by Enjay » Wed Jul 28, 2021 5:16 am
I hate it when games do that. I almost quit Half Life the first time I played it because everyone was telling me off for being late, not getting to the test chamber quickly and that the experiment couldn't start without me. OK, great, Gordon Freeman may have worked there for years but I haven't and a) I don't know the way & b) I want to explore.
So many games try to rush you with NPCs, or radio messages, or something to make it sound like the task that you are doing is urgent. And that's fine if it actually is urgent and is time limited in some way - but most of the time it's just window dressing and the various encouragements for you to do things quickly can happily be ignored.
In Doom3, the first time you meet Sarge, he always greets you with "took your sweet time marine" - no matter how quickly (or slowly) you rush to meet him. In fact, the characteristic way he says that line has actually become something that we say in our house when someone does something that may delay the rest of the family somehow - but only when it's a mild inconvenience. Like, yesterday, I was going out for a walk with my daughter and she said "just let me get my boots on." Only a couple of minutes later she was suitably booted, but that didn't stop me saying "took your sweet time marine" as we left the house.