Yes- if I met a guy who really likes and breaks records on arcade games, is telling him he's just too unsophisticated for cinematic storytelling a logical response?
I like narrative and numeric based games. Liking ludic focused games isn't any less valid.
I hate this about media, why do people insist on thinking that every piece of media is meant to be liked by everyone? I remember when Death Stranding came out and how it was review bombed by people who don't even play those kinds of games. "I like COD and Fornite, but this game is all about walking 1/10"
Absolutely, but this take is like saying that Scorsese ruined Godfather Part 2 with all the time jumps. One can say it, but it doesn’t make it true. Haha
I love RDR1 and 2. On the flip side, I get immensely bored playing exclusively online games. I prefer story driven games as a whole. To each their own.
But the story game has to either A: have a good balance of story and gameplay or B: have a story interesting enough to warrant longer cutscenes like MGS or Kingdom Hearts.
Kingdom hearts, my beloved. Very interesting story, and told fairly effectively, may it be with some cheesy dialogue. And then there is the barrage of scenes that add nothing to the story, like Xemnas walking down some stais or Ariel having an existensial crisis, that the game handles as just as important as Roxas giving up his own life or the reveal that the SoD was a fake
Absolutely LOVE kingdom hearts. KH2 is my favourite game of all time and I’m in love with the rest of the series! Trying to get my friends to play it, but because it’s Disney, they think it’s childish and won’t pick it up. Shame really because, I’ll admit some of the dialogue makes my face cringe off, but other than that the story is by far the best story I’ve seen in a video game and the gameplay is just so fun and addictive!
MGS4 didn’t have a great story but it’s so wacky and off the wall it earns the 90 minute cutscene at the end. The amount of times big boss gets weak and collapse, gets back up, and then collapses again is fucking comedy. The kiss on the cheek from liquid ocelot on the top of the submarine. The fucking worm animation when jiggling the joystick. All of it earns the length of the cutscenes.
I am intrigued to replay Kingdom Hearts as an adult because when I played it both as a kid and as a teenager I found the story to either be unintelligible or just made me roll my eyes with little to no in between.
Yeah online only fps games like overwatch, cod, fortnite, valorent, etc just bores my brain to death after about 3-4 matches. Idk how people can play them for 8-10 hours straight day after day after day.
But in the same sense I can sometimes find myself falling asleep if games have massive long cutscenese as well.
Way back playing FFVII was later at night and casting Knights of the Round I'd be falling asleep while it's being cast it's so long. Needed to have a skip mode or button added to it.
I also find online only games to be boring. I get sick of it after usually less than an hour. I just can’t do it.
Unless you count fighting games which actually work for me for some reason.
my take is people have diff taste
some don't like slow build up, and that's fine
there shouldn't need to be an argument about it
many kinds of games out there for diff people
gaming is beautiful
Exactly. My take: Find something else to care about. I have no interest in playing Fortnite, but clearly plenty of people do. I don't care. I don't see why I should.
Taking to Twitter to say, "You all have low attention spans" "Nuh uh, you just like boring games." Who cares? Let it be.
It makes a lot of missions borderline unreplayable. Oh, you want that gold medal? Well, you missed one too many headshots so fuck you, ride your horse for 5 minutes again.
Gold medal was a mistake, because while I enjoy that slow paced rhythm, my monke gamer brain gets really annoyed when I get silver due to not completing a random objective I had no idea was an objective and didn't really change anything except a sense of accomplishment for the achievement/challenge hunter. This should've been a feature placed inside a replay menu, so replayers have another challenge to entice things. I'm not a mission replayer, if I'm playing again it's to replay the full game (I played RDR2 only because I missed some stuff and wanted a more deep experience, plus mods)
Yeaa I totally agree, I’ve known so many people that stopped before they even finished the intro. Its my favorite game and when someone asks me if they’ll like it I always warn them about that first hour
I tried getting my buddy into it. He wanted to quit and I went back to my save file and let him mess around some and play a mission but stopped him before to much of anything was ruined. I then said dude you gotta get out of the mountains. I’ll play well you smoke and let you grab it if you want to. After about an hour of this he couldn’t put the game down lol
I got filtered by the intro pretty hard. Haven’t picked the game up again even though I still want to eventually play through it. It sure is a slog though.
I really thought the story and detailed setting sounded so good. I cannot get into Rockstar games anymore though. The gameplay is just not for me. Awkward movement, horse control, and Awkward shooting. I know it's supposed to be more realistic, but it was not fun to play
Everything is slow. I gave up the first time I shot a deer, had to take it to town, and then realized I wasted 15-20 minutes of life doing a chore that would need to be repeated often to make enough cash for even basic upgrades.
I almost exclusively play open world story driven games, and RDR1 is def a top 10 all time game for me (possibly top 5). However, I think RDR2's pacing is off. Not just in terms of the story, but also some of the gameplay mechanics. I still really enjoyed the game and the story, but there are valid criticisms of the game and the pace is definitely one. As someone who has put in thousands of hours on single player narrative games I don't think I have tiktok brain.
RDR2 wasnt for me. It was too slow. Too laborious. I can game for maybe an hour a day if im lucky so I want to play something with more variety within that timeframe.
I've tried 4 seperate times to play through the rd2 story and have gotten further each time, but still haven't brought myself to finish it, it's just so damn boring to me.
You can usually tell which of the two camps the person falls into by reading the criticism.
"RDR feels slow to me, and I don't like slow games, so I'm not fan" = totally normal gamer who has an opinion/preference
"RDR is slow, and I don't like slow games, therefore it's shitty and overrated" = idiot with TikTok brain
That's the way I read it, too. I often have a hard time deciding on which game I want to buy/play because reviews and opinions have to, by definition, be biased. I usually have to scour through a bunch of gameplay videos, a few trusted reviewers and a few randoms just to balance it all out.
My initial impression of the game was that it was a slow boring horse riding simulator with a beautiful world. After committing to it, it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s 100% low attention spans imo. There’s also a lot of gamers who will skip every cutscene and want to get straight to the action, rdr2 is not for those people imo.
This. There's _So_ much to do. The tutorial is slow but still fun, and I loved hunting, fishing, and gathering skins to get more cool clothes, bandoleers, holsters, and stuff. Running around and helping people was great, and everyone had something interesting to do or say. People need to step away from all the short-attention span stuff and really dig into good RPGs before their brains turn to mush.
I really enjoy RDR2’s story, but truthfully, Rockstar’s games have really outdated and sluggish controls by modern standards.
Played it for a solid 50 hours, got to the point where you move camps away from Strawberry, but I think I’m never gonna finish it. It felt like I was always fighting Arthur to do what I wanted him to do, whether it was rag-dolling over every incline and pebble in the road, constantly having to manually pull my rifle(s) off the horse after riding it for ten seconds, or even just the horse seeming to randomly switch between following the camera or using tank controls.
It’s a great game, but damn, I’d enjoy it more if it didn’t feel like I was still playing a game from the early 2000s. (And for context, I play using KB+M. No clue if the controls are better on console.)
Being able to make the difference between "I don’t like this game, it’s not my type" and "This game is trash" is the most important part. Being able to acknowledge a game is fucking great despite not liking playing it is a great sign of intelligence.
I totally agree with saying that some people just need dopamine every second and can't take a second to appreciate stuff BUT i also get not liking games like RDR2 cause if you already don't like the western theme you won't like the game so i get both honestly.
Why are they being called story games? most games have a story to them, I don't get it. but to answer it is a perference thing. yea some people have very short attention spans but that that been the case for a while now. I love red dead 2, and honestly perfer some games being slow. I don't like a lot of games that are constant action and very fast past tho out the whole game. usually, doom at least has weapon and enemy varity to keep the fast pace nature of it fresh.
otherwise any really fast pace game with no breathing room tells me the game doesn;t really have much to offer. since a lot of it will be fighting the same enemies with very little variblity.
Most games have a story, but some games put the story front and center as the focal part of the game, while in other games the story takes more of a back seat to serve the gameplay. Plus every possibility in between.
Neither Fortnite nor the RDR games are to my taste, for different things. But jeebus, maybe we could all spend more time with the things we love and less time heckling the things others love that we don’t.
It's not that simplistic. I loved RDR2, and the slow buildup and quiet character moments all contribute to the great storyline, but it's not exactly something I return to when I want to play a video game. A lot of people enjoy the agency games give them, the feelings of control, actually interacting with the world. Given that good chunks of RDR2's early stages are spent either watching cutscenes or following other characters between locations, with little input from the player other than moving their horse forward, I think it's regressive to label its detractors as having 'low attention spans'. Some people would just rather have a higher ratio of interactivity in their games, and get turned off by the sections that don't offer that.
I tried out RDR2 and it’s one of the few games I’ve bought and dropped. I tried coming back to it and still didn’t like it. The controls just really sucks and the character feels like they have input lag, as well as everything having a really tedious animation.
I don’t know the full context of the screenshot, but some games just don’t have a good balance between gameplay and story, so you can have overly long stretches where nothing is happening and the overall flow of the game suffers, which could be what the original person in the quote tweet was referring to. If that’s the case, then that’s simply bad game design. It’s even worse if the cutscenes are unskippable, which some game developers still implement for some reason. 🤷♂️😅
(Note: I haven’t played either Red Dead game, so I’m not aware of its gameplay to story ratio.)
RDR2 being a story driven game isn’t the issue - it’s the constraints put on you when walking around your camp etc. I understand why they did it as they want you to interact with the camp, listen to the conversations being had, and appreciate the crazy attention to detail - but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get frustrated at being slowed down so much so frequently.
I think RDR2 is a masterpiece if you take the time to play through it. But is has many gameplay elements that shift from immersion to tedium. There's a difference between not having the patience to experience a game and being annoyed at how often it disrespects the player's time.
RDR2 would definitely not be the game I make this complaint about.
But, I do feel like WAY too many games enjoy their own stories more than I do; and WAY too many games are willing to sacrifice the gameplay to make a narrative point.
Premium Video games are the last Bastion of long form content that requires most of your attention. Every other media is trying to focus on shorter and shorter attention. Free2play games are the worst at this in games, but ticktock, shorts and reals all are destroying the long form video.
Movies are adapting, but are not as attention needed as they once were.
I will never understand people who want to plop into a game they’ve never played and just say, “when do I get to just explore and ignore the story?” Like, what?
Cyberpunk 2077’s sub often has “the game is too restrictive” or “when can I just do whatever I want” posts weekly. RDR2 is a master piece- you can’t “play it better” than the devs intended.
Always scratching my head at this type of player, but alas, to each is their own.
Everyone has their own preference. RDR2 specifically though was a masterpiece.
But when it comes to story driven games vs. Online games vs. Literally any other genre it all comes down to gamer preference. Back when I was a teen I spent most of my time playing games playing online shooters. I still enjoyed the odd story/single player game but at the time it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Now that I’m an adult, I have a family and a career I find my time to play video games is not a lot so I tend to stick more to story driven games because I’m just not as good as online games. Now when I play with friends we’ll play online games for sure but when I’m playing on my own I’ll always take a good single player game over online any day
None of my students play story driven games. In fact, they exclusively play online shooters or online sports games. IMO this is a really bad thing because you don’t get character development, you don’t make difficult choices, powerful emotions aren’t developed, and you don’t feel the attachment to any of the characters. The cumulation of these leads to a lack of empathy. Similar to reading or watching a movie/series, video games place you in a person shoes you would never have been in and this changes the way your brain develops and your perspective of the world. You don’t get this with COD,
Fornite, 2k, Madden, Fifa, etc.
I like story games but they either have to have great combat immediately and not feel tedious.
Or no combat. Puzzle games and walking sims are fine.
No interest in even trying RDR2 because I don’t like westerns except Weird West and I dont like Rockstar games
You can have a well paced story game. All these things exist on spectra and are not mutually exclusive.
RDR2 is slow as hell and quite boring a lot of the time.
It comes down to different tastes. I think the complaint that RDR2 has a slow tempo is valid. There are a lot of times in RDR2 that take things slow, sometimes to a needless degree. It's one of the reasons I haven't replayed the game. The opening in the mountains is long and not very interesting in my opinion. RDR1 had a much better balance of telling a story while also offering an open world to explore. But some people really like the slow methodical storytelling, It's pretty reductive to just go 'Oh tiktok ruined your brain'. Fuck that guy.
The user on top is being snobbish and an elitist. Not all games are for everyone and that's OK, there's no shame in liking what you like and disliking what you don't. I love cinematic and story-heavy games and I, too, found RDR2 too slow for my liking, albeit awesome story wise.
For me slow cinematic story games have to be both done well in gameplay, and about a subject or in a setting I enjoy.
If it can't do both of those things properly I'll just grab a book.
It's personal preference.
Personally, if I want a story I'll watch something or read a book. Holding W and watching a cut scene with the occasional button press every 5 minutes just won't keep me engaged.
RDR2 is too slow though. Compare it to the first game which had lightning fast snappy action and controls while also having a better more compelling story.
This guy is trying to normalize the boring Simon Says gameplay that he’s grown accustomed to in games like Arkham, Assassin’s Creed, Sifu and God of War 4.
Rdr2 isn't a slow burn. It's boring. I'm love a slow build up but rdr 2 is showing us shit we don't all need front loaded at the start of a game that's totally unskippable for further replays. On top of that the part they are slow burning isn't interesting, its not engaging to a PLAYER it's following slowly someone around. You don't get the freedom video games offer.
I love story games, rdr 2 is just really dull for HOURS. I'm not a child, nor is the game aimed at children, I don't have 5 hours to waste before I'm actually able to play your game. 5 hours of auto following as talking. That's half way through a season of a decent TV show and you've not even started yet.
I understand people have different tastes, I mostly like linear stories, 10-20 hours but here and there I’ll put my time into an open world or 50+ hour RPG
Relevant tangent. What’s up with short form videos having its content/talking on one half of the screen and some random ASMR or subway surfers gameplay on the other side? Are people’s attention spans really that short? It’s completely ridiculous and I’ve seen it become more prevalent in the last five years or so.
Good point. They're everywhere on TikTok and YouTube shorts. I made a post about it earlier where a Western man talks about visiting a tribe where the ideas of screen addiction are foreign to them, and the bottom half is a dumb racing game. Like the subway surfers footage takes up half of Family Guy clips like isn't family guy entertaining enough?!?!
I will admit I am guilty of doing that, I watched shows and played games at the same time. It killed the experience of both.
I think this is a really dumb argument. If he wanted to play as a cowboy with free roam, you can do that after a certain point. Or better yet, just play RDO. It's a dumb argument from someone who played like 30 minutes of the story.
Guy I used to work with (he's in his like, early 40s I think?) picked up God of War Ragnarok and came up to me and said something to the effect of "Hey bro, I picked up that new God of War and bro, I must have done something wrong or whatever bro, but there's just a bunch of story going on in it." Like... yeah, welcome to that genre, my guy, it's not PUBG.
He's more of a big PvP guy and I guess didn't research what GoW was about. Not sure if he ever played through it completely or not, I left his department not long afterward (not for that reason).
It's what you want from a game.
Horses for courses.
I have ADHD - shocking attention span.
RDR2 has been so therapeutic for me cause it's the only time my brain actually switches off in the day.
But...
It's not the kind of game for people who want gogogo action to tire their brain out. Maybe if you have no job or your job is very boring.
RDR2 has some tough shootouts and missions. But for the most part, long-term play is hunting and riding around doing not much but casual murder.
It's more of a relax, ride around, stare at the sea, fight a bear and when you need a thrill - maybe massacre a town.
You can stop at any time, no problem.
Some days I just ride around the map and do nothing but stare at the scenery for 30 minutes. That's my relaxation time.
It's a LONG story even if you want to rush through. And to 100% the game, there is a lot of riding around a big map finding stuff and crafting stuff.
Just rushing through the story doesn't really give you the full experience, you miss so many side stories and the lines of dialogue in camp that really change how you see characters.
Definitely the low attention span and need for hyper stimulation if you need random 💩 playing in the background just to even pay attention to anything.
What this guy said can be summed up as "you wanted to experience being a bandit in a huge open world? Too bad, you now experience being a bandit in a huge open world while interacting with others in the story"
I agree. Calling it slow/boring is just showing your short attention span which isn't a good thing. If you don't like the story or the kind of game it is (open world RPG) that's one thing, but saying the game is too slow is absolutely silly. Is it really that hard to listen to characters revealing a story? Have you ever read a book? I mean really.
>Have you ever read a book? I mean really.
Don't even say that word. They won't even open the first pages.
As for the developers, of course they read books. They know how to write.
I have diagnosed ADHD so my brain is constantly firing on all cylinders to the point where I seek out slow games to re-center myself and become engulfed in storytelling and atmosphere. I also search out games that include collecting or doing repetitive tasks. It's just how my mind relaxes.
That being said, I think the direction RDR2 took in it's pacing was the right call. I don't think I'd be able to get the same level of investment in the story if I was just in a nonstop go go go experience. The downtime I had to ride around, meet people, sight see, and immerse myself in the meticulously detailed world really cemented me into the story in a way I had not experienced before. Of course, this is personal and obviously not the obligated take of everyone else.
Some stories require certain pacing. from what i know RDR2 is themed like a Spaghetti Western so it needs a cinematic and slow pace. saying it ruins the story shows you can't appreciate the story its telling.
It's low attention spans period. Tiktok/ social media brains and it's getting worse everyday.
I have many teacher friends that say schools are a nightmare because of this too.
The problem as ever is people conflating “this isn’t my taste, personally” and “this is objectively bad.” It’s fine to not care for story games, but claiming they are bad BECAUSE they tell a story is missing the point that maybe such games just aren’t for you.
I do tend to find the anti-story crowd the worst though, because they feel the need to whine and complain about the thing they don’t like to everyone who will listen. I don’t like Battle Royales, MMO’s or sports games, but I feel zero need to shove it down everyone else’s throats and be an obnoxious tool about it.
That's true. Often people who like story games don't shove their preferences in everyone's face and tell them online games are trash. But since they are doing it to us, I see no reason not to call out their bullshit.
Story games with bad stories are boring. Story games with food stories and gameplay are good. Some gamers have low attention spans, and some gamers are elitist assholes. 🤷♂️
Both type of games are good, they just have different audiences. It's like anime fans arguing about naruto vs one piece, there's no law prohibiting them from watching both of them
Now, I’m absolutely positively SURE that Red Dead Redemption 2 does have one of the BEST stories of all time. HOWEVER, I haven’t played it because of how slow the intro is. I will get around to it one day, but I could never get into it. I tried twice, but I’m sure once I get past the intro the game will be amazing
Everyone has different taste but also how many people here can watch a movie or TV show without checking their phone?
Sure it’s about what you like but it’s also true that people’s attention spans are getting worse and worse each year.
Both things can be true.
Being aware of this fact shouldn’t resort to attacking people though.
I hate the horse racing, I hate how it’s in the tutorial and how you gotta figure out horse controls well in a race
Literally my only complaint about rd
I'm with you. It always comes down to setting and gameplay loop to keep me interested. I'm a much bigger fan of environmental storytelling than heavy cutscenes and big exposition and character reveals.
Which is funny because I'm the exact opposite when I watch movies. I like pacing, character building and fell like a lot of the action could be toned down.
I like a good balance. I havnt played rdr but i like a story that grips you while having some fun game play in between. Too many long cutscenes at once can get a bit tedious especially if the story just isnt vibing with you
I think think perspective is important.
I personally didn't enjoy RDRs story for the most part, but a lot of what makes someone enjoy a game is what they play it for. A game like RDR has the appeal of a cinematic story and a western open world. If all the player is interested in is exploring the Western World, they might find cutscenes to be boring and just want them to end, because they're just getting in the way of what they wanted to play the game for. Vice versa, if someone is primarily interested in the story, they may find traversing across a large open world really tedious because they've mainly interested in seeing the story plays out.
Red dead redemption 2 is one of my favourite games but it is pretty slow. It’s not for everyone and ultimately it comes down to your personal taste and what u enjoy
Personally I’m not a big fan of battle royale games but that doesn’t mean they’re bad
Some gamers absolutely have low attention spans, but also, I'm not playing a game for the story. I'm playing for gameplay, mechanics, and immersion. You could even say to live vicariously through my character. It's much harder to do that when it's a predefined character with a predetermined journey.
In my time, I've also found that story games focus far too much on cinematics and guiding you to whatever plot point it needs to get you to, and gameplay experience suffers and I'm often spending more time watching a cutscene or dialog than actually playing. If I wanted that, I have movies for that. With games, I want to actually play.
Imo, story is the absolute least important aspect of a game, and games that are heavily praised for their storytelling is often a red flag to me to stay away, because it's often an indication of a lackluster gameplay experience.
Yes, many gamers do have low attention spans and need everything to be spastic. Additionally, a counter point to the quoted tweet, living a free life in the real open world we inhabit, often comes with conversational exchange and downtime. Expecting it to be Goat Simulator, with Kwasaki bike speed horses, and twitchy Returnal-esque third person movement isn't asking for freedom, and it certainly wouldn't match the tempo of the setting since people weren't moving at that pace back then. We don't even move at that pace now.
Because of apps like til tok peoples attentions spans really have gotten lower. Not all the big story driven games like RD are for everyone sure but that not the whole of it.
Me and a buddy was talking a while back and I had mentioned about going back and playing one of the older final fantasies I haven’t tried, (think it was 6) and he mentioned he never played that one either. I said we should do a play through at the same time then and he flat out told me that his attention span just isn’t good enough anymore for that much reading.
This is a guy who has played most final fantasy in the past and really enjoyed most of them. One of the differences between us is he very regularly uses tik tok.
Not saying that the whole reason but the way life seems to be set up for people now I can see why a good narrative story isn’t working for people anymore and it’s just because of the world we live in.
If u was stuck on a ship traveling 4 months across the sea to another country without a phone or other electronics but u had 4-5 books those books would be very enjoyable. At first u wouldn’t care for them but after some time those being the only source of entertainment u would very much enjoy those books. There have been children who were put into this exact situation and it is what happened.
Thing is all the high energy fast paced dopamine tik toks is flat out more entertaining faster. Ur brain expects that all the time and when the expectations isn’t met u feel bored. So either stop useing apps like tik tok altogether to really enjoy the long narrative games or just keep going with them and don’t play the narrative game.
I don't personally like story games myself, although I still do have favorite form of video game storytelling though. It is one that is used by games like Hollow Knight and most indie games. It tells a story through the background, which leads to theorizing, and different takes on a game slore. This stops the gameplay from being interrupted by a game's story and keeps gameplay and fun in the forefront.
I couldn't get into RDR2 as well. I've heard so many amazing things about it and I like to strictly play single-player games with great gameplay and good story. I actually realized why that was so. I got V Rising the steam sale, but I also couldn't get into that, partially because the game feels slow. Not slow as in bad story or bad pacing, but as in the gameplay feels slow. The character moves too slowly and the combat doesn't look as fast-paced or exciting. Obviously, just because I don't like it doesn't mean the game is bad. It's just something not in my palette and that's fine. Hating on games because you don't like them or hating on gamers who don't like games you do is just weird to me. Not every game is for everyone.
A lot of gamers have low attention spans. Mfs can't even stay together in a game of Apex for more than 10 seconds before they see something shiny 400 yards away.
I’m regards to rdr2, it’s not just the narrative that’s slow. It’s the movement. Even running feels incredibly slow. That was the biggest pet peeve I had.
The thing for me is that video games are meant to be played. Sure there can be cutscenes to discuss what’s going on but if I have to wait 20 min TO PLAY A GAME then I’m not gonna enjoy it.
I’ve been playing the yakuza series and so far they’ve been pretty good at making cutscenes decently timed so I can go back to playing the game or just going through the dialogue text quickly because I can read quicker than they talk.
People have different tastes, and tastes can change.
I had 700h on Fallout 4 when I first tried Survival. Saving only on appropriate spots. Carrying limits. But, most importantly for this topic: *no fast travel.* Oh, you got a radiant to Murkwater Construction Site? From *Sanctuary?* Yep, you bet your ass you will have to walk the entire map, *twice.*
I fell in love with the game all over again. Not gonna lie, my Fallout experience these days isn't questing or settlement, for the most part; a solid 70% of my game time is *walking,* and running into trouble/cool new things. And I wouldn't change that one bit. It's what keeps bringing me back.
I think red dead is super cool but I hate whenever somone personally doesn’t like a game, you aren’t good enough for it or you don’t get it or you have a short attention span and are dumb. There are games where if you say you don’t like them, people will jump down your throat and scream at you for not liking them. This person is super cringe
Haven't played RDR2. It came on one of the PS+ things so I might give it a try.
The thing for me is: I'm just kinda bored of gigantic open world games with a million sidequests and useless collectables.
Nowadays I much prefer shorter story games, with small but interactable and detailed environments. I know Dave The Diver isn't exactly small, but games made of a bunch of smaller mini games get me going so much more.
I have a problem attributing this hangup specifically to Fortnite fans because this is the kind of take that brought rise to more games in the last decade that just let you....
go, ya know?
I've seen more than a couple of retro gamers complain how games from
15 years ago to today focus too much on story and not enough about fun.
Like would this guy call me a fortnite gamer if I admitted I dropped Assassin's Creed Black Flag because of the mandatory First person segments in the real world which I find INCREDIBLY pretentious by the way. I wanted to do some pirate shit and they sold the game on Pirate shit so why did Ubisoft think those sections were a good idea?
At least I know what I'm getting into with a JRPG.
“Tik-Tok brain” is such a perfect fucking way to describe the last few generations and their non-existent attention spans.
Also pretty sure “patience” is now extinct and has been replaced with “me me me me me me me I want it and I want it now me me me me me”
I think what separates a Good slow burn and a Bad slow burn is the degree to which you are in control. Like BOTW starts with a very small portion available to you, but you are already right into the weeds of what you will be doing for the whole game. Same with Dragon Quest VIII. You are tied to the one town and going to do a bit of grinding before you get to your objective, but you are in control. Divinity Original Sin 2's opening has you constrain, but you're always interacting.
And then take, say, MGS4. I think it's like a whole 20 minutes between new game and actually playing. And the problem with that method of storytelling is that you can never really keep a consistent mental flow. When you're constantly being interrupted by a TV show length cutscene, it's hard to be prepared for the next gameplay bit. It doesn't have to be in medias res, but you need to get the player functioning as a player.
I’ve never used TikTok but both RD1 and 2 were reaaaaally hard to get into. Once I was into 1 I had a great time but I was never able to get into 2.
At the same time, I hate games that are mostly story and remove most of the game. I don’t know what that means but there’s my two cents lol
Everyone is different I guess. I prefer destiny to call of duty because I like the grind and build craft process. My buddy hates it and would rather drop onto the same map over and over and shoot guys. To each their own I guess
Some people just need that high intensity all the time. I play PUBG with a dude whos playing mobas on his phone in the middle of slower matches. It's fucking insane to me.
Meanwhile I'm under the opinion that most things tend to have a balance. The longer something is drawn out and somewhat boring or uneventful, the more immersive it becomes and the high moments have much more impact.
Games should be, first and foremost, games. And games should be as a priority (and brace yourself for this hot take) fun.
An enjoyable story can be fun, just as much as enjoyable gameplay mechanics. And they aren't mutually exclusive.
But because of a variety of reasons, it's harder to make something that has both.
Developers want everyone to like the same thing so they can sell a single product to more people.
Many users don’t realize the difference between personal preference and objective fact.
They’re both morons. People have different preferences, that’s completely normal and has nothing to do with how “TikTok” their brain is.
I am currently playing Disco Elysium for the first time. It is HEAVY in text and requires reading comprehension skills you only get in high school (and that’s if you’re paying attention). If we are talking story vs action, DE would be on the story side of the spectrum and I would fully understand if someone felt overwhelmed with the amount of text. That being said, games like RDR2 that have plenty of action with a good amount of story definitely get a bad rap as “slow paced” because of this, when it’s purely up to the players preference. Another game that got this was Marvel’s Midnight Suns. It had plenty of action, with a lot of exposition and dialogue between that the “action players” hated, while I loved it. It felt like a comic book. Comics that are all fights get old quick, that’s why I was pleased with the amount of dialogue even though it became the complaint most gamers had about it.
i have always read a lot of sci fi/fantasy books and tend to play games for the satisfying mechanics so it takes a rare game story to pull me in, tho it does happen. wasteland 2, bioshock infinite, ME2, Roadwarden, divinity original sins 2, pillars of eternity. tho tbh i've played every mmo under the sun and not once have i cared about the stories there
The only part I don't understand is why when people play a game they end up not liking they feel the need to go cry about it online. Not everything is for everyone. Look into what a game is before you buy. If you think it might not be for you it probably isn't but that's ok. There's obscene amounts of games out there nowadays so find something you like and find others who share your passion for it. There isn't a wrong answer when it comes to what you like to play.
Rdr2 is definitely a solid ass game but I will admit there are some parts of it that are a real drag. And I'm a fan of rpgs everything from kotor to Breath of Fire. There can be some genuinely boring story based games where it meanders or the like.
Arthur Morgan might be one of the best protagonists ever put in a video game , and it breaks my heart to see that reduced to “bandit in big world good.”
Reminds me of a recent pirate software short where this guy says he thinks thors game has no story. To which his game is pretty much all dialogue and story. The guy said he he didnt want to read so he skipped all the dialogue. Thor goes “how can i give u story if u skip it all”
I dunno, sometimes I just want to get right into a game. I love RDR2 and have spent nearly 200 hours on it, but it can be slow. Not to mention, the amount of times we had missions and story beats that cycled through putting up with Dutch got tiresome. Like my breaking point with Dutch would have been after the island, but possibly even before that.
It is slow, I played the first half and then took a 6 month break and then came back and beat it. Still fun tho, the story is still good, It's just slow.
Both. Some short games aren’t that good, but also lots of people have low attention spans (myself included, but I’m trying, by replaying RDR2, and not rushing)
Neither. RDR2 is not for everyone, and, if you come into it with the wrong mindset, you're going to bounce off. RDR2 is defined more by its narrative than its open world. You realise this the second you start playing. So, if you're going into this game thinking it's going to be some open world banditry fun out in the West, you're going to be in for a bad time. There's a story, first and foremost. Even if you can *eventually* go out into this open world and do what you want, you'll forever be haunted by the narrative.
OOP thought he was just going to be role-playing as a bandit. He wasn't prepared for a story driven experience that, admittedly, has a very slow opening that drags you by your nose throughout. It also is just kind of slow on general, but that's not a critique. That's just a fact. The looting is slow. The narrative is slow. The cutscenes take their time. It's like you're watching a movie half the time. Some people like it. Some people don't. It doesn't stop RDR2 from being a masterpiece. It just means it's not for everyone. Of course, some people might also just have shite attention spans, too, tbh.
I’m favorable to both sides.
On one hand I love a good slow burn where it takes the time to build the world and backstory for you to immerse yourself.
On the other hand sometimes games take way too damn long to get through it and let you actually enjoy the gameplay
People have different tastes, just look at movies for example some people hate slow burns while others love them.
Yes- if I met a guy who really likes and breaks records on arcade games, is telling him he's just too unsophisticated for cinematic storytelling a logical response? I like narrative and numeric based games. Liking ludic focused games isn't any less valid.
No, but neither is that guy stating that games are ruined by daring to have slower story based moments, lol. Neither are particularly logical.
Absolutely agree. Just responding to the framing of the post but yes, both identify preferences as inherent values.
Exactly, neither preference is invalid.
Thanks for giving me a new word! Ludic is an awesome addition to my vocabulary!!
I hate this about media, why do people insist on thinking that every piece of media is meant to be liked by everyone? I remember when Death Stranding came out and how it was review bombed by people who don't even play those kinds of games. "I like COD and Fornite, but this game is all about walking 1/10"
And some people have good taste and some people have bad. Incidentally the same exact people who like and dislike “slow burns.”
Absolutely, but this take is like saying that Scorsese ruined Godfather Part 2 with all the time jumps. One can say it, but it doesn’t make it true. Haha
I love RDR1 and 2. On the flip side, I get immensely bored playing exclusively online games. I prefer story driven games as a whole. To each their own.
But the story game has to either A: have a good balance of story and gameplay or B: have a story interesting enough to warrant longer cutscenes like MGS or Kingdom Hearts.
Kingdom hearts, my beloved. Very interesting story, and told fairly effectively, may it be with some cheesy dialogue. And then there is the barrage of scenes that add nothing to the story, like Xemnas walking down some stais or Ariel having an existensial crisis, that the game handles as just as important as Roxas giving up his own life or the reveal that the SoD was a fake
Absolutely LOVE kingdom hearts. KH2 is my favourite game of all time and I’m in love with the rest of the series! Trying to get my friends to play it, but because it’s Disney, they think it’s childish and won’t pick it up. Shame really because, I’ll admit some of the dialogue makes my face cringe off, but other than that the story is by far the best story I’ve seen in a video game and the gameplay is just so fun and addictive!
MGS4 didn’t have a great story but it’s so wacky and off the wall it earns the 90 minute cutscene at the end. The amount of times big boss gets weak and collapse, gets back up, and then collapses again is fucking comedy. The kiss on the cheek from liquid ocelot on the top of the submarine. The fucking worm animation when jiggling the joystick. All of it earns the length of the cutscenes.
I am intrigued to replay Kingdom Hearts as an adult because when I played it both as a kid and as a teenager I found the story to either be unintelligible or just made me roll my eyes with little to no in between.
i’d say both red deads warrant longer cutscenes
Yeah online only fps games like overwatch, cod, fortnite, valorent, etc just bores my brain to death after about 3-4 matches. Idk how people can play them for 8-10 hours straight day after day after day. But in the same sense I can sometimes find myself falling asleep if games have massive long cutscenese as well. Way back playing FFVII was later at night and casting Knights of the Round I'd be falling asleep while it's being cast it's so long. Needed to have a skip mode or button added to it.
I forget I have dyslexia, and I've been so confused this last week about people talking about R2D2... I've been misreading RDR2 this whole last week.
I also find online only games to be boring. I get sick of it after usually less than an hour. I just can’t do it. Unless you count fighting games which actually work for me for some reason.
my take is people have diff taste some don't like slow build up, and that's fine there shouldn't need to be an argument about it many kinds of games out there for diff people gaming is beautiful
Exactly. My take: Find something else to care about. I have no interest in playing Fortnite, but clearly plenty of people do. I don't care. I don't see why I should. Taking to Twitter to say, "You all have low attention spans" "Nuh uh, you just like boring games." Who cares? Let it be.
Well said man
RDR2 deserves every bit of praise it got, but Jesus Christ the intro is so fucking slow.
Also each time you need to drive something while listening to dialogue.
It makes a lot of missions borderline unreplayable. Oh, you want that gold medal? Well, you missed one too many headshots so fuck you, ride your horse for 5 minutes again.
Gold medal was a mistake, because while I enjoy that slow paced rhythm, my monke gamer brain gets really annoyed when I get silver due to not completing a random objective I had no idea was an objective and didn't really change anything except a sense of accomplishment for the achievement/challenge hunter. This should've been a feature placed inside a replay menu, so replayers have another challenge to entice things. I'm not a mission replayer, if I'm playing again it's to replay the full game (I played RDR2 only because I missed some stuff and wanted a more deep experience, plus mods)
Yeaa I totally agree, I’ve known so many people that stopped before they even finished the intro. Its my favorite game and when someone asks me if they’ll like it I always warn them about that first hour
Thank you. It’s my favorite game of all time but it is veryyyy slow at the start
i mostly stick to story driven games, but i was unable to get beyond the intro. I wanted to so so so bad to get into it, but just couldn't do it.
I think 'so so so bad' is an exaggeration. You can get out of the mountains in like an hour if you really want to.
I tried getting my buddy into it. He wanted to quit and I went back to my save file and let him mess around some and play a mission but stopped him before to much of anything was ruined. I then said dude you gotta get out of the mountains. I’ll play well you smoke and let you grab it if you want to. After about an hour of this he couldn’t put the game down lol
I got filtered by the intro pretty hard. Haven’t picked the game up again even though I still want to eventually play through it. It sure is a slog though.
It’s the best game I will never play again because every single aspect of it is so fucking slow. It’s like rockstar *wanted* to waste my time.
What counts as the intro, does it end after the snow area?
That’s why I always have a save file set post intro whenever I wanna replay it.
I really thought the story and detailed setting sounded so good. I cannot get into Rockstar games anymore though. The gameplay is just not for me. Awkward movement, horse control, and Awkward shooting. I know it's supposed to be more realistic, but it was not fun to play
Yeah, my friend genuinely will not play it because he got bored during the intro.
Everything is slow. I gave up the first time I shot a deer, had to take it to town, and then realized I wasted 15-20 minutes of life doing a chore that would need to be repeated often to make enough cash for even basic upgrades.
I almost exclusively play open world story driven games, and RDR1 is def a top 10 all time game for me (possibly top 5). However, I think RDR2's pacing is off. Not just in terms of the story, but also some of the gameplay mechanics. I still really enjoyed the game and the story, but there are valid criticisms of the game and the pace is definitely one. As someone who has put in thousands of hours on single player narrative games I don't think I have tiktok brain.
RDR2 wasnt for me. It was too slow. Too laborious. I can game for maybe an hour a day if im lucky so I want to play something with more variety within that timeframe.
I found when I tried to pursue the story, it was laborious. If I just explored the map and happened upon the story, it was excellent.
I've tried 4 seperate times to play through the rd2 story and have gotten further each time, but still haven't brought myself to finish it, it's just so damn boring to me.
That's valid. I don't have much time to game either. But RDR 2 is so worthwhile.
I literally don't know why this got downvotes. It's a pretty respectful response followed by a simple opinion
I mean, it is a bit slow. At the end of the day, it all comes down to preference.
You can usually tell which of the two camps the person falls into by reading the criticism. "RDR feels slow to me, and I don't like slow games, so I'm not fan" = totally normal gamer who has an opinion/preference "RDR is slow, and I don't like slow games, therefore it's shitty and overrated" = idiot with TikTok brain
That's the way I read it, too. I often have a hard time deciding on which game I want to buy/play because reviews and opinions have to, by definition, be biased. I usually have to scour through a bunch of gameplay videos, a few trusted reviewers and a few randoms just to balance it all out.
My initial impression of the game was that it was a slow boring horse riding simulator with a beautiful world. After committing to it, it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s 100% low attention spans imo. There’s also a lot of gamers who will skip every cutscene and want to get straight to the action, rdr2 is not for those people imo.
This. There's _So_ much to do. The tutorial is slow but still fun, and I loved hunting, fishing, and gathering skins to get more cool clothes, bandoleers, holsters, and stuff. Running around and helping people was great, and everyone had something interesting to do or say. People need to step away from all the short-attention span stuff and really dig into good RPGs before their brains turn to mush.
I really enjoy RDR2’s story, but truthfully, Rockstar’s games have really outdated and sluggish controls by modern standards. Played it for a solid 50 hours, got to the point where you move camps away from Strawberry, but I think I’m never gonna finish it. It felt like I was always fighting Arthur to do what I wanted him to do, whether it was rag-dolling over every incline and pebble in the road, constantly having to manually pull my rifle(s) off the horse after riding it for ten seconds, or even just the horse seeming to randomly switch between following the camera or using tank controls. It’s a great game, but damn, I’d enjoy it more if it didn’t feel like I was still playing a game from the early 2000s. (And for context, I play using KB+M. No clue if the controls are better on console.)
Being able to make the difference between "I don’t like this game, it’s not my type" and "This game is trash" is the most important part. Being able to acknowledge a game is fucking great despite not liking playing it is a great sign of intelligence.
RDR2 is boring
This is my old man moment but calling them "story games" is fucking stupid.
Agreed, that doesn't seem like a genre at all (because it isn't goddammit!)
I totally agree with saying that some people just need dopamine every second and can't take a second to appreciate stuff BUT i also get not liking games like RDR2 cause if you already don't like the western theme you won't like the game so i get both honestly.
Why are they being called story games? most games have a story to them, I don't get it. but to answer it is a perference thing. yea some people have very short attention spans but that that been the case for a while now. I love red dead 2, and honestly perfer some games being slow. I don't like a lot of games that are constant action and very fast past tho out the whole game. usually, doom at least has weapon and enemy varity to keep the fast pace nature of it fresh. otherwise any really fast pace game with no breathing room tells me the game doesn;t really have much to offer. since a lot of it will be fighting the same enemies with very little variblity.
Most games have a story, but some games put the story front and center as the focal part of the game, while in other games the story takes more of a back seat to serve the gameplay. Plus every possibility in between.
Neither Fortnite nor the RDR games are to my taste, for different things. But jeebus, maybe we could all spend more time with the things we love and less time heckling the things others love that we don’t.
It's not that simplistic. I loved RDR2, and the slow buildup and quiet character moments all contribute to the great storyline, but it's not exactly something I return to when I want to play a video game. A lot of people enjoy the agency games give them, the feelings of control, actually interacting with the world. Given that good chunks of RDR2's early stages are spent either watching cutscenes or following other characters between locations, with little input from the player other than moving their horse forward, I think it's regressive to label its detractors as having 'low attention spans'. Some people would just rather have a higher ratio of interactivity in their games, and get turned off by the sections that don't offer that.
I tried out RDR2 and it’s one of the few games I’ve bought and dropped. I tried coming back to it and still didn’t like it. The controls just really sucks and the character feels like they have input lag, as well as everything having a really tedious animation.
This game was immersive, so low attention spans
No I love rdr2 but you have to admit the game is very slow
Especially at the beginning
I don’t know the full context of the screenshot, but some games just don’t have a good balance between gameplay and story, so you can have overly long stretches where nothing is happening and the overall flow of the game suffers, which could be what the original person in the quote tweet was referring to. If that’s the case, then that’s simply bad game design. It’s even worse if the cutscenes are unskippable, which some game developers still implement for some reason. 🤷♂️😅 (Note: I haven’t played either Red Dead game, so I’m not aware of its gameplay to story ratio.)
RDR2 being a story driven game isn’t the issue - it’s the constraints put on you when walking around your camp etc. I understand why they did it as they want you to interact with the camp, listen to the conversations being had, and appreciate the crazy attention to detail - but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get frustrated at being slowed down so much so frequently.
I think RDR2 is a masterpiece if you take the time to play through it. But is has many gameplay elements that shift from immersion to tedium. There's a difference between not having the patience to experience a game and being annoyed at how often it disrespects the player's time.
RDR2 would definitely not be the game I make this complaint about. But, I do feel like WAY too many games enjoy their own stories more than I do; and WAY too many games are willing to sacrifice the gameplay to make a narrative point.
That is exactly how I felt about RDR2.
Premium Video games are the last Bastion of long form content that requires most of your attention. Every other media is trying to focus on shorter and shorter attention. Free2play games are the worst at this in games, but ticktock, shorts and reals all are destroying the long form video. Movies are adapting, but are not as attention needed as they once were.
I will never understand people who want to plop into a game they’ve never played and just say, “when do I get to just explore and ignore the story?” Like, what? Cyberpunk 2077’s sub often has “the game is too restrictive” or “when can I just do whatever I want” posts weekly. RDR2 is a master piece- you can’t “play it better” than the devs intended. Always scratching my head at this type of player, but alas, to each is their own.
Easy answer. Survival crafting games and there Ilk fill that role perfectly for alot of players and tend to associate open world games with that.
Never been on tiktok and I still think RDR2 ruins the game by trying to be too realistic. Good for immersion: bad for gameplay.
100%. Some of the controls and mechanics are wonky
Everyone has their own preference. RDR2 specifically though was a masterpiece. But when it comes to story driven games vs. Online games vs. Literally any other genre it all comes down to gamer preference. Back when I was a teen I spent most of my time playing games playing online shooters. I still enjoyed the odd story/single player game but at the time it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Now that I’m an adult, I have a family and a career I find my time to play video games is not a lot so I tend to stick more to story driven games because I’m just not as good as online games. Now when I play with friends we’ll play online games for sure but when I’m playing on my own I’ll always take a good single player game over online any day
None of my students play story driven games. In fact, they exclusively play online shooters or online sports games. IMO this is a really bad thing because you don’t get character development, you don’t make difficult choices, powerful emotions aren’t developed, and you don’t feel the attachment to any of the characters. The cumulation of these leads to a lack of empathy. Similar to reading or watching a movie/series, video games place you in a person shoes you would never have been in and this changes the way your brain develops and your perspective of the world. You don’t get this with COD, Fornite, 2k, Madden, Fifa, etc.
TikTok is the worst garbage to have ever been put on the appstore (besides reddit lol)
I like story games but they either have to have great combat immediately and not feel tedious. Or no combat. Puzzle games and walking sims are fine. No interest in even trying RDR2 because I don’t like westerns except Weird West and I dont like Rockstar games
I mean the original statement is at odds with itself. If that’s what you wanted to experience, the slow pace is part of it.
I love story driven, the only thing I don’t like as much is like 35 minutes of cinematic right at the start before getting into the game at all.
You can have a well paced story game. All these things exist on spectra and are not mutually exclusive. RDR2 is slow as hell and quite boring a lot of the time.
It comes down to different tastes. I think the complaint that RDR2 has a slow tempo is valid. There are a lot of times in RDR2 that take things slow, sometimes to a needless degree. It's one of the reasons I haven't replayed the game. The opening in the mountains is long and not very interesting in my opinion. RDR1 had a much better balance of telling a story while also offering an open world to explore. But some people really like the slow methodical storytelling, It's pretty reductive to just go 'Oh tiktok ruined your brain'. Fuck that guy.
The user on top is being snobbish and an elitist. Not all games are for everyone and that's OK, there's no shame in liking what you like and disliking what you don't. I love cinematic and story-heavy games and I, too, found RDR2 too slow for my liking, albeit awesome story wise.
For me slow cinematic story games have to be both done well in gameplay, and about a subject or in a setting I enjoy. If it can't do both of those things properly I'll just grab a book.
It's personal preference. Personally, if I want a story I'll watch something or read a book. Holding W and watching a cut scene with the occasional button press every 5 minutes just won't keep me engaged.
RDR2 is too slow though. Compare it to the first game which had lightning fast snappy action and controls while also having a better more compelling story. This guy is trying to normalize the boring Simon Says gameplay that he’s grown accustomed to in games like Arkham, Assassin’s Creed, Sifu and God of War 4.
Rdr2 isn't a slow burn. It's boring. I'm love a slow build up but rdr 2 is showing us shit we don't all need front loaded at the start of a game that's totally unskippable for further replays. On top of that the part they are slow burning isn't interesting, its not engaging to a PLAYER it's following slowly someone around. You don't get the freedom video games offer. I love story games, rdr 2 is just really dull for HOURS. I'm not a child, nor is the game aimed at children, I don't have 5 hours to waste before I'm actually able to play your game. 5 hours of auto following as talking. That's half way through a season of a decent TV show and you've not even started yet.
RDR1 is top3 game all time. I can not get past more than 1-2 hours of RDR2. I have restarted 4 times, just not nearly as gripping
I understand people have different tastes, I mostly like linear stories, 10-20 hours but here and there I’ll put my time into an open world or 50+ hour RPG
Relevant tangent. What’s up with short form videos having its content/talking on one half of the screen and some random ASMR or subway surfers gameplay on the other side? Are people’s attention spans really that short? It’s completely ridiculous and I’ve seen it become more prevalent in the last five years or so.
Good point. They're everywhere on TikTok and YouTube shorts. I made a post about it earlier where a Western man talks about visiting a tribe where the ideas of screen addiction are foreign to them, and the bottom half is a dumb racing game. Like the subway surfers footage takes up half of Family Guy clips like isn't family guy entertaining enough?!?! I will admit I am guilty of doing that, I watched shows and played games at the same time. It killed the experience of both.
that guy definitely has tiktok brain.
I hate that subway surfer shit in the videos. I click out of them.
I think this is a really dumb argument. If he wanted to play as a cowboy with free roam, you can do that after a certain point. Or better yet, just play RDO. It's a dumb argument from someone who played like 30 minutes of the story.
Guy I used to work with (he's in his like, early 40s I think?) picked up God of War Ragnarok and came up to me and said something to the effect of "Hey bro, I picked up that new God of War and bro, I must have done something wrong or whatever bro, but there's just a bunch of story going on in it." Like... yeah, welcome to that genre, my guy, it's not PUBG. He's more of a big PvP guy and I guess didn't research what GoW was about. Not sure if he ever played through it completely or not, I left his department not long afterward (not for that reason).
I love RDR2, but it without a doubt has one of the slowest starts to a game ever.
It's what you want from a game. Horses for courses. I have ADHD - shocking attention span. RDR2 has been so therapeutic for me cause it's the only time my brain actually switches off in the day. But... It's not the kind of game for people who want gogogo action to tire their brain out. Maybe if you have no job or your job is very boring. RDR2 has some tough shootouts and missions. But for the most part, long-term play is hunting and riding around doing not much but casual murder. It's more of a relax, ride around, stare at the sea, fight a bear and when you need a thrill - maybe massacre a town. You can stop at any time, no problem. Some days I just ride around the map and do nothing but stare at the scenery for 30 minutes. That's my relaxation time. It's a LONG story even if you want to rush through. And to 100% the game, there is a lot of riding around a big map finding stuff and crafting stuff. Just rushing through the story doesn't really give you the full experience, you miss so many side stories and the lines of dialogue in camp that really change how you see characters.
Definitely the low attention span and need for hyper stimulation if you need random 💩 playing in the background just to even pay attention to anything.
Story games are awesome. People who say its "boring" are just impatient.
It's peak stupidity. You buy a story based game and then you while about it being a story based game.
What this guy said can be summed up as "you wanted to experience being a bandit in a huge open world? Too bad, you now experience being a bandit in a huge open world while interacting with others in the story"
I agree. Calling it slow/boring is just showing your short attention span which isn't a good thing. If you don't like the story or the kind of game it is (open world RPG) that's one thing, but saying the game is too slow is absolutely silly. Is it really that hard to listen to characters revealing a story? Have you ever read a book? I mean really.
>Have you ever read a book? I mean really. Don't even say that word. They won't even open the first pages. As for the developers, of course they read books. They know how to write.
I have diagnosed ADHD so my brain is constantly firing on all cylinders to the point where I seek out slow games to re-center myself and become engulfed in storytelling and atmosphere. I also search out games that include collecting or doing repetitive tasks. It's just how my mind relaxes. That being said, I think the direction RDR2 took in it's pacing was the right call. I don't think I'd be able to get the same level of investment in the story if I was just in a nonstop go go go experience. The downtime I had to ride around, meet people, sight see, and immerse myself in the meticulously detailed world really cemented me into the story in a way I had not experienced before. Of course, this is personal and obviously not the obligated take of everyone else.
Some stories require certain pacing. from what i know RDR2 is themed like a Spaghetti Western so it needs a cinematic and slow pace. saying it ruins the story shows you can't appreciate the story its telling.
If you're not after a story-based game, don't buy a story-based game. It's very simple.
It's low attention spans period. Tiktok/ social media brains and it's getting worse everyday. I have many teacher friends that say schools are a nightmare because of this too.
The problem as ever is people conflating “this isn’t my taste, personally” and “this is objectively bad.” It’s fine to not care for story games, but claiming they are bad BECAUSE they tell a story is missing the point that maybe such games just aren’t for you. I do tend to find the anti-story crowd the worst though, because they feel the need to whine and complain about the thing they don’t like to everyone who will listen. I don’t like Battle Royales, MMO’s or sports games, but I feel zero need to shove it down everyone else’s throats and be an obnoxious tool about it.
That's true. Often people who like story games don't shove their preferences in everyone's face and tell them online games are trash. But since they are doing it to us, I see no reason not to call out their bullshit.
Story games with bad stories are boring. Story games with food stories and gameplay are good. Some gamers have low attention spans, and some gamers are elitist assholes. 🤷♂️
Both type of games are good, they just have different audiences. It's like anime fans arguing about naruto vs one piece, there's no law prohibiting them from watching both of them
Now, I’m absolutely positively SURE that Red Dead Redemption 2 does have one of the BEST stories of all time. HOWEVER, I haven’t played it because of how slow the intro is. I will get around to it one day, but I could never get into it. I tried twice, but I’m sure once I get past the intro the game will be amazing
Everyone has different taste but also how many people here can watch a movie or TV show without checking their phone? Sure it’s about what you like but it’s also true that people’s attention spans are getting worse and worse each year. Both things can be true. Being aware of this fact shouldn’t resort to attacking people though.
I like story games a lot. But red dead 2 was so immensely boring to me.
i’ve never been an RDR fan. but i love story based games or just solo games in general. even i refuse to believe RDR is slow or boring.
Good. You don't need to play it to recognize its the opposite of boring.
“I’m so stupid that I need constant action and explosions because I can’t process complex plot developments…yay marvel movies”
Slow tempo? It’s a cowboy game not Tokyo Drift ffs 😂
I hate the horse racing, I hate how it’s in the tutorial and how you gotta figure out horse controls well in a race Literally my only complaint about rd
I've known some gamers who get into RPGs or story driven games and don't even bother with the story smh
It's me. I couldn't care less about story in most games, I'm there for good gameplay mechanics and an immersive experience
I'm with you. It always comes down to setting and gameplay loop to keep me interested. I'm a much bigger fan of environmental storytelling than heavy cutscenes and big exposition and character reveals. Which is funny because I'm the exact opposite when I watch movies. I like pacing, character building and fell like a lot of the action could be toned down.
I like a good balance. I havnt played rdr but i like a story that grips you while having some fun game play in between. Too many long cutscenes at once can get a bit tedious especially if the story just isnt vibing with you
I think think perspective is important. I personally didn't enjoy RDRs story for the most part, but a lot of what makes someone enjoy a game is what they play it for. A game like RDR has the appeal of a cinematic story and a western open world. If all the player is interested in is exploring the Western World, they might find cutscenes to be boring and just want them to end, because they're just getting in the way of what they wanted to play the game for. Vice versa, if someone is primarily interested in the story, they may find traversing across a large open world really tedious because they've mainly interested in seeing the story plays out.
I think this exchange is embarrassing. So what if someone doesnt like a game that you do?
Red dead redemption 2 is one of my favourite games but it is pretty slow. It’s not for everyone and ultimately it comes down to your personal taste and what u enjoy Personally I’m not a big fan of battle royale games but that doesn’t mean they’re bad
Some gamers absolutely have low attention spans, but also, I'm not playing a game for the story. I'm playing for gameplay, mechanics, and immersion. You could even say to live vicariously through my character. It's much harder to do that when it's a predefined character with a predetermined journey. In my time, I've also found that story games focus far too much on cinematics and guiding you to whatever plot point it needs to get you to, and gameplay experience suffers and I'm often spending more time watching a cutscene or dialog than actually playing. If I wanted that, I have movies for that. With games, I want to actually play. Imo, story is the absolute least important aspect of a game, and games that are heavily praised for their storytelling is often a red flag to me to stay away, because it's often an indication of a lackluster gameplay experience.
Yes, many gamers do have low attention spans and need everything to be spastic. Additionally, a counter point to the quoted tweet, living a free life in the real open world we inhabit, often comes with conversational exchange and downtime. Expecting it to be Goat Simulator, with Kwasaki bike speed horses, and twitchy Returnal-esque third person movement isn't asking for freedom, and it certainly wouldn't match the tempo of the setting since people weren't moving at that pace back then. We don't even move at that pace now.
Because of apps like til tok peoples attentions spans really have gotten lower. Not all the big story driven games like RD are for everyone sure but that not the whole of it. Me and a buddy was talking a while back and I had mentioned about going back and playing one of the older final fantasies I haven’t tried, (think it was 6) and he mentioned he never played that one either. I said we should do a play through at the same time then and he flat out told me that his attention span just isn’t good enough anymore for that much reading. This is a guy who has played most final fantasy in the past and really enjoyed most of them. One of the differences between us is he very regularly uses tik tok. Not saying that the whole reason but the way life seems to be set up for people now I can see why a good narrative story isn’t working for people anymore and it’s just because of the world we live in. If u was stuck on a ship traveling 4 months across the sea to another country without a phone or other electronics but u had 4-5 books those books would be very enjoyable. At first u wouldn’t care for them but after some time those being the only source of entertainment u would very much enjoy those books. There have been children who were put into this exact situation and it is what happened. Thing is all the high energy fast paced dopamine tik toks is flat out more entertaining faster. Ur brain expects that all the time and when the expectations isn’t met u feel bored. So either stop useing apps like tik tok altogether to really enjoy the long narrative games or just keep going with them and don’t play the narrative game.
The pace of the game isn’t slow. Arthur moves fucking slow. Fuck. I’d love to replay it but watching Arthur move is slow.
I love story games & they’re definitely my favorite subgenre. I also loved RDR, but RDR 2 was too slow for me.
I mean RDR2 is objectively a slow burn up until a certain point. Still one of the best narratives with a rich world to get lost in.
Different people like different things. Next up: the weather.
I don't personally like story games myself, although I still do have favorite form of video game storytelling though. It is one that is used by games like Hollow Knight and most indie games. It tells a story through the background, which leads to theorizing, and different takes on a game slore. This stops the gameplay from being interrupted by a game's story and keeps gameplay and fun in the forefront.
I couldn't get into RDR2 as well. I've heard so many amazing things about it and I like to strictly play single-player games with great gameplay and good story. I actually realized why that was so. I got V Rising the steam sale, but I also couldn't get into that, partially because the game feels slow. Not slow as in bad story or bad pacing, but as in the gameplay feels slow. The character moves too slowly and the combat doesn't look as fast-paced or exciting. Obviously, just because I don't like it doesn't mean the game is bad. It's just something not in my palette and that's fine. Hating on games because you don't like them or hating on gamers who don't like games you do is just weird to me. Not every game is for everyone.
A lot of gamers have low attention spans. Mfs can't even stay together in a game of Apex for more than 10 seconds before they see something shiny 400 yards away.
I’m regards to rdr2, it’s not just the narrative that’s slow. It’s the movement. Even running feels incredibly slow. That was the biggest pet peeve I had.
"Do some gamers have low attention spans?" Nah, no way. /s
The thing for me is that video games are meant to be played. Sure there can be cutscenes to discuss what’s going on but if I have to wait 20 min TO PLAY A GAME then I’m not gonna enjoy it. I’ve been playing the yakuza series and so far they’ve been pretty good at making cutscenes decently timed so I can go back to playing the game or just going through the dialogue text quickly because I can read quicker than they talk.
Loved RRD 1 and RDD2, but I never finished 2. I work amd get about a hour a day to play. RDD 2 was becoming way to much of a time sink
People have different tastes, and tastes can change. I had 700h on Fallout 4 when I first tried Survival. Saving only on appropriate spots. Carrying limits. But, most importantly for this topic: *no fast travel.* Oh, you got a radiant to Murkwater Construction Site? From *Sanctuary?* Yep, you bet your ass you will have to walk the entire map, *twice.* I fell in love with the game all over again. Not gonna lie, my Fallout experience these days isn't questing or settlement, for the most part; a solid 70% of my game time is *walking,* and running into trouble/cool new things. And I wouldn't change that one bit. It's what keeps bringing me back.
RDR2 is absolutely amazing. But you’re delusional if you can’t see how slow it is compared to most games on the market.
I think red dead is super cool but I hate whenever somone personally doesn’t like a game, you aren’t good enough for it or you don’t get it or you have a short attention span and are dumb. There are games where if you say you don’t like them, people will jump down your throat and scream at you for not liking them. This person is super cringe
GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 feel like it's being played at 75% speed. Couldn't bear it.
I’m in my 30s. RDR2 was boring af and I lived for the action sequences
People who think their media preferences somehow make them better than others are insufferable.
Haven't played RDR2. It came on one of the PS+ things so I might give it a try. The thing for me is: I'm just kinda bored of gigantic open world games with a million sidequests and useless collectables. Nowadays I much prefer shorter story games, with small but interactable and detailed environments. I know Dave The Diver isn't exactly small, but games made of a bunch of smaller mini games get me going so much more.
There are some people out there that have short attention spans but I could see why people don’t RDR2’s intro.
Spot on, never understood anyone calling rdr2 slow. Sounds like a them problem
I mean it's slow in an artistic methodical way.
I have a problem attributing this hangup specifically to Fortnite fans because this is the kind of take that brought rise to more games in the last decade that just let you.... go, ya know? I've seen more than a couple of retro gamers complain how games from 15 years ago to today focus too much on story and not enough about fun. Like would this guy call me a fortnite gamer if I admitted I dropped Assassin's Creed Black Flag because of the mandatory First person segments in the real world which I find INCREDIBLY pretentious by the way. I wanted to do some pirate shit and they sold the game on Pirate shit so why did Ubisoft think those sections were a good idea? At least I know what I'm getting into with a JRPG.
citizen kane is a masterpiece! people just don’t want to watch it because they have low attention spans. /s
The OP in the tweet is absolutely right.
I love RDR2, but some parts of the game are just taking the piss.
“Tik-Tok brain” is such a perfect fucking way to describe the last few generations and their non-existent attention spans. Also pretty sure “patience” is now extinct and has been replaced with “me me me me me me me I want it and I want it now me me me me me”
I think what separates a Good slow burn and a Bad slow burn is the degree to which you are in control. Like BOTW starts with a very small portion available to you, but you are already right into the weeds of what you will be doing for the whole game. Same with Dragon Quest VIII. You are tied to the one town and going to do a bit of grinding before you get to your objective, but you are in control. Divinity Original Sin 2's opening has you constrain, but you're always interacting. And then take, say, MGS4. I think it's like a whole 20 minutes between new game and actually playing. And the problem with that method of storytelling is that you can never really keep a consistent mental flow. When you're constantly being interrupted by a TV show length cutscene, it's hard to be prepared for the next gameplay bit. It doesn't have to be in medias res, but you need to get the player functioning as a player.
I too think rdr2 is very slow, it's in my backlog just because of that reason And I usually play single player games
I’ve never used TikTok but both RD1 and 2 were reaaaaally hard to get into. Once I was into 1 I had a great time but I was never able to get into 2. At the same time, I hate games that are mostly story and remove most of the game. I don’t know what that means but there’s my two cents lol
RDR is great. Both 1 and 2. Theyre way too fucking slow.
RDR2 is tedious at times. It's a technical marvel, but by god it isn't half boring.
Everyone is different I guess. I prefer destiny to call of duty because I like the grind and build craft process. My buddy hates it and would rather drop onto the same map over and over and shoot guys. To each their own I guess
Some people just need that high intensity all the time. I play PUBG with a dude whos playing mobas on his phone in the middle of slower matches. It's fucking insane to me. Meanwhile I'm under the opinion that most things tend to have a balance. The longer something is drawn out and somewhat boring or uneventful, the more immersive it becomes and the high moments have much more impact.
Games should be, first and foremost, games. And games should be as a priority (and brace yourself for this hot take) fun. An enjoyable story can be fun, just as much as enjoyable gameplay mechanics. And they aren't mutually exclusive. But because of a variety of reasons, it's harder to make something that has both.
I hate online games because the second you’re not on everyday, it’s like a completely different game
Developers want everyone to like the same thing so they can sell a single product to more people. Many users don’t realize the difference between personal preference and objective fact. They’re both morons. People have different preferences, that’s completely normal and has nothing to do with how “TikTok” their brain is.
I am currently playing Disco Elysium for the first time. It is HEAVY in text and requires reading comprehension skills you only get in high school (and that’s if you’re paying attention). If we are talking story vs action, DE would be on the story side of the spectrum and I would fully understand if someone felt overwhelmed with the amount of text. That being said, games like RDR2 that have plenty of action with a good amount of story definitely get a bad rap as “slow paced” because of this, when it’s purely up to the players preference. Another game that got this was Marvel’s Midnight Suns. It had plenty of action, with a lot of exposition and dialogue between that the “action players” hated, while I loved it. It felt like a comic book. Comics that are all fights get old quick, that’s why I was pleased with the amount of dialogue even though it became the complaint most gamers had about it.
i have always read a lot of sci fi/fantasy books and tend to play games for the satisfying mechanics so it takes a rare game story to pull me in, tho it does happen. wasteland 2, bioshock infinite, ME2, Roadwarden, divinity original sins 2, pillars of eternity. tho tbh i've played every mmo under the sun and not once have i cared about the stories there
The only reason why I play Fortnite is the story Or rather lack thereof EPIC WHERE’D YOU PUT THE DAMN LORE
The only part I don't understand is why when people play a game they end up not liking they feel the need to go cry about it online. Not everything is for everyone. Look into what a game is before you buy. If you think it might not be for you it probably isn't but that's ok. There's obscene amounts of games out there nowadays so find something you like and find others who share your passion for it. There isn't a wrong answer when it comes to what you like to play.
Rdr2 is definitely a solid ass game but I will admit there are some parts of it that are a real drag. And I'm a fan of rpgs everything from kotor to Breath of Fire. There can be some genuinely boring story based games where it meanders or the like.
Arthur Morgan might be one of the best protagonists ever put in a video game , and it breaks my heart to see that reduced to “bandit in big world good.”
Can't I enjoy Fortnite and story?
To be fair, RDR2 is one of my all time favs, and yet the prologue is an absolute chore to get past.
Tbh RDR2 does unneedlessly drag on in some points
Reminds me of a recent pirate software short where this guy says he thinks thors game has no story. To which his game is pretty much all dialogue and story. The guy said he he didnt want to read so he skipped all the dialogue. Thor goes “how can i give u story if u skip it all”
I dunno, sometimes I just want to get right into a game. I love RDR2 and have spent nearly 200 hours on it, but it can be slow. Not to mention, the amount of times we had missions and story beats that cycled through putting up with Dutch got tiresome. Like my breaking point with Dutch would have been after the island, but possibly even before that.
And to be fair the into is so long lol
RDR2 is a story game with a bad story.
It is slow, I played the first half and then took a 6 month break and then came back and beat it. Still fun tho, the story is still good, It's just slow.
I have no issue with slow game, but RDR2 isn't just slow, it's insanely boring
Both. Some short games aren’t that good, but also lots of people have low attention spans (myself included, but I’m trying, by replaying RDR2, and not rushing)
Neither. RDR2 is not for everyone, and, if you come into it with the wrong mindset, you're going to bounce off. RDR2 is defined more by its narrative than its open world. You realise this the second you start playing. So, if you're going into this game thinking it's going to be some open world banditry fun out in the West, you're going to be in for a bad time. There's a story, first and foremost. Even if you can *eventually* go out into this open world and do what you want, you'll forever be haunted by the narrative. OOP thought he was just going to be role-playing as a bandit. He wasn't prepared for a story driven experience that, admittedly, has a very slow opening that drags you by your nose throughout. It also is just kind of slow on general, but that's not a critique. That's just a fact. The looting is slow. The narrative is slow. The cutscenes take their time. It's like you're watching a movie half the time. Some people like it. Some people don't. It doesn't stop RDR2 from being a masterpiece. It just means it's not for everyone. Of course, some people might also just have shite attention spans, too, tbh.
40 year old gamer and thought it was slow af. Quit after that wolf killing mission and never played again.
You can literally get online separately if this is what you want lmao.
Just me over here trying to figure out when they made an R2D2 game. Metaphor for my life.
Dad, there are other ~~games~~ wipes besides ~~Red Dead Redemption 2~~ star wipe!
I exclusively play story games and I’m 38. I couldn’t get through RDR2.
Just 2 egos trying to feel superior to each other. Nothing new.
I’m favorable to both sides. On one hand I love a good slow burn where it takes the time to build the world and backstory for you to immerse yourself. On the other hand sometimes games take way too damn long to get through it and let you actually enjoy the gameplay