One man's filler is another man's fun. What I meant was that I appreciate games that don't force all of its consitituent elements on me. What the fuck are you talking about, you ask? The best example I have right now is Atelier Iris 2 wherein random combat was limited to a finite number of encounters per map; four in most cases. No one likes random encounters, being disruptive to the rest of the game (cutscenes, story, what-have-you) as they are, and it was great that I could get the four fights out of the way and then take my time exploring the area. Even better, an item comes along that banishes all the monsters and allows you to avoid combat entirely... aside from a couple endgame dungeons, that is. So, filler or not, allowing me a limited choice of when I entered combat was a big step towards allowing me to enjoy the parts of the game that I wanted to.
Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
If that guy really spent 40 hours on Tomb Raider: Legends, he seriously needs help. I finished it in under 15 hours (PC version) and I wasn't even trying that hard to beat the 7 levels that quickly. Fun game, but long? Hell no. Maybe he spent 30 of those hours rotating the camera around Lara - that'd explain something to me...
I'm married with young kids too. If I want to play, I stay up on weekends. Also, I have no more than three games on the hop at once, one of which is CoH/V (and has been since launch). I've finished Jade Empires twice (to see the different endings), finished Soul Caliber 2 with every character, finished Soldiers of Anarchy several times (for an FAQ), finished Giants: Citizen Kabuto... heck, every game I get I plan on finishing unless I get bored with it.
So, for the article's author - two words: goal setting.
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