![](\"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Red-Dead.jpg\" "\\"Red")
<\/a>Okay, to be fair, I got to shoot some rabbits in there too. But compared to the promise of gunning down outlaws, rabbits just don’t cut it. Obviously, I could have skipped a few of the cutscenes, but the horse riding and the dull conversation would still be there.<\/p>\nIt’s not that I’m against horse riding. Once I got past that frustrating opener and got control of my character, the first thing I did was grab the reigns of my horse and ride off into the sunset. It’s a very cool feeling. That’s a lot different than a forced slow walk around town looking for rabbits and coyotes.<\/p>\n
I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels overwhelmed by investing 40 hours, or even 20, into a game. It was great when I was a kid, but my time is limited and I’ve got to get my gaming in when I can. The thing is, I can put the same amount of time into a good TV show and it doesn’t even phase me.<\/p>\n
I’ve been watching ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Torchwood’ daily, slowly catching up on both shows. Each episode is – you guessed it – 45 minutes long. In the last two weeks, I’ve watched an hour and a half each day. That comes out to a total of 21 hours spent watching the two shows, and it feels like no time at all<\/p>\n
In a television show like ‘Doctor Who,’ I’ve got a nice 45-minute chunk of entertainment that’s guaranteed to entertain. There’s going to be exposition, rising action, a climax, falling That’s something common to a lot of popular TV shows these days \u2013 an episodic format that still has all the qualities of a serial. The first two seasons of ‘Lost’ (and probably the others as well, but I’ve only seen the first two) captured this perfectly. They gave us a satisfying beginning, middle and end in backstories, even if everything happening on the island itself was a mystery.<\/p>\n That’s the thing that game makers need to learn. Movies can have a single plotline spread across a full two hours. If you go much longer than that \u2013 I’m looking at you, ‘King Kong<\/a>‘ \u2013 they start to feel old. Most games try stretching a single story across the entirety of the game, and that just plain doesn’t work.<\/p>\n When games are split up like television shows, into 30- or 45- minute increments, they work beautifully. Take ‘BioShock,’ for example. The game takes between 8 to 12 hours to beat, but it’s divided up into smaller sections. You can sit down and knock out a section in an hour while getting a full story from the experience.<\/p>\n<\/a>action and a conclusion. I get the full experience. Tied into that episode is also one larger plot. Most episodes contribute to the overall plot, but some are just there as side notes.<\/p>\n