[Question] What's the best bite-sized gaming out there?

Contrary to popular belief, not every nerd in existence has 8 hours at a time to play video games. 15 minutes here, a half an hour there, some people have to just cram in whatever time they can get. unfortunately, the bigger and more epic games get, the longer it can take between save points in some games.

Some games handle this poorly, forcing you to save when and only when it lets you, making you spend an hour or more before you can stop playing and get back to your life.

Some games, however, get it right. Animal Crossing comes to mind. You can play that game for 10 minutes, or 2 hours, it all depends on how much time you have. And the best part is, it takes MAYBE 1 minute to go and save. A lot of portable RPGs are kind of there with their quicksave option, but Pokemon is the only one I can think of that just flat out lets you save anywhere. In all honesty, a portable RPG is better served by a freeform save system like that.

Before I get too rant-y, though, let's get back to the point. I think a lot of busy people could use a handy list of games that can not only be played in large chunks, but also in small bites. So, I leave the rest to you guys. Get to it! =o

Jam it back in, in the dark.

First thing I thought of is Bangai-Oh Spirits for the DS, which is a shootan game by Treasure. There's over a hundred missions, all of which are accessible from the start of the game. Each mission should only take a few minutes to complete, so the player can choose to play a few missions and stop.

However, the game can be addictive and also punishingly hard, which meant that I'd typically plan to play for about 15 minutes, attempt one mission multiple times, FINALLY beat it, decide to play just one more stage ... and before I know it, I've played it way past my bedtime!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Without getting into another of my signature frothing-at-the-mouth rants on how save points are the most retarded holdover from the 8-bit era ever to pollute modern-day gaming with their festering carcasses, I'd have to say that at least the most recent example I've played, if not the absolute best, of bite-size gaming would be God Hand due to its breaking up levels into smaller chunks with save opportunities after each chunk is completed. Makes it easy to pop it in, play a few level segments, and go do something else if need be after a short time.

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I really enjoy playing UT99 or UT2k4 for brief periods. For example, taking a break by firing up UT2k4 and that CTF map that's basically a 20 ft.-long corridor with a flag at either end, loading up about 20 bots, and enabling the dual OMFG gun mutator. I've got a screenshot where there's about 2,000 OMFG guns laying around on-screen left-over from all the corpses. Because the objectives in the UT games can be tailored (you can play a DOM, CTF, DM, etc. set to any score level) you can completely set them at the length you want to. Or, simply fire up a wacky map and spray dual OMFG gun fire around the place for a few minutes to relieve some tension. Good stuff! I would say these simple matches are good for 5-15 minute gameplay chunks.

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I've found all of the Megaman Battle Network games to be pretty good for bite-sized chunks, and I've really been enjoying the newest one on the DS. I don't really like the combat as much as the Battle Network games for the GBA, but the writing is light years better (it's actually kinda funny).

They also let you save anywhere, and will actually put this big skull and bones icon on the floor leading up to the boss in a dungeon, so you know to save right before it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Wario Ware Inc (GBA), obviously. Hyper fast, simple to play, extremely fun (and funny) in both short and longer bursts and very suitable for quick play sessions while waiting for the bus or sitting on the can.

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Originally Posted by Qwarky

Wario Ware Inc (GBA), obviously. Hyper fast, simple to play, extremely fun (and funny) in both short and longer bursts and very suitable for quick play sessions while waiting for the bus or sitting on the can.

Wario Ware Touched (DS) as well.

Don't know why anyone hasn't mentioned Tetris DS either, that's always a classic. Personally, I've been playing Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlord for a while. Good ol' Bejeweled game play with an RPG element attached.

FELIPE NO

This is almost a moot point if you're gaming on your DS, because you can just put that sucker away anytime and pick it right back up where you were no matter what.

That said, I've been playing some Advance Wars (Day of Ruin) in my free time at work recently, as turn based is much easier to break up than anything that works in real time. Meteos lasted my first two college semesters; that game is fucking awesome, and is definitely bite-sized.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

While going on with more puzzle games... Planet Puzzle League.

Any Tetris Attack fanboy/fangirl's dream.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The portable systems have a lot of really good 'bite-sized' games, such as Advance Wars, FFTA2, WarioWare, Tetris, Picross, LocoRoco, Patapon, and a whole heap more besides. XBLA, PS Store and WiiWare also have a whole bunch of games that are great for short bursts or short play throughs.

I find the problem with really good 'bite-sized' games like this is they have suffer from "Just One More Go" syndrome, which means you end up playing them for a lot longer than intended.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Kind of on topic, I'm really impressed with how long you can leave a PSP in sleep mode without the battery going and losing your place. I turned mine on after three days only to find I hadn't turned it off properly and just put it in sleep mode and it still had a good hours charge left after being on for a couple of hours prior to that.

I'm playing FFT at the moment on it and finding the random battles are generally about as long as my train ride, assuming you're not trying to tame monsters or any shit like that. The result of this is I've doen hundreds of random battles compared to the number of story battles but with little attention paid to jobs and stuff (As the train journey isn't long enough to worry about pissing about in menus) so I have a stupidly over-levelled party (Main guy at level 63 at the very start of Chapter IV) with a couple of mastered jobs each but no access to the advanced jobs like Summoner. If I ever replay it I'd focus my job advancement a lot more and aim for a set team, rather than mindlessly mastering everything before moving on. At least it means some of them will make double hard Onion Knights...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Crazy Taxi isn't really the best game of its kind but it's fun as fuck to play in 15 minute spurts. Burnout 3 has always been pretty good with that too because you only race for about 5-10 minutes but that's a game that you can easily lose 3 or 4 hours in if you so felt compelled.

However, one of my favorites to play in short spurts is Odin Sphere. The game is fucking awesome in short spurts because each stage (and I believe there's hundreds of them) is so short or small and the boss battles are epic, albeit really brief, and you can save pretty much anywhere you want and return to the last chapter you completed. And just like with Burnout, you can lose track of time with this and you will inevitably spend 3 or 4 hours and not know it.

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Rockman Power Battles was always fun to play. It was quick and easy. Not to mention fighting non pixelized megaman 1-6 characters was pretty sweet.

I enjoyed also this game called Commando on the NES. It was hectic once you got up to the third variation, but it never got old somehow.

Theres also a massive amount of XBLA games that come to mind as well

I was speaking idiomatically.