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| Dude...Where do I go? |
Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, Fable, Assassin's Creed, Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands. All of these games have one thing in common, and that's the creation of a sprawling, expansive environment for gamers to waste dozens of hours in. But...is there an inherent drawback to games like this? I recently found myself going through a second playthrough of Red Dead Redemption, and found that with minor differences in the way I approach certain environments, the game was essentially the same. That's not to say that makes Red Dead a bad game, but I started to notice that the foggy perception gamers have with an open world game isn't all it's cracked up to be.
What makes an open world or sandbox game work is it's environment. Without it, there's not much incentive for gamers to wander through it. Players can explore that extra canyon, or look to see what's under that bridge over yonder, or maybe even check out that campfire way in the distance. As great as this sounds, it's baffling to me that my want to explore something will leave me unrewarded most of the time. During my 2nd playthrough of Red Dead, I wandered into an abandoned mine shaft that was being inhabited by a local gang. With ease, I took out the inaccurate, gun-toting baddies with my trusty carbine repeater (I didn't even have to use my dead-eye). Hoping to be rewarded for my trials and tribulations, I was left the dank mine with nothing in my pocket. It was beyond frustrating to come to the realization that I wasted about a half hour exploring the wild west, only to come across a mildly lengthy enemy encounter which left me empty handed. It left me feeling like Rockstar (the developers of Red Dead) are laughing at me while they light their cigars with wads of burning cash.
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| So...I'll get that shiny orb when I kill you right? |
I came to the realization that this happens in a lot of games. The last time I got as frustrated as my Red Dead encounter was when I played Elder Scrolls IV. Everyone talks about how that series is the game changer of open world exploration in video games, but again, I wandered into an old mage temple, only to have wasted about a half hour fighting random mob encounters and to leave empty handed. Before I get drowned by the number of ccomplaints fans of these games have, I will admit that there are some benefits to exploring certain environments. Gamers will eventually come across that ruined city that is housing that mystical, ultimate weapon, that can only be obtained by beating that rare, incredibly difficult boss character, but the effort in finding that location on your own can only be achieved by either A) a 13-year-old goofball who has no social activities other than when his World of Warcraft guild gets together, or B) somone who is getting paid to do it...which I totally condone. I want to be rewarded every time I take a stroll off the beaten path and explore something new, regardless of its difficulty. There's not much incentive for me to take out that gang ridden mine shaft for nothing when I can do the same thing by going along with the story campaign.
Even a game like Fallout 3, a critically acclaimed and all too fun game was also getting on my nerves because of its vastly large and menacing post-apocalyptic world. There are no vehicles in the game, which leaves traveling from lcoation to location a major chore and treacherous time waster. In your journey you'll come across a variety of enemy encounters (which are insanely brutal during your first playthrough) that are preventing you from reaching your next objective. With no easier way to explore the world, and the vicious enemies you'll undoubtedly come across WILL kill you, ultimately forcing you to double back and wander the world some more. It just seems childish and masochistic sometimes. Most sane gamers like myself tend to stick with the main storyline. Sure we may wander off the main path every once in a while, but it seems to pay off rarely when we do. Overall, we as gamers are becoming more enthralled by the propect of a good storyline, and it helps the pacing of a game the way the developers intended. Pacing is pivotal in any game, you never want your players doing one thing for too long, or too little. In giving players the choice to explore the environment themselves (without the aid of a strategy guide) they are unknowingly entering into their own gameplay experience, and it's a big gamble. I can only wander aimlessly for so long before my interest is no longer peaked.
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| Open world exploration done right. Now if only I could find that haystack. |
Regardless of my gripes with certain open world games, they're still a blast to play once you know what you want out of it. The way I accomplish this....strategy guides and walkthroughs. Never be ashamed in using online guides or walkthroughs when necessary. Some gamers are into the whole aspect of discovering the vast, open world all by themselves, but to me, I play games to get immediate satisfaction, and I can't do that when I'm forced to spend 20 hours wandering a desert, only to find that the mystical weapon I was looking for is over on the other side of the world. It just seems like a cop out to me in order to get me to play longer. Instead, give us a reason to search the world. Tell us something like "Hey, if you search this area over here, there are some fetch quests you can do, or beat-up quests, or some gambling to partake in." To me, Assassin's Creed II perfected the open world genre because it labeled every type of activity you can do in the game. It gave me an incentive to explore the environment by forcing me to traverse all of Renaissance Italy by forcing me to discover lookout points so I can see what else I could do. I want to control my game, not the other way around.
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