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Games with the best pacing

G

Game4life

Banned
There are two games in the last two generations that I can think of that absolutely nailed the art of pacing. By pacing I mean the ability to offer inventive gameplay scenarios consistently through carefully crafted encounter and level design such that there is no single minute in the game that results in boredom. Even when downtime is introduced it is done so in such a perfect manner and at such perfect moments akin to a master conductor in an Orchestra. Games that make it extremely hard to put down a controller and where every game play hour is as exciting or inventive as the preceding hour. I have played many great games in the past but when I think about it many of them have not nailed this aspect.

So the two games that I am talking about are RE4 and Uncharted 2. Both masterclasses in how to handle pacing in Single player action games. Is there any games that GAF thinks is paced as well or better than these two games? If I have not tried them already I would love to try out the suggestions mentioned here.
 
For me recently it was TLOU. Never a dull moment for me in the campaign, didn't overstay it's welcome either. But I also agree with RE4. I need to replay UC2.
 
Hmm, I would vote for Alien: Isolation and Metro (it's great pacing if you play them both, the first one is a bit slow and the second is a bit fast, they end up balancing each other as a whole)
 
Vanquish has non stop action from start to end. Sure it's a very short game but it's quality over quantity I'm interested in
 
I found all the Uncharted games slow to get going OP.
Not sure if it's the slow story or the hard to get used to controls or what.
 
giancarlo123x said:
For me recently it was TLOU. Never a dull moment for me in the campaign, didn't overstay it's welcome either. But I also agree with RE4. I need to replay UC2.
Click to expand...

I think it started off strong, and then starts to putter out around the
Bill segment
. I actually gave up on the game around then only to return and muscle through it when Remastered came out. I'm glad I did because it gets good again shortly after.
 
Most of the god of wars with maybe the exception of 1 and Chains of olympus. And I'd also give a buck to Jedi Academy, but not jedi outcast. Cod 4 is also excellent.
 
Valus said:
Definitely Chrono Trigger.
Click to expand...

yeah this is what i immediately thought of. kinda peaceful, simple start then gradually the stakes get raised. like a big crescendo but there are nice little quite moments as well when you first enter new time periods to help you get a feel for the place and the characters in that particular era.
 
Resident Evil 4 and Uncharted 2 are the gold standard big budget blockbusters.

Chrono Trigger is great given its genre.

Indie games are generally good because they don't feel like they have to last an arbitrary amount of hours.
 
giancarlo123x said:
For me recently it was TLOU. Never a dull moment for me in the campaign, didn't overstay it's welcome either. But I also agree with RE4. I need to replay UC2.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I felt quite the opposite about TLOU. It's a great game, but it's pacing is it's weakest aspect, the whole game is a bit too long for it's own good. The first quarter of the game or so
up to the end of Bill's town
feels particularly slow IMO.
 
SalvaPot said:
Mother 3.

It grabs you with its narrative and it never lets you go.
Click to expand...

I agree wholeheartedly and would like to say EarthBound as well. It usually takes a lot for me to really get into RPGs like those, but I felt those two games combined the interesting narrative with the gameplay in such a way where the player wouldn't get bored with the game.
 
Disagree with Wonderful 101, there are certain stages, fights and sections (climbing, gamepad puzzles, unskippable cutscenes when replaying) that certainly do drag.

I'll say Uncharted 2. There was never a time I lost interest or felt like I was slogging through a section to get to the part I really wanted to see.
 
kingwingin said:
Vanquish has non stop action from start to end. Sure it's a very short game but it's quality over quantity I'm interested in
Click to expand...

Vanquish is a great game but I would disagree that its pacing was as good. There were very few WTF moments in vanquish that totally changed up the scenarios when it comes to level and encounter design. It was by and large small sandbox shooting without varying it up much. I can only think of the
that moving train
sequence that tried to really shake things up.

Ein Bear said:
To be honest, I felt quite the opposite about TLOU. It's a great game, but it's pacing is it's weakest aspect, the whole game is a bit too long for it's own good. The first quarter of the game or so
up to the end of Bill's town
feels particularly slow IMO.
Click to expand...

Yup. I think TLOU is a great game but it def does not have the great pacing as the other two games I mentioned.
 
Uncharted 2 is the gold standard.

Halo 3 was doing a pretty fantastic job of it until the penultimate level, goddammit.

I think I'd say Arkham Asylum as well, it separated out the gadgets and upgrades so well and made it very difficult to stop playing. You always felt like you were close to something big.
 
Metal Gear Rising, outside of Mission 3.

The boss fights are the meat of the game, naturally, but the gameplay against enemies ramps up pretty quickly, too. Especially when you start playing on Very Hard and the designers are like "Cool, we'll start you with a Gekko in the first encounter. He'll kill you in two shots. Hope your parrying is good!"
 
Bastion is a masterpiece in this area. The standard pacing is great and offers you to mix things up if the combat starts getting repetitive with shrine system. Also, challenge rooms if you really like a particular weapon.
 
It might not have the variety, but Max Payne 2 nails the action/down time balance. It's one thing the new one lacked with all the cut scenes rushing you into the next fight.
 
jesu said:
I found all the Uncharted games slow to get going OP.
Not sure if it's the slow story or the hard to get used to controls or what.
Click to expand...

Interesting. 2 started of very well I thought. I can understand 1 and 3 feeling slow but 2 starts of with a bang.
 
Most recently I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor's pacing. Story missions would usually add a new ability or gaming mechanic allowing you to handle early game challenges when its possible to feel overwhelmed at times
such as when two captains show up just when you are about to kill the one captain you had set out to kill and are already seriously outnumbered
. As the game unlocks new areas, even more game mechanics are revealed allowing even more wrinkles to the already fun nemesis system
such as branding
.
 
This may not be a common answer, but I thought Binary Domain had amazing pacing.

Edit: When I think of pacing, I think of a gradual build to an enjoyable climax, the idea that things are consistently building, not necessarily that there are is constant action.
 
I can't disagree with picks like RE4 and Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger especially, you can point to pivotal moments like arriving in the future and learning just how much bigger and more serious this adventure was going to be, after having just concluded a solid arc and done something that could have been a final boss fight in it's own right.

I recently replayed God of War 2 for the first time since 2007, on Vita, and came away absolutely loving it where I only enjoyed it back then (and used to think it was a slightly disappointing follow up). I think that game definitely had great pacing, escalating spectacle and immensity, and then soft calms for brief, intuitive exploration. The way it throws mid bosses and bosses, and significant challenge scenarios, at you in succession almost feels like a Treasure game... but remarkable in it's own right for working within a much less quirky, "anything goes" kind of motif where it's an easier design feat to throw anything at the player at any time. Even the way it introduces new and old abilities/weapons, feels smart and well timed... ie: holding out on stone gaze for quite awhile, whereas having it pretty early on in GoW1 made it such a go to decimation for almost every significant battle, unless you actively chose to ignore it.
 
The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Punch-Out!! (all), Super Mario Bros. 1-3, Mega Man 1-5

The game is constantly giving you things to advance into without any bullshit
 
Ys Oath in Felghana is the best paced Action RPG I have ever played. No bloat and a nice amount of hidden stuff to find. Going from Mine > Ruins > Inner Mine > Mountain > Castle >Evil Island Ruins felt like the perfectly paced adventure that never overstayed it's welcome.

The plot progressed nicely too. Chester's story and the story of the people on the island was really tight.
 
Great pacing throughout:

Uncharted 2
Resident Evil 4
The Last of Us (somewhat slow until you get to Bill's town)
some 90s to 2000 era Final Fantasy games
Super Mario Galaxy
 
I'll put in an odd entry: Binary Domain. I played the last 6 hours of the game straight because the plot was moving so rapidly, and the game itself was also constantly escalating its encounters.
 
Palculator said:
Wonderful 101.
Click to expand...

I know GAF loves this game (including myself), but to say it has the best pacing? That's just straight wacky. There's a bunch of mini-gamish segments that are sprinkled throughout that drags on.


My first thought would be Resident Evil 4. You can prove me wrong, but I just can't seem to think of a better example. It has a fantastic full on village segment that straps you in, then just has fantastic segments and set pieces that vary in intensity. You have slow plodding sections for slight exploration, then move on to large encounters, with scary areas and bosses littered throughout. It's such a well crafted game.
 
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