When do you pass judgement for games?

I tend to rate my games after several hours of play... usually at least 20 hours.

The thing is, thinking back to FFXIII, I played the game almost all the way through to only find myself let down. I was thinking, when is this game going to get better? If a game tends to suck within the first few hours, then I seldomly will play it any more.

So I wonder sometimes, I don't finish too many games these days so I wonder what I'm missing out on from time to time.

usually after I beat it. I don't like to judge games before they come out or I play it.

It really depends on the game. Some games get better the more you play them (Saints Row 2; Just Cause 2) some games start showing theirr limitations ( Civilization Revolutions; Godfather Part 2) and some games are awful in the beginning and manage to get worse ( Infinite Undiscovery, Too Human)

For arcade and indie titles I judge on the demo... for other games I usually give it 3 to4 hours until it becomes to painful to proceed.

I normally judge the game through out the whole time I am playing it but I pass my final judgment after I beat it.CMFreezy

I agree with you. One should not judge a game from a few hours of play time. The game is meant to be judged after the entire experience is played out. Do you judge a book by the first several chapters? Some do, but some stories are slow in starting and pick up the pace later on. I have played a lot of games that I was not entirely happy with after the first few 'chapters' of play, but after the game was complete, I found myself quite surprised that the story turned around in a good way.

Well, there's no place in a game where I normally stop and say "Okay, now I'm going to give my opinion of it." :lol: I form some initial impressions during the first few hours, and as I get farther into it, those impressions may change somewhat. Quite often I'll be unfamiliar with the controls when I start a game but by the time I get halfway through I'm much better at it and having a lot more fun. I usually don't rate a game on Gamespot (move the little slider to record my one vote lol) until I've finished a game. Unless it's so freakin' awful that I can't bear to continue.

If I'm not enjoying a game for an hour or so, I stop playing it (and if the demo sucks, I don't buy it).

The last garbage game I remember pouring hours upon hours into is Suikoden 3. I remember going through hoard of laughably easy monsters and stupid fetch quests telling myself 'Reviewers say it gets good at the 15-20 hour mark, just gotta keep going'.

A few hours shy of the 'good' part, I decided that it was insane to play a game despite being bored.

There is more good stuff than I have time to beat so if a developer is foolish or incompetent enough to not make their game interesting throughout, why bother? I either move back to a game I know is good or move forward to a game which is (hopefully) better.

well...if i cant sit there and bring myself to beat the game...its a bad game for me(doesnt mean its a bad game)...

Not until after I beat the game.Flame_Blade88

This. Unless the game sucks.

I'm not going to wait to judge a game until it's complete if I think it's complete garbage after one hour (like Bulletstorm. Er, maybe garbage is too strong a word, but it still isn't getting any more hands-on time from me). If it were my job to review (judge) games, of course I would see it through, no matter what, but it's not, so I don't have to.

I hold off on making any real judgments until I've beaten the game. And after that I take a day or so to compose my thoughts, usually while writing something like a review for the game. Helps keep my thoughts straight.

Freedom Fighters was a game that taught me to not judge a book by its cover. Admittedly not the best graphically (especially by today's standards, look at those explosions, ugh), and very rudimentary early on, but once you start to get followers and are able to issue commands a whole new element of strategy opens up and the game blossoms. So I usually make it a habit of giving a game 5-10 hours of play before I pass final judgement on it, unless it's an RPG, then it may be a bit longer depending...

There's two points for me: the initial point is about 20 minutes in, usually during the build up to the first action piece or just after (in this case action is anything that's not narrative, training, whatever the case may be - the main representation of gameplay). If a game fails to hook me at that point then I'm likely to lose interest or continued play will likely be a chore. My second judgement point is usually after the last level when I've got a much better overview of the game.

If it's a multiplayer game it's another story and it's just a matter of time.