How long a game takes isn’t really a good point to make when it comes to a games quality (or score following your argumentation).
A good gaming journalist shouldn’t score a game lower just because it’s not as long as other games. If the game has quality and if you can feel there’s passion in it, and if you can see that the game is as it should be, as the developers envisioned and wasn’t shortened, lengthened or rushed in any kind, then it deserves the score it deserves and shouldn’t be artificially lowered because some people demand more and more nowadays. This often results in more content over quality, so I for myself find it refreshing to see this focus on quality and prefer something like this over packed games like Assassins creed etc.. For a lot of people the shorter campaign is a plus not a minus. A longer TLOU for example (which also has around the same length) wouldn’t make the Game better, it would probably be worse, I actually think games like these became the masterpieces they are because of their focus, because they told what they wanted to tell and didn’t distract the gamer with unnecessary stuff, keep the momentum going. In the case of AstroBot I guess it’s the fun itself and feeling it delivers, wrapping it up before it gets old.
A longer movie doesn’t make it automatically better also.
I’m a big fan of Christopher Nolan for example, but Oppenheimer for me was too long, the whole hearing at the end was just too long imo and this afterwards also downgraded the parts that came before for me.
And while we are in a forum where it’s mostly about cars, a car (in most cases) doesn’t have fans and gets celebrated because of how long their engine lasts, how many miles it can get on its odometer.
Quality over quantity! More cars or tracks are NOT going to make a game much better if at all. Especially when the cars are merely tiny fractions different because it's a 2023 GT3 car versus a 2019. smh.
Features that you use every single time you start the program, and before and after every single race, and how quickly you can get things adjusted so you can race more, that's the quality that matters. Seeing, while racing, incredible tread details through the rain spray as you feel every tiny itsy bit of grip in the FFB wheel and dance with the throttle and wheel as you position yourself inches from your opponent for the overtake, and still marvel at the curbing and track and axle shafts, that's the quality that matters, in game, while absorbed in the moment. While Playing.
Put someone in front of a screen and immedietely start the countdown 3... 2... 1.. GO! and after the second corner ask them is this 2160p/4K? or 8K? or 1440p. THEY WILL NOT KNOW. Ask them if it is 30fps, 60fps, or 120fps. They
WILL ABSOLUTELY KNOW!
And I will say the most enjoyable and surprising unexpected long remembered joys are the ones you would never have conceived. Racing a Old 1932 Ford Roadster, I truly had a pit in my stomach thinking irrationally and without basis it would be dull, lame, a waste of my precious fun time, but... It was
FUN AF. By the end of it I was like they should include this in the daily races. Polyphony is mostly paying attention to what matters and delivering it more than most realize, likely because of ignorance and unwillingness to try. It's always good to be reminded of our foolishness and learn and grow past it.
The one's that are off the beaten path are the precious surprises. I love Music rally, I wish they would add more. They really are
FUN. The Missions are a breath of fresh air. Game Types matter. I can't create a livery to save my life, but I would likely not have bought a PS5 this year and a PS5 Pro yesterday had the helmet, suit, and livery easily shared masterpiece creation capability not been there.
QUALITY of life seems to get diminished by the naive and inexperienced who are indoctrinated to only be able to count and see increasing quantity as valuable or worthwhile. Some cases where quantity is the offshoot of quality by way of combination is not quantity in itself, but much much more. AKA There should be at a minimum 6 Daily races, not for the sake of MORE nonsense, but for a variety of quality.
Sometimes you just want to hoonigan around and not ruin your driver rating. Having silly cars with giant soccer balls and such are the variety and quality and passion that gear heads love. We love to create, we love to share, we love to try new things and be surprised. Driving a new track is marginally different than any other track, and once you are in the heat of the moment having fun, the track or the car you are in doesn't matter. The fairness of the race does, SIGNIFICANTLY. Proper penalties and banning bad behavior matter. a rotten apple spoiling it for the bunch is not worth allowing to to fester because it might not be perfect. Perfect is the enemy of quality and community. And it's not real. No two people can agree on what perfect is. It's a nonsensical ego trip. No matter how many cars or tracks, that issue effects nearly every race.
Spectating others having fun when you might be multitasking, thanks to US tax enslavement filing, matters. I can't focus the amount required for playing, but I can enjoy my friends play watching them while I worry that I missed carrying a decimal point and will go to prison.
Speaking of, CAN"T WAIT FOR THE TOKYO NATIONS CUP TOMORROW before the break of dawn. WOOT!
Here's to complaining and criticizing
FOR things everyone benefits from, not accepting bad decisions and learning to enjoy and try things and use that to keep making things better.
