Read This In Ten Seconds!
If you can read this entire post in 10 seconds, you’ll win absolutely nothing. Oh, well, I’ll give you a big fat “huzzah” if you can pull it off okay? Isn’t it fun to take something that is normally a relaxing and leisurely past time, like reading a gaming blog, then force you to rush through it in a minuscule amount of time? I think so.
No wait, I don’t think so at all. I absolutely hate Time Trials or Time Attack modes in any genre other than racing games. Wait, I lied again; Even in racing games I absolutely despise even knowing that time trials are an option. They’re nothing more than filler to an action game or platformer and to me, it defines what’s wrong with modern video games.
You might be wondering what set me off. I began playing through the Time Trials in Crackdown earlier tonight and while this was far from the most annoying version of a time trial I’ve experienced, it sucked nonetheless. How does a game mode like a time trial get added into an action game like Crackdown? I imagine it went something like this:
“Damn, this story’s pretty short. We need to add more content, Bob.”
“Hm, let’s see. How about we make them do it again, only faster!”
[in unison] “Brilliant!” *tap Guinness bottles together*
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I wholeheartedly concur. I even hate those timed puzzles in games like Tomb Raider where you have to flick a switch and run like mad for the door, and do it ten times before you make it.
BTW, I can speed read.
Agree. Maybe they just wanted to squeeze more use out of the leaderboards.
The tink of the Guiness bottles made me laugh out loud. Very nice!
I agree. Your mistake is that you actually PLAY the time trial modes. I simply avoid them altogether. They may as well be invisible. In fact, I never got to play Metroid Prime because after battling through the first level and beating the first boss it goes into auto time trail mode where you have to rush back through an unfamiliar map before everything blows up and you die. I failed at this task several times and then just forgot about the game. I heard it was good. I hope Prime 3 for the Wii doesn’t include that crap or it could be a short party for me.
Steve-O, you’re talking about Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS. I don’t like that part of it, either. I’m stuck on Arcterra because I always die during the retreat to my ship when I’m ambushed by the Hunter with the cloaking device in the ruins. I’ve gotten pretty close to besting him a couple of times but the fact that as soon as I die I need to start over, run to the very hard boss (Slench) and narrowly beat it again before limping back to face that Hunter. Rinse, repeat.
I wouldn’t worry about Prime 3 being like that. Retro is much nicer to us than the developers behind Hunters.