Playing an SP game over...

[Brettzies]

Do you ever find yourself running through an SP game again after you've already beaten it? Usually with a short game that I enjoyed or a game with really nice graphics I might go through it again after I've "beaten" the sp campaign. Sometimes I think I enjoy it more the second time through.

So, this weekend I wanted to catch up on some games I never got around to. I put in Brothers In Arms1, picked it up for $9 in January. It's an interesting game with short levels, but for some reason, after I finished it on Bronze Star difficulty, I felt like doing it again so I went up a level to Silver Star...those are the medals you get awarded for completing a level. Silver Star was a b1tch on some levels, but easy on others.

Now I'm trying it on Authentic, which gives you the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Medal of Honor if you look on the Chapter screens for each level. However, you can't die and there are no checkpoints. It is insanely difficult to go through the level without dieing - even with checkpoints and now there are none.

This will be my third time through the game, but I think I will have to stop. It is so difficult, but for some reason I'm addicted to it. Maybe it's getting all four medals plus the MoH, or the graphics, or tactics, I don't know. I don't even think the game is balanced at this level, the Germans just pop up and blast you without aiming, meanwhile your accuracy stinks. The worst part is you have to do the level all over again if you die. But the challenge has me coming back for more, at least in short bursts. Same thing happened with Gears of War, had to beat it on all difficulty levels.

Grrrr...do you ever find yourself doing "stoopid" stuff like this? Playing a game over just to get a screen full of medals that no one will ever see? At least with x360, it keeps a record of your virtual achievements!

[rookie]

I know that feeling and the game I've beaten by far the most is "Star Wars - Republic Commando". Nobody could understand me, friends thought it sucked and on the internet you don't find any pages about it(gosh I still hope for part 2).

I've beaten it about 15 times (! - it haven't become boring to see the same scenes again and again) - all on hard. But it still is an awesome experience everytime. The ending (cliffhanger) doesn't want you the game to be over, so you are just starting over again. The AI, the humor, the different locations, the atmosphere and the classic soundtrack get to me everytime. The AI is just fun, they are taking initiative and you always can depend on them, still these simple order-options allow you a big spectrum of control. And as soon as they start ###### each other of, or they are making some absolutely funny gestures (e.g.Mission briefing in an elevator - the briefing is over - everybody starts looking around "Why aren't we driving ?" - "Oh, Sev, the button" - and the other mate just gives you a thumps up), I'm cracking up again and am so thankful the programmers put attention to those details. Absolutely unique, which is why I play it over and over and over again.

The only thing getting close to that is "Raven Shield", which I have installed since it has been released. MP and SP from time to time. Once I'm in the mood for tactics again I can't stop playing the campaign, trying new tactics and team-options(Gear - How many men am I taking with me) on the missions. I never started counting how often I played the campaign and missions - so "Republic Commando" is the fair winner.

Edit: With SWAT 3 it is about the same as "RaSh". Both are unique in their style of gameplay. When I feel a need for something slightly different from "RaSh" I install SWAT 3 and play the crap out of it and uninstall it again after about two weeks.

Edited May 29, 2007 by rookie

[Brettzies]

LOL. I played through Republic Commando at least twice. It was a short game but I liked it. Still waiting for the sequel...not sure there are any plans though. I think it would have been a bigger success had it been a bit longer perhaps.

[Cpl Ledanek]

I was going to play The Simpsons Hit and Run again coz its a lot of fun....but then again. I had to ask myself: "Are you mad?"

This game will take over your life....stay away from it....find it in your local PC game store's clearance bin and GRAB IT!

OH THE MADNESS

.....see review here.....you've been warned.

...yeah I know its PS2...can't find anything on PC...dont' let Marge use the ATV...it offends gay folks...THE HUMANITY!

[WytchDokta]

I must have beaten Serious Sam First & Second Encounters twenty times each. And I've beaten Serious Sam 2 like five times already.

I know, I'm sad. What are you going to do about it?

[Malleus]

Splinter Cell. The first. I don't even know how many times I've beaten it, I lost count at a dozen. Same with PT and CT, although I played the first the most. After a few times I started playing with self-imposed gameplay rules (don't kill anyone, knock out only if absolutely necessary, stay completely undetected if possible, etc). I still play'em occassionally, but you know, it's not that good anymore, cause I know each level inside out ... I swear I could draw their blueprints blindfolded...

I'd love to have ten more of those games, but apparently ubi thinks otherwise...

[krise madsen]

There are some very old SP games that I played religiously. Red Storm Rising, M1 Tank Platoon, Gunship 2000 and Wings on Amiga. X-COM series, Harpoon, Fleet Command, M1 Tank Platoon 2 and Aces Over Europe/Pacific.

Of more recent games, I went through R6: Rogue Spear again and again and again...

Delta Force 2 also got played an awful lot. A game with loads of problems, but the long range sniping was just marvellous. I used to load a mission, find some high ground, snipe away, then exit the misson and load again.

Plus a few I undoubted have forgotten

Respectfully

krise madsen

[Foxtrot360]

I cant recall anything at the moment.

Rookie is SWAT 3 good? I might get SWAT 4 soon.

I think I tried a games more than enough times but I dont usually complete them, I usually get bored halfway through the second time.

On the other hand, I played Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30 two times, once on PS2 and once on PC.

[Brettzies]

There are some very old SP games that I played religiously. Red Storm Rising, M1 Tank Platoon, Gunship 2000 and Wings on Amiga. X-COM series, Harpoon, Fleet Command, M1 Tank Platoon 2 and Aces Over Europe/Pacific.

That is a great list. Amazing how some older games captured our imagination and long term appeal more then some recent ones. Red Storm Rising was such a great game, same with M1.

I think someone has remade Xcom in 3d recently: FileFront Link

[Wille]

There are some very old SP games that I played religiously. Red Storm Rising, M1 Tank Platoon, Gunship 2000 and Wings on Amiga. X-COM series, Harpoon, Fleet Command, M1 Tank Platoon 2 and Aces Over Europe/Pacific.

That is a great list. Amazing how some older games captured our imagination and long term appeal more then some recent ones. Red Storm Rising was such a great game, same with M1.

Its really not that strange that games of old perhaps captured us more than they generally do today. We were younger and had a much smaller frame of reference. After playing a couple of hundred games you obviously become more blase' about the whole thing and expect more from the experience. the X-com series was freaking excellent, but If I played through it again today the chances are that it would only ruin a childhood memory ive spent a decade hyping and romanticising over in my head!

[Brettzies]

Its really not that strange that games of old perhaps captured us more than they generally do today. We were younger and had a much smaller frame of reference. After playing a couple of hundred games you obviously become more blase' about the whole thing and expect more from the experience. the X-com series was freaking excellent, but If I played through it again today the chances are that it would only ruin a childhood memory ive spent a decade hyping and romanticising over in my head!

This is very true. Though, I'm still amazed with modern games as well. After I wrote the last post I realized there are still games that I come back to or are blown away in the "modern era" of graphics. But what you say about romanticising old games is true. I remember when I thought Shadow of the Beast was as good as it gets, paralax scrolling, multi-colors. If I loaded it up today, it'd be like wow, 320x200. Red Baron, I thought that was an amazing graphical achievement, but would be very primative by todays standards. Regardless of the gameplay and enjoyment, it would be hard to go back to some games.

Still, I'm not really talking about playing the same sp game for 5 years. More like replaying the campaign again after you beat it. A lot of games I find myself playing through twice these days. Maybe because they are short. It all depends on the game I suppose. Not to discount playing an old game multiple times, but not so much booting up an old game to "relive" the experience.

[rookie]

I cant recall anything at the moment.

Rookie is SWAT 3 good? I might get SWAT 4 soon.

SWAT 3, especially the SWAT 3 Elite Edition ( Trailer - Bink.exe don't be scared - just a trailer of the Elite Edition, showing off Maps, Missions, Weapons and Outfits) really is Elite. The game in many aspects is unique today and makes SWAT 4 really looks poor. Considering, SWAT 3 is turning 8 years this october, it still is a whole lot of fun to play and the graphics are MORE then acceptable, besides the geniu-slow tactic-gameplay that has never been reached again. And when your AI is loosing it and gets aggressive really gives me creeps everytime. "Drop the weapon, down on the ground. DO IT - DROP THE WEAPON NOW" *Gunfire*...awesome. The AI rocks, in the Elite Edition you even can choose to be a teammember, not leader and can experience the missions again as one of the first to enter the room! The realism also is awesome, if one of your mates doesn't check a corner right, the whole team gets down. It's frustrating, but that's the way it CAN happen.

SWAT 4 was a huge disappointment for me. The graphics are poor, the animations of your teammates are crappy, no aiming down the sight or at least choose the aimpoint of SWAT 3 and the game doesn't take place in the city of S.W.A.T. To save money they choose to play in a nameless city. That dropped some authenticity, when you were able to save the convention center or LAX in SWAT 3, you face some building there, some house there in SWAT 4.

I only noticed one positive thing about SWAT 4 - it's dark atmosphere in one mission. So- no replayability there for me.

And to get a relation to the topic, THESE are the reasons, why I still like to play the SP-campaign of SWAT 3.

[krise madsen]

I'm sure there are quite many of the old classics that I wouldn't get too worked up over if I played them today. However, I do feel that many of the old gameplay concepts are still valid, yet have been abandoned.

Except for the likes of Sid Meier's Pirates!, straight conversions of old games probably won't do very well today, but clearly many of these abandoned games could have been developed and evolved into a modern blockbuster, yet has been completely ignored.

One example would be the old "Speedball" games. This top-view 2D ball game probably doesn't have much to offer in terms of game mechanics. However, the basic concept is as valid today as the day the first game was released: Two small teams duke it out in a no rules rugby-like game. There is no such thing as an illegal tackle; in fact, you score as many points on injuring an opponent as you do putting the ball into the goal. Hilarity and over-the-top ultra-violence ensues.

There are many others, including Red Storm Rising, that still have plenty of still-valid features. Moreover, many of the games are "combat proven", having done well in the marketplace once.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[ghostrider68]

You are forgetting Return to castle wolfenstein played it thru probly 15 times what a great game. Have played all the campaigns in GR with all the different mods. By the way where is Jack57 produced the greatest campaigns ever in gr. SPR the all time best.

[Hockeystick]

Perhaps not a classic but one of my favorite games that I always come back for several times a year since 2004, is Evil Genius. Your goal, take over the world

Construct your secret, evil underground lair and build traps to protect it from the Agents of Juctice.

You never get bored (ok, the beginning might be a bit slow) and once you get your research started you just have to play 5 more minutes, then 5 MORE minutes etc. etc.

The humor in the game is absolutely great. Everything from the odd interrogation methods to the excellent voices of your henchmen. You find obvious parodies everywhere, like the Super Agents, John Steel (James Bond), Dirk Masters (Rambo) and of course Jet Chan (a Jackie Chan-Jet Lee-Bruce Lee-hybrid).

I've probably played through this game at least 5 times, which is quite a lot since the campaign is loooooong.

Edited May 31, 2007 by Hockeystick

[Foxtrot360]

I really need to check out some of these games.

The problem for me - Its so damn hard to find older games these days, only on the internet can I even find SWAT3. (And probably the others listed.) And while I think I can relate to what your saying rookie, that seems a bit exxagerated when you say the graphics are bad, I thought they were pretty good. However the Demo seemed a bit dull and expected a little more out of it. Any idea how well SWAT3 players on dialup? Going by its age it would seem it'd be pretty good on it? Also how many mods are there? It seems like the graphics would be comparable to Rainbow Six series (before 2003).

At the moment I have to say I am kinda bored, and thats sad seeing my list of games - look in my profile under "interests" to see the list. It seems like alot of games bore me halfway through. Oblivion for example.

Theres some older games I need to beat, mostly Rainbow Six games from the older days. But I almost never play a SP game over, if theres more options, like Oblivion or STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl I usually consider it, and with the whole neverending list of mods for games like that I usually dont need to worry. Then if I play a game on the console thats worth playing over on the PC.

Hockeystick I just tried the Evil Genius Demo and beat it, and I think I like that game! =).

I will be making a purchase of that soon I think .

Edited June 2, 2007 by Foxtrot360

[TRC]

Duke Nuke'm still resides on my PC and like Krise, every now and then I fire up Aces over Eur/Pacific--still enjoyable even with the tech advances for current flight sims.

[migryder]

I must have beaten Serious Sam First & Second Encounters twenty times each. And I've beaten Serious Sam 2 like five times already.

I know, I'm sad. What are you going to do about it?

hey WD ever play SS1 or Secoond edition with DK's mod..and those pretty little bots on your side? Croteam have a good sense of humor anyway...SS2 I've played twice now...Secret Bush LOL....

I play em all over n over....even D3 and D3:ROE with Cougar's Mod and UAC Sentry Bot mod...yippeee

can't get enough of Far Cry, F.E.A.R., HL2, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. plus expansions...and then there was PAINKILLER...

[WytchDokta]

Secret Bush LOL....

Secret Giant Poo and Johnny-Lee-Gnaar Secret were funnier.

I was actually thinking of doing some in game Serious Sam 2 vids, and make them go along in time with the music. It will be funny to put in the scripted scene were the shaman starts DJ'ing in order to summon Kwongo, especially if I put in the scene with the Gnaar doing a commentary on the mic, I could show scenes of him when the MC in the track does his MC'ing.

BTW, it's Secret Sexy Bush.

"I love playing with fire" - Sam 'Serious' Stone

[Brettzies]

I'm at it again. This time COD4. It's just so good. Playing my 3rd time around on Veteran is almost too hard to be worth it. Just finished the first act. Almost seems like a waste to have done it on Hardened since you don't get any achievements for that difficulty.

Not sure I'm going to make it all the way through. Not sure it's even worth it, but those damn achievements keep me coming back for more pain. At what point is it less fun and just too hard? You do feel a sense of acomplishment since every Veteran level mission gives you and award, but damn...I can't imagine some of the latter missions. I almost feel like it'd be more fun just to play it on regular again.

[rookie]

COD4: I played Veteran on my 2nd walk through the campaign and it got a pain already on the night assault on the village where assad is hiding - enemies always saw me in the dark w/o night vision-goggles and there was no way to sneak around since the AI always knows where you are. I got through it...worst part on Veteran sure was the 2nd sniper-mission where you have to wait for the chopper - stuck there for 2 days. Besides the run in the end is quite difficult as well - overall though I found the game not to be enjoyable on Veteran - now I'm making my 5th run through the game, this time on hardened again and this is quite fair.

But my top-game in completing the SP-campaign still is Star Wars Republic Commando - installed it a short time ago and completed it another 3 times...this should make it about 20 times and it still is unbelievably enjoyable.

Ok besides Raven Shield where I lost count over the the years - it's the only game I have installed since it's release.

[Brettzies]

COD4: I played Veteran on my 2nd walk through the campaign and it got a pain already on the night assault on the village where assad is hiding - enemies always saw me in the dark w/o night vision-goggles and there was no way to sneak around since the AI always knows where you are. I got through it...worst part on Veteran sure was the 2nd sniper-mission where you have to wait for the chopper - stuck there for 2 days. Besides the run in the end is quite difficult as well - overall though I found the game not to be enjoyable on Veteran - now I'm making my 5th run through the game, this time on hardened again and this is quite fair.

But my top-game in completing the SP-campaign still is Star Wars Republic Commando - installed it a short time ago and completed it another 3 times...this should make it about 20 times and it still is unbelievably enjoyable.

Ok besides Raven Shield where I lost count over the the years - it's the only game I have installed since it's release.

I have a hard time quitting, and those little achievements sure are addicting. But it definetly gets to the point where it's not so much fun as it is just a challenge. Like you said, the enemy knows exactly where you are most of the time...even in the dark. The sniper mission is so cool, but I can't imagine it(waiting on the evac) on Vet.

Hardened was good. Difficult, but good. I saw a review where that was the inteded difficulty for the game.

Republic Commando was fun. Would love to see a sequel to that, esepcially with that ending. My top sp replay is probably GR1 the original campaign. I lost count of how many times I did it. These days, with games I really enjoy, I'm averaging 2 to 3 times depending on how difficult they are, how much time I have, how long the game was, etc.

[Joseph_Q]

I dont play SP games more than once but there are some exceptions and those are :

- Dune ( old Amiga version) - i dont even know how many times i went through it and i watched intro maybe 1000 times

- Duke Nukem 3D - played it twice

- SWAT 4 - Did the campaghn twice andf some of the missions separetly more than twice.

PS. I believe that games like Civilisation desnt count

Edited December 7, 2007 by Joseph_Q

[squad_e]

AVP 1, 3 times in all modes, unlocking everything without cheats, those were the days. Plus IMO the most scariest FPS back in the day.

AVP 2 twice. Coz mainly i used to play it on MP, thats the 1st game that got me into MP gaming.

GTA vice city 3 times.

Dune ( old Amiga version) - i dont even know how many times i went through it and i watched intro maybe 1000 times YOUTUBE

Lol, that's a proper classic..

[KRP 56]

1. Ghost Recon = To many times to remember. 2. Raven Shield and both expansions = 3X's 3. Far Cry = 3X's 4. Serious Sam I & II = 2X's 5. S.O.A.F. = 2X Crysis will also get replayed a few times.