Are you a gulper or do you savour every moment?

I like to take my time too. I like to get my money's worth.

Bufty said:

I can never understand what someone gets out of racing through action games like Bioshock, Dead Space, Halo, Oblivion, Half-Life2 etc.. in a few hours.

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I rarely play games with story-lines. There is a "campaign" in Armed Assault

(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmA:_Armed_Assault
)

But I was more interested in exploring the terrain of the islands and the mods, revisiting old islands in new incarnations, playing online some and then trying out a few mods.

In the average scenario (such as those I set up) there is plenty of time to admire the landscape or look at the constellations or even pick up some weapons off of the dead that are strewn around after a skirmish or two.

savour to the point of exhaustion and then resavour it again

Depends on the type of game. Action games I generally go through kind of fast, but will not try and race. RPG games I savor every moment and explore every corner of the map before completing the final mission. I think an RPG lends itself to that style of play as compared to action or FPS. I generally play the latter for a quick pick and play.

Depends on how good the game is. I admit I'll often blow through an RPG on my first play just because I'm so into the story I can't wait to see what will happen next. I'll usually do a second run much slower and take the time to do all the sidequests, explore all the hidden corners and generally just enjoy everything the game offers, not just the story.

Strangely enough if it's not a game that grabs me from the start I'll actually take much longer to finish it cause I'll get bored and wander off to do sidequests or go to areas where I shouldn't be just yet. I've had many a game over from stumbling into an optional uberboss I didn't know existed hah.

The type of games I play demand one play them slowly to savor the atmosphere. I explore everything I can, looking for Easter Eggs and other interesting surprises.

I played GTA: SA and had no idea what my goals were in the game. I just enjoyed exploring the environment, finding pearls and just seeing what I could find.

My game play style is very much the explorer- it's one of the things I really like about mmorpg's, lotsa room to run around in- so I spend a lot of time with the games I get to play.

Morrowind and Oblivion were essentially designed for savorers.

Me, I can appreciate fast-paced action-on-rails just as much as slow-paced wandering in the countryside. Like anything else, it's a question of quality in design and execution.

I've been chewing the fat with X-Com for about half a decade. Though, when I was younger the game was a LOT harder.

I think...after five years of playing...I might be ready to play on Medium difficulty!

Zoombie said:

I've been chewing the fat with X-Com for about half a decade. Though, when I was younger the game was a LOT harder.

I think...after five years of playing...I might be ready to play on Medium difficulty!

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ooh, I hated those ufo floating brain things. Snipe you long before you could ever see them.

The Cryslids still give me nightmares.

<shudders>

One of those took out a twenty five man team...all armed with plasma rifles, for Christ's sake!

sometimes i rush, sometimes i take my time. it depends. some central storylines draw me in so well that i race through without realizing.


amc

I like to savour the moment, usually. There are times where I race through. These times happen when the game is fun, but the story and location are just too bland to really care about exploring.

The game F.E.A.R. comes to mind as an offender on this. I like the atmosphere, but the locations (office buildings, etc.) are just... bleh. At least the creepy dream sequences aren't boring.

I'm a sucker for the achievement points so I tend to take my time and hunt down everything I can find, then scour the internet for what I couldn't find on my own. Which is a big reason for why I haven't been writing as much as I ought to. Naughty naughty me. My BIC time was swapped for BOC time a lot over the last year or two. (Butt On Couch).

Not sure if anyone will remember this from a few years back, but there was a video of someone who completed Half Life (the original) in about one hour. Start to end, he had worked out exactly where to run to and how close he needed to be to a door for the feat. There was an article in an old PC Gamer or PC Zone about other games which could be completed in equally insane times.

I prefer to wander around and do whatever comes to mind as I am playing. Then spend three hours trying to jump off the top of a building (or whatever) to land where I want. In GTA 3 (I think) there was a lighthouse at the top of the map I desperately wanted to reach (for reasons I can't remember) and I drove every vehicle I could get right off the edge of the cliff in the attempt.

I don't really have any particular rush to complete a game, but I'm not really an explorer either. I do most of the "interesting stuff" out of the way. To me, a "badly designed game" is one that doesn't let me go forward when I feel like it, and wants me to do some pointless grinding. Most games just don't have enough interesting reasons to do extra work.

That said, I usually manage to do about, say, 75% of the stuff the developers put in a game. I'll probably do the rest if I ever remember to replay the games.

I'm more comfortable to explore in truly open-ended games, like the Ultima or The Elder Scrolls series. I've barely remembered to follow the main plot in Oblivion right now. That said, I probably won't get 100% of the game done. (That could be, in fact, impossible...)

Bufty said:

I can never understand what someone gets out of racing through action games like Bioshock, Dead Space, Halo, Oblivion, Half-Life2 etc.. in a few hours.

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You took the words right outta my mouth. I got so irate when I shared Bioshock with my dad. A few weeks later, he told me he'd finished it.

Me: "How awesome is the storyline? I loved it!"
Dad: "There's a storyline?"

I will never understand people who rush through the hard work of those writers who slaved to make the game more than "just a shoot'em up". Meh. I shouldn't have expected more from a man who loves Serious Sam. *yack*

Morrowind and Oblivion were essentially designed for savorers.

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I've never played Morrowind, so I can't say anything about it, but I am a savourer and was bored by Oblivion by level 7. Once I realized that, while the scenery was nice to look at, there were only ruins, forts, caves, towns, and Oblivion gates to really explore - I quit playing. It actually made me angry that I invested the time I did into the game to only have those few cookie-cutter places to explore. Unfortunately, one of my friends quit playing, too, after I pointed out how few unique dungeon types there were.

Games I've savoured and enjoyed:
- Okami
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Dead Space(to a degree - it's terribly scripted)
- Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
- Bioshock
- Assassin's Creed(despite its repetition nature)

i used to like RPG's a lot more. Lately i just can't get into them long enough to finish them. I have gaming OCD, i lose interest in the games so quick its just sad.
I played/am playing morrowind now for the first time and i just HAD to cheat and make my guy as fast as possible. MAN the game is a Whole lot more fun when the guy runs at warp speed the entire time!

I definitely savor games. I'm the slowest gamer in the world because of that.

I go to talk to every NPC, pick up every rock, try to find every last little thing I can in the game aside from actually beating it.

I mean, if you're just going to rush through, what's the point?

Yeah, definitely like to savour. Which is going to be a problem since I've just recently been snared by WoW. All those acheivements, all those quests. Oh dear, there goes any chance of me getting a life...ever.

BigWords said:

In GTA 3 (I think) there was a lighthouse at the top of the map I desperately wanted to reach (for reasons I can't remember) and I drove every vehicle I could get right off the edge of the cliff in the attempt.

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But did you make it? DID YOU? I MUST KNOW!

As for me, I savor games that have parts that allow for such savoring.
I.e. I wouldn't do it for Assassin's Creed (using the example because it's been mentioned) because there's nothing to do. Kill knights? Find some dumbass flags scattered all over town? And neither will give me anything except a "You did this crap." achievement? No thanks.

Fallout games on the other hand... oh boy. So much fun to be had, so many places to see.
Yet you could beat them (at least 1&2) in a much shorter time than Assassin's Creed if you put your mind to it.

10er said:

But did you make it? DID YOU? I MUST KNOW!

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Nope. Not even with the low-gravity cheat, the Banshee and several hours of try-and-fail behind me. I haven't worked out how to patch the game engine with the swimming abilities of the later games, but once I do...