Open World Games

[FullAuto]

These are what have really captured my time for the past few years. GTAIV, The Saboteur, Red Faction Guerilla, Just Cause 2, Red Dead Redemption, Mercenaries 2, Far Cry 2, Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham City, Bully, Crackdown, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Driver: San Francisco, Infamous, Saints Row 2, etc.

 

Lately, I've been trying Prototype, because Prototype 2 just came out and the first has just dipped under my magical £10 mark (this mark is reserved for games I am quite dubious about). Protagonist Alex Mercer has superpowers, open world based on New York City, bad thing happens, off you go to kill a whole lot of people. Mercer is a bit like a Goth with superpowers, very 'dark' and angsty and not a nice person, with him eating people to get their memories, for instance. Not a traditional superhero, but not ballsy enough to be an antihero (likewise McGrath from Infamous who was basically a kind of Emo take on the subject).

 

Straight away, the game plays very differently in that the level of control granularity is far lower than say, Infamous, or The Saboteur. To move across the cityscape, you can hold down sprint and a direction and you'll cross the city no problem. Mercer will sprint across streets, up buildings, flip over projecting ledges, kick off obstacles, and generally handle the environment himself. I'd class it as being a whole level up overall in power over things like Infamous (which, in this area, I prefer) where you have to actively participate in crossing the city. Although I enjoyed The Saboteur's approach, where it was a parkour-like activity, the best approach so far has been Spider-Man 2's, with the actual web-slinging, as well as super-powered jumping, wall crawling and such. Although it offered superpowers, there was also a massive amount of control there to master, with real skill playing a part in swinging around the city and your acrobatics. Although you could do stuff like wall running, it was reserved for brief bursts and was in the upper reaches of what you could achieve. In Prototype, Mercer quite happily runs up buildings over and over again.

 

Although I see what they're aiming for, in that you feel so powerful, merely navigating the environment is beneath you and it should just be one smooth flow while you preoccupy yourself with throwing cars at helicopters and slicing government stormtroopers in half, I think it removes or slims down an area of the game that would be fun to play, that takes skill and effort and practice. Still, you're on a different level and movement flows quite nicely, better than Infamous (where I always felt it was very difficult to get a flow going until you've improved your powers quite a bit). However, with the skill removed, it also makes world traversal a bit boring, unlike the skill required to web swing in SM2 or paraglide in JC2.

 

Prototype, of course, is also rumoured to be a mere reskinning of Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction. Imagine that!

 

The intro is a nightmare, little snatches of gameplay between cutscenes for about half an hour. Other than that, I'm fording onwards...

[Space Voyager]

Of the ones you listed I only played Far Cry 2. Of like games I'd also mention The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion&Skyrim (the latter awaits my new computer that lurks there in the distant future), X series, Freelancer... There are a lot of open world games really. These are the games that felt most immersive to me, too. Going where you want, doing what you want simply feels most life-like.

[FullAuto]

Just been made aware of Fuel...an open world racing game. Of course, I didn't buy it.

[Space Voyager]

Good. It is rated as shit by practically all reviewers.

[silencer_pl]

Try Minecraft - I've heard it is pretty much open world

[Sunflash]

Try Minecraft - I've heard it is pretty much open world

 

Just don't be a sucker and get it on XBox. The poor console kiddies are several patches behind the master race.