Games with checkpoints

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Does it annoy anyone else not being able to save wherever and whenever you like? Why would developers do this on a PC game? When I have to repeat 5 minutes of gameplay that I have already successfully completed, that is called bad game design. The recent Batman games: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are big offenders of this, sometimes making the player go back to a checkpoint he/she passed 10 minutes ago. From now on if I'm looking at buying a game, I try and find out whether a game has checkpoints - if it doesn't have a decent number of save slots and allow me to save whenever I want, then I refuse to purchase it.

 

[Archangel768]

I like games with save points. I find it more fun than being able to save anytime I want. That being said, it is annoying if I have to repeat something because of it but I can live with that.

I also find it more immersive to have a save point every so often rather than having to think every 30 seconds whether I've saved or not which is what I usually end up doing with games that do let me save.

 

[Joccaren]

Yeah, I like to be able to save. When I have to go off and do something in a hurry, simply hitting f5 saves all my progress and lets me continue later. The number of times I've lost a ot of progress in Arkham City simply because I had to up and leave for some family emergency within the last few weeks is annoying to say the least. Saving would fix all that. Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function, but it is extremely annoying to lose so much progress simply because I had an RL problem to attend to.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function,

Why not? If you did, maybe it would teach game companies that if they pull stuff like that then they won't get out money. It's just laziness anyway - how much extra programming can it take to assign the F5 key to saving?

 

[JET1971]

I hate having checkpoints only but we need both checkpoints and a save here feature. the checkpoints are always right after a tough spot or a very long boring zone. the tough spots its nice to save during so you dont need to repeat all of it and the long boring sections its nice to be able to save because you need to do something else in real life. checkpoints are archaic and shouldve been left on arcade machines or older consoles that didnt have any real memory.

*edit

Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function,

Why not? If you did, maybe it would teach game companies that if they pull stuff like that then they won't get out money. It's just laziness anyway - how much extra programming can it take to assign the F5 key to saving?

How would you know the game has no save function? its pretty much standard and not advertised the game has it or doesnt?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

*edit

Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function,

Why not? If you did, maybe it would teach game companies that if they pull stuff like that then they won't get out money. It's just laziness anyway - how much extra programming can it take to assign the F5 key to saving?

How would you know the game has no save function? its pretty much standard and not advertised the game has it or doesnt?

Ask a friend who bought it? Email the company? Post a thread on a message board? Take your pick, there are plenty of ways to find out things.

 

[jayzz911]

Stay away from Dark Souls then... Seriously the fact that this is problem big enough to boycott, made me laugh a bit. Also the two games you name (the batman games) are obviously developed for a console audience where this is the norm. Well back to Dark Souls.

 

[Twilight_guy]

And yet people hate the new PoP for not letting you die...

Liberally sprinkled checkpoints works just as good as saves. Unless you are OCD about saving then usually people don't save at more then 5 or 10 minute intervals anyways. I think it might just make people angry because if its in their hands to save its there own fault but if its in someone else's then even if the same outcome results, the fault can be set on someone else.

 

[Akimoto]

I suspect it's the intention to create a movie-style game. Debate thread on it?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Stay away from Dark Souls then... Seriously the fact that this is problem big enough to boycott, made me laugh a bit. Also the two games you name (the batman games) are obviously developed for a console audience where this is the norm. Well back to Dark Souls.

Is Dark Souls out on PC?

 

[JET1971]

*edit

Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function,

Why not? If you did, maybe it would teach game companies that if they pull stuff like that then they won't get out money. It's just laziness anyway - how much extra programming can it take to assign the F5 key to saving?

How would you know the game has no save function? its pretty much standard and not advertised the game has it or doesnt?

Ask a friend who bought it? Email the company? Post a thread on a message board? Take your pick, there are plenty of ways to find out things.

Plenty of ways if the games been out for a while but if you buy it on day 1 of release that info may not be so readily available. Thing is it is a standard feature so if a game does not have it, that should be an issue on reviews. no game for console or PC should lack a save feature.

 

[Mystify]

checkpoints aren't a bad design decision. it is not always appropriate to the gameplay to be able to save at any given instant. however, checkpoints should not be used sparingly. If you have played for 10 minutes and not found a checkpoint, something is wrong with their use of checkpoints. Batman did misuse them, I will grant that. But they can serve to create discrete challenges in the game that must be tackled all at once, and not incrementally solved. Whether that is a good design or not is dependent on the game.

 

[jayzz911]

Stay away from Dark Souls then... Seriously the fact that this is problem big enough to boycott, made me laugh a bit. Also the two games you name (the batman games) are obviously developed for a console audience where this is the norm. Well back to Dark Souls.

Is Dark Souls out on PC?

Nope and as far as i know there won't be. Next to that it uses checkpoints.

 

[DanielBrown]

Yes, it bothers me a lot. Not when I play, but when I'm about to turn the game off I'm always extremely nervous that it hasn't saved.
Worst offender is the Ghost Busters video game. No symbol that tells you that it's saving(at least not that I saw)... Ended up doubting to turn it off or not for about an hour. When I was gonna play again there was no save. Showed up after I restarted the PS3 again, luckily, but after that I didn't dare to turn it off again, so I finished the game in a sitting.

 

[Gatx]

There's lots of pros and cons. Obviously having a save function gives you a lot of freedom, but checkpoints make the game more challenging. When games give you total control over when to save then it makes some aspects of the game really easy. Like in platformer, if you save every single time you make it past one obstacle, or in an action game, every time you do some damage without taking any do a boss.

 

[skywolfblue]

Does it annoy anyone else not being able to save wherever and whenever you like? Why would developers do this on a PC game? When I have to repeat 5 minutes of gameplay that I have already successfully completed, that is called bad game design.

I agree. I prefer to have the ability to save, backed up by an autosave.

If the checkpoint/autosave system is reasonable and saves very often, then I don't mind it. I'd take a checkpoint system over a system that doesn't auto-save at all.

I've had some annoying moments in Skyrim where I've ridden across a large section of the map finding new places, and then die to a group of mages and end up all the way back at the beginning. I turned the "autosave" down to 5min but apparently it only triggers if you open the Menu screen. I've learned to abuse the save button religiously to counter it, but still, annoying.

Oh, and I dislike some games that allow you to save outside of combat, but not in combat. Mass Effect and I think Dragon Age had this limitation. I understand you don't want player to abuse it, but I find that more often then not it just keeps me from saving at the start of the fight because the bad guys have already aggro'd. The only time I've ever "abused/exploited" the ability to save in combat was in Skyrim against a Dragon Priest when I was at low level.

 

[Tupolev]

There are games that would be completely broken if they had save-anywhere systems, and gameplay segments that wouldn't make any sense. Checkpoint systems and other non-save-anywhere systems do require good implementation, but in some game design styles they're necessary.

I also think that arguing that one system is strictly "better" than the other is silly. Apples and oranges, people.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

There's lots of pros and cons. Obviously having a save function gives you a lot of freedom, but checkpoints make the game more challenging. When games give you total control over when to save then it makes some aspects of the game really easy. Like in platformer, if you save every single time you make it past one obstacle, or in an action game, every time you do some damage without taking any do a boss.

Yes but if I successfully do a jump right, doesn't that mean I've proven myself for that section? Why would I want to do it again if I can't get past the next bit?

Stay away from Dark Souls then... Seriously the fact that this is problem big enough to boycott, made me laugh a bit. Also the two games you name (the batman games) are obviously developed for a console audience where this is the norm. Well back to Dark Souls.

Is Dark Souls out on PC?

Nope and as far as i know there won't be. Next to that it uses checkpoints.

So why mention it?

 

[BreakfastMan]

Now, I'm not going to boycott games that don't have a save function,

Why not? If you did, maybe it would teach game companies that if they pull stuff like that then they won't get out money. It's just laziness anyway - how much extra programming can it take to assign the F5 key to saving?

If the game is not set up for saving anywhere (IE it uses savepoints/checkpoints), much more than you know...

OT: Okay, you go do that... I will just enjoy my games, regardless of whether or not they use checkpoints or savepoints, thank you very much.

 

[Phishfood]

And yet people hate the new PoP for not letting you die...

Liberally sprinkled checkpoints works just as good as saves. Unless you are OCD about saving then usually people don't save at more then 5 or 10 minute intervals anyways. I think it might just make people angry because if its in their hands to save its there own fault but if its in someone else's then even if the same outcome results, the fault can be set on someone else.

The "Problem" is that if the savepoints are say 7 minutes apart and the bit I am struggling with is 6 minutes in, that's 6 minutes of gameplay to repeat over and over. Although, I didn't really have a problem with batman. I only died a handful of times in the whole game, most of those right after a checkpoint. Also, the majority as catwoman