I got talking with some friends a few days ago and save points came up.  At first I thought they were something necessary to some games and never thought much of them, but the more I thought of it, the more they just seem unnecessary these days.

An automatic checkpoint system or save anytime system just seems better in every way to save points and I honestly don't know why we still use them.

Note-- I'm assuming they still get used today.  I assume at least FFXIII and God of War 3 still use them and those are pretty big name games.  When compared to something like Uncharted that has a generous checkpoint system and Mass Effect that lets you save anywhere out of combat, the save points just seem silly and outdated.

killing gaming.
I miss the NES days with barely any saves, mostly passwords, or nothing at all.

lol I forgot about the terrible password systems of the NES days. Save points seem like a blessing from the gods compared to those.

They're useless. I thought it was weird that they were in God of War when there is in fact a nice Autosave/checkpoint system already implemented, but I suppose it's so the player can create saves they can come back to at a later point. Stig Asmussen said that the only reason the system was in was because they didn't have the time to implement a "Chapter" system properly.

In other words, I don't understand why we still have it.

Well at least FF XIII and GoW III do have checkpoints, save points are very very stupid, but they do serve other purposes in FF XIII at least

In RPGs...I'd prefer points....action games and FPS i'd prefer checkpoints

Yeah, but why not just allow us to save then?

God of War does have a checkpoint system, but if you quit at a checkpoint and don't save, you have to go back to your last save (or at least you do in God of War 2).  Why not just do what the good thing is and let us continue from the last checkpoint?

As for you RPG people, why would you prefer a save point system rather than something like Mass Effect where you can save anytime?

I prefer save points over an automatic save system. But the best games are the one with both.

Which is exactly what they let you do in 3

And allowing the player to save at any time versus at save points is something I don't understand either. I can understand not being able to save down to every second (as it'd take more resources and isn't really necessary), but just hitting pause and saving for the last checkpoint should be the norm.

Once you get a full time job and have to game in your free time. Save points become a pain in the ass. I've actually left my console running with the game on pause before, because I had to go to work and I wasn't anywhere near a save point.