I constantly hear that games are getting shorter. This isn't about that. I'm wondering which one you prefer.
I prefer shorter games. Here's why:
Focus
A huge thing that bothers me with long games is that they tend to lose focus at some point in the course of the game. They usually contain a lot of filler material. And at some point in the game, I get pulled out of the immersion. The game stops becoming an experience and becomes just what it's name implies: a game.
This happened in Bioshock. Although I loved Rapture, some parts just seemed exactly the same as others I had just played through. After fighting the first big daddy, its menace was gone and they went from being a hidden evil to being inconvenient obstacles.
Same goes for Assassin's Creed 2. As much as I thought this was one of the best games I've played, I can't seem to beat it. That's because it takes so long. It keeps introducing new characters, too. It can get hard to keep track of who is who, and what is happening to whom. Some characters are introduced, then never heard of again. I'm not sure when I'll start the game back up again to get past one of the biggest filler points I've ever seen in a game: go to every town you've been to and do the same redundant task 16 times. Yes, I'm talking about the Codex pages.
This problem also exists when there are a billion side quests, usually amounting to nothing more than "go to point A to kill/deliver B." Fallout: New Vegas is an example of a game like this. After five quests of talking to a guy to convince a guy that another guy is a guy, I'm sick of it.
Yes, I was immersed for the first 15 hours. But after 20, the game becomes a game. I'm no longer playing to experience the Wasteland. I'm playing to complete the game. I still care about the story, but I'm no longer one with my character.
I know some people love this. They'll spend 50 or more hours on a single game and love every minute of it, being immersed the whole time. I know I used to. It happened with Ocarina of Time, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. But I was younger and had much more time back then.
What I would prefer is shorter, but also cheaper games. Instead of releasing a new game in the series once every 5 years, release an episode every 6 months. Then you can add features, update bugs, and check out community input while you're building it.
Also, I loved Portal's length. I know Portal is overused as an example of a "perfect game", but its length fits into this discussion. It took just long enough to tell its story. It told it completely without adding anything unnecessary. And the gameplay changed enough during the game to keep it interesting. In other words, I'm terrified of Portal 2 being, as Valve has said, "longer".
Quick Edit: Oh yeah, and before you all flip out and nerd rage about how awesome these games are, I loved them all, too.
