The Cult of Open Ended

[X-Ploding_Shoes]

Just a very simple question...if a game is open ended, does that automatically make it a good game? I mean there are dozens of very very good "On Rails" games. Take the God of War games, or Gears of War, or Prey?

Lets take Stalker for an example. It's open ended..but in the end most of the open ended landscape is rather boring, maybe about 40% actually has something to do in it.

Why is that all games now have to be open ended to be seen as a good game?
I feal its a bit unfair...

[ReinHer]

STALKER's endings actually made me sad, at least some of them did. Very emo.

[MrDeVil_909]

I personally hate open ended games and sand-box games. They give too much choice and no motivation to do anything.

[Q-Man]

There is never ONE thing that makes a game good. It's a combination of aspects, and open-endedness is only one of those aspects, and in relation to others, it's some-what an unimportant aspect too. It depends on what the game is trying to accomplish really.

[Gazza_N]

There is never ONE thing that makes a game good. It's a combination of aspects, and open-endedness is only one of those aspects, and in relation to others, it's some-what unimportant aspect too. It depends on what the game is trying to really.
QFE

I have to agree that sandbox games do seem to be getting more than their fair share of attention lately, but that doesn't make them any better (or worse) than any other game. Sandbox games are just a development fad, IMO, the same way "Interactive Movie" games were in the early 90's. As Q says, it really all falls down to the game's design.

[BlackHawk]

Q-Man is right on the money. GTA III's semi-open world didn't inspire me to go walking about the city, looking for weirdness or emergent behavior. Oblivion and Morrowind, on the other hand, did inspire to go off the beaten track because the promise was more apparent (and almost always realized).

[Q-Man]

Look at NFSU2 (Need for Speed Underground 2 in case you didn't know), it was designed as a nice open-ended game - which failed horribly for it in my opinion. It's a racing game. You don't -need- an open-ended world for a racing game, because, like, I'unno, you want to race? I found it to be really frustrating.

Open-ended games often suffer because of wasted space (as XPS mentioned somewhere). If you're going to design a game with huge worlds that allow you to explore, you better damned well make sure that there's something to find, and make it a little diverse (hey look, another cactus...wow). Oblivion had a beautiful world to explore, but I also found quite a bit of it to be dead. However when compared to stuff like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it's actually quite amazing, because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was dead space if there was every any.

GTA 3 and Vice City were pretty huge, until San Andreas came along (which basically just upped the game by a ****ton). But SA had a lot of dead space as well - with some really nice touches in terms of easter eggs here and there, some amusing sights. But I remember having to trek across ALL THAT LAND to get to missions, which wasn't ideal. (Oblivion at least had map jumping).

The question is how big is too big? It's all well and good creating the biggest world ever to grace gaming, but if it's filled with nothing, why bother? People aren't going to explore it just because it's there (well most people anyway), especially if during the first hour of doing so they find absolutely nothing.

[MrDeVil_909]

The open world was one of the things that left me cold with Oblivion. Obviously different people need different things.

What I like is a well written, evocative story that I can invest myself in and a few different paths to reach important plot points. Side quests are fine, but they must be something that you can do while following the main story line. Sending me to the other side of the world will turn me off quickly.

Dungeon Siege 2, for all its failings approached the side-quests in a way I liked. Unfortunately the story really sucked. Diablo 2, while something of a holy grail, I thought was a boring game, but the story was so interesting that I just kept playing.

[ReinHer]

Oblivion has a very semi-open world when compared to Morrowind.

[Gazza_N]

What I like is a well written, evocative story that I can invest myself in and a few different paths to reach important plot points. Side quests are fine, but they must be something that you can do while following the main story line. Sending me to the other side of the world will turn me off quickly.
That was what I had against Freelancer. It was only interesting to play during the scripted sequences where there was some plot progression and variety to the missions. The problem was that once the plot (which turned out to be terrible anyway:( ) was finished, there was a whole lot more universe to discover, but no real incentive to explore other than pure curiosity.

[X-Ploding_Shoes]

There is never ONE thing that makes a game good.

That is true. The point I was trying to get across was that if you read most game reviews un-open-endness (If such a word exists) is seen as a negative thing. When a game reviewer mentions the game is "On Rails" it's viewed with almost scorn....I just feal this is unfair..

[someoneelse]

Look at NFSU2 (Need for Speed Underground 2 in case you didn't know).


Err, why abbreviate Need for Speed Underground 2 if you were going to end up typing the whole thing out anyways?

Anyhoo, why did it frustrate you? You realise that in NFSU2 one had the choice of driving from race to race in the open ended world or just skipping that bit entirely by using the world map to jump to races. Thats what made it pretty good, you had a choice and those who wanted to explore got rewarded by a few hidden shops and races.

Funny, looking around at a few reviews I found quite a few people who complained about having to drive to every race. A few reviewers actually figured out that you could skip that sh!t and just race :)

I think choice in the matter can either make or break a game. Oblivion would've, in my opinion, been better if it had used the transport system that Morrowind used instead of allowing the player to jump from anywhere on the map to a location they'd been to already. Luckily there are mods that allow us that choice.

Open ended games that rawk and why:

GTA series - Finding ridiculously cool ramps or just wreaking havoc on the city streets

Far Cry - Open ended-ishness made it pretty replayable because of the multiple approaches you could take in most outdoor situations

Morroblivion - Huge sense of adventure and exploration because of open ended world which also allowed for some super cool things to discover, even after playing the game for aages.

Open ended games that sucked:

Total Overdose - ****ty design

Hmm, instead of listing open ended games that suck and writing "****ty design" next to all of them I'd like to just put my point out there and say the poll is half-daft because it's painfully obvious that games can be open ended and crap.

[Q-Man]

Err, why abbreviate Need for Speed Underground 2 if you were going to end up typing the whole thing out anyways?


I added the full title in an edit.


it's painfully obvious that games can be open ended and crap.

Yes. End. Amirite guyz?