Ben-DutkaAt last week's Game Developers Conference, it became abundantly clear that independent developers favor quality over quantity , which means we reviewers shouldn't be putting so much emphasis on length. One developer said the lasting impact a game has on the player is far more important than the amount of time it took to finish the title. Basically, if the experience is worth the price of admission, what difference does it make if it's 5 hours or 50 hours?
Take God of War: Chains of Olympus , for example. You may have seen the reports online already- that it only takes about 5 hours to complete. Now, while this falls shy of prior installments on the PS2, this doesn't immediately make the game unworthy of a purchase consideration. You can read our in-depth and – dare we say it – spot-on review of the game, and see for yourself. Basically, this is as close to action perfection as you can get, which means the experience is just as fulfilling as either of the previous God of War entries, and it's a special treat for handheld gamers. Remember, the PSP has never seen the highly revered series until now, and Chains of Olympus is an incredible addition to the portable's ever-expanding library of quality games.
Bottom line- don't let these, "oh noes, GoW: CoO is only 5 hours long!!!" reports dissuade you from a wildly entertaining experience. Take those developers word for it and just accept the fact that a lasting impression really does matter most .
Related Game(s): God of War: Chains of Olympus
Well I do understand that the lasting impression is probably going to be massive. However, 5 hours is a tad bit to short… when I play a kick-ass game like GoW I normally want MORE and MORE 🙁
Well this is the first time I've heard of the game's length, and while it is disheartening to hear how short it really is, I'm willing to cut it some slack since it is more of a "play on the go" title, as is fit for the PSP. Console games, on the other hand, is a different story: ie, though COD4's single player rocked it would never have been worth $60 w/o the multiplayer component no matter which way you put it.
Personally, from my experience, the length of time it took me to complete MGS Portable Ops (I roughly estimate at least 12 hours) seemed just perfect for a PSP game, though I'm not too sure how other PSP action/platform games fare length-wise. Nevertheless, I will buy the game at some point once I've acquired sufficient funds x.x