An introduction that is 45 minutes of cutscenes instantly fails at having good pacing.
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The importance of pacing.
- Thread starter Randomizer
- Start date
An introduction that is 45 minutes of cutscenes instantly fails at having good pacing.
Green Mamba
Member
Pacing is definitely incredibly important and very under appreciated. And I think you hit the nail on the head for why Ocarina of Time still holds up so well to this day and why the newer games tend to drag--it's absolutely pacing. Ocarina of Time's pacing I think is part of what makes people love it so much, and I don't think they're necessarily aware of it.
Prime 3 did get this better than Prime 2 did, which is probably why it left a better first playthrough impression on me, though subsequent playthroughs made Prime 3's flaws more readily apparent.
TW101 has terrible pacing. Levels go on forever, especially the boring scrolling shooter parts. It's always on, which is fine in and of itself, but the game itself is so much longer than you would anticipate that it just gets exhausting.If your looking for a game with good pacing. The wonderful 101 has you covered
This is absolutely true. Prime 2 almost seems like it was designed specifically to be slower than its predecessor at times. I mean, it actually takes a half second longer to scan things in Prime 2 than it did in the first, for no apparent reason.Metroid Prime 2 is a fantastic example of bad pacing. All of its main flaws are things that slow the game down: The unnecessary ammo system, the dark world safe zone waiting, the Dark Pirate Commando battles that lock you in a room, the excessive backtracking, the tedious dimension switching cutscene, the more gated world design, and that fucking Sky Temple Key hunt that brakes the game to a screeching halt right between its two best sections. Even the good parts (like the confusing twisty layout and the complex puzzles) end up making the game longer than it should be.
It's still one of my favorite games ever, but Retro really messed up its flow.
Prime 3 has many flaws, but it completely fixed the pacing problems of the previous game, and I applaud it for that.
Prime 3 did get this better than Prime 2 did, which is probably why it left a better first playthrough impression on me, though subsequent playthroughs made Prime 3's flaws more readily apparent.
Wolfenstein The New Order had some great pacing.
Hell yeah, TNO's pacing was amazing. Another game that had great pacing and didn't overstay it's welcome was Tales of Vesperia.
You're absolutely right about the importance of pacing, and not many games really nail this aspect or it just doesn't seem to be a focus. Some even make the mistake of thinking that content, no matter what the quality or its place in the context of the rest of the game is valuable. This is also why I'm totally against the idea of the breaking up an experience into pieces with certain DLC and trying to insert bits and pieces here and there with little regard, because it absolutely has an impact on the way a game is played and how it can affect progression and pacing.
But yeah, Resident Evil 4 has absolutely incredible pacing, the game ebbs and flows so naturally and has such an incredible rythm to it. Every combat scenario seems to have a sense of dynamism to it which means that you rarely feel like one is exactly like the other, the game can escalate within a moment's notice or build up slowly, sometimes it doesn't even escalate but manages to imbue a sense of anticipation or tension. The way that exploration, item management and "down time" contrasts with the intensity of the combat situations is masterfully done.
But yeah, Resident Evil 4 has absolutely incredible pacing, the game ebbs and flows so naturally and has such an incredible rythm to it. Every combat scenario seems to have a sense of dynamism to it which means that you rarely feel like one is exactly like the other, the game can escalate within a moment's notice or build up slowly, sometimes it doesn't even escalate but manages to imbue a sense of anticipation or tension. The way that exploration, item management and "down time" contrasts with the intensity of the combat situations is masterfully done.
To me pacing is absolutely an element of gameplay, but that's because I don't think gameplay should equal mecahnics. Mechanics are just that, the mechanics. Gameplay to me is the overall composition of mechanics with the level design/encounter design and the pacing. Some games that pacing can be a little relentless and it works for that type of game: for instance Bayonetta 1 and 2 aren't some golden examples of great pacing, but their all systems go feel doesn't hinder the experience.
On the flip side something like Vanquish felt monotone, because it's attempt to go low were just straight boring (sniping lights), and its ramp up was just more of the same shit I was already getting just more of it.
That said yeah, pacing is huge, and it ruins a lot jrpgs/wrpgs for me. Because those games are usually padded and drawn out with lame gameplay segments that just make the game fucking drag.
On the flip side something like Vanquish felt monotone, because it's attempt to go low were just straight boring (sniping lights), and its ramp up was just more of the same shit I was already getting just more of it.
That said yeah, pacing is huge, and it ruins a lot jrpgs/wrpgs for me. Because those games are usually padded and drawn out with lame gameplay segments that just make the game fucking drag.
Mineshaft_Gap
4077th
I was just going to make a thread like this. RE4 citation and all.
WrenchNinja
Member
But what constitutes pacing exactly in a game? Can't be with plot IMO. I say this because some games I consider to have good pacing, the plot is either nonexistent or secondary. However, I do love it when games do nail a well paced plot, though it can be hindered by what the game itself brings to the table of what the player has to overcome. Brining up Okami, the game went on and on but I feel it worked out fine for the first two parts considering you could split the game in three portions. The final scenario, while it isn't entirely unpredictable, could've been alluded to more. Even giving a name to the dark entity or giving it personality would've worked. This way, you could see the three parts of Okami as stand-alone parts, almost like a trilogy within one disc considering the first part ends on a positive note, the second on a sad note, and the third ending everything. Kinda reminds me of the original Star Wars trilogy. If you've played Okami through, you know exactly what I'm referring to within the three parts and their conclusions.
The entity is named Yami, they mention this. He is the Emperor of Eternal Darkness, which is funny cause Yami literally means darkness.
Your Star Wars comparison is pretty apt, Yami is kind of similar to the Emperor in RotJ.
Great post btw
Flawless pacing is one of the main reasons why I love playing the Call of Duty games. The levels and totality of the game's experience is a wonderfully executed rollercoaster ride that I love partaking in now and again.
I noticed one person mention RPGs as having atrocious pacing and I would hesitate to agree, although I see why the sentiment exists. RPGs are strange by nature because they want the player to simply exist, breathe, and participate in the world that was created. Such as the Elder Scroll games that want you to simply travel and adventure the land and talk with townsfolk, solve problems, etc.
Then you have the more story focused varieties like Dragon Age. Origins and Inquisition are pretty different in pacing even though they are very similar in structure and nature. Origins, although packed with side content, feeds in plenty of story and dialogue and actual interacting with characters often enough to where I feel it drip feeds you actual role-playing often enough.
This isn't true for Inquisition. I spent a total of 100 hours just recently to complete my first playthrough. As much as I enjoyed it, I thought it was a bloated mess and felt that I did so little actual talking and roleplaying of my character and it just turned into a combat slog and menial task slog for too much of the time.
I noticed one person mention RPGs as having atrocious pacing and I would hesitate to agree, although I see why the sentiment exists. RPGs are strange by nature because they want the player to simply exist, breathe, and participate in the world that was created. Such as the Elder Scroll games that want you to simply travel and adventure the land and talk with townsfolk, solve problems, etc.
Then you have the more story focused varieties like Dragon Age. Origins and Inquisition are pretty different in pacing even though they are very similar in structure and nature. Origins, although packed with side content, feeds in plenty of story and dialogue and actual interacting with characters often enough to where I feel it drip feeds you actual role-playing often enough.
This isn't true for Inquisition. I spent a total of 100 hours just recently to complete my first playthrough. As much as I enjoyed it, I thought it was a bloated mess and felt that I did so little actual talking and roleplaying of my character and it just turned into a combat slog and menial task slog for too much of the time.
Frequent pacing flaws that I see in games:
1) The game takes way too long to become a game. There are some examples of this in the OP, and a whole heck of a lot more out there in the gaming world, but suffice to say that if I'm not in your core gameplay loop in under 30 minutes, you have failed in the pacing department. (Hell, let's be honest - if it takes longer than 30 seconds you have failed a little bit) Over-tutorializing and over-expositioning are the main culprits when it comes to this issue.
2) The narrative or game progression sputters and the game gives you a bunch of bullshit to do to pad out the game. Red Dead Redemption's second half is almost entirely this stuff. Basically nothing goes on of importance in the story, and nothing goes on in the gameplay progression either other than a bunch of busywork.
3) Poorly-thought-out difficulty spikes or valleys. It's not only narrative that needs to be paced well in a game; difficulty, new abilities, new obstacle types, and player learning curves all need to be laid out properly as well. This means you avoid sections which are too hard or too easy for the player at various points in the game. It also means that if the game has a series of new abilities learned, such as a Metroidvania, that those abilities are learned at a reasonable pace. Too many in a short span of time can overwhelm the player, and long stretches without new abilities can make things feel stale.
4) Unnecessarily long retry times. Modern Mario is a major offender in this department. Meat Boy and the newer Rayman games changed expectations for platformers by putting the player right back into the action as soon as they fail. Mario still dumps you to the overworld, where it requires you to select a level and perhaps an item and confirm just to try the level again. Racing games also tend to be really obnoxious offenders in this department.
1) The game takes way too long to become a game. There are some examples of this in the OP, and a whole heck of a lot more out there in the gaming world, but suffice to say that if I'm not in your core gameplay loop in under 30 minutes, you have failed in the pacing department. (Hell, let's be honest - if it takes longer than 30 seconds you have failed a little bit) Over-tutorializing and over-expositioning are the main culprits when it comes to this issue.
2) The narrative or game progression sputters and the game gives you a bunch of bullshit to do to pad out the game. Red Dead Redemption's second half is almost entirely this stuff. Basically nothing goes on of importance in the story, and nothing goes on in the gameplay progression either other than a bunch of busywork.
3) Poorly-thought-out difficulty spikes or valleys. It's not only narrative that needs to be paced well in a game; difficulty, new abilities, new obstacle types, and player learning curves all need to be laid out properly as well. This means you avoid sections which are too hard or too easy for the player at various points in the game. It also means that if the game has a series of new abilities learned, such as a Metroidvania, that those abilities are learned at a reasonable pace. Too many in a short span of time can overwhelm the player, and long stretches without new abilities can make things feel stale.
4) Unnecessarily long retry times. Modern Mario is a major offender in this department. Meat Boy and the newer Rayman games changed expectations for platformers by putting the player right back into the action as soon as they fail. Mario still dumps you to the overworld, where it requires you to select a level and perhaps an item and confirm just to try the level again. Racing games also tend to be really obnoxious offenders in this department.
higgsboson1997
Member
For me, it's the most important aspect. That's my problem with most games with a story-focused campaign, actually.
That is why I get bored sometimes in Zeldas and don't like them as much as everyone else seems to. One game I thought that had pacing was Zelda: A Link Between Worlds- even though it's from a series I'm not a particularly big fan of, it's one of the best games I've played. Flows perfectly from beginning to end.
That is why I get bored sometimes in Zeldas and don't like them as much as everyone else seems to. One game I thought that had pacing was Zelda: A Link Between Worlds- even though it's from a series I'm not a particularly big fan of, it's one of the best games I've played. Flows perfectly from beginning to end.
Pacing is very important to me and I feel its an under appreciated aspect of game design now. The shift to open worlds has certainly set things back as how do you pace something when the player can go off and do their own thing all the time. If you're leaving it up to the player then how do they even know which optional side mission offer a change of pace. But its not just open worlds that have this problem, we also have the super streamlined games that decided to cut out all the filler and just focus on the one core mechanic and this can be really fatiguing unless you really love that play style.
I loved listening to the developers commentaries in HL2: Episode 2 which is a incredibly well paced game and listening to the commentaries tells you why. Their playtesting sessions highlighted when players tired of something and thus when it was the right time to move on to a different segment of gameplay. I can't remember exact lines but it was things like "we found most players would get tired of constant high intensity shooting at this point so we inserted this little puzzle room just give the players a breather before the 2nd part of this section." Though probably better then how I made that sound
I loved listening to the developers commentaries in HL2: Episode 2 which is a incredibly well paced game and listening to the commentaries tells you why. Their playtesting sessions highlighted when players tired of something and thus when it was the right time to move on to a different segment of gameplay. I can't remember exact lines but it was things like "we found most players would get tired of constant high intensity shooting at this point so we inserted this little puzzle room just give the players a breather before the 2nd part of this section." Though probably better then how I made that sound
I currently play Persona 4 and I bhave the suspicion that a huge part what makes the game so well-paced is it's day-structure. Some days don't even last one whole minute. It's more akeen to an mobile game to be honest. This sometimes makes me question the sort of pacing though. It's almost to mechanical.I noticed this earlier that the only games people seem to mention are Action games. The genre tends to be the best fit for great pacing but great pacing is entirely possible in any genre. Persona 4 Golden had great pacing couldn't put that game down. Metroid Prime and Super Metroid have great pacing too but their exploration based nature means there can be a lot of back tracking. This keeps them for being in the top tier for me but they are close.
With playing DA:I recently I found that pacing is really hard to do in open world games. Since so much depends on the player's choice, it's way harder to design a given story without the player being able to break the pacing too easily. If you know what I mean... (Edit: I should probably make the destinction between gameplay- and story-pacing... mhm)
This is true. Some people hated the long separation between the first gyms in Pokemon XY, but I loved it. Spent 10 hours between each of the first 3 gyms, exploring the world and taking in the sights.Good pacing is very hard to pull off, but there's also a parellel problem going on, which is the players' mindset. If a game is slower on purpose to allow for breathing room, world building, character development or whatever else and someone wants to blaze through the game, the pacing will seem much worse. The opposite can also happen of course.
Thinking about it too much is also a problem as the player tends to be inclined to see a problem he/she wouldn't otherwise see.
I also loved spending several hours in the Citadel at the beginning of Mass Effect, talking to every NPC and doing side quests, despite the lack of action there.
Parhelion69
Member
The old Final Fantasy games had perfect pacing
FF IV - IX were perfect in this aspect ( X and XII were excellent games, but their pacing wasn't as good as the former ones)
Also, Zelda: A link to the past was great.
Recent games are kinda forgetting this, and it's a shame. Only ND games seem to consistently have good pacing (well, they're narrative heavy so maybe that's a focus as well)
FF IV - IX were perfect in this aspect ( X and XII were excellent games, but their pacing wasn't as good as the former ones)
Also, Zelda: A link to the past was great.
Recent games are kinda forgetting this, and it's a shame. Only ND games seem to consistently have good pacing (well, they're narrative heavy so maybe that's a focus as well)
John Kowalski
Banned
I liked the pacing in Okami. Go up, then go down, then up again, then down again, i liked that.
Although when the game truly ended i was left still wanting more.
Although when the game truly ended i was left still wanting more.
Canis lupus
Member
Some of the memorable games with the best pacing I've played were GoW 2, UC2 and TLOU. Naughty Dog and SSM are masters of pacing.
Open world games with fetch quests have the worst pacing.
Open world games with fetch quests have the worst pacing.
I believe pacing is often the most overlooked and under discussed aspect of game design. Storyboarding and pacing are extremely important and a huge part of film. As games are much longer it should be just as important. Pacing is so essential it should be up there with gameplay, art, graphics & sound when attempting a critical analysis of a game.
Pacing can be pretty hard to quantify and explain. It is the general flow of a game. Some simple pacing examples
There was already a thread today about how RE4 has probably the best pacing in gaming. With this great quote from EmCeeGramr:
- The variety of gameplay, e.g. a high action combat sequence vs low slow exploration period.
- These high's and low's balance each other out for the optimal experience leaving the player satisfied, never bored.
- The timely introduction of new characters/items/plot points/gameplay elements.
- Every aspect of the game is delivered to the player at just the right time to keep the game interesting.
Okami is a game with bad pacing. Some of the worst pacing issues I have seen in a game. Even though I adore the game, seemingly more so than most other Kamiya fans. I can agree that the game's largest fault is it's absolute dogshit pacing. Too long and often times too repetitive, you fight the same 10-15 minute boss 4 times throughout the game. It was also the never ending game, there were honestly 3 or 4 occasions when I thought it was about to end and it didn't. It started out as a charming, whimsical adventure with a natural flowing story. It over stayed it's welcome and the story slowly developed into a nonsensical ineffective one which felt like it was artificially extended to make the game longer. A great game but one that may have been viewed much more highly with some tweaking and improvements in regards to pacing.
Similar games with bad pacing from the Zelda series, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess & Skyward Sword. I still consider each of these games as amazingly designed and would say that each one is better than Okami but they have their flaws. The later half of Wind Waker (Triforce Hunt) is terrible as is the small amount of dungeons, although this was mainly due to lack of development time. TP and SS have extreme slow introductions that last far too long, making replays a daunting prospect. Also TP does not contain enough exploration, sidequests or minigames outside the main game. SS also has lack of sidequests, minigameshas plus a small barren overworld and a lack of environments, three main environments plus a hub. It's strange as I believe Nintendo made the most perfectly paced adventure game with Ocarina of Time. It had the perfect mix of story, dungeons, combat, puzzles, minigames, exploration and secrets all laid out with a perfect flowing pace. Every aspect of the game delivered to the player at just the right time to keep the game interesting.
Pacing may be important but Gameplay is still king and as such trumps pacing. A game with great gameplay and bad pacing is worth playing but a game with bad gameplay and good pacing is not worth playing. A game with great gameplay and great pacing is likely an all time classic and a must play. I honestly believe there may be a golden ratio for pacing in game design. Games like RE4, OOT, MGS3 & Uncharted 2 should be studied and played by all designers to help construct the most perfectly paced game possible.
At last, someone with an ounce of fucking sense.
I often talk about this as well with some friends, but most people don't seem to care. They just care about the absolute number of hours. Less than 8 hours bad, more than 15 hours good.
But, in my opinion, it really depends on the game's genre. 15 hours for an RPG is too short whereas 15 hours for a survival horror is too long.
Alien Isolation, would have had perfect length and pacing if it had dropped the part
after the first xenomorph is ejected.
But the end became very boring (even though the last hour or so was not bad).
I agree that a short game with perfect rhythm and pacing is always better than a hundred boring hours. That's something I always take into account, and I, too, think that more people should.
Well, you compare two extremes in difficulty here.Some of the memorable games with the best pacing I've played were GoW 2, UC2 and TLOU. Naughty Dog and SSM are masters of pacing.
Open world games with fetch quests have the worst pacing.
GoW 2, UC2 and TLOU have a very controlled environment. the developers can very easy dictate the flow of the story and gameplay, since there isn't any room for the player to take another route, waste time or get lost in side activities.
Open World games are all about the side activities. They much more want you to take breaks and explore the environment between the main-game. Since they can't really dictate the flow of the game, sometimes the pacing doesn't work very well. At least the player can make it own decisions.
I guess, it is really hard for developers to really control and manipulate a player in Open World games, especially since there is still a lot of room to analyse and explore those types of games. Plot-heavy and linear games can at least borrow a lot of technics from other media like movies.
dark_inferno
Member
Pacing is very important.
But a bad ending could break your nearly perfect pacing. For example Arkham Asylum and Arkham City had some great pacing (When you just cut off the ending). You get stronger and stronger and the whole story unfolds. You are more and more interested in how it ends and how the climax will be... and then you fight against a boring Endboss.
Naughty Dog for example are masters with pacing. Uncharted 2 for example throws a good amount of climaxes at you with enough time between to build it up. The same goes with TLoU.
COD on the other hand just shits on pacing. Shit is hitting the fan the first minute you have a real mission and then its just explosions,explosions and explosions. (CoD4 had good pacing but MW2 just took the "Bigger = Better" stuff to heart)
I think he means main mission Fetch-Quests. And if he means that than i have to agree with him. Fetch-Quests as Main Quest missions are the worst thing you could do to destroy the pacing (Im looking at you Zelda).
But a bad ending could break your nearly perfect pacing. For example Arkham Asylum and Arkham City had some great pacing (When you just cut off the ending). You get stronger and stronger and the whole story unfolds. You are more and more interested in how it ends and how the climax will be... and then you fight against a boring Endboss.
Naughty Dog for example are masters with pacing. Uncharted 2 for example throws a good amount of climaxes at you with enough time between to build it up. The same goes with TLoU.
COD on the other hand just shits on pacing. Shit is hitting the fan the first minute you have a real mission and then its just explosions,explosions and explosions. (CoD4 had good pacing but MW2 just took the "Bigger = Better" stuff to heart)
Well, you compare two extremes in difficulty here.
GoW 2, UC2 and TLOU have a very controlled environment. the developers can very easy dictate the flow of the story and gameplay, since there isn't any room for the player to take another route, waste time or get lost in side activities.
Open World games are all about the side activities. They much more want you to take breaks and explore the environment between the main-game. Since they can't really dictate the flow of the game, sometimes the pacing doesn't work very well. At least the player can make it own decisions.
I guess, it is really hard for developers to really control and manipulate a player in Open World games, especially since there is still a lot of room to analyse and explore those types of games. Plot-heavy and linear games can at least borrow a lot of technics from other media like movies.
I think he means main mission Fetch-Quests. And if he means that than i have to agree with him. Fetch-Quests as Main Quest missions are the worst thing you could do to destroy the pacing (Im looking at you Zelda).
I think this is why people think Uncharted 2 is a lot better than Uncharted 3, it's the pacing
2 has excellent pacing whereas 3 has awful pacing, 3 starts off with too many puzzles and then has parts like the cruiser and the build up to that which is just one never ending gunfight for about 2 hours
2 gets the balance just right, never throwing too much of one thing at you in one go, and that's really the difference between a 10/10 game and an 8/10 game
2 has excellent pacing whereas 3 has awful pacing, 3 starts off with too many puzzles and then has parts like the cruiser and the build up to that which is just one never ending gunfight for about 2 hours
2 gets the balance just right, never throwing too much of one thing at you in one go, and that's really the difference between a 10/10 game and an 8/10 game
I have a different opinion on this point. For me it's the difference between ordering food in a good restaurant or ordering fast-food. Developers don't have much ways to punish players Either give them bad feelings (through story, animations, etc.) or steal there time. Since Mario games aren't story heavy, they have to punish you with retrying a level. It's a punishment you want to avoid and therefore you're playing much safer. In games like Super Meat Boy failing is almost meaningless, unless you try to get a good time. Speed running through a Mario Level feels much more exciting, since you know the people have to go through a lot of mistakes and invested a lot time to become this good. The same reasons people love Dark Souls by the way.Frequent pacing flaws that I see in games:
4) Unnecessarily long retry times. Modern Mario is a major offender in this department. Meat Boy and the newer Rayman games changed expectations for platformers by putting the player right back into the action as soon as they fail. Mario still dumps you to the overworld, where it requires you to select a level and perhaps an item and confirm just to try the level again. Racing games also tend to be really obnoxious offenders in this department.
Still you can at least speed up some parts of the game, to give the player a better feeling of going back into the game. (aka don't force them back to the world map).
Everything can work, even Fetch-Quests. They of course need to be interesting and carefully paced in between other missions. The Zelda series for example has a lot of good and bad examples in the category of Fetch-Quests.Pacing is very important.
I think he means main mission Fetch-Quests. And if he means that than i have to agree with him. Fetch-Quests as Main Quest missions are the worst thing you could do to destroy the pacing (Im looking at you Zelda).
Skyword Sword for example is a mess of Fetch-Quests. There are sometimes a string of those missions with noting in between. Ocarina of Time's Goldene Skulltulas on the other hand works very well, since it spaced through the whole length of the game and there are different peaks of completions. So you don't need all the Skulltulas to still get nice rewards and feel satisfied.
Blackquill
Member
Okami is a game with bad pacing. Some of the worst pacing issues I have seen in a game. Even though I adore the game, seemingly more so than most other Kamiya fans. I can agree that the game's largest fault is it's absolute dogshit pacing. Too long and often times too repetitive, you fight the same 10-15 minute boss 4 times throughout the game. It was also the never ending game, there were honestly 3 or 4 occasions when I thought it was about to end and it didn't. It started out as a charming, whimsical adventure with a natural flowing story. It over stayed it's welcome and the story slowly developed into a nonsensical ineffective one which felt like it was artificially extended to make the game longer. A great game but one that may have been viewed much more highly with some tweaking and improvements in regards to pacing.
Even though I agree with you on the bad pacing of Okami I think the problem is the early part where there are A LOT of cutscenes with slooooooooow defiling text (probably the biggest flaw of the game). You also have little to no power and you are stuck in the Kamiki village. It becames ok in the shinshu plains and becomes godlike after the first boss (except the Orochi dungeon and the loooooong boss). But I also agree the very last part of the game is cheap, Kamui is still a great final arc except that.
Cave Johnson
Member
There was already a thread today about how RE4 has probably the best pacing in gaming.
I know the feeling, it's why I do not want to start it up (until the GAFFER HD texture pack is complete). Once I start this game, something inside of me will always push to finish the game. I remember wanting to try the harder difficulty RIGHT after my Wii playthrough and I ended up spending another 5 hours.
Fucking phenomenal game. What they took away from the core of the series turned it into the best, undisputed shooter on the market to date. And that Wii-mote combination.. designed by the heavens I tell you!
My favourite game for pacing is Half Life 2.
It has masterly gameplay pacing, constantly adding new elements and in each case finding just the right way to teach you what to do without a single screen prompt (it's amazing to play it now and imagine the near constant screen prompts it would have if made today.
It has a very simple but well executed "road trip" narrative paving that starts by showing you in first level your ultimate destination, then takes you on a long but sensible road trip the long way round to climax at that destination. During the trip the basic plot and backstory are delivered with zero cutscenes or other breaks from playing.
It also has a great use of mechanic reversal throughout, where what's right for one level becomes what's wtong for the next - one of the most obvious examples being the ground thumpers. At first the game teaches you to want them on and prioritises firing them up, then later this is reversed and shutting them down becomes the priority.
Portal (1 and 2), Uncharted 2, TLOU, RE4 and others all have good pacing as well.
It has masterly gameplay pacing, constantly adding new elements and in each case finding just the right way to teach you what to do without a single screen prompt (it's amazing to play it now and imagine the near constant screen prompts it would have if made today.
It has a very simple but well executed "road trip" narrative paving that starts by showing you in first level your ultimate destination, then takes you on a long but sensible road trip the long way round to climax at that destination. During the trip the basic plot and backstory are delivered with zero cutscenes or other breaks from playing.
It also has a great use of mechanic reversal throughout, where what's right for one level becomes what's wtong for the next - one of the most obvious examples being the ground thumpers. At first the game teaches you to want them on and prioritises firing them up, then later this is reversed and shutting them down becomes the priority.
Portal (1 and 2), Uncharted 2, TLOU, RE4 and others all have good pacing as well.
Tye The Czar
Member
If it weren't for the pacing, Serious Sam 3 would have been a far better game. The worst part of the pacing was that it constantly threw tons of hitscan enemies - in addition to the Kleers and Kamikazes - at you from every side.
Many of the deaths felt too cheap for me to continue playing, so I went back to Interceptor's Rise of the Triad and Painkiller. Yes, I went there and said RotT and Painkiller are better than Serious Sam.
Many of the deaths felt too cheap for me to continue playing, so I went back to Interceptor's Rise of the Triad and Painkiller. Yes, I went there and said RotT and Painkiller are better than Serious Sam.
I have a different opinion on this point. For me it's the difference between ordering food in a good restaurant or ordering fast-food. Developers don't have much ways to punish players Either give them bad feelings (through story, animations, etc.) or steal there time. Since Mario games aren't story heavy, they have to punish you with retrying a level. It's a punishment you want to avoid and therefore you're playing much safer. In games like Super Meat Boy failing is almost meaningless, unless you try to get a good time. Speed running through a Mario Level feels much more exciting, since you know the people have to go through a lot of mistakes and invested a lot time to become this good. The same reasons people love Dark Souls by the way.
Still you can at least speed up some parts of the game, to give the player a better feeling of going back into the game. (aka don't force them back to the world map).
You still have to go back to the beginning of the level and complete the sequence all in one shot. Adding two loads and two button presses to a restart isn't a punishment, it's bad UI design. Dark Souls has nothing of the sort, either, so I don't know where you're getting that. You go back to the bonfire quickly (relative to the pace of the game) and automatically, and must replay the section again up to where you were. It loads once, out of necessity, and super quickly if you play on PC. Since it's a slower-paced game, the couple seconds of "You Died" screen is less of an annoyance, and there's no input requirements from the player to try again.