Slumping down on the sofa after a hard day’s work, you open a chilled brew and peruse your much-loved game library. Nothing would satisfy your tired demeanour more than a high quality, entertaining video game. So will you sink an hour into a few quick and easy games of FIFA 10, or will you open your own ‘crib-sheet walkthrough’ of Demon’s Souls and attempt to take on its complex and brutal boss battles? Football fan or not, I expect about 90% of gamers would choose option one.

It was on NoobToob’s last video podcast of 2009 that they brought up the interesting topic of ‘pick up and play’. Which features make a game accessible and easy to get into? In contrast, why do some games feel like a huge undertaking to load up and play? Just because a title is engrossing and demands frequently long play sessions doesn’t necessarily make it a bad game. Likewise, the latest iPhone app that manages to trigger some laughter in the first five minutes of play isn’t a certain sign of quality.

The dosage of a game is a common turn-off. Role playing games are the most guilty of this mechanic, often deploying scarce and infrequent save points so that you’re forced to play longer and harder. I can remember cautiously making my way up five floors of a dungeon in Atlas’ highly commendable Persona 4, only to find that there wasn’t a single save point in sight. With my party HP low and little in the way of potions at my disposal, I decided to be cautious and tip-toe my way back to the previous checkpoint. After half an hour of back tracking I was caught in a random battle, brutally massacred and greeted with the dreaded ‘Game Over’ screen. Two hours of play lost. I didn’t touch Persona 4 again for a week.

Many will argue that this adds to the challenge of an RPG, and that the longer play sessions are a convention and hallmark of the genre. Is there no game play alternative to help it allure the ‘pick up and play’ ethos? Portable consoles have always been a haven for sprite based adventures, by managing the twin needs of short, bursts of gaming and hours of epic scope. Pokemon Platinum offers a save feature that preserves your exact position at any given moment, provided that you are not in battle. This way you can quickly hop in, explore the nearest mountain and hop out again before your next bus arrives. Perfect.

Dawn of War is a contemporary Real Time Strategy title that combines detailed squad management with grand, intergalactic battles. It’s a stunning title, but suffers from a similar need for long doses of play. In the competitive online community, one match can take well over an hour to finish. Not the most appropriate choice when you’ve got thirty minutes available before leaving the house for work.

Returning to a game can be an onslaught in itself. Try playing twenty hours of Fable II, before ejecting the disc and leaving it untouched for the next six months. When you return, you will probably have no recollection of which quests you were involved with, what kind of stat build you were planning to make and where on earth the story has progressed to. Some games have tried to rectify this with ‘catch up’ messages, which remind players of their progress once they’ve loaded a save file. Unfortunately, this necessity is also are a rarity.

Are these brilliant but demanding titles always destined to lie dormant on our dusty shelves, as we continually pick the game that will gratify us with instant touches of enjoyment? Most of us are ebbing towards the manic lifestyle of modern society, succumbing to the demands of long working hours and precious few moments of sleep. Some passionate players have even admitted to buying games that they will never have the time to play, simply owning them to show their respect or encouragement. Is this the same for every gamer?

Luckily, no. Achievements and trophies have proven otherwise, with millions of us clocking up the addictive 1000G or platinum trophies on the most time consuming of titles. The reason is arguably the context in which you decide to play a video game. Although every release should try and build a structure that offers both short and extended styles of play, there will always be opportunities for both. It’s true that when I’m fatigued or stressed, I’ll always choose a few races on Mario Kart over a session with Bioshock. Conversely if I manage to wake up bright and early on a Sunday morning, with little on my schedule but the evening hour of Top Gear… I’ll be more than enthusiastic to engross myself in the steam punk world of Rapture.

The mythical, social substance that makes a game easy to ‘pick up and play’ is difficult for some developers to capture and execute in their games. Those that discover the winning formula should be commended, but those who do not shouldn’t necessarily be criticised. With many rain-sodden evenings on the horizon for England’s spring, I welcome the opportunity to play every high quality game that comes my way in 2010.