On The Jimquisition, host Jim Sterling, a writer for Destructoid.com, takes on a character who is self-impressed and insults those who disagree with him. It’s all tongue-in-cheek, though, and once you get past that you find that he does indeed have interesting things to say and in this case he’s spot-on correct. In his latest episode, Sterling takes aim at those who claim that a linear game lacks replay value because you’ve already seen those levels and you know how the story ends. Sterling’s response? “Bullocks”. Although he uses somewhat harsher language. But let’s let the cursebucket tell you himself. (Seriously, he swears quite a bit in this.)
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Focusing a bit more on the story side, and with a more toned down (but still with swearing) persona, here’s an older commentary from YouTube. (I just came across it and dropped it in at the last moment.)
I don’t play multiplayer at all. Part of it is due to not wanting to deal with certain kinds of people and not knowing if my internet speed is fast enough. I also don’t have the time, and prefer the single player experience anyway. The single player usually has the story elements, and that’s why I play War For Cybertron and I’m just not trusting enough to play the co-op campaign in Portal 2. That’s full disclosure.
On the other hand I don’t have any problem with it, but when I read reviews that what could have been a good single player campaign or story is reduced for that all-important multiplayer that the big companies insist must be in there (regardless of whether or not it’s even good much less enhances the experience), I become disappointed.
As Sterling said, all you need is a good game and story. Books and comics can be read numerous times, music is listened to more than once, and TV shows and movies are sitting on a shelf because you want to watch them again and again because you love the story. Although I know how season one of Magic Knights Rayearth ends, and it’s an ending that totally changes the way you see that season–an experience you can’t get back and why few in my circles who has ever seen the ending talk about it, thus saving that experience for the next person–I still enjoy watching it again because it’s a darn good story with fascinating characters you want to root for.
Now that video games are making the cross into storytelling, why are their stories no longer interesting after you’ve seen it? I know how the original Ninja Gaiden ends and I still want to play that game. I’ve played the movie and comic based Spider-Man games (the first movie) from years ago more than once because they’re interesting stories and fun to play. While I embrace the sandbox games and DLC as ways to enhance the story and the gameplay, are you really so busy playing every video game ever to enjoy an old game, perhaps during the summer slump when games aren’t coming out as often and your beach day is rained out? (Or today around here, when even the beach is too hot to get relief?)
Any good story is worth seeing again, possibly seeing a perspective or moment you missed the previous times. While hidden goodies and other achievements are nice, it should be the game itself, story or not, that brings you back. Like the ego man said, the game just has to be good enough to want to play again. That’s replay value. Otherwise, you’re just playing another game with the same character models. And cursing 12-year-olds with bad parents and enough time to learn how to kick your butt.
By the way, you can catch more episodes of The Jimquisition over at The Escapist plus his older episodes on Destructoid’s YouTube page, and his writings at Destructoid.com.
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