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Real Time Story In Video Games

B

Bukana

Member
To explain this,

How long do you think it takes for the main character in that game from start to finish, to get to the end of the story [In-Game Time] !? . For example:

Resident Evil 2:
I think the whole story of Resident Evil 2 takes place in a day, approximatley 5 to 6 hours.

Metal Gear Solid:
12 hours
(with the tutoring sessions)
.

Residen Evil 4:
4 to 5 hours !?


I hope you get the idea, because I've always thought about this, because I would spend days/weeks playing a game, I would ask myself, didn't the developers think of a way to make them rest, eat!? Thus, the realization of actual in-game took place.

*P.S. If you have a suggestion for the title, please post it, because I can't think of another topic*
 
Majora's Mask was originally supposed to span 7 days, I hope they reinsert that time-concept into the 3DS version.
 
Speaking of Metal Gear, I specifically remember Campbell telling Snake that there was some sort of deadline, like 12-16 hours or something, before Liquid launched the nukes.
 
Dunno if it coutns since Im playing since yesterday, but in Disgaea 3 a history character needs to find something in 666 hours or he will not be the same..
 
927204_65922_front.jpg
 
lolez2matt said:
Dunno if it coutns since Im playing since yesterday, but in Disgaea 3 a history character needs to find something in 666 hours or he will not be the same..
Click to expand...

Lol, I'm playing that game right now too, today was when
Mao told Almaz about the 666 hours
, the game is incredible, I've never experienced anything like it. So many awesome Japanese pop-culture references too.

I doubt the character will find his something in time.

Have you tried the item world dungeons? I don't feel like going off-track for 10 levels, maybe after the main storyline.

Disgaea 3 is dope. :)
 
SMT said:
Lol, I'm playing that game right now too, today was when
Mao told Almaz about the 666 hours
, the game is incredible, I've never experienced anything like it.

I doubt the character will find his something in time.

Have you tried the item world dungeons? I don't feel like going off-track for 10 levels, maybe after the main storyline.

Disgaea 3 is dope. :)
Click to expand...

strangely enough, I had the game on ps3 and found it boring... Bought it yesterday for Vita and is different!!! This game is made for portables!
Item world: Still reluctant to play it.. maybe when I´m stuck I will try it.

Another game with real time is Persona 3 and 4 :P
 
Bukana said:
To explain this,

How long do you think it takes for the main character in that game from start to finish, to get to the end of the story [In-Game Time] !? . For example:

Resident Evil 2:
I think the whole story of Resident Evil 2 takes place in a day, approximatley 5 to 6 hours.

Metal Gear Solid:
12 hours
(with the tutoring sessions)
.

Residen Evil 4:
4 to 5 hours !?


I hope you get the idea, because I've always thought about this, because I would spend days/weeks playing a game, I would ask myself, didn't the developers think of a way to make them rest, eat!? Thus, the realization of actual in-game took place.

*P.S. If you have a suggestion for the title, please post it, because I can't think of another topic*
Click to expand...

Totally didn't notice the in game time... *sigh* Hrm.
 
lolez2matt said:
strangely enough, I had the game on ps3 and found it boring... Bought it yesterday for Vita and is different!!! This game is made for portables!
Item world: Still reluctant to play it.. maybe when I´m stuck I will try it.

Another game with real time is Persona 3 and 4 :P
Click to expand...

The Persona games definitely aren't in real time.

I can't quite remember how realistic it was, but I remember the time of day changing very slowly over the course of Crysis, so I could be wrong but I think that it might have been real time, or close to it.

Edit: After re-reading the OP, I guess it's not asking for games that are real time, but just games where you can tell how long the story takes to play out. So I guess Persona would count, since they take place over the course of a school year.

Bully is the same way, the story happens over the course of about nine months.
 
dr3upmushroom said:
The Persona games definitely aren't in real time.

I can't quite remember how realistic it was, but I remember the time of day changing very slowly over the course of Crysis, so I could be wrong but I think that it might have been real time, or close to it.
Click to expand...

But, you know in what date the game starts and in what date it ends...

Or did I misread something?
 
dr3upmushroom said:
The Persona games definitely aren't in real time.

I can't quite remember how realistic it was, but I remember the time of day changing very slowly over the course of Crysis, so I could be wrong but I think that it might have been real time, or close to it.
Click to expand...

They take place during a specified amount of time, but you only see bits and pieces.
 
Resident Evil 4 actually takes place over the course of something like 12 hours. The game starts on evening, then there's a part where Leon get's knocked out and wakes up at night. He continues his mission until the final battle with Sadler by which time it's already the next morning.

Another interesting one is Winback. The game tells you that you have five hours until the terrorists make another strike, and not meeting that deadline in real time actually affects the ending.

One that the developer did a poor job of illustrating is Assassin's Creed II, which takes place over the course of 22 years. The only clue you get is when a city reloads with a different year displayed in the opening cut scene, but it leads to some weird scenes that make it look like Ezio waited two years to report on the completion of his mission. Ubisoft probably wrote it so that the mission took place over the course of two years but didn't really convey that. Brotherhood looked like it was going to do better since it started at "December 1500" and then transitioned to "January 1501" but after that totally dropped all time-stamps, so you had to guess what year it currently was in-game by reading codex entries of missions you completed.

Edit: Oh, misread the OP. Well, Winback definitely still counts.
 
lolez2matt said:
But, you know in what date the game starts and in what date it ends...

Or did I misread something?
Click to expand...

Galactic Fork said:
They take place during a specified amount of time, but you only see bits and pieces.
Click to expand...

The first time I read the OP I thought that he meant real time games as in times passes in real time. RE4 would be considered real time since it takes a few hours to beat and the game takes place over a few hours.

I guess we're actually talking about games that take place over a specific amount of time, which isn't what real time usually means.
 
Prince of persia classic also comes to my mind.

You have 60 minutes to rescue the princess or else you will be late and she will be gone.
 
dr3upmushroom said:
The first time I read the OP I thought that he meant real time games as in times passes in real time. RE4 would be considered real time since it takes a few hours to beat and the game takes place over a few hours.

I guess we're actually talking about games that take place over a specific amount of time, which isn't what real time usually means.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought at first, but this line kinda clears it up:

"How long do you think it takes for the main character in that game from start to finish, to get to the end of the story [In-Game Time]"

I think people listing games like Majora's Mask and Persona are kinda joking because the times are specified and you don't really have to guess. Though Majora's Mask is actually accumulatively longler because of time resetting (which makes saying it even more of a joke).
 
Galactic Fork said:
That's what I thought at first, but this line kinda clears it up:

"How long do you think it takes for the main character in that game from start to finish, to get to the end of the story [In-Game Time]"
Click to expand...

Yeah, I caught that the second time I read the OP. Seems like a weird thread though, I was interested to see examples of games that actually play out in real time, but you can make a guess to how long any game takes place over.
 
I was expecting a discussion of games that altered the story in response to time spent by the player.

For the OP though here is one I am wondering about
Metal Gear Solid 3 - the game has lots of breaks and a few day/night transitions.

I saw it in a thread that one of the genesis Sonic games went from day to night to morning throughout the levels.
 
The World Ends With You fits this pretty well, right? I mean technically the game takes place over the course of
3 weeks iirc
but there is pretty much no time skipping or anything that I can remember, you are with them from the moment they wake up until the moment they sleep, or whatever happens to end that day.

Not exactly a short amount of time compared to the examples in the first post, but it's the same idea.
 
Alex Kidd in High Tech World is about making it to an arcade before it closes at 5 pm. So I think it's 7 hours of game-world time from start to finish?
 
It always kind of bugged be that you'd get a call in GTA IV like:

"Nico! Shit's bad! Get down here as soon as you can! We need help!"

Then I'd go bowling with Roman and shit, and get there days later and everything was okay.
 
Resident Evil 4 goes from day to night to day again. That's a bit more than 5 hours, even taking into account time compression due to lack of BBQs in Europe.

Whoever mentioned Half-Life 2 happening over three days - Gordon and Alyx go missing for a week inside the teleportation network.

Not a Jellyfish said:
As much as I love this game that just seems so unbelievable to me.

So many boss fights, I can't even believe Batman could withstand that in a single night. :(
Click to expand...
It was very much comic book Batman, not movie Batman. He can achieve much in one night. It also seems a realistic time frame, once you remove Riddler trophy hunting!
 
ctrayne said:
Front_Mission_5.jpg


About 50 years. 50 real years of MC's life, no time travel or anything like that. :)
Click to expand...

Front Mission 5, will play later this summer.
 
In Kid Kool on the NES time progresses at a rate of 1 hour real-time equaling 1 day in game, with the background changing in accordance with the time of day. The plot of the game involves gathering medicine for a sick king. The king will die in 3 days, so if you can't beat the game in 3 hours he dies and you get the bad ending.
 
This was pointed out to me once, and I think it's pretty cool:

Sonic 1 takes place over the course of a day.

Green Hill Zone - Midday
Marble Zone - Evening
Spring Yard Zone - Dusk
Labyrinth Zone - Unclear, since you don't go outside
Star Light Zone - Night
Scrap Brain Zone - Dawn
 
Wouldn't Resident Evil 4 be more than four to five hours considering it's daylight when you arrive at the village and then dawn at the ending?
 
Suairyu said:
Whoever mentioned Half-Life 2 happening over three days - Gordon and Alyx go missing for a week inside the teleportation network.
Click to expand...

True, although Valve don't seem to factor that into the in-game timeline (insofar that the "three days" figure is mentioned in Raising the Bar).
 
Sorry for the confusion guys,

If you read the first line you would understand, to put it in other words:

"How long does it take from the Main Character's perspective to reach the end of the game!?"
For example,

Jill in Resident Evil 3,
I think it took her four hours to escape from Raccoon City
, right!?
 
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