Question about gamelength for Mass Effect 1+2, Dragon Age and Fallout 3

Hi all. Just a quick question:

How long would you say a first time playthrough would take, with and without sidequests, for Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3 and Dragong Age: Origins?

(no spoilers please)

I'm considering starting one of them, but have not decided which one to start with yet. I have heard and read all sorts of numbers/hours on the net about the main quests, but I thought I'd ask someone who had actually playd the games.

DA:O — ~85 hours with all side quests
ME1 — ~30 hours with some side quests, ~35 with all of them
ME2 — ~50 hours with all side quests
Fallout 3 — no idea yet

Those times probably include idle time, e.g. when I tab out of the game to browse or so. I'm more of a completist, so I don't know about play times without side quests (although on my first ME1 playthrough I couldn't bear them all).

DA - Well, the savegame says 45 hours or so. I very much doubt that is the case. I'd guess 60 or so.

ME1 - With both DLCs, about 25 hours. That includes scanning all worlds and so on. Completing everything. It's actually possible to complete ME1 in a single day if you skip most of the time consuming sidequests (resources, asari writings, etc). I'd say that would take about 12-15 hours.

ME2 - Same as ME1.

FO3 - I'd say about 40, but without doing all the quests (just the majority; most of the obvious stuff).

That varies in the extreme, from person to person.

For me:

DA:O: ~50 hours with most of the stuff done (including DLC available at release).

ME1: ~35 hours with most of the stuff done.

ME2: ~25 hours with most of the stuff done.

FO3: ? - never finished it.

Wow, either you guys are seriously fast or your clocks are running slow. What did you do, skip all the dialogues? I just checked my savegames just to make sure I remembered my times correctly. DA:O was actually 86 hours for me.

Or I spent a serious amount of time browsing while playing. I'm not exactly sure how the games measure the time. Would be an interesting experiment to write it down manually while playing and see how that compares to the automatic clock.

Yeah I also took over 80 hours to finish DA, but I was going over every nook and cranny with a fine tooth comb…

There also might have been a few times when I left the game running while I was eating, etc...

Arhu said:

Wow, either you guys are seriously fast or your clocks are running slow. What did you do, skip all the dialogues? I just checked my savegames just to make sure I remembered my times correctly. DA:O was actually 86 hours for me.

Or I spent a serious amount of time browsing while playing. I'm not exactly sure how the games measure the time. Would be an interesting experiment to write it down manually while playing and see how that compares to the automatic clock.

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My time includes "idle" time I suppose.

I didn't skip dialogue once - because it was an enjoyable aspect of DA:O.

That said, I didn't do the shallow minor subquests very often. You know, those that require you to travel around looking for NPCs to deliver a message. I find that horribly boring.

But AFAIK - beyond that, it was a relatively comprehensive playthrough.

I certainly got what I paid for, and more.

I don't consider myself particularly "fast" in that sense, but I have zero patience for optimal fights or tactical considerations. I just get the job done if I can, and I don't really spend a lot of time worrying about details.

I clearly remember breezing through the ending, because I had had enough of the endless filler combat by then. The entire end-sequence took me ~15-20 minutes, I think - not counting the 2-3 times I had to reload during the very final fight.

I get really sick of filler combat done Bioware style, but the game was very enjoyable up until the very end.

Oh, and while I carefully read all the codex entries for the first ~75% of the game, I kinda slacked off towards the end. That's what usually happens to me, so it was no surprise.

I played on "hard" by the way.

Dragon Age: Long
Mass Effect 1: Short (finished it in a weekend)
Mass Effect 2: Haven't played it yet, I'm not into shooters
Fallout 3: Wildly depends. For me, it was short (finished it in a weekend), but then I'm not the 'explorer' type. People complained that they reached max level long before they finished the game... I finished the game at about level 15 out of 20

Thank you all for your answers.

——-

DA:O — ~85 hours with all side quests
DA - 45 hours or so. I'd guess 60 or so.
DA:O: ~50 hours with most of the stuff done
80 hours to finish DA
Dragon Age: Long ;-)

ME1 — ~30 hours with some side quests, ~35 with all of them
ME1 - With both DLCs, about 25 hours.
It's actually possible to complete ME1 in… …12-15 hours.
ME1: ~35 hours with most of the stuff done.
Mass Effect 1: Short (finished it in a weekend)

ME2 — ~50 hours with all side quests
ME2 - Same as ME1. (about 25 hours)
ME2: ~25 hours with most of the stuff done.

FO3 - I'd say about 40.
Fallout 3: (finished it in a weekend)

——-

So, of all the games I guess we can say Dragon Age: Origins is the longest one?

And I guess DArtagnan is right in that it really varies from person to person.
However, I'm not really sure what kind of gamer I really am. Maybe it's more of a
mood thing for me. Sometimes I like to finnish quests in a hurry, other times I
just like to explore.

Anyway, seems like Mass Effect is the shortest one. Maybe I'll start there.

Thanks.

Well, if you combine ME1 and 2 into a single playthrough, they're longer than DA. Other than that, yes DA is the longest.

DAO: For first play 120 hours…. One way to look at this is that I'm a poor player, another way is I know take more profit of the game. Those who played it in 40 hours skip a lot of stuff I bet, like many dialogs, didn't stop to listen well the funny chats between companions, and more stuff skipped.

One point for DAO is that it has a very good replay value for replay it at least once, but eventually sooner or later during the replay you'll end know too well the fight system and how optimize better the characters and you will find the game too easy, perhaps then the nightmare mode would be a good idea but I didn't try.

Maylander said:

Well, if you combine ME1 and 2 into a single playthrough, they're longer than DA. Other than that, yes DA is the longest.

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Don't think so. If ME2 is anything like ME1, it would have taken me 2 weeks for both of them, and DAO took me like a month, but maybe that's because I played DAO strategically in hard mode (pausing to give orders, etc), while ME1 was just a shooter (and ME2 is reported to be even more a shooter than ME1)

Dasale said:

One point for DAO is that it has a very good replay value for replay it at least once, but eventually sooner or later during the replay you'll end know too well the fight system and how optimize better the characters and you will find the game too easy, perhaps then the nightmare mode would be a good idea but I didn't try.

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I would say otherwise. I found no replay value in DAO. Game was too predictable, battle was long and tedious. Origin storys are interesting but thats only 1hr > or so. Only reply value I saw was if you are REALLY INTERESTED in how other NPCs will react depending on what Origins/Gender you've chosen. But that's really a minor part of game and I have no intention to go back to same, boring crap for few dialogues.

purpleblob said:

I would say otherwise. I found no replay value in DAO. Game was too predictable, battle was long and tedious.

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I agree. I enjoyed DA, and I do think it's a good game, but I have absolutely no desire to play it anymore now. It's the type of game that I *might* play again in a few years.

Fallout 3 is the longest by far if you explore every inch of the map. I would estimate around 150 hours if you are playing the GotY edition or have all DLC. Having said that, it is extremely tedious to explore the entire map so most people would finish in far less time than that. Some people can finish in less than 10 hours.

I finished DA:O in about a week and half playing in the evenings and weekends. All up probably around 70 hours. Far superior to FO3 in my opinion.

Lol, you both obviously didn't enjoyed DAO, so obviously you could not enjoy the possible replay value! Tsss.

EDIT: Long boring fights... You probably never played the Pool of Radiance series with fight 10 times longer... and good but not that great when compared to many other CRPG. DAO fights are one of the most tactically CRPG fights I ever played, including this PoA series, Dungeon Master, EoB I am playing now, and many more.

Good for you...

I enjoyed DA:O greatly, but I wouldn't want to replay it any time soon.

Too much combat and too much work, and pathetically boring class options compared to D&D 3/3.5. Basically, have you played one rogue (the only class that interests me) you've played them all. Sure, you can choose between ranged and melee, but that's just not interesting. Fighters are either tanks, bad rogues, or something in between with 2-handed, and again - just not enough. I don't care for mages, and that's about what's there for options.

Compared to the several dozen fantastically entertaining builds I've created in D&D, it's just nothing.

The origin stories are great, but beyond that I would feel like a slave having to go through all that dialogue for some variation on the same themes.

Actually, I think ME/ME2 are much better for replays - because they're "light" in every sense of the word.

I will play DAO again, just not yet. Like some said, it's not really worth replaying that much. But, I will replay it once the DLC dust settles and they eventually put all DLC in one package or something, then I'll play it again with everything.

D&D classes even NWN series are a confused crap for me. The amazing build you mention is few special skills of difference. But yes Fighter and Rogues classes in DAO are limited and don't offer much options, still for fighters, 2H, 2W, S&S, Archer. You had also the specialization making a significant shift to those choices, Blood and Berkerker particularly.

Only for fighters, that's 8 options, more than enough for a replay value with parties of 4. More over, mages offer a ton of roads and options and alternate set of tactics and different ways to manage the fights. And a specialization like the Arcane Warrior or Spirit Healer offer strong alternate roads. But the choice of spells you do among the wide list is rather interesting from a tactical point of view, this is offering a lot of choices and replay value.

Also interesting is to try parties with only rogues and parties with no rogues or parties with only mages. I played a large part with two rogues and sometimes 3 with one an Archer. And at replay I almost never used one and often used two 2H offering a very different gameplay and tactics.

That said I agree that overall, only the mage class offer a lot of options and D&D mages+clerics are pale in comparison from a tactical point of view. But for fighters and rogues DAO is pale in comparison with the NWN D&D obscure system, a dead end where felt D&D rules.

Also a problem in DAo is the difficulty setting, you had to increase significantly at replay to keep a value to the fights. But the abuse of DLC items is also largely one cause of this problem.

Overall the problem is you didn't even scratch the depth of the fights and of the classes, and just played it automatically, never be curious and trying different tactics, for sure you could not enjoy any replay. A non curious player is a bad CRPG player.