How do you feel about unfinished games in your collection?

[Flak Beard]

After going through my collection, I noticed I have many unfinished games. Some of these I stopped in the middle of years ago. Take JSRF for example, bought it in 2003 and played probably 75% of it. I haven't touched it since, and don't know if I will anytime soon. Thing is, I liked the game. I just hit a point in the story's challenges that I didn't care about getting good enough to beat.

So if you like a game (or what you've at least played of it), do you always feel that it's necessary to see it through to the end? I used to hate having unfinished games in my collection, but now I just keep a game around depending on if I had with fun with the parts I did play. I probably put around 90 hours into Morrowind, and barely touched the main quest. Despite that, it's still one of my favorite games.

So what is you guys take on this? Is your collection a big "to do" list? Or do you still collect/keep games you might just dabble in a couple times?

[Spoiler Duck]

When I was young, I had to finish each game to finish the story. It was compulsive. Now I am older, wiser, and realise that really, the amount of videogames that craft an essential-to-experience narrative currently in existence can probably be counted with just two hands. Now I just finish games until I feel I have experienced all they have to offer me.

For example, I stopped playing Okami mid-way through. The story, though interesting, was written simply and as-is, so wasn't the main draw. After playing for a load of hours I'd decided I'd spent enough time in that aesthetic and gameplay mode and moved on.

Similarly, Super Mario Galaxy, though I haven't gotten all the stars, I have tried all the worlds available to me and seen all the genius gravity mechanic can offer. I probably will max this game out one day, but only by playing star by star when I have some free time and am not doing much else. I'm certainly not ever going to do it all again as Luigi.

Oh, and I never completed Half-Life. I reached the alien world segment and knew I'd seen all there was to see that was good.

[Gamerforlife]

Story based games I usually try to finish. It's irritating to come back to them months later and not remember what the hell is going on. In fact, I may sometimes push through a game with a solid story even when the gameplay is annoying me(which happened with Metal Gear Solid 3). If the gameplay is pissing me off and the story isn't doing it for me, then I'm done with the game(Odin Sphere comes to mind).

Telling a good story in a video game is a tricky thing. Video games are not lot other story telling mediums. In a way, video games are quite harsh. If you can't overcome every challenge the game throws at you, then you don't get to see how the story plays out. It's cruel in a way, and I sometimes believe that games with heavy emphasis on story should not be as difficult as other types of games, but part of me disagrees with that. It's nice sometimes though, to sit down with a good movie, tv show or book and just sit back, relax and enjoy the story. Games don't work that way though. There is a price to be paid to enjoy the story. You must jump through the designers' hoops first, you must endure the cheap boss, or the stupid mini-game, or the boring repetitive level. or whatever crap the designers have deemed it necessary for you to do before they will not so generously reward you with their story. I don't know, sometimes I think a good argument can be made that video games are a horrible story telling medium. Not saying I believe that personally, but I can see how someone might. It's food for thought

Not finishing Okami is a crime against gaming though. The story has some nice surprises that come later in the game and a really poignant ending. Well, the PS2 version anyway, since they apparently cut out part of it in the Wii version. I would think the endearing characters would be enough to make someone stick with it, but that's just me.

[Spoiler Duck]

I don't think it is that videogames are a poor medium for storytelling, more that developers insist on using artistic convention from movies to achieve it. Slowly that's changing (and many have written essays and done lectures on the subject), but it's still the result of an immature medium. Films for their first few decades were simply 'photo-plays', theatre recorded onto photo reel, with no artistic gain and in most cases artistic loss. It's only when the Hollywood narrative style became established and we received greats such as Citizen Kane - a narrative that could only be told through cinema - could movies truly call themselves a narrative medium unto their own. Games are still waiting for that Citizen Kane moment.

We're getting there, as games like Braid are showing, but we still have a way to go.

[RemyC]

Designers try too hard to deliver their stories. Many games have their stories pushed forward strictly through dialogue, and it comes off extremely corny, many times irritating. Whatever happened to a quick synopsis given through a screen of scrolling text?
Games shouldnt be directed like movies. They're not. They have stories, but they're not movies.
Assassins creed irritated me with this. the action is going great, then suddenly your sucked out and have to walk around that lab. It makes sense in a film...but why are you going to make me walk around a lab doing nothing? Make a cut-scene or something.

[arion]

I dont really worry about not finishing games and i dont feel like structuring what games i should be playing or wich ones i must finish. I usually just pick some game depending on the genre im in the mood for. And also it depends on how much i get into the game if i get a good grip on the mechanics..for instance i hate playing rpg's when i dont know what every number and attribute does but when i figure them all out and really get familiar with the system then most likely i will finish it. Like recently i finally got a good grip on the Job system in Final Fantasy 3 for the Ds and within a week i went through and finished it mind you i had been playing it on and off for a year.

But when it comes to completely finishing a game like getting all the extras or find every collectible item etc. I rarely see a reason to bother with it if i have already finished the game. Instead i move on to something else.

[corn619]

I'm horrible I have a collection that remains about 70% unfinished out of about 300 games. RPGs take so long to finish "currently playing Shadow Hearts" and I don't have the time I used to have. But I enjoy collecting retro and current games with hopes that I will get to them someday.

[nikon_62]

Most of the time I don't worry about finishing a game. I don't have a lot of time so I consider it a mark of a good game if I take the time to beat it. Mario Galaxy was the last one I played the story all the way though.

I have never cared about unlocking everything in a game or finding every secret.

The only time I get upset about a game is if it has a good story and I forget it. I got about 6 hours into Grandia 2 on Dreamcast and ran into that problem. I let it sit for a few months and then I wanted to play it over again because I didn't remember the story. So now I have a save at 6 hour and a save at 4 hours where I gave up the second time.

I have a similar issue right now with Final Fantasy Crisis core on PSP. I don't remember the story or combat system well enough to just pick it up. I was about 8 hours into it and I don't want to start over. So the game is just sitting unplayed right now.

[Scooter]

I've never finished most of the games in my collection. Why? Time limitations or lack of interest. Heck, I have a good number of games I've never really started!

[molotovwars]

A large number of the games in my collection I've never even started, much less completed. I buy a lot of co-op Genesis games just to play with this one friend of mine whenever he is in town. Others I buy because I want to play later or that I think should be in in my collection.

This winter break from school I am trying to play through certain games. My to play list right now is as follows (and is the reason I haven't bought next gen yet):

Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Kindgom Hearts 1 (So I can get to KHII)
Shenmue II
Shining Force II (I beat SFI on the Sega Smash pack and never got to play SFII)