‘Checkpoint-Style’ Saving Is Killing Me

5 responses to “‘Checkpoint-Style’ Saving Is Killing Me”

1. 

   weresmurf

   July 22, 2013 at 9:44 am

   It depends on the style of game and how often the checkpoints are scattered. Some games, quicksaving can remove the skill required, Max Payne 3 had great checkpoints for instance.

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   1. 

      fruitlewp

      July 22, 2013 at 12:24 pm

      I wasn’t actually fond of Max Payne’s checkpoint system – if you missed something it was difficult to return (same for if it chose a poor moment to checkpoint), the loading times were a tad cringe-worthy and none of the checkpoints are labelled, so getting to them from the menu is a matter of selecting “checkpoint 11” and estimating where that’ll land you. 😛

      I don’t hate checkpoint saving though. At least with Max Payne you weren’t likely to be set back too far. Beats forgetting to take several minutes to save your game of RAGE and losing a whole bunch of progress as a result. Or Doom 3 BFG Edition’s “convenient new checkpoint save system” which intentionally brick-walls your sense of immersion at random intervals to wait for it to save.

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      1. 

         weresmurf

         July 22, 2013 at 2:18 pm

         No no what I meant was the checkpoints were very close together, it had LOTS of issues, most of which you validly pointed out. Loading times were dreadful but thankfully had animations and story to cover it. However 2nd time through you notice it majorly when you suddenly cannot skip it lol. For MP4, when it happens, I hope they do learn from this. I’d love more of an open world style Max Payne game to be honest. That’d rock bananas 😀

         Reply
         1. 

            fruitlewp

            July 22, 2013 at 3:35 pm

            Ahh, fair enough. Yup – from the 2nd time onwards, watching a cutscene several times that is clearly disguising a horrendous load time is kind of a bummer. 😛

            I know it didn’t irritate me when I was going through the first time – there were so many checkpoints that I was never set back too far in the event that I died – but definitely from then onwards, particularly when trying to pick up all the collectibles… Nothing like only just missing something, waiting to load the main menu again, and then re-watching a long cutscene (sometimes one set in a completely different moment in time) just to find out that you loaded the wrong checkpoint. 😛

            I loved the shooting mechanics – at least GTA V will be inheriting a great deal of what they did get right in that regard. 🙂

            Reply
            1. 

               weresmurf

               July 22, 2013 at 4:00 pm

               Oh holy shit, GTA V is going to be glorious with Max Payne style shooting…