Seems I’ve got a much shorter attention spanb than previously – but I think it’s for the best. There is now so much media – games, tv shows, movies – that I need something to grab me quickly. It’s the “five minutes to awesome” benchmark – do something incredible in the first five minutes to grab my attention.
It’s not that I can’t forgive a slow burn intro – but there had better be a good payoff. But more and more I’m expecting something gripping at the beginning of a game. I can remember the beginning of Mass Effect 3, going from a rather calm start and then five minutes later it’s all gone down the drain – makes you want to be in the game, being the hero. XCOM also sets things up well – after the brief intro sequence, I welcomed the XCOM title screen (I actually like the cinematic effect of having the title appear when it’s done right – really hammers home that the game devs are serious about the story) right at the point where you become Commander of XCOM, off saving the world.
It’s almost odd when I think about it that so many games insist having you grind through ages of being a piddly sad subhuman…I don’t mind a big disparity in power levels between the start and end of the game, but if I’m getting too old to spend hours having trouble killing rats in cellars.
