Poll: How important is 100% completion to you?

[Geno DCLXVI]

I collected 149 out of 150 Pokemon in the original Pokemon Blue and Red (damn you Tauros!) just to see what the guy at Celadon City would give me. It turned out to be a really lame diploma [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTtYo8q-igM].

Anyway, how important is completing 100% of a game to you? I've heard some people finishing 100% of certain games so that they can get their full money's worth of the game. Looking at it in this light, you could say that these types of gamers are actually just smart customers instead of the obsessive time-wasting types they're often painted as.

On the other hand, some people aren't bothered by 100% completion. For these people, one playthrough of Dragon Age is enough, and they don't usually like to play the same thing again because they don't like redundancy.

For me it depends on the type of game. If I get through the single player mode and the content needed for 100% is just a bunch of things you have to pick up, Secret Briefcases or Knights Hospitaller flags, then I wouldn't bother with it. But when the stuff I need to get 100% is something easy and fun, like playing the other game modes to get the gold trophy in Plants vs. Zombies or the Riddler challenges in Batman: Arkham Asylum, then I try to get 100%. If it's too hard, though, like the Challenge of Hades in God of War: Chains of Olympus, then I usually give up.

What about you?

 

[Dr_Pie]

For me it depends on the game. I'm not gonna 100% a massive JRPG (drowning in useless items), but I'd 100% a game like Sands of Time. Mostly because doing so will net you more health/sand, and it's pretty easy to find the stuff. On a GTA game, I'm not going to collect all the hidden packages, there's just too many. So for me, I guess I'll only 100% if it doesn't involve hunting around every nook and cranny for hidden items.

 

[Sethzard]

It depends on the game, I did it for Arkham Asylum and Oblivion on PC. I probably will for some other games in the future.

 

[Vault101]

utter and completley irrelevent, in fact I usually cant bring myself to do somthing in-game unless it progress the story...or if its an interesting sidequest

 

[Pearwood]

If I want to play more without starting a new game then I might try to finish the post-game content but 100%ing isn't really that important to me.

 

[DeadlyBritishDisease]

Some games (like Assassins Creed) I get all OCD with and keep playing until I get the platinum trophy, but I'm not to fussed with a 100% on my game file.

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

Some FPS's like CoD or Halo, but i can't get like 75 achievments on Fallout 3 and you have to buy DLC to get them!

 

[Church256]

I go for full completion if the rewards for full completion seem worth it.

If it's rewarding and fun to do I'll get 100%, if it's going to turn into a 100 hours of effort for something I probably wont need by the time I get it then I wont.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

It's not inportant to me. I'm more bothered with just finishing the game instead of getting %100.

Like with AC2, I got almost everything, but I seriously couldn't be arsed with those flags. Or trying to swipe 5 people with a spear. I like my controllers intact.

 

[EHKOS]

I always start out thinking "I can do this" and then halfway through I just finish the story and think "fuck it".

 

[Artina89]

When I replay a game I will try and go for 100% completion, but it's not a big thing for me. Some games, like Persona 3: FES and Persona 4 it is damned near impossible to get 100% completion, short of putting life on hold for a bit.

 

[nbamaniac]

What about you?

Hmmmm, it would really depend on the game's impression to me. If these 100% challenges ought to be fun then why not? (Yes I'm looking at you Batman: AA), but when the challenges or even side missions tend to diverge to tedium, *cough*Far Cry 2, then I wouldn't bother.

GBC's Pokemon Blue and Red really pushed me to go 100% when I was but a lil rascal. But since i perceived it as fun at that time, it never really bothered me now even though I now think of it as nothing but work.

The only exception to the 1st paragraph would be Mass Effect 2. The planet exploration and mining sections of the game were tedious as fuck. It wasn't fun at all. And yet the baffling thing was I didn't leave any planet unexplored. I really don't know why, but maybe it was because I thought there would be some sort of reward at the end when I'm done doing all the tedious shit.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

"Other" [sub]Except there is no 'Other'...[/sub]

I don't go for completion specifically, although I do like games with a high level of exploration elements for me to dig myself into. The problem (I find) with completionist stats is if I do accidentally achieve "100%" (and I have once or twice) then I know that the game has nothing new to offer me, nothing I haven't already discovered, and that kills the game for me.

So - I love exploring and uncovering hidden secrets in games, but I'm always saddened to arrive at that 100%.

 

[hermes]

It's not inportant to me. I'm more bothered with just finishing the game instead of getting %100.

Like with AC2, I got almost everything, but I seriously couldn't be arsed with those flags. Or trying to swipe 5 people with a spear. I like my controllers intact.

That one is not that hard, if you know where to try it. There are videos to help you with that...

I don't mind 100%, except when I get near it by the time I finish the game and it helps me do it (chapter selection, collectables in the map, etc)

 

[BGH122]

I'm gonna go with 'other' here (even though no such poll option was offered). I complete games to 100% when there's some tangible reason to do so such as if there's a seriously awesome unlockable at 100% (e.g. the Red Dead Redemption Marshal's outfit), or if the content that counts towards the 100% was content I was going to play through anyway (again, like RDR).

I don't go for completion specifically, although I do like games with a high level of exploration elements for me to dig myself into. The problem (I find) with completionist stats is if I do accidentally achieve "100%" (and I have once or twice) then I know that the game has nothing new to offer me, nothing I haven't already discovered, and that kills the game for me.

I beg to differ, I find that depends on the game. With most puzzle games, reaching 100% means there's basically no point in playing through a second time because you now know all the solutions, but with games like GTA or RDR (or whatever your particular favourites happen to be) you find a new way to play through each mission each time or just find new ambient content (I shit you not, I've completed GTA4 over 10 times now). The Hitman series are a particularly good example of this.

 

[Zhadramekel]

I always try for a hundred per cent completion but it takes a heck of a long time and wherever possible I just follow the story first then go for 100% in the after game

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I'm gonna go with 'other' here (even though no such poll option was offered). I complete games to 100% when there's some tangible reason to do so such as if there's a seriously awesome unlockable at 100% (e.g. the Red Dead Redemption Marshal's outfit), or if the content that counts towards the 100% was content I was going to play through anyway (again, like RDR).

I don't go for completion specifically, although I do like games with a high level of exploration elements for me to dig myself into. The problem (I find) with completionist stats is if I do accidentally achieve "100%" (and I have once or twice) then I know that the game has nothing new to offer me, nothing I haven't already discovered, and that kills the game for me.

I beg to differ, I find that depends on the game. With most puzzle games, reaching 100% means there's basically no point in playing through a second time because you now know all the solutions, but with games like GTA or RDR (or whatever your particular favourites happen to be) you find a new way to play through each mission each time or just find new ambient content (I shit you not, I've completed GTA4 over 10 times now). The Hitman series are a particularly good example of this.

Yeah ok, you have a point there. But I'll counter your GTA IV arguement with my GTA San Andreas one - each mission in SA could only be completed one way and once all the side quests, jumps, spray tags etc were done that was it. And until you've hit that 100% it's difficult to tell whether a given game lands in your category or mine - hence I try to stay away from 'full' completion so as not to find out.

That's also why I prefer games that end rather than pass into an infinite free roam mode. If a game ends you are then looking at future replays in which you may do things differently/discover new stuff, but with infinite free roam you will eventually uncover every secret with one character/playthrough.

That's just my gaming style, I suppose. I know a lot of people champion the free-roaming completionist game, but I'd rather play a game six or seven times and get different variations of 80% completion on each one than play a game once for 100%.

 

[BGH122]

Yeah ok, you have a point there. But I'll counter your GTA IV arguement with my GTA San Andreas one - each mission in SA could only be completed one way and once all the side quests, jumps, spray tags etc were done that was it. And until you've hit that 100% it's difficult to tell whether a given game lands in your category or mine - hence I try to stay away from 'full' completion so as not to find out.

That's also why I prefer games that end rather than pass into an infinite free roam mode. If a game ends you are then looking at future replays in which you may do things differently/discover new stuff, but with infinite free roam you will eventually uncover every secret with one character/playthrough.

That's just my gaming style, I suppose. I know a lot of people champion the free-roaming completionist game, but I'd rather play a game six or seven times and get different variations of 80% completion on each one than play a game once for 100%.

Agreed, I never aim for 100% completion. If I achieve 100% completion it's because I loved a game so much that on one of my many re-runs I accidentally achieved it. The Assassin's Creed series (much as I hate Ubisoft) and almost all Rockstar games (seriously, how great are R*?) fall into this category.

I think there's definitely an argument to be made for definite ending games. It allows for story building that builds to a definite finale without wrecking the feeling of 'completeness' that comes from aimless freeroam post completion (without wrecking RDR's ending, I'll just say that it makes no sense for the playable character to be wandering around with nowt to do post completion). However, there's a danger with a lot of Rockstar's products that removing freeroam at the end of the game would leave a lot of players annoyed since they choose to stagger playable zones and items throughout the game. Imagine playing through GTA4 a second time, just wanting to zone out and get some random wanted building done after a hard day, and not having access to half the game world or the more fun weapons.

Although, this is definitely very game dependent.

 

[Kaanyr Vhok]

It depends on the genre. No RPG should let you complete everything in one play through. Thats just bad game design.