You can say it about anything though, can't you? There are "right" and "wrong" ways to do anything, from the most linear corridor shooter to the biggest sandbox and anything in between.

Yeah, but this a massive trait that has almost exclusively sucked, it's not so much that the implementation has been terrible every time, it's more that it rarely has any purpose to even exist.

I know, the "why" was really more rhetorical (and exasperated) than anything else.

well it improved Dark Souls over Demon's Souls?

anyone got dead space 3? i'll prob pick it up when its really cheap but i disagree with many of the things EA did with the series so i am not too eager to give them about $98 or so

I too, am unsure about how they're going to pull off the open world, considering The Witcher is very focused and story-driven. However, I have a hell of a lot of trust in CD Projekt RED, so I have faith that they'll do it right somehow.

No it didn't, other stuff improved on it, not necessarily the open-world setting, and besides, Dark Souls wasn't such a huge sprawling open-world either, it was still pretty tight and compact. It had a more Metroidvania design/feel to it than RDR/Skyrim/GTA and the likes.

For Fallout it works. The world is supposed to feel wide and expansive and desolate. And then when you stumble upon survivors or hostiles it's cool.

Red Dead Redemption handles it well cause you're supposed to ride around in the open wide west and roam the prairie.

Assassin's Creed didn't need it. I prefer something like Dishonored where the maps have more intricate design instead of being able to wander wherever.

Skyrim sort of needs it. You're supposed to just relax and role play.

Dead Island was open world and didn't need it at all. It could've easily worked being slimmed down to just zombie bashing.

I don't really consider Dark Souls open world cause you can't just go anywhere you want. You'll die.

Agreed fully on Assassins Creed vs Dishonored, that game really showed that you can get all the freedom and scope of an open world while not dismantling the game with needless travel/repetition.

I disagree on Red Dead though, that was the most painfully unneeded, boring and empty open world ever, and yes, I know it has to be because its set in the desert, but its.exactly as fun as wandering around in the desert. I would have rathered a level based game, which kept a few of the riding scenes to your destinations, since they could give you all the old western charm you need in of themselves.

In that regard, Skyrim was better than Oblivion, but Morrowind was better than both. Obviously they are all better than Arena I'd say, and Daggerfall I never got to work in any great capacity to really judge. You actually felt like you were travelling a world in Morrowind.

Man those ms dos games are unplayable if you started with Morrowind or later haha. I think Skyrim succeeds more than Morrowind because of all the visually lavish set pieces inside every dungeon, but yeah the actual overworld was much better in MW.

The main difference for me with Skyrim vs. Morrowind was that, level design aside, Morrowind's setting was just so much more fresh and original than Skyrim's. Morrowind felt a lot more rewarding to explore than Skyrim did not because the individual dungeons were better designed or more exciting from a gameplay perspective (they usually weren't) but because they were more interesting. Skyrim was just faux-Norse mythology plus dragons, so for me at least there wasn't nearly as much incentive to explore, despite the fact that some of the dungeon designs were pretty fantastic (such as Labyrinthian).

Yeah it has been the same game three times in a row, I still feel like each is better than the last though.

True that. I still consider the 'Metroidvania' a style of open world though and I really liked how they handled that in Dark Souls. I also think that doing it in this style is waaay better than Skyrim/Fallout/GTA etc did. Because in the latter (like a lot of you already said) there are just miles and miles of absolutely nothing significant, and it's utterly boring.

I honestly think all games should have a portal/teleportation option because back tracking is the most tedious shit. If not automatic, make it at least unlockable by the halfway stage.

My friend and I came to conclusion that Dark Souls is pretty much 110% what new Castlevania should've been. Not an easy God of War clone with boring weapons and attacks that cover more than the entire screen at at time. And yeah, Dark Souls reminded me a lot of Zelda off and on, Metroid, etc, that sort of thing, basically my favorite formula ever. I still really enjoyed Skyrim, New Vegas, etc, myself, but I'd definitely take a more intricately complex interconnected smaller world over the fully open world stuff (hence why I always say for FPS's stuff like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, etc, are my top preference).

It's design you really don't see too often in most modern stuff though and that's a shame. I'll assume Bioshock Infinite will kind of fit the bill though, as the first one did a little.

Probably gonna get this tomorrow, release date here is not until friday but my copy was sent today. DS3 demo didn't impress me yet, i just hope that there isn't too much sequences where you fight against armed humans, in other words boring shooting crap. Other thing i'm worried about is that apparently game is almost twice long as DS2. Both previous games was just perfectly right length, no need to make games like Dead Space longer. Either way, i'm eagerly waiting to get my hands on Dead Space 3. Story conclusion is a must see. Will report back when i finish the game, huge fan of both previous games for sure!

dont worry every single review i have read(many of them) hates the fights against humans but always end it with but fights against humans are rare so i am happy about that, enjoy the game i really want to pick it up as soon as i can despite my hatred of EA :d i love the series so while this one might be the weakest for me it will still be an amazing game

i am glad there are not too many fights against humans i heard they are not fun so glad they are not in it often

Judging from the pics of Morrowind, the graphic textures make the overworld look like moist shit. Even with mods, it looks nowhere near as visually striking as Skyrim.



They need to do Elder Scrolls: Elsweyr or Valenwood or Black Marsh.

Well obviously the graphics were worse, but I was talking about the actual objects and locations and terrains Skyrim was just fucking mountains, and you don't even have an acrobatics skill to help you climb them.

I had fun looking around Skyrim. The tundra west of Whiterun, the hot springs south of Windhelm. At least one good forest to be kvlt in . Crawling along the sides of the ranges looking for Dwemer ruins. Etc.

Isn't Elsewyr supposed to be mostly desert? No amount of processing power would keep endless rolling sand dunes interesting. I don't remember Skyrim's mountains any more difficult to navigate than Oblivion (granted I never maxed out my acrobatics skill in the latter.) You can still glitch jump up the side of the rocks

Arid sands in the North, dense jungles in the south. Source

Ahh, I have been misinformed. Valenwood or Black Marsh seem like interesting locales but I stand by my distaste for scouring the desert. It'd be great to see them tackle all of Tamriel again with a single player campaign, though now with ES online I can't see that happening sadly

Hence why I didn't even mention Hammerfell.

I'm not sure if I'd even be interested in a multiplayer Elder Scrolls game. I can't imagine being able to take in the game's proper beauty if some jackoff named GangnamStyle420YOLO is jumping around in circles right next to me.

That scenario is exactly what I had in my head every time multiplayer was ever brought up, nothing takes you out of a game like some dickhead in a loincloth spinning around shooting fireballs

As opposed to what?

Anyway, this new Fire Emblem thing has been a fucking disaster. I find out about the game on February 2, spend a couple of days hyped to hell and know no one has any idea where the game went. I am so fucking pissed.

I don't mean to be a douche, but



Call of Duty 1
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty 5: Black Ops
Call of Duty 5: Black Ops 2
Call of Duty 17: Modern Warfare 47



I know nothing about computer programming but I bet it's more to do with laziness than $$$. I don't really buy that's it's easier to make a PointA-PointB games than open-world.

Just based on terrain, I'd probably want it to be either Hammerfell or High Rock. I like exploring mountains---which, by the way, were easier to climb and more accessible than they were in Oblivion. And if you are really having trouble climbing the mountains, you're doing it wrong. The answer to that "problem" has always been Horse Physics. Works every time.

But anyway, Hammerfell and High Rock look like they have more mountains than Valenwood, Elsweyr or Black Marsh. I never played Daggerfell, but I imagine they'd significantly redo High Rock anyway. After those two, my next pick would be Valenwood; Summerset Isles could be cool too. Alternatively, they should spend about five years doing all of Tamriel. That would be pretty damn cool.

Well they're working on Elder Scrolls Online right now, which is all of Tamriel, yeah.

Who are "they"? Not Bethesda, that's for sure. ESO is being developed exclusively by ZeniMax Online Studios with almost no input from Bethesda.

So? It's going to be the next Elder Scrolls game, though apparently set before the others.

Probably so they can have dwarves.

I can't play online games anyway, so fuck it, although the format is basically the same as an MMO already soI'm sure it won't be that drastic of a change.

Was it a bad game?

Game was supposed to be at retailers on Feb 4th, but turns out no one had enough games to even fill the demand for preorders. So now the game's priced has skyrocketed on eBay and Amazon, because we don't know when it will be available again. And no, the game appears to be quite awesome, all reviews I've seen say the game kick all kinds of ass.

They'll do a reprint, I'm sure. It is interesting how conservative their initial run was.

Morrowind really was something special.

I don't have a problem with open world game design. It's only recently become technically feasible and I think it will be the new standard, if it's not already. I do think the Assassin's Creeds games benefitted from the open world set up. AC 2 feels way less repetitive (and therefore more fun) than the first one, even though it remains essentially the same.

Man, what are you even talking about? Most old RPGs are open-world, for example basically every Ultima game they ever made. On-rails RPGs are what's new, relatively speaking.

Technically feasible with three dimensional, heavily interactive assets and conventions of the action/third person shooter genre have they manage to implement that would appeal to a broader audience. That is why you are seeing the open world model emerge beyond the RPG. Those old RPGs don't have physics models, anti-aliasing, user-controlled cameras, dynamic weather and AI behavior, and many the other things that have advanced while most genres operated within 'closed worlds' (for lack of a better term).

So, you're right, but my point's still valid.

Sure, if you want "open world" to mean "open world plus all these fancy graphics". As far as gameplay goes though, open world RPGs are like thirty years old on the computer. Which makes them oldschool