Treblaine:

Swifteye:

What is Movie-Bob's angle? He doesn't have one, he does not need one. He's just Bob. Same with Jim.

Movie bob does have an angle. On that particular show it's being a movie snob (although how much of it is genuine and how much of it is theatrics for humorous effect is to be discerned) in his big picture and the overthinker he gets to show off the primary nature of his character which is him being a giant nerd. When jim took off his jacket and spoke frank that was a special moment but it wasn't really like he changed his character really he was just a bit more direct and bit less sarcastic but he still used all the insults and the funny little photoshop pictures just like every other video he's made.

The act of making a show for the sake of entertainment is a little more complex than "make this pap enough to where the mindless drolls get it" although I understand how you might think that given that this is a rather snobby place which holds such beliefs to be self evident. It requires looking at what sort of audience you want and how you wish to approach them. This is the style that Jim has chosen, one that irks and annoys people but that's exactly what the character is supposed to do. Be irksome and annoying but also show a level of intelligence that makes one think (oh this guy is pretty smart but I wish he'd stop acting like a jerk) which I find amusing cause to be honest a lot of people on this website are like Jim. Really smart people who's arrogance and ego are really off putting but they do deserve credit for what they say.

And that is the core of Jim's character. He represents the egotistical bravado that infest places like the escapist where one can get so full of themselves that they can think they are better than everyone else and show it by saying ignorant arrogant things as they rant about stuff they know little about or stuff they know a lot about but has so little value that in the grand scheme of things makes that person look like a big idiot.

I've been following Bob since the early days on Youtube and that really is him, he IS a Nerd. Yahtzee IS a cynical critic.

Jim is not a fascist-dick, yet he dresses and acts like one for Jimquisition, why? I don't know, you may find it amusing be you cannot tell me that I should find it amusing. You haven't really explained why you do find this fascist-dick routine so interesting.

Ascorbic and opinionated Jim I like, he reminds me of The Spoony One. Noah Antwiler admits that for is spoony reviews he does dial things up for comedic effect but he doesn't take on a ridiculously irrelevant persona.

"by saying ignorant arrogant things as they rant about stuff they know little about or stuff they know a lot about but has so little value that in the grand scheme of things makes that person look like a big idiot"

So you watch Jimquisition like a freak show, like a trash TV talk show like Maurey Povitch you don't give a hoot about the issues, you just like to see someone embarrass themselves going on a rant?

That's shameful.

You don't get to choose how someone decides to entertain. You may like a certain style but it will not be so because you like it. I am taking it for what it is I don't understand why that should be shameful but I guess that sort of thought process is why the Jimquisition exists as it does. To be a caricature of people like you.

That episode was way too simplistic. If we look at the fun games, there are fun games with low replay value, and fun games with high replay value. The linear story driven games are definately in the lower end of replayability compared to games that are more open in their design.

Slapping multiplayer onto a game is far from the only or best way to ensure replayability. Looking at the games with the most replay value, a lot of those had no multi-player mode at all. Games like Civilization, Master of Magic, Pirates!, Sim City, X-Com, none of those had multiplayer or extra data to process for that matter. But they were made with replayability in mind.

It is a mythic struggle, you just can't make a linear game with the same amount of replayability as a non-linear one. In the same way as you can't listen to the same piece of music 50 times in a row without going crazy. But you can easily play Chess 50 times in a row without needing another game.

So Jim, maybe you should attempt to broaden your feeble mind, before you start to call your viewers stupid. You have a lot of learning to do, and a lot of games to play. :P

WHAT?!?!? Metro Last Light is going to have multiplayer? Great. That means the Single Player is going to be so short and unsatisfying because they'll have focused solely on the multiplayer. Damnit. I loved the first Metro.

probably best episode so far... for the comedy that is

but i seem to be some genius-idiot-hybrid since i won't play games a second time unless i can play them in a completely different way(or if it's very short)
still i don't like online stuff or additional content that is not part of the core experience

that's where western rpgs shine
because one can play the same game in at least 3 completely different ways
that's 300h of gameplay right there without dlc or online mode

I'm pretty sure you've missed the point here. If a game has great story and that's all, that's fine but its the way in which the story is delivered that determines whether or not you want to go through it again, with books or films you just have to read or watch, which is easy so there's nothing stopping you from doing it a couple of times however in games the story is delivered through the game play, and if the game play isn't challenging or interesting you're not going to suffer though it more then once just so you can experience the story again (at least I don't).
This is why it's nice to have multiplayer in games, because for a start the challenge of most games tends to go away after you've played it once, because the AI no longer has anything left to throw at you that you haven't seen before so at that point you want to play against some actual people who have real brains. What's more is if there are more people other then just the player involved in the game-play regardless of whether it's through co-op or competitive multi-player then it allow you more freedom to craft a more personal experience then what is just handed to you in the form of the games story. Not to mention that video games are games and are generally more fun when enjoyed with others.

Treblaine:

iron skirt:
if you play something else every time then it's not called REplay is it? it's just playng something new so it's not REplayebility! it's just playebility

Yeah, but with multiplayer, don't people fight in the same maps with the same weapons over and over again?

Black ops came with 14 stock maps and 10 minutes per match there is only about 2 hours and 20 minutes of actual "new play" before you start REplaying the same maps, just with different rules and weapons.

If you play through the single-player with different weapons and tactics then that is definitely replay.

But that's not a problem, it is all-right to replay a map in competitive multiplayer as there are so many angles to discover with it. This is just ACCEPTABLE replayability. Still replaying the same old shit. Yeah there are map-packs, 12 new maps for $45 is pretty poor value. That's the price of a whole new game for effectively only 2 hours of new content.

Only a game like minecraft can claim infinite playability with randomly generated world and content that is limited only by your imagination.

that's not realy what i ment... i ment when you get new maps not when you replay the old ones... i wasen't very clear on that... still you are right

pheipl:
I sorta agree, BUT (plz read b4 you troll)

While I love linear games with a strong narrative, I cannot play them twice. Yes most people see a good movie more than once, or listen to a good song more than once, or read a good book several times, but ... not everyone does. I never watch the same movie twice unless I have nothing better to do, and even then I lose interest about half way through. If I listen to the same song too much I lose interest in that also. A very good and complex book deserves several reads.

What I'm trying to say I suppose is that:

1) Not everyone thinks the same, some can't do repetitive tasks (go trough the same story twice)
2) Replayability is helped by being an open game, hindered by being linear (not saying linear games CAN'T be replayed just not as easily as open world games)
NOTE: Only referring to strong narrative games (not sonic or mario)

Ex: I bought Metro 2033 on impulse but I loved every single second in that game, convinced my friends to get it, tried to replay it ... couldn't. For SOME, a linear game with no variation on story (story driven games only) except maybe minor endings that can be googled have NO REPLAY VALUE WHAT SO EVER.
(P.S. I also don't like adding mutlyplayer to games that should never have mutlyplayer ... metro last light, I'm looking at you!)

Question:

Was Metro 2033 worth what you paid for without multiplayer or other features added for replayability? Did you NEED replay value to get their money's worth?

Bostur:

Slapping multiplayer onto a game is far from the only or best way to ensure replayability. Looking at the games with the most replay value, a lot of those had no multi-player mode at all. Games like Civilization, Master of Magic, Pirates!, Sim City, X-Com, none of those had multiplayer or extra data to process for that matter. But they were made with replayability in mind.

I think the point is that multiplayer the way publishers do now.

As what you said though, I think some of the new ways procedurally generated stuff like X-Com, SimCity, and Civ did back in the day (look at Left 4 Dead randomizing the maps slightly for each playthrough) will be making randomization a key component in replayability.

Personally, if I get tired of a game that I like, it's usually because it's a really long game and I played it enough that I wanted to move on to something else. But that is why I put them back on my shelf and come back to it months later. I love my meager selection of JRPGs enough that I'll come back to them over and over.

So why can't you people just put the game away if it can't hold your attention for a second playthrough? Maybe if you've played a few games after that, you can return to the one you shelved and rediscover how good it was. Assuming you bought and played it because it was an inherently good game. If not, then perhaps you should be more discerning as to what games you'll buy in the future.

On an unrelated note, if I do play a game a second time around immediately after the first, I like to do so to see how much better I was at the initial stages than when I was first starting out.

While I disagree with Jim's specific tone of approach in this vid, I agree 1000%(that is not a typo on my part) with the specific message. I'm old-school, and the old-school definition of replay-value is simply "do I want to play the game again purely for the enjoyment of experiencing it again". Extra elements like achievements, medals, trophies, badges, easter eggs, hidden characters, unlock modes, etc. intended to create replay-value, in my opinion, turn out to be nothing but chores, mindless hamster-wheeling, that, in actually, add no real value to the game. The only people I can see enjoying such extras are completionist, but they are doing so only because there is more to be done in the game. If those elements were not there, they would be just as satisfied with having completed whatever content does exist in the game. At the end of the day, they are just meaningless virtual merit badges.

In fact, in agreement with Jim, the effort to create these extra elements is taking too much away from the developer's ability to make a solid, compelling singular experience in the core parts of the game that gamers would willing replay based on its own merits of enjoyability. So, in some indirect sense, these extra elements actually decrease the overall worth of the game because the core of the game has been reduced in enjoyment value.

I'm not going to rant on the attention-span issue that Jim brings up, but I do have to concur that many gamers today seem to suffer from a constant need to be distracted by the next shiny object. Constantly running away from reality is not a healthy activity, in my opinion.

Addendum: Watching the video a second time(yes, I am watching it twice cause I enjoyed the point. Replay-value!), he claims that it is gamers that profess the idea that these extras are necessary for replayability. However, it has been my experience that it has primarily been the recent(last 15 years) gaming press that has been constantly pushing this idea in almost every review of every bloody game. This along with the idea that a game must be longer than some specified number of hours in order to be fun or present a good experience.

I perceive these warped views of fun and the requirements for fun as being derivative of the misguided effort to create precise, objective review scores to every game. As I've written in another post, I feel the precision of current review scores, such as 1 part in 1000, 1 part in 100, and even 1 part in 10, is completely bogus because it is impossible to have such precise judgement of creative works better than roughly 1 part in 5(excellent, good, mediocre/okay, bad, and shitty, and one could argue to separate the "mediocre/okay" qualification into two parts to make a 1 part in 6 precision). Humans can only give, at best, a qualitative assessment of the quality of a creative work because we are often going by mood and feeling. It also doesn't help that the scores are constantly being artificially compressed to the higher ranges(currently in the 70-100% range), causing a lost of meaning for any given assigned score.

Turning gaming reviewing into a mere number-crunching effort(count the number of achievements, modes, etc., count the number of polygons and the resolution of the textures, count the number geek references, and so on) makes assigning a review score much easier and objective, but it does not have any necessary alignment to the true qualities of value in determining the worth of the game to the gamer: did I have fun playing it, and do I want to play it again because I just enjoyed the experience that much? Not also, this worth will be different for different gamers because of different interests, perspectives, and mores; thus, it is simply impossible to assign a completely valid objective measure. Even a 1 part in 5 score precision would still have to be qualified with the type of gamer to which the game is likely to appeal.

iron skirt:

Treblaine:

iron skirt:
if you play something else every time then it's not called REplay is it? it's just playng something new so it's not REplayebility! it's just playebility

Yeah, but with multiplayer, don't people fight in the same maps with the same weapons over and over again?

Black ops came with 14 stock maps and 10 minutes per match there is only about 2 hours and 20 minutes of actual "new play" before you start REplaying the same maps, just with different rules and weapons.

If you play through the single-player with different weapons and tactics then that is definitely replay.

But that's not a problem, it is all-right to replay a map in competitive multiplayer as there are so many angles to discover with it. This is just ACCEPTABLE replayability. Still replaying the same old shit. Yeah there are map-packs, 12 new maps for $45 is pretty poor value. That's the price of a whole new game for effectively only 2 hours of new content.

Only a game like minecraft can claim infinite playability with randomly generated world and content that is limited only by your imagination.

that's not realy what i ment... i ment when you get new maps not when you replay the old ones... i wasn't very clear on that... still you are right

I kind of addressed that by how new maps for most games cost a lot of money for only 3 or 4 maps. Having to pay more is not value enhancing, the price of (for example) CoD map packs is ridiculous that depends far more on group migration as in "I got to get that map-pack because my friends have it".

Remember, people say "replay VALUE", not "replay content regardless of price" as in they expect a $60 to entertain them for a certain amount of time.

No, I did not, and that's what I said (in not so many words) wonderful game, it needs no multiplayer. However I could not repeat it for the life of me. I didn't need to, and it was worth my money yes. BUT ...

Oblivion was worth just as much money ... one singe playtrough took about 84 hours (few side mission and exploration, nothing much) but then I played trough it again for over 300 hours.

While both games were worth the same amount of money, buck / hour Oblivion was a WAY better game simply because it gave me more bang for my buck due to it's replayability.

I won't comment again why a game should be / shouldn't be / is / isn't replayable.

P.S. While some may think mutliplayer is repetitive ... you might see it that way, but the fact of the matter is: People can react differently to the same situation over and over again while AI is predictable. For example MoBA games (battle arenas, DoTA) are 5v5 1 map (but with 50-100 heroes sometimes) but even though there is only a limited number of combinations (not permutations, but combinations) different players will play in different ways making them (only some, true) INFINITELY replayable!

EDIT: Not all mutliplayers are good. OFC, like duh, why should Dead Space 2 have multiplayer -_-

50 seconds in, i have to say that its rare a single player mode has replay value in my books, unless it offers some decent character creation (one that results in characters actually playing differently, e.g. oblivion) or is very fun to play, e.g. tales of vesperia...

lets watch the rest...

1:55 and im thinking...

im sure lots of disc space is taken up by these multiplayer modes that EVERY game seems to have these days that could be better used to reinforce the single player.
the issue with that is... the only reason saints row 2 is better than just cause 2 is co-op.
...also, saints row 2 to saints row 3 is down 1 competitive matchmaking, hopefully this will mean a more expansive co-op experience and help prove that the lack of such a mode can improve a game, but... its not out yet...

...continuing...
nope... thats it.

My most replayed game is Project Sylpheed...
Finished it about 14 times and I still didn't get the "Down ships with a combined wiegh of 1 Gigaton" Achievement :/

Exactly! Now the part that extends this so that the moderators don't give me another warning:

I dislike multiplayer on that ground. In fact, if you're talking about spastic ADD gaming multiplayer is the worst thing out there. It's usually a handful of the same game modes that people just play over and over. It takes a really revolutionary and fun-to-play multiplayer aspect to keep the crowds from not diverting to Halo.

I think the Bioshock guys learned this lesson when they said something to that effect in the feature for Bioshock Infinite in Game Informer a while back.

My problem is that I have a stellar memory for narrative and plot detail so it's often hard for me to go back and play a game over again, but I don't have high-speed, gaming-caliber internet so... you know what? I'll play my great linear game over again and try to find new stuff. You're probably not going to find new stuff in a standard multiplayer element (maybe if it's one of those aforementioned good ones).

Arrogant to the point of nearly being insufferable...but not quite. Because the intelligence in the comments and the general humor make it an enjoyable watch.

Sadly he doesn't have the replayability of the ZP. reviews. terrible. i think Jim needs a multiplayer mode.

Good points. I actually get annoyed at some games that add multiple endings when they aren't worth playing twice. Most of them don't change the feel of the game or the gameplay, just the last cutscene. As if they are saying play this 8-20 hour game again and you can go left instead right, get a different cutscene and new achievement. (wish I wasn't such and achievement whore.)

And I miss the suit. Bring it back man.

Metro Last Light will have multiplayer?

WHY????? WHY???? WHHHHHHYYYYYY FOR FUCKS SAKE NO NO NO FUCK!

Fuck! Why? Why the fuck? How... Just... What.... WHY????? Why does it need multiplayer? *Whimpers*

At first I was pissed off that Jim was a douchebag.

Now I'm pissed off that I'm suddenly into his videos. Stop making good videos, Jim! Not really, of course. Please keep it up.

It's definitely true that a game simply being good is worth playing over and over again. Heck, that's something that games of the past relied on. Games like Sonic and Mario, and pretty much every game before the invention of save states.

Though admittedly giving the player some incentives to play through again and again are always nice. Adding a few options to the player character, having New Game Plus, or having alternative ways to enjoy the game are always welcome. But it's definitely NOT MANDATORY.

DeadCoyote:
Jim, you are not right. Replayability is not about your feelings to the game, it's about new expirience, that the game can provide each time you'r playing it. It's a game-mechanich feachure. Just a characteristic of a game, like shader version. If it hase ways to have different expirience (dificulty level changing, random generated locations, different classes of playeble characters) - it hase replayabiliti, if not - it hasn't.
A lot of people like crapy games, that you woud be sick of in 5 minutes. So... what? Have those games replayability? I liked Bad Company, but will never play it again, and my friend played it 4 times. So have this one replayability? For me - no and for him yes? That just doesn't make sense.

Sory, Jim, but you were talking about personal preferences, not about replayability.

Replayability is whenever or not you replay it.

Aureliano:

Hugga_Bear:

Aureliano:
So, to recap: FF9, Portal and Bioshock are all good games?!?! Holy crap! It's not like there are video game critics out there by the hundreds who could have told me that, so I never would have known without you. [/sarCASM]

Seriously though: telling me that time-honored video game classics are good is like telling me that swearing in public is a bad idea. Not only does every functioning member of society over the age of ten know that, but you are also going to be wrong sometimes.

Take a risk, show us some video games we might not have tried before that are awesome and linear. Defend games commonly considered to be bad and show why they're awesome and game critics are stupids. But I really don't care that you think Mario is fun.

I get the feeling you may have missed the point. It wasn't "good games are good lolol" it was good games don't need multiplayer/cheap gimmicks to have replayability but have the replay value by virtue of being good.

Nope, don't think I missed the point. I was focusing on what I consider to be a problem with Jim's videos writ large that shows up again this week: a lot of his time gets spent telling people how games that critics liked are good games. They get used as examples in various arguments he makes, but what's the challenge in using critically acclaimed games to explain your point? How about some indie titles that do something really well, or even a shitty game that has one bright spot in its favor?

Fact is, I worry sometimes that his show really is pitched to the viewer of average intelligence.

I don't think there's a way to say it without sounding dickish, but you have missed the point. Focus on the "Replayability" aspect of the video.

There are a lot of people who view any single-player game as having no replay value. It has less replay value if the game is story-focused, and even less if it is a linear game. So even though these people might enjoy the game, they think it not worth playing again and therefore not worth buying.

What results from this is games shoehorning in a half-baked multiplayer mode (that may or may not divert attention and resources away from the single-player. That's a debatable point). EA has said things like "Single-player games are finished' ". This kind of talk worries people like me who tend to only play single-player games.

That established, Jim's point is that any experience that you (Not a critic. Not your friends. Just you) really enjoy is replayable. Even though the experience may be almost exactly the same every time you play it, you can still enjoy it just as much as the first time. It's not uncommon for people to see a movie or read a book more than once, but for some reason a lot of people seem to have it in their head that even a great game isn't worth playing more than once.

The point of the video isn't "good games are good" . It's that linearity doesn't kill replayability.

Retarded episode.

Tax_Document:

Replayability is whenever or not you replay it.

redspud:

Personal preferences directly affect re-playability.

For you friend Bad Company has replay-ability for you not so much.

Also about the things you mentioned so if a game doesn't have those things then it has no re-playability? Do you see how skewed your view is. Take Ratchet & Clank for example it has none of those things and tons of people replay it. Same thing with Chrono Trigger or any Mario game in existence.

So any game has replayability, that is just willing of gamers to play it again? Ok, let it be this way. But then... what games are replayed more times: single or multiplayer? I guess the answer is obvious. And Jim's point of view is screwed again - multiplayer games are replayed more than single ones; so if developers want to make a game, that will be played as many people, as possible for as much times, as possible - they should make multiplayer game. If realy, then they need to make a MMO game - that is what people play for years every day! No any game with just 1 single campaign can beat WoW in replayability.

pheipl:
I sorta agree, BUT (plz read b4 you troll)

While I love linear games with a strong narrative, I cannot play them twice. Yes most people see a good movie more than once, or listen to a good song more than once, or read a good book several times, but ... not everyone does. I never watch the same movie twice unless I have nothing better to do, and even then I lose interest about half way through. If I listen to the same song too much I lose interest in that also. A very good and complex book deserves several reads.

What I'm trying to say I suppose is that:

1) Not everyone thinks the same, some can't do repetitive tasks (go trough the same story twice)
2) Replayability is helped by being an open game, hindered by being linear (not saying linear games CAN'T be replayed just not as easily as open world games)
NOTE: Only referring to strong narrative games (not sonic or mario)

Ex: I bought Metro 2033 on impulse but I loved every single second in that game, convinced my friends to get it, tried to replay it ... couldn't. For SOME, a linear game with no variation on story (story driven games only) except maybe minor endings that can be googled have NO REPLAY VALUE WHAT SO EVER.
(P.S. I also don't like adding mutlyplayer to games that should never have mutlyplayer ... metro last light, I'm looking at you!)

I agree with you. I loved portal 2 to death, deserves every award conceived and more. But I just can not replay it. I know all the puzzle solutions and funny storyline. If i want to replay a game, I will wait several months so I can forget most of it and have fun with rediscovery.

To me replay value is one of two things:

"I wonder what happens if I...." Try weird combinations of things, try different strategies, this can make the same game fun for a long time for me.

Co-op play. It makes me a sad panda that so many games concentrate on online PVP and neglect the idea of splitscreen co-op for the entire single-player campaign. I buy games I can play with my husband. If it's fun to try a new strategy by yourself, it's even more interesting when you add the variable of another player. I get so frustrated when I'm told "no, it doesn't have co-op, but it does have multiplayer". Yay? I like PVE, sometimes I want to team up within the comforts of my house without having to deal with online players.

The best thing in the world to me is Halo Reach's Firefight mode. It's so customizable, we can co-op forever with grueling custom mob and layout combinations and have a ton of fun without ever signing on to XBL. (Dirty secret? At the moment I don't even *have* XBL, right now I can't afford it. So a replayable co-oppable game? Is manna from heaven.)

It was a good enough video before he started singing "The Sign"... and then it just became a unique breed of wonderful.

Things I don't like about this show:
- the guy tries too hard to be funny.
- why... does he... talk so slooowly... maybe... afffraaaaid, weee... don't undeeeerstaaand... whaaat... he's saying?

Things I like:
- I usually agree with him.

Maybe if he told his jokes or funny sentences really fast with drawn semi-animated representations of himself and what he's saying, I would enjoy it a lot more.

DustyDrB:

Aureliano:

Hugga_Bear:

I get the feeling you may have missed the point. It wasn't "good games are good lolol" it was good games don't need multiplayer/cheap gimmicks to have replayability but have the replay value by virtue of being good.

Nope, don't think I missed the point. I was focusing on what I consider to be a problem with Jim's videos writ large that shows up again this week: a lot of his time gets spent telling people how games that critics liked are good games. They get used as examples in various arguments he makes, but what's the challenge in using critically acclaimed games to explain your point? How about some indie titles that do something really well, or even a shitty game that has one bright spot in its favor?

Fact is, I worry sometimes that his show really is pitched to the viewer of average intelligence.

I don't think there's a way to say it without sounding dickish, but you have missed the point. Focus on the "Replayability" aspect of the video.

The point of the video isn't "good games are good" . It's that linearity doesn't kill replayability.

Seriously. I said that I was focusing on something other than the main point of the video. In the part that you quoted, no less. The criticism I made, in brief: Jim's examples are by and large trite. For those of us who both enjoy playing classic single-player games and understand that contemporary titles that boast 'replayability' often do so at the cost of story or even gameplay, the video was just time wasted. To make it more worth the time, Jim could at least bring up some interesting examples we might not have thought of. That is the criticism. To say nothing of working a little harder at making jokes rather than just trying to be edgy.

In fact, it could even give some replay value to Jim's own videos to do either of these things.

Great Ep...I'm a bit old school so yeah, replayability used to be something unique to single player games. Nintendo power and Gamepro used to rate the replayability factor of the single player experience. (I think Link to the Past still holds one of the highest scores for it.) After beating Portal 2, I didn't go online to check out the multiplayer, I played the single player again because it was sooooooooo well put together. Too many games these days aren't even worth one play through let alone containing replay value. screw modern games and screw modern gaming if it's not going to realize that while the internet offers an infinite range of possibilities, they should not be mandatory certainties.

I do hate idea that single player games can't be replayed, and the shoehorning of multiplayer into games that don't need it.

I played Halo: CE countless times, Dragon Age 8 times, Mass Effect about 10-ish times, Half-Life 2 series many times, etc...

A good single player experience has always beat a generic MP experience, IMO.

Moar singing!!!