Games Beaten 2012

[dsheinem]

yeah, "beaten" can be interpreted as you like, but usually some kind of credits screen/ending (if there is one available) is the standard usage...playing a few stages and giving up doesn't really count by any definition i've seen used in previous years.

[geozeldadude]

yeah, "beaten" can be interpreted as you like, but usually some kind of credits screen/ending is the standard usage (if there is one available)...playing a few stages and giving up doesn't really count by any definition i've seen used in previous years.

i played 30 of 50 stages and all the bonus games i had unlocked, and so if by that time the game hasn't compelled me to continue by my standards counting it as beaten is more than fair.

[dsheinem]

yeah, "beaten" can be interpreted as you like, but usually some kind of credits screen/ending is the standard usage (if there is one available)...playing a few stages and giving up doesn't really count by any definition i've seen used in previous years.

i played 30 of 50 stages and all the bonus games i had unlocked, and so if by that time the game hasn't compelled me to continue by my standards counting it as beaten is more than fair.

Oh cool, I just beat Super Mario Bros.!

[geozeldadude]

if i'd hated SMB and had spent hours on it just getting to the end of 1-4, then, yes, i would've counted it as "finished" as well. i don't feel like i need to spend time defending my interpretation, but if people want to see this thread as being an opportunity to add notches to their little virtual belts then to me that's as valid as my interpretation, which is to use this thread as an opportunity to discuss games i spent a more than fair amount of time on this year. there's a difference between spending five minutes on a game versus the hours i wasted on plants vs. zombies in the effort to give it a fair judgement. how many hours of atari pac-man would you suffer through before you felt you could add it to your "finished" list?

[J T]

We have a "games not beaten" thread for the ones that you just didn't care enough to finish. The accepted standard for beaten is that you saw some sort of credit screen, and if it's not the kind of game that has that, then you did pretty much everything possible.

If we all considered something finished simply because we are bored with it, then there would be a lot more people that "graduated" college in one year.

[dsheinem]

if i'd hated SMB and had spent hours on it just getting to the end of 1-4, then, yes, i would've counted it as "finished" as well. i don't feel like i need to spend time defending my interpretation, but if people want to see this thread as being an opportunity to add notches to their little virtual belts then to me that's as valid as my interpretation, which is to use this thread as an opportunity to discuss games i spent a more than fair amount of time on this year. there's a difference between spending five minutes on a game versus the hours i wasted on plants vs. zombies in the effort to give it a fair judgement. how many hours of atari pac-man would you suffer through before you felt you could add it to your "finished" list?

This thread is not about adding a "notch to the the belt" and in years past we have stomped out any attempts to make it a competition. What it IS is a thread in which we can discuss our experiences playing a game through to some ending, compare with one another what we thought about the game as a whole, etc. Unless Atari Pac-Man has a final screen of some sort, then I would never put it on my list, despite the hours spent. I've spent lots of time with puzzle games (Zoop, Lumines, etc.), multiplayer games, Odyssey2, Intellivision, and 2600-era games, etc. - but since most of them don't have any discernible ending, they have NOT gone on my list. There's plenty of threads to talk about games not beaten, games you are playing, etc. This one is for games that you've finished based on the game's measure of what it means to finish (in at least one of its modes).

[noiseredux]

geozelda, definitely not trying to start a war or anything but now I am curious... did you beat the arcade mode of Virtua Fighter? You said " really tried to play enough of virtua fighter to appreciate it," so I'm just curious how much was "enough" for you to feel you beat it. And while we're at it, did you actually beat (complete all dances) of Just Dance? Is there actually an ending to Nintendogs? (I don't know anything about that game).

[geozeldadude]

didn't realize there was a thread for "not beaten" games, but my standard for beating a game is usually fairly high. i make exceptions for games i really hate, such as the one in question. in any case, i'm fine with scaling back my interpretation, although it happens so rarely that i doubt anyone will really notice anyway.

geozelda, definitely not trying to start a war or anything but now I am curious... did you beat the arcade mode of Virtua Fighter? You said " really tried to play enough of virtua fighter to appreciate it," so I'm just curious how much was "enough" for you to feel you beat it. And while we're at it, did you actually beat (complete all dances) of Just Dance? Is there actually an ending to Nintendogs? (I don't know anything about that game).

no offense taken. for virtua fighter i beat the arcade mode multiple times. usu. for fighters i consider it beaten if i beat the arcade mode with all characters and/or beating it without any continues, but in this case i again had to make an exception b/c i just couldn't bring myself to slog through it 5 more times. note that with both VF and p vs. z i was laying to rest games i'd had hanging around from 2011 so i could move on to games for 2012.

re: just dance 2, i beat all the dances on 4 stars or higher (out of 5, so more or less equivalent to A-ranking vs. S-ranking). re: nintendogs 3D i beat the highest rank in all three competitions. in both those cases i think most people would qualify that as beating the game, although feel free to have your own opinion.

[noiseredux]

nope I agree on all those. In fact, I'm not as strict about fighting games. To me just beating Arcade Mode with a single character counts as beating the game. Going back and re-beating it with multiple characters is more of a completionist thing, and relies on how much I enjoyed the game or have interest in learning other characters.

[alienjesus]

re: just dance 2, i beat all the dances on 4 stars or higher (out of 5, so more or less equivalent to A-ranking vs. S-ranking). re: nintendogs 3D i beat the highest rank in all three competitions. in both those cases i think most people would qualify that as beating the game, although feel free to have your own opinion.

For what it's worth, I'd consider that as beating Nintendogs too. Theyre the only real goal in the game.