Tuesday, 07 July 2009
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"I can't pause it!"
A short while back, GamerGirlFTW, a dedicated HL reader and submitter, sent in a piece that stimulated the video game center of my brain, the nintendo oblongata, if you will. Here's the complete entry:
There is something that non-gamers don't understand about World of Warcraft.....IT CANNOT BE PAUSED. I don't know how many times I've heard "Well can't you just pause it?!"....No, I can NOT. World of Warcraft is a MMORPG- massively multiplayer online role playing game, key here being MULTIPLAYER, meaning I'm not just playing by myself. If you see me playing WoW, I am playing in real time with other people. It is un-pauseable. This is a very hard thing to try to convey to people who just don't understand. If you were playing a game of soccer with a bunch of other people, could you just pause it? No. In the same, I cannot pause a dungeon in which I am working with 5 other individuals to down a boss.
Duh! lolAs you probably well know, I am not an MMORPG player. The interest isn't that strong for me, as well as the fact I'm happy to get pages to load on my home computer, let alone realms of WoW. Still, let me expand the scope of the "unable to pause" phenomenon.
Continuing my trend of playing games past their initial relevance, I recently went through the beast of a game (pun intended) that was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Realistically, you can pause and save the game at any point, and at worst, you'll have to start at the beginning of a particular dungeon. Still, with a game as engrossing as Twilight Princess, pausing the game, I find, is easier said than done. I'm the kind of player who likes to play more when he reaches a "logical stopping point" than for any length of time. Of course, one stopping point turns out to be insufficient, and three hours later, you're still in that temple and you're starving because you haven't eaten dinner.
What games do you play that are impossible or very hard to pause?
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- From: awinnerisyou
- Name: Joe Justice
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Comments (20)
Legend of Zelda was definately an unpausable game. But I'm pretty much like that with most games when I start playing them unless I find the game boring.
Used to be Tomb Raider for me until they screwed it up.
Guitar Hero, although you can pause, makes you lose your rhythm (no pun intended) really quickly if you do.
Yea, even games that technically can be paused, are hard to sometimes. You don't want to break your rhythm.
yeah rockband and guitar hero like games cant be paused or its over
DDR! And WoW... games save points vs save-anywhere features make me not want to pause them.
I played wow for 4 years, I don't anymore, but yes the concept of "CANNOT PAUSE" is extremely effective. It is not only the fact that the world of warcraft continues to advance even if you're not online, but also you have people who are depending on you so THEY can advance. Whether you're a skillful damage dealer or a tank or a support class, these are all required to dominate the realms of WOW.
LIFE! That is the hardest game to pause! HAHA.
But seriously, I did not understand the WOW pause. I was one to yell at someone and say COME ON LETS GO. But when I did get into it, I absolutely understood. I'll share an embarrassing story. This was years ago. When I got into WOW, I was going out that night (Yes I actually wanted to) so I was multitasking by straightening my hair and doing a raid at the same time. I was so into the game that I grabbed the straightener by the metal plates thinking I had turned it off already and BURNED MY HAND. Since my mind was so numb from the came it took me a few seconds to realize THE PAIN.
Went to the hospital and realized how embarrassing this was! =(
But honestly, I hate pausing during GH or RB as well. Totally throws off my groooooovveeee.
Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy VII
Classics, Mickey Mouse Land of illusion (apart from if the time runs down to zero I lose lives.
Diablo II. Although harder to save rather than pause. Gotta hit that waypoint first!
I hate pausing any game. I'm strangely OCD about the recorded time on my game file being the same as (or as close as possible to) my actual playing time. I mean, it's just that the game is always counting the minutes...it's always ticking...even when you pause the game, that timer doesn't stop! It haunts me...
My brother will pause a game for as much as 30 minutes while he wanders off and does something else, then come back and keep playing. It truly drives me mad.
@fantasy_reader@xanga - I hate game timers. Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, but it kept serving to remind me I had spent over a full day of my life on it.
@Liquid_Pain_523@xanga - OMG! I feel the same way. I hope D3 will be better about it. :D
Although you could technically "pause" by pushing ESC and the menu screen will come up making it pretty much the same as a pause screen.
As above, Final Fantasy VII. I pause it one moment, and the next, I'm totally buggered and have no idea what the hell I was just doing. D:
Another annoying thing - and that's what gets me the worst - is the "NO YOU CANT SAVE RIGHT NOW KTHXBAI". I have to play for an extra 5 hours to reach that save point or switch off and spend about 3 days trying to get to that place that I can't beat more than once.
Almost every game I play is pretty much unpausable, mostly in the form of platformers though. Except for some weird reason, I find pausing for 5 minutes usually helps me continue..
I onced witnessed a casual gamer being introduced to Halo 2 multi-player. While playing, they decided they wanted to take a break and asked how to pause.
I think most "over-the-net" multiplayer type games are doomed to be unpausable due to the nature of the gamestyle.
I think time-based puzzle games are incredibly difficult to pause, because most of them blank the puzzle when you pause (so you can't "pause cheat"). When you get back, you might not exactly what you were going to do next.
RTS war gams, such as Age of Empires, Empire Earth, etc. etc. It sounds ridiculous, but it is so easy to just get so involved with feeding on the pressure and taking over the "world" that you just seem to forget about the pause option.
racing games, first person shooters, basically games that require online interaction...i can't pause ragnarok or maple story... final fantasy games and other rpgs... it'll take a while for me to stop just because of the save points and i have to stop at a place that i will remember what i'm doing not just anywhere..
I know quite a few games. It just sucks though 'cause I kill so many hours of my time :/ And sometimes if I AM able to pause it, I just lose my skill and lose .__.
Seriously, Sacred 2 is a game that cannot be paused. You can go to your inventory, but the game does not pause, it just puts you in a complicated menu, and if you get attacked, then you have to try and figure out how to back out, before you die. Also, the menu scheme is retarded anyways, you (for 360) have to hold down RB and then move your left stick to a set position, then release both at the same time in order to access any menu.
why can't all RPG's be like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and simply have 'B' be the menu for inventory, quests, and map, and have 'Start' be the save, load, ans quit menu. Really, guys, it's not innovative, it's annoying.