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MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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I'll second The Walking Dead. It absolutely nailed the aspect of keeping a constant sense of tension by giving you time to cool down from action so it doesn't become monotonous, but it also never kept the peaceful sections going too long. Not to mention, it transitioned well between the two, something another that that I won't mention (*cough*Infinite*cough*) didn't do.

There's also Crysis 2. The game managed to perfectly capture the slow alien takeover of a metropolitan city that is already a war zone. Not to mention, it managed to switch the general gameplay and atmosphere style enough to keep things interesting though not so often that you never got a chance to really get in the mood of the current style.
 

MHR

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Apr 3, 2010
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At risk of pointing out the obvious, Half-life 2. They put sooo much focus on pacing and it shows. There's exposition followed by action followed by puzzles and none of it is too much or too little. It follows a progression from complete "1984" style lockdown to intense manhunt to all-out urban war.

In the developer commentary of the episodes, they note a few times where they cut combat content because the playtesters would get battle-fatigued.
 

Mikejames

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Jan 26, 2012
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I loved the pacing in Silent Hill 2 and Shattered Memories. They offer a good build-up to things as the setting and characters become more and more disorientating as you question what's really going on.

Alternatively, Spec Ops: The Line. The story takes a clear downward spiral, alternating between increasingly horrible things a group of people feel forced to do, and how it's psychologically affecting them.
 

skywolfblue

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Jul 17, 2011
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Mass Effect 3. (Barring the London mission, which dragged out a bit) There's plenty of options to chat, lots of exposition, and the gameplay never overstays it's welcome.

I liked Bioshock: Infinite's pacing except for two things: The combat was boring, and the transitions were a bit sharp at times. I liked the peaceful bits a lot though.

Assassin's Creed 2/Brotherhood had pretty good pacing (in-as-much as that term can apply to an open world game). The game provides a break from all the killing to explore a new town every so often. And the game does decent at providing various different things to do, other then just assassinating people all the time.
 

Gronk

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Jun 24, 2013
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Fahrenheit/Indigo prophecy? Althought the game had some issues, storywise, one of the things i liked was how it took it's time with the story and the characters and didn't rush it like many other games.
 

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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Any of the Silent Hill console games besides Origins and Homecoming, they're all almost perfect in pacing to allow the characters, world and story to develop properly.

BioShock 1, too, has decent pacing.
 

Malbourne

Ari!
Sep 4, 2013
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As a disclaimer, I probably ignore some of the shortcomings of the game I'm about to throw out.

I'm a big fan of Bastion's pacing. For starters, the game doesn't try to force the setting or storyline on the player. It's sprinkled around like coconut shavings on a delicious German chocolate cake. The characters, scenery, and even the backstories of each weapon you find contribute to the narrative, which grows consistently as you progress through the levels.

The main character doesn't hog the spotlight, either. Enemies and allies get their moments, and these moments aren't jammed into a ten-minute opening cutscene. It's all well done and subtle, and really goes a long way in immersing and eventually investing the player in the world.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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Jul 18, 2009
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Resident Evil 4 has some of the best fucking pacing ever, rivaled only by Metal Gear Solid. Though with the latter the pacing kinda craps out in the second half. That first half is simply flawless though.
 

XMark

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Jan 25, 2010
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The first Modern Warfare game had an amazing sense of pacing to it that the rest of the call of duty series has not managed to recapture since.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Feb 3, 2010
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Half Life 2 is the gold standard for pacing, and the source of much of that game's often overbearing praise. The Walking Dead was mentioned earlier, and it is indeed quite well paced for what it is, although it suffers from some lulls. The original System Shock (not 2) was one of the best paced games of all time, leaving you breathless with a series of false climaxes that ratcheted the tension up to ludicrous levels.

A lot of modern games, in an attempt to pad out game play with open world faffing about, have diluted what would otherwise have been well paced adventures. Far Cry 3 comes immediately to mind in that category. It's not necessarily a weakness, but you sacrifice pacing for breadth (and sometimes bloat).
 

Ishal

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Oct 30, 2012
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I tend to like the pacing of Metroid Prime, it weaves the exploration of the new areas into the gameplay quite well and most of the events make sense in the order they are presented. The only hiccup is entering the impact crater and to do that you need to hunt all over for the chozo artifacts. But I don't view that as a bad thing necessarily, its just another step to fight the worm and end the corruption of phazon.
 

Zetona

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Dec 20, 2008
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Some people have mentioned Half-Life 2, and I like the Uncharted games, especially the second one, for much the same reason: they break up the shooting with lengthy non-combat sections, whether it be puzzles, platforming, or just getting to walk around and soak up the atmosphere and the view.

Most of the games I've played recently did NOT have very good pacing. The original Bioshock gave little thought to enemy placement, and the dark levels made it easy to get lost while you were exploring the areas for items, which really muddled up the pacing. Bioshock Infinite improved the combat, and made the areas brighter and easier to navigate, but I think the exploration still slows the game down unnecessarily. The Last of Us did much the same, and though the smaller levels didn't slow the game quite as much, there were moments when the game is clearly urging you to go forward as fast as you can, but the compulsion to look for items is slowing you down.
 

Foolery

No.
Jun 5, 2013
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Final Fantasy IV. It's got the best pacing of any rpg I've played. I never felt like I had to grind and could just keep following the main story along with side-quests while still being challenged.
 

ViridianV6

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Sep 15, 2013
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Portal. Doesn't overstay it's welcome and keeps what would otherwise be a niche puzzle game accessible to all with excellent storytelling.
 

Fox12

AccursedT- see you space cowboy
Jun 6, 2013
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Silent Hill had great pacing, something you never see with horror titles anymore.

The Mass Effect trilogy.

I'll go ahead and say FF7, with one or two small mistakes. For the most part the game knew when to be fast paced and when to slow down, and it really helped the story. The game had no problem taking its time to carefully develop the plot.

Ocarina of Time was absolutely brilliant. I felt like the ending parts of the game went by a little too fast, but otherwise it was great.

Majoras Mask. Some of the best pacing I've ever seen, even better than its predecessor. This was essentail to a smaller scale, more personal piece.
 

FPLOON

Your #1 Source for the Dino Porn
Jul 10, 2013
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For me, Persona 3 and Persona 4... The pacing mostly came more from the character development that occurs throughout... (I still haven't decided which one was better, but I kinda stopped caring about that little detail...)

Another game which, to me, had good pacing (that hasn't been mentioned yet) is the first Kingdom Hearts game... Underneath its colorful appeal holds a overarching story that blends well with the worlds you visited...

If I had to choose a game that I might consider to have good pacing is Luigi and Mario: Superstar Saga... The pacing in that balanced both the plot (including certain plot twist) and comedic elements without having one overstepping the other unintentionally...
 

BleedingPride

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Aug 10, 2009
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I'll go with heavy rain, and also Shadow of the Colossus. It's such a well paced game, lonely, yet determined.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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Mar 8, 2011
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Dishonored maybe? People claim it was too short, but honestly, it was a very great and unfillered experience. Corvo does his job without going around the world to do irrelevant things, and you never wonder why you are doing what you are doing.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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Feb 9, 2012
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Gronk said:
Fahrenheit/Indigo prophecy? Althought the game had some issues, storywise, one of the things i liked was how it took it's time with the story and the characters and didn't rush it like many other games.
The lame thing about Fahrenheit was that it built up to a lot of stuff that didn't pay off. Tyler's scenarios were always tangential at best(the weird library scene, the basketball game, etc.) before being unceremoniously written out of the game.

Casual Shinji said:
Resident Evil 4 has some of the best fucking pacing ever, rivaled only by Metal Gear Solid. Though with the latter the pacing kinda craps out in the second half. That first half is simply flawless though.
RE4 rocks my world, but it's all downhill for me once you escape the village.

Mikejames said:
I loved the pacing in Silent Hill 2 and Shattered Memories. They offer a good build-up to things as the setting and characters become more and more disorientating as you question what's really going on.
Yes! Both are excellent examples of pacing. I think Shattered Memories, the worse game of the two by all accounts, has probably even better pacing than SH2. The game, for all its lackluster gameplay, has a seamless way of unfolding its plot and characters. By comparison, SH2 tends to go on a limb regarding narration. The first "level" (the tenement building) always has me wondering - just what the hell is James trying to accomplish here?

My 2 cents would be Beyond Good & Evil, which is built as tightly as a spy movie. The intro attack, the journey to the garage and the city, the Big Bro screens presenting the villain, the first secret assignment, the spy HQ, the infiltration of the factory and the slaughterhouse, the plot slowly unraveling a conspiracy... I can't think of any excess fat. Even the racing sections, which most people hate, give a shade of authenticity to the whole underworld atmosphere. Love the game, very good writing.

Arkham Asylum also has very good pacing, though this can be easily destroyed by all the backtracking you'll be doing whenever you unlock a new bat-gadget.