OT: You Know I Hate

[AgentZero]

I have to say, most of the games out there these days fall seriously short in the reply value department. I absolutely loved KOTOR (aside from the space battles, those were just a pain!), and it took me about 6 weeks to get through the whole thing (keeping in mind I don't have a lot of time for gaming these days). A couple days after I finished it, I loaded up a new game as a different character class and started playing again. I barely made it through the introductory sequence before switching off to do something else. There just wasn't any desire there to keep going.
Now take a game like Baldur's Gate II. I must have played that one through a dozen times as various character classes, because the game is actually different depending on what kind of character you play. Add the fact that the game was so massive there was just so much to do that you're bound to miss half of it your first time through, making each replay a fresh experience.
A lot of the problem with many games is that reviewers tend to praise games that take a large number of hours to complete, while reacting negatively to games that can be finished quickly. Which is fair, since if I'm shelling out money for a game, I want as much value for money as I can get. The problem arises in that many developers, instead of making large, rich, intriguing worlds that we can spend hours exploring, just make their games really, really hard, therefore you will spend a long time getting through them for the simple fact that you'll die so much.
Which is not fun. I think something that developers need to realize is that they make computer GAMES and the deffinition of a game, according to the dictionary is "An activity providing entertainment or amusement" (italics mine). ie: Fun.
Dying 20 times trying to complete a level is not fun. Heck, playing the same level 20 times for any reason, is not fun. Frankly, I would rather play a game that I finish in 2 days that is fun and enjoyable than I would spending 20 days slogging through a game that is just pointlessly hard.

Oh, and Atrocities, if you're refering to the Freelancer level where you have to flee to a jumpgate with half a bloody fleet after you, the only way I managed it was by cheating.
Pop open the PerfOptions.ini file located in your Freelancer game folder and change the following line:
DIFFICULTY_SCALE = 1.00
to
DIFFICULTY_SCALE = 0.0
Which will make you invincible. The difficulty scale is basically what percentage of their normal power enemy weapons do to you, so 1.00 would be 100%, 0.50 would be 50% and so forth. I personally ended up putting it at 0.30 and found the game still challenging enough to be fun, without having the joy sucked out of it by being pointlessly hard or too easy.