In one of the stranger moments for me this past week, I found myself comparing No More Heroes and Disgaea. Now, to anyone who has played both of them, this might seem like the most irrational comparison you could make. About the only things they have in common are that they're video games that got good scores from many sites (Netjak included). Going through the games, I'm sure you're wondering what I saw that linked the two.
Basically, both games are not something you can just pick up and put back down. When you go in to play No More Heroes, you have to be ready to sit down and get your hands dirty. You're going to spend quite a bit of time mopping up mooks, earning cash to do the next plot battle, or even to go shopping for new stuff. Similarly, with Disgaea, you're going to spend quite a bit of time tweaking your party just to be able to get through the next story battle, or affording the healing required so that you can live through the next story battle. In both games, I've spent so much time getting prepared for the next slice of plot that I've had to sit back and remember what the plot was up to that point.
Mind you, I don't think that's a flaw of either game. Both games built up so that I wanted to do all that. But I'm not all gamers – I'm a very dedicated hardcore video gamer. It's to the point where I sometimes discover that I owned a game that I had forgotten I bought (I'm trying to remember when I bought Mega Man 8 for the PlayStation, and I can't for the life of me). To me, the idea of investing a few dozen hours to really get into a game is a given – not only do people expect me to do that kind of thing, I actively budget time for such things (to the chagrin of my ever-patient wife).
The problem, though, is that the portion of the video gaming market that goes for such in-depth games is fairly small. People seem to struggle with the reasoning behind why so many of the Wii games that have been successful early on have been mini-game collections, party games, and the like. Well, call me crazy, but I think it's because most of the really successful Wii games have been easy to just pick up or put down. I mean, if you want to spend five hours in one day dealing with Rabbids, nothing is stopping you. But Rayman: Raving Rabbids is designed so that you can pick it up, play for ten or fifteen minutes, and then put it down when something else comes along. Heck, in that time, I'm lucky if I complete two rounds in Disgaea.
It's like there's some remarkable tension between the two concepts – something you can just pick up and put down easily, and something that can absorb you for countless hours. Does a game really have to force you to make a choice? No, not really at all. In some ways, fighting games are the perfect genre because they manage to have it both ways – you can sit down for hours perfecting all the nuances of the game, and quite a few are built for that kind of play (Guilty Gear X2 might be the king, with all the unlockable versions of each character in there). But you can also pick them up, beat up a couple of guys, and put it back down easily. Sure, it isn't deep – but you did something in that time. You don't feel like you barely got started when you leave after ten or fifteen minutes – heck, that's probably enough to get halfway through a run in normal mode.
One thing I have noted as time goes on, though, is that games friendly to short-burst play are becoming less common, despite the rise of the mini-game compilation. I think that's because, in large part, because the people behind making the games are also hardcore gamers themselves, and hardcore gamers generally are more likely to want something more involved. I'll admit, in many instances, I'm no different. I want to curl up on the couch and play for hours on end, just like most who love games as much as I do. And with me are many game designers – who understandably try to put together the kinds of games they want to play. But there's an inherent danger to this – keep putting together these kinds of games, and you're automatically limiting the audience for the game. If there's no quick way to get any satisfaction from the game, you're only going to hold on to the audience that has a ton of patience.
Of course, with the rise of the mini-game collection and party games, we've rapidly seen the reverse. For quite a few of them, there really isn't anything beyond picking them up, playing for a few minutes, and moving on to something else. It's like eating a candy bar – immediately gratifying, but with no long-term benefit. In some of the worst instances, you almost feel like the longer you play it, the less actual gaming experience is in the game. To steal a quote from Gertrude Stein, "there's no there there."
I'm not saying that there isn't a place for a pure mini-games collection or for something that's purely an immersive experience. But given how many options there are out there, you greatly risk falling between the cracks if you can't set yourself apart from the others of your ilk. Why not try to add more that appeals to all gamer types? I sometimes wonder what it would be like if No More Heroes threw in a few more quick "free play" missions, in which you just slice at a couple of guys and they slice you until only one side is standing (and I don't mean the game's missions where you lose if you take a single hit). Or if Raving Rabbids had something going for it beyond screaming bunnies. I can't say for certain, but I suspect if nothing else, the dichotomy between "casual" and "dedicated" gamers wouldn't be as wide – and I'd have more games to suggest to others (regardless of their leanings) when they ask me for recommendations.
