Playing games after you've "finished" them, classic or dud?

On the rolling PS3 thread, a review for Samurai 3 says:

Way of the Samurai 3 is a game meant to be played and enjoyed over and over again, not a game you play once and shelve forever.

I never play and enjoy over and over again. Once it's done, it's done. For instance, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) is probably my favorite game ever. Either that or Beyond Good and Evil. But it has never even occurred to me to play them again. It would take forever - plus I know what's going to happen!!

This divide might have to do with more than games. I never watch movies again for instance.

If I enjoy a game I'll play it again and again, and if I'm not enjoying it I won't ever finish it. Same with books, movies.

This is entirely dependent on the type of game, isn't it?

I mean, maybe you don't play KOTOR over and over but you certainly play SFIV and WipeoutHD more than once...?

If I really like a game I might play it again once on a higher difficulty but that's about it.

Can you even finish those, though? I haven't played WOHD and I don't remember how it was in WO97. Although I bet if there were a linear progression of some kind I'd stop after it was done, i.e. unlock all the tracks. I never play Katamari any more, for instance. It's like the game suddenly feels empty and mechanical.

Games without novel replay value are kind of perverse. Are there any board or sports games that share this property?

pretty rare that I do this but some games are huge enough that you miss a lot of side stories along the way. like fallout 3 and baldurs gate 2. expansions are a good excuse to do this b/c you know you'll have new shit waiting for you at the end.

I haven't unlocked everything in WipeoutHD yet but the only reason I stopped playing it constantly is time; I still love that game to bits.

I also go on periodic Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale binges, usually about once every 18 months.

Has anyone here ever finished Pac-Man?

most long games i wouldn't play again, but i've played resident evil 4 at least three times, and some of the final fantasy games twice. i love games meant to only be played for short bursts though.

btw i am generally not a repeater when it comes to books or movies.

If something's worth playing/reading/watching once, it's usually worth p/r/w twice.

I occasionally replay games.

if i could ever get myself to control the habit of buying shittons of games i would def play some of the better ones through again, but as it is i probably have (realistically) a 2 year backlog, so not going to happen any time soon.

I have a hard time playing an RPG twice, even if there are different endings, because they take so long and I like novelty. Adventure games, I guess the same goes. Strategy games are finishable but obv. have replay value.

I play most things I buy twice - the stories I'm running with as I play them are different enough from the text on the screen that it seldom grates.

I rarely do this for big narrative games.

Me neither, especially the stock of them being what it is. But I remember a time where I would play an enormous game twice or three times through with only the slightest reward. Resident Evil 2 alone I must have played five times, because why? You get a new weapon? It did get pretty fast going through after awhile, though. I also played MGS three times, because of the two items that you get to choose from when you beat the game, both of which amount to a totally unfun cheat, if I remember correctly.

its sad how soon a game becomes unplayable once you use a cheat code

i think it's classic, sign of a good game. i must've played through half-life 2 maybe 3 times now? most fps games i try to go through on a harder difficulty level.

plus there's all these mutually exclusive achievements now.

If you ask me that's a brutally cheap way to add replayability.

yeah but no but it doesn't really tho! if the game isn't worth playing the second time going right instead of left, 10 gamer points (tm) aren't going to get me to do it...

lets be honest, even after hundred percent completion i still go back to all the gta games time and time again. and have tons of fun.

Yeah but goole replayability is a quality games get marked on. If it's just replayable because you may as well replay it and there's a cookie in it for you, it's not the same as if it's replayable for a real reason, such as it has divergent stories, sick amounts of content, or it's incredibly good.

^^ GTASA is one of the games in recent years I've considered playing the whole thing again

I complete Secret of Mana once every few years still.

Maybe someday I'll finish a game

GTA IV is the first GTA I haven't wanted to play again, but I think that's partly because TLAD scratched that itch for me. (Also, I spent a LOT of time playing multiplayer races after I finished the game.) If they keep releasing episodes, I doubt I'll play the main game again by the time the next full game comes out.

gta is kind of different, esp iv. i've never really wanted to play thru the whole story again, but i've turned it on just to tool around and cause mayhem.

Oh, certainly.

Love doing this, it's a real sign of good design if you can see everything the game has to offer and come back to it down the line wanting to play it again. Every few years I do another go through of X-Com (maybe I'll beat it again, maybe not). When we did Fallout for IPC it was wonderful - even though I beat it half a dozen times in '98 playing it again was wonderful, even with the warts of a buggy, decade-old turn-based PC RPG, and not just out of a sense of nostalgia.

That said I am less likely now to go back immediately and replay a game - maybe I'll redo HL2 a year from now, maybe not. In most cases, like say Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, I just reload saves to see the alternate endings, though I've always done this with adventure games. Also when it comes down to it, I doubt I'll reply 90-95% of the games I've purchased.

When this question is applied to films, the weird thing is I used to rewatch films a lot more often years ago. It's easier too, since they're only 2-3 hours tops, but nowadays I shuffle through films a lot more quickly and rarely if ever go back to rewatch, even my favorite ones. But then Netflix/Hulu/my local library gives so many options for watching it's too tempting to go for something new, which is not the same with gaming generally (though I don't pirate nearly as much as I used to, pretty much never now).

i did play Blade Runner a whole bunch of times to see all 14 endings. think i saw five or six of them at least.

I never played again till trophies, now I have played Uncharted twice to get the platinum & Dead Space three times.

Its actually better when you play through it again, but there is a sweet spot of about 10 months where you remember the moves but cannot exactly remember the levels.

I also sometimes bust through Metal Gear Solid 2 in a weekend just because its strangely comforting.

I still play games after 'finishing' them, ie after getting through all the bosses, so I can collect stuff and complete side quests. Sometimes, after a few years or with the arrival a new version (ie, Ocarina Master Quest, xBox Banjo Kazooie, or Wii virtual console releases), I'll go back and play them again.

I think I'll be doing this less often over the next while, simply because I have too many games to get through — the ones I haven't yet finished, the ones coming out in the next while I want to play, and the ones I don't really want to play but have to for work.

often i enjoy stuff like movies and books the BEST on second viewing/reading. games can be fun too. just need to put enough distance been viewing/reading/playing.

I guess this question applies to newer games more than older. Most games of the past several years are ridiculed if they offer less than 10 hours of gameplay, it seems, so the accomplishment of "finishing" happens after several hours and it's a decent point of closure, if you want it.

With a lot of older games, though, either the whole game was so short that if you didn't replay it over and over you wouldn't get your money's worth, or it was a game that took many hours to "learn" and memorize (gradius, super r-type, etc), so that eventually if you stuck with it you could get to the point where you can blast through the whole thing in less than an hour, almost as a point of pride. Just last night I busted out Gradius III and Ninja Gaiden again, and did a quick play through of each for the billionth time.

and make no mistake, when I bust out my old nitender games I hold them aloft like Link with a new item, holding stone still so that if anyone is clandestinely taking a picture it won't blur.

this is also how I open the refrigerator

i love 5 - 10 hour games, they are the EPs of gaming

I also like the 45s of gaming.

im down with mp3s of gaming

are iphone games the ringtones of gaming

I finished my first iPhone/touch game a few days ago---Azkend, a puzzler with a story. I might play it again: it has a great touch mechanic, of swiping pieces in sequences. It certainly won't be because of the story.

(xpost) that Balloon Boy flash game is the Napalm Death "You Suffer" of games

there is a sweet spot of about 10 months where you remember the moves but cannot exactly remember the levels.

Yeah that sounds like a good zone.

a lot of it depends on nostalgia for me; like I'll happily replay Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask because I played through them during my ~formative years~ but I could not care less about replaying A Link to the Past, for example

right now replaying Halo on Legendary why because I have no other games for my Macbook ;_;

Replaying Link to the Past is so satisfying! When you finally get that duck it is like 'fuck yes forget you Hyrule this duck's gonna fly me around now seeya dude.'

still lookin for that duck in mah life

right now replaying Halo on Legendary why because I have no other games for my Macbook ;_;

yeah there's also this reason for playing a game again, like when i had my first pc with a shitty graphics card and all i had (for months!) was Delta Force - played it about five times through completion. i did love it though.