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When I look back at my favorite games of all time, they all evoke this feeling of "I can go anywhere and do anything. There's so much to do and see, and I'm a l
by mratzloff 8y ago
When I look back at my favorite games of all time, they all evoke this feeling of "I can go anywhere and do anything. There's so much to do and see, and I'm a little nervous to venture out because I'm not sure I'll be able to find my way back."
Star Control II is that game. So is Ultima VII, and several Infocom games that filled my
imagination and seemed bigger than they were. Before the era of a complete walkthrough a click away that will lead you by the nose.
The turning point was voiced dialogue. Once that became the norm, content became exponentially more expensive to produce, and so the size of the worlds shrank.
- bitexploder 8y agoBethesda, particularly Skyrim, is pretty immersive and fun in the open world sense.
- fhbdukfrh 8y agoModern examples of this are GTA5 and Zelda: Breath of the wild. They are not endless but huge open worlds that evoke similar feelings and emotions to what you describe
- prawn 8y agoI found Horizon Zero Dawn somewhat similar. There were obviously edges, but they appeared natural and weren't always where you thought they would be. e.g., you could actually scale fairly rugged and steep cliffs and end up in places other games would never let you get near.
- creamyhorror 8y agoSuperbly put. I miss the days of wandering into unfamiliar lands in Ultima VII - you never knew who or what you'd run into (and they'd be colourful characters and enemies - not just variants on a theme). I've read good things about BotW, and I'm glad this sort of living, open world still appears now and then in gaming.
- malkia 8y agoSierra Quest games were like this - one pixel to the left, and you have to reload your last save :) In contrast with Lucasart ones - but both were fun, just in different way! Then came... "The Day of the Tentacle" - OMG!!!
- hjek 8y agoStar Control II has voiced dialog[0]. [0]: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/uqm-voice https://packages.debian.org/jessie/uqm-voice
- patrec 8y agoNot the original, only the later 3DO adaptation.
- novaleaf 8y agomaybe, but eventually it was added for PC. I played StarControl2 about a decade too late, and it had spoken dialogue.
- patrec 8y agoSure, but the context was whether StarControl was already an instance of a game where other content creation had to compete for resources with spoken dialogue. It wasn't.