eXcentris

Well, only games like shooters I guess. I think it sould be a standard feature. FarCry annoys the heck out of me. I guess it woudn't bother me that much if the save points were more carefully planned.

Oddly enough, I was stuck last night and went on the net looking for a walkthru. And lo and behold, I found a quicksave/quickload patch for FarCry. Haven't installed it yet but I wish I'd found it earlier.

Groucho

Yeah, I very much appreciate a "Save Anywhere" feature in just about any type of game, particularly if it's coupled with a quicksave key.

Breakfast with Girls

The kind that erases the save when you start again? Yes.

Jeremy517

Not necessarily. Save points just need to be at reasonable spacing.

PixyJunket

Shooters with save points?!

Groucho

I take your confusion to mean that you've never played Halo?

PixyJunket

I hear shooter, I think:

fumanstan

Yes.

Although it does lower the difficulty a notch, nothing is worse then having to replay 10-15 minutes of a game a few times because of crummy save points.

Jeremy517

Or 45-60 minutes in the case of MoH: Frontline. It has no save points. If you die, you replay the whole level. Grrr.....

Halo's save points are at a perfect spacing for my tastes.

eXcentris

Yup I just quit playing MoH:Frontline because of that.

tonyc3742

I agree. I don't think any game, except perhaps a sports game, should force you to play more than say, an hour, without letting you save. At least not often.
i'm thinking more from the RPG end, and there are some games I haven't played because I only had 30-60 minutes to play, so I played something that was more convenient [or HoMM III on the PC which is ultraconvenient.]
The average gamer is getting older, I believe, and has more responsibilities. I don't know about you, but I haven't had an 'all-day' or 'all-weekend' gaming session since college; job, family, house, social life, etc, all takes up that time as well, and I really appreciate a game being convenient.
For shooters and things where you're more apt to die, I can see 20-30 minutes being the max between save points or checkpoints

Front Mission 4 has got in-mission quicksave which I appreciate, since battles can be over an hour. Of course, for some reason, the quicksave takes like a minute and a half to save, so it's not 'quicker' than the regular save...

msdmoney

Yeah I suck at video games and hate replaying levels over and over so the more save points the better for me.

Outlaw

Its good to have games with some challenge to them.

TOPDAWG

WOW this even has to be asked? Yeah of course all games should have it. Sometimes I just want to sit down for 20 Min's and play a game not a hour to I can get to a save spot. RPG's can be a real bitch when it comes to that. It damn sure sucks if you just beat a real hard boss and run out of health and shit and have no heal shit on ya and some dumb little monster kills ya.

Xenosega made me want to kill myself over this crap. I just stopped playing the damn movie cause I got so sick of it.

eXcentris

I agree with that and perhaps if saving points were better planned in some of those games it would alleviate the problem. But I also agree with dtcarson. I'm by no means an avid gamer (well I'm still playing FarCry so that should be obvious ) and I play for a couple hours at the time here and there. Sometimes having to spend those couple of hours just repeating the same section over and over again ends up taking quite a bit of enjoyment out of the game.

sniper308

Anybody else hate the "temporary saves" in Rainbow Six 3 for Xbox? You get three saves that you can decide where to use per campaing, but they are only good during that session where the xbox is turned on, otherwise you begin at the beginning of that level of the campaign again. I find it very annoying.

Is the new Rainbow game for Xbox the same way?

eXcentris

Darn, the install instructions are in German.

MasterofDVD

The other night I was playing the latest Rainbow Six game and I was doing really well but kept dying just before the end. I accidentally clicked the Insertion button and had to start and the beginning of the level. I quit there and popped in something else.

I really wish it was setup differently.

Breakfast with Girls

AFAIK, a quicksave feature saves your progress at any point, and when you later load the file, it is automatically deleted so you can't restart again from that point. It's about being able to stop playing immediately and pick up where you left off.

The other kind is just your run of the mill "save."

boredsilly

I remember back when I first got the PSX and Final Fantasy 7. The thing that would get my goose is when my mom would tell me to turn off my game for whatever reason and I couldn't find a save point quick enough. Grrr. Or worse, when I was ready to stop playing but couldn't find a save point for a while.

Yeah I like save anywhere on most games (and absolutely quick save in all FPS's). Like in Top Spin you have to play through a whole tournament before you can save. Why not just one game? I don't think that save points raise the difficulty so much as it raises the frustration.

Gromit

Yes, the new one does that too. I can live with the 3 saves per campaign, I just want to be able to come back the next day to finish it up.

TOPDAWG

I think don't anything can beat Xenogears crap save points. My god you could go a hour and a half without getting one. Also if you dead you would have to sit thew all the damn story part's again. Loved the game but god it almost killed me. No idea why you can't save any place in a RPG. I know with a game shark you can do it so no idea why they just don't let ya do it.

Joe Molotov

All RPGs should have a save-anywhere feature like Lunar. Save Points are ridiculous, it's not like they make the game any more challenging since you rarely die in most RPGs. The only thing it does is make it more annoying when you want to save, but you can't find a Save Point.

Breakfast with Girls

The problem with saving anywhere is that you can get yourself stuck if you save someplace where you can't go back but don't have enough energy to go forward, or if you unwittingly save right before you're about to die. If you only have one savegame, then you're screwed.

With save points that's almost never a problem.

Groucho

Well that's the fault of the player, isn't it? My "rule of thumb" is to always have an archive of 5-10 saves, just in case. A lot of games also have "Auto Saves" at certain points, which offers the best of both worlds.