Splinter Cell: Conviction

5 hour campaign? Why are more and more games coming out with such criminally short single player campaigns?

Sorry Dark, this game just went to rental status.

Because short campaigns are cooler in many ways.

1. It takes less time to develop, so you get more games more quickly

2. It takes less time to play through, so an investment in a game doesn't chain you to your sofa for 30 hours in order "to get your moneys worth."

On the other hand the games should be cheaper tho

I care more about the length content wise. In an hour of God of War or Prince of Persia I'll do 10 times as many interesting stuff as in a virtual Skinner box. They could have easily lengthened the game by copy pasting like some do, I'm glad they didn't.

Quote from Skjalg

Because short campaigns are cooler in many ways.1. It takes less time to develop, so you get more games more quickly

What games have come out quicker due to this? 2-3 years still appears to be the standard, despite shorter campaign length in some franchises.

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2. It takes less time to play through, so an investment in a game doesn't chain you to your sofa for 30 hours in order "to get your moneys worth."

I don't see how this is a good thing. As long as a game has a built in system to let you walk away for every 10-15 minute play segment, that seems casual friendly enough. God of War 3 and Batman Arkham Asylum are two games with a medium length campaign (10-12 hours), and despite that they aren't as long as some of the 20-30 hour non-RPG campaigns, they feel just right in length. Long enough to feel satisfied, but not so long as to get repetitive.

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On the other hand the games should be cheaper tho

Agreed. I feel like I'm paying for a full price game for an expansion pack's worth of content lately.

Quote from Skjalg

Because short campaigns are cooler in many ways.1. It takes less time to develop, so you get more games more quickly

2. It takes less time to play through, so an investment in a game doesn't chain you to your sofa for 30 hours in order "to get your moneys worth."

On the other hand the games should be cheaper tho

i think it's fairly possible to make longer campaigns by at least making use of proper level design techniques. of course these are not applicable to every game or indeed every level, but still. honestly there is no justification for making short campaigns.

Actually there is no justification for making longer games. As most games longer then that do it by diluting and spreading the experience, like by copy pasting, making the actions slower, backtracking.

There are only a few gameplay styles which allow for longer campaigns and even then it's questionable, like is the time spent comparing armor, moving , selling products, stat tracking, stat updating in rpg's really quality time spent. Games like SC in which every single square inch on the level is important and can greatly influence game play are much harder to design and take much longer then a dungeon in an RPG's.

I think movies are great this way. Most movies last 1,5 hours. Its something you can enjoy with friends without the movie itself taking multiple sittings.

Its cool with a longer game from time to time, its like doing a lord of the rings marathon with your friends, but most of the time you just want 1 evenings' worth of entertainment.

Quote from Gloglebag

Actually there is no justification for making longer games. As most games longer then that do it by diluting and spreading the experience, like by copy pasting, making the actions slower, backtracking.There are only a few gameplay styles which allow for longer campaigns and even then it's questionable, like is the time spent comparing armor, moving , selling products, stat tracking, stat updating in rpg's really quality time spent. Games like SC in which every single square inch on the level is important and can greatly influence game play are much harder to design and take much longer then a dungeon in an RPG's.

i don't agree. many games with 'stages/missions' suffer from being put into a level-box that has over time become smaller and smaller, at the cost of the quality of the game. in games such as these where a certain standard of quality is always upheld, size does indeed matter. i'm not saying levels should be excessive or go beyond the point of narrative, but i certainly don't think the short campaigns like modern warfare should become the norm. i'm also not speaking of RPGs as they usually have an entirely different timescale implemented (compare 10 hours to 80 hours).

Sorry for the hijack, Dark. Good luck with the release!

played all the other sc-games from start to finnish and I want to get this one as well for the pc, but drm and price may put me off

Just played the first few levels. It's decent enough, but I'm really waiting for one of my colleagues to get his copy so we can dig into the co-op.

Oh and the Iraq level was pretty awful, I thought the fact that IGN's review had that as their sole negative point was kind of over the top, but so far it's definitely the lowest point for the game.

Haven't played it yet (waiting for the PC version!), but was the rationale behind that level... making it into a generic shooter for one level only?

Alright =P. I'll get back to you when I've played it lol.

just played the coop with a buddy on split screen and was one of the best gaming experiences i have had in a while. I dont think it would of been the same online.

Been playing this a while now, very cool. Really well done, I love snatching people from the windows and watch others to look what happened to the other guy and snatch him too.

Need to try out coop.