty damn good too. It had a great mix of exploration and combat, and gave you the ability to explore areas if you wanted to.
 
The Devil Survivor games tell you from the beginning that there are only 7 days left. The clock is constantly ticking, so you can only selectively choose your sidequests. The clock is a great pacing mechanism.
 
Enter the Dragon Punch said:
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne. Barely any explanations before you're balls deep into the game.

You know what a sword is? Great. Here's half of one. Go get 'em!
Click to expand...

The only one that doesn't have pacing problems is Demon's Souls imo. The other 3 have clear pacing problems at a certain point.

Dark Souls 1:
After you get the Lord Vessel, the game's pacing essentially goes to shit thanks to some very poorly designed areas and bosses. Feels rushed which is unfortunate as up until that point, the game has been masterful.

Dark Souls 2:
There isn't as clear cut objective and the vagueness makes it seem pretty poorly paced. You just learn everything in the last few areas and then face the final boss who just learned about a few hours ago. It definitely suffers the least out of the 3.

Bloodborne:
The game is brilliant but after the nightmare of Mensis, you'd expect this to be the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3 is about to approach but then you realise it is end game and that's it. Maybe it's because the other Souls games are noticeably longer but that is one of my few criticisms of Bloodborne
 
Anyone mention COD4 yet? That is still the best roller-coaster a COD style campaign has ever been.

Enter the Dragon Punch said:
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne. Barely any explanations before you're balls deep into the game.

You know what a sword is? Great. Here's half of one. Go get 'em!
Click to expand...

Souls games have terrible pacing. You got the most random difficulty spikes and huge leaps or dives in quality of the design in some areas.


But thats kind of the charm. Those games have a flow all of their own.
 
Uncharted 2 had sublime pacing. I've never been so engrossed in a game before or after


I also think the original Modern Warfare, Call of Duty 4 had a spectacular campaign with great pacing
 
Arcade games do this out of necessity. Some of my favorites in that regard are probably Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Ghosts 'n Goblins (sort of a shame about those mandatory second loops, though), Alien vs. Predator, Ketsui, Espgaluda, Rastan, and Ninja Spirit.

I was playing Sin and Punishment (the first one) earlier, and that probably counts too.
 
I'm going to give a weird example and say Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel. It's your standard TPS, but the story, missions and level design flow really well.
 
I don't think TLOU or UC2 are paced perfectly. They have excellent pacing for the majority of them, particularly at the start where it matters most, but both drag towards the end. Tomb Raider 2013 is the same; it has good pacing for the most part and then right at the end it goes horde mode with wave after wave of enemies.

Arkham Asylum has perfect pacing.
 
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