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GoNintendo Thought: How long do you give a game to 'click'?

Time is precious
by rawmeatcowboy
30 June 2020
GN Version 5.0

Happy Monday, gang! Hope you all had a great weekend. Here's to a quick work week so we can get back to the R&R! As always, thanks for reading.

Everyone's time is precious and we all have important things to do on any given day. There's our jobs, school, work around the house, family necessities, and so on. The older you get, the less free time you have. That makes every little moment you can steal away for yourself that much more meaningful.

If you decide to use that free time playing games, the choice of what to play can be almost crippling. There's so many titles out there, and there's no doubt plenty of people have a massive backlog of games they never got around to playing. Throw in the new releases every week, and the mountain of content to dig into can seem insurmountable.

Obviously when you do pick a game, you're hoping it provides you with a great experience. You can turn to reviews, previews, and impressions from all corners of the internet to help guide you, but you'll never really know if a game is for you until you fire it up and give it a go. That's what brings us to today's question. When you do make your pick and start a game up, how long do you give it to sink its claws into you?

I have a bit of weird approach when I'm playing a game. If I hop in and find myself not having a fun time, I tend to think the problem is on my end, rather than the game itself. Instead of being turned off by the game and shelving it, I am interested in finding out why it is I don't like it. I want to play more and figure out where my disinterest is coming from. I can't help but think I'm doing something wrong or I'm not understanding something, and that's what's leading to my lack of fun with the game.

Believe it or not, it actually took me a number of years to get into Gears of War. I was hyped beyond belief when the game was coming out, and was happy to see all the great reviews that flooded the internet a few days before launch. When I finally got the game for myself and jumped in, I found myself not having fun at all. I just couldn't find any sort of redeeming interactions from the experience. I found myself bored and frustrated almost the entire time I was playing. This lead to me putting the game aside after a few hours.

I came back to Gears of War a few months later to give it another go. I decided I would start fresh and see how things panned out the second time around. Unfortunately, the second attempt at the game lead me to the same conclusion. This would happen for a third time just a few months later, which lead to over a year of giving the game a break before I tried to tackle it again.

After nearly two years of not having the game click for me, I decided to take a different approach. I was going to try the game without any expectations of how things should play. I wasn't going to force my own opinions on how things should work, and instead take the game as it came at me. I was also going to alter how I played, moving from a conservative approach in gunfights and offense, to a head-on, balls-out tactic. It was the combination of these elements that lead to me really, really enjoying the game. I had my moment where things clicked, and Gears of War went from being a bore to a blast.

That experience taught me that sometimes games take not just time to click, but a whole new way of thinking as well. It was a pretty eye-opening thing to have happen. I've tackled every game since with the same approach, and it really has worked wonders. Ditching pre-conceived notions and opening myself up to play-styles that aren't normally in line with how I play has lead me to have fun with games I would have never even considered in the past.

I'm actually going through this process right now with Ninjala. I'm having trouble digging into the game and getting it to click for me. I went in with an open-mind, but I'm still having a few problems with the experience. There's just certain base gameplay mechanics that really don't entice me in any way, shape, or form. On the flip side, there is something about the game that's keeping me coming back. There's something going on there that I really enjoy, but I can't put my finger on it. I plan on continuing to dig down into the game to see what I unearth.

Numerous developers have said that a game has to catch players within the first 10 minutes in order to keep them coming back for more. Be that through gameplay, story, or some other mechanic, those opening moments can be make or break for a game. I know plenty of friends who have bowed out of a game when the opening act didn't do it for them, and they never returned. Again, with free time being so limited, I can't get mad at anyone for moving on when things don't work out for them.

How long do you give a game to click for you? Do you give it a shot over and over until things come together, or are you in and out at the first instance of content you don't enjoy? What was the last game that didn't click for you, and when did you decide to call it quits?