What's your favorite free roaming videogame?

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Nemesis X
What's your favorite free roaming videogame and why?

MadMel
GTA SA pc big grin
me and my friends would spend hours chasing eachother all over the state...good times stick out tongue

Morridini
What do you define free-roaming as?
I never expected to see ME, and the KotOR games there.

Martian_mind
Oblivion. (Epic personified)

Then Saints Row,which may soon be deposed by 2.

ragesRemorse
The Darkness is not at all a free roam game.

I would say the champ is GTA; San Andreas. There was SO much to do in that game. Oblivion, Fable, Ocarina of time and mario 64 are also exceptional free roam games, or at least were for their time.

Crackdown was fun and could have been fuking epic but the entire city all looked the same.

Bardock42
Spider-Man 2, Gothic, Fable or GTA 4

Peach
Half those games listed are not free-roam.

And free-roam games tend to bore me very fast.

San Andreas I've found to be the most entertaining for the longest amount of time, though.

Alpha Centauri
Crackdown, by some kind of country mile.

-AC

jaden101
San Andreas had the most variety and fun...crackdown was ace because of the crazy morpheus style building to building jumps...and the fact that you could volley a truck into a bunch of bad guys to kill them has to be one of the most fun things ever

Impediment
From the options given by the poll, I chose GTA4.

Not listed, I choose Twilight Princess and Spider-Man 2.

Morridini
Speaking of free roaming, shouldn't games like WoW that has an open world be considered free roaming?

Impediment
Absolutely.

Nemesis X
You can also talk about other free roam games that aren't in the poles.

jaden101
i never even knew they had electricity in the poles

S_D_J
Originally posted by Peach
Half those games listed are not free-roam.

And free-roam games tend to bore me very fast.

San Andreas I've found to be the most entertaining for the longest amount of time, though.
just out of curiosity, What games do you NOT find boring?


GTA San Andreas by far, there was so much to do in that game, but most of the time I played it, I was creating mayhem and seeing how long I lasted in a 5 stars wanted level

Originally posted by ragesRemorse
The Darkness is not at all a free roam game.

I would say the champ is GTA; San Andreas. There was SO much to do in that game. Oblivion, Fable, Ocarina of time and mario 64 are also exceptional free roam games, or at least were for their time.

Crackdown was fun and could have been fuking epic but the entire city all looked the same.

Isn't Mario 64 a platformer?

Menetnashté
Oblivion that game was fecking epic. Though I think Fallout 3 might take the cake.

((The_Anomaly))
I wouldn't consider a lot of those games free rome. What are you defining it as? For sandbox games its gotta be GTAIV.

THE JLRTENJAC
Out of these I'd have to say Mass Effect, but that's because it's story is epic.

However... Where are any Zelda Games? You could've atleast put Ocarina of Time!

Alpha Centauri
Free-roaming games are often overrated.

In most of the games listed, sure, you can go all over a city, maybe even do "normal" things like watch TV, or whatever. However, those games are boring as shit without the missions, which are usually linear.

Doing free-roaming stuff is fun for a while, but it gets boring SO fast because there really is hardly anything to do. The missions make the environment better, usually.

Crackdown had the most "freedom" of all of those anyway. Freedom of accessing areas in a large world, anyway. Not literal freedom of being able to go in any building etc.

As someone said when we were discussing it; the big attraction in say, Dead Rising, is the fact that you're running around this intricate mall, looking at all the various, independently designed sections, shows, secret paths, and wondering "OH MAN! I can go in all of these!", but you don't have time. It makes you appreciate it a lot more.

Then, in between missions when you actually have to wait for the next one, you do have free time, and it's just enough to not get bored.

-AC

DigiMark007
Reading through this, I realized that there's no clear line between "free roam" and "not free roam."

It used to be that free roam was when you could do stuff in the game that didn't advance the story, since most games were very linear. Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was an excellent example. But anymore, there are games that are very story-driven and have specific goals, but technically allow you to do "anything." Take Assassin's Creed. There's not much to do if you aren't going toward the story...but you can indeed wander and murder and such. Free roam? Linear? Or something in between? Because if we consider that free roam, a LOT of games come into play.

Same with Mass Effect. Stuff to do, but it's cursory stuff. It helps make the game world feel more real, gets you gear and XP and such, but if you aren't going toward the main story, or some smaller offshoot of the main story, you'll run out of things to do very quickly. I suppose it's technically free roam, but I don't like labeling it as such.

Anyway, Oblivion. Or Daggerfall for its time. Elder Scrolls does free roam like other companies only wish they could. Those games could stand alone without a main story. Hell, I played Daggerfall for dozens of hours, and couldn't tell you one thing about the main plot. How many other games could say that? For all the fun people have in the GTA's, Zeldas, and such, they need a driving motive.

ragesRemorse
Originally posted by S_D_J
j



Isn't Mario 64 a platformer?

it was that too

Alpha Centauri
There's a big difference I think, Digi, between free-roaming and freedom.

Hardly any games, maybe none, have freedom.

Free-roaming as in, free to roam about...yeah.

-AC

Dark-Jaxx
Well out of all those Oblivion I suppose.

Peach
Originally posted by S_D_J
just out of curiosity, What games do you NOT find boring?


Games that I don't find boring. Obviously.

And Oblivion was probably one of the few games I've gotten that I really regretted. Thankfully I got it free so I wasn't actually out anything.

Dr. Prick
San Andreas

Nemesis X
Technically Darkness is a free roaming game because you travel to some parts of the city anytime you want and you sometimes encounter crooks that don't relate to the story.

But anyways, my favorite free roam game is GTAIV. Unlike Sanandreas, the shooting looks more entertaining.

Schwarzenegger
TES IV oblivion with all those mod downloads

DigiMark007
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
There's a big difference I think, Digi, between free-roaming and freedom.

Hardly any games, maybe none, have freedom.

Free-roaming as in, free to roam about...yeah.

-AC

Hmm. I suppose.

...

Anyway:
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Oblivion. Or Daggerfall for its time. Elder Scrolls does free roam like other companies only wish they could. Those games could stand alone without a main story. Hell, I played Daggerfall for dozens of hours, and couldn't tell you one thing about the main plot. How many other games could say that? For all the fun people have in the GTA's, Zeldas, and such, they need a driving motive.
...since I hate being end of the page.

...

Originally posted by Peach
And Oblivion was probably one of the few games I've gotten that I really regretted. Thankfully I got it free so I wasn't actually out anything.

Sometimes I just don't understand you, Lana. First Mass Effect, now this? What acclaimed games do you like?

stick out tongue

Dark-Jaxx
Originally posted by Peach
Games that I don't find boring. Obviously.

And Oblivion was probably one of the few games I've gotten that I really regretted. Thankfully I got it free so I wasn't actually out anything. Heathen.

Alpha Centauri
Despite what Lana will say, she definitely has an instant opposition to things that are massively acclaimed, haha.

In her defense, I see her point. As Yahtzee so agreeably said: "These days hype is more likely to make me suspicious than excited.", or something.

Whilst she probably has a lot of publically acclaimed likes and mainstream-approved loves (I know she likes Final Fantasy 10 and Foo Fighters for example), she probably is harder to win over in that sense than someone else might be.

Obviously, most of that isn't me speaking for Lana, it's me speaking as someone who doesn't like very many publically acclaimed things.

-AC

DigiMark007
I feel like I'm still able to differentiate between quality and crap, even among acclaimed games. Hated GTA IV, for example...the sandbox aspects don't nearly make up for the crap mission structure and needlessly complex controls.

I do, however, feel like the praise is warranted with some, such as Oblivion. Taste is subjective, of course, so I won't pretend to be "right," and mistrusting critical acclaim is fine for those who know their own tastes better than game reviewers ever will. But mistrusting praise and shirking mainstream titles just because they're mainstream doesn't seem right either. If I understand AC correctly, he doesn't do that, but such fears aren't too far from that kind of extreme.

Peach
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Despite what Lana will say, she definitely has an instant opposition to things that are massively acclaimed, haha.

In her defense, I see her point. As Yahtzee so agreeably said: "These days hype is more likely to make me suspicious than excited.", or something.

Whilst she probably has a lot of publically acclaimed likes and mainstream-approved loves (I know she likes Final Fantasy 10 and Foo Fighters for example), she probably is harder to win over in that sense than someone else might be.

Obviously, most of that isn't me speaking for Lana, it's me speaking as someone who doesn't like very many publically acclaimed things.

-AC

I can't really argue too much, as you do know me too well, but yeah. Hype makes me wary. Too often a game will be hyped up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'll give it a try, and...*yawn*

Despite that, I'm still a massive Final Fantasy and Zelda fan, though - always have been, always will be. Mario I love and all, but I will admit I am starting to get tired with it - probably because I've always preferred the 2D Mario games over the 3D ones.

I'm just incredibly picky. A lot of the games I've been enjoying lately have been ones generally overlooked by the larger gaming population, and considering which games I plan on picking up in the coming months, this is going to continue. It's not so much a dislike of mainstream things, but rather what developers have shifted towards making and thus the things I like in games are becoming more rare.

I did try Mass Effect and Oblivion. I didn't care for either. Mass Effect was just too much like KOTOR which was a disappointment for me in so many ways, and Oblivion bored me less than three hours in. I'm just not a fan of that sort of RP style in video games - I would much rather prefer to actually roleplay it out, then the gimped version of RPing you can get in a video game where you can supposedly make choices, but they're very superficial. For the same reason, I don't plan to get Fable. It's not my sort of game. It also doesn't help that most RP systems tend to be broken in some way. Unfortunately in a game, it's impossible to fix things/make up new rules on the fly.

GTAIV was fun and all, but I didn't actually do a single mission in the game. I just drove around and destroyed things until I was bored with it. Same with every other GTA game I've played.

Open, free-roam games simply are not my thing. I haven't got the attention span for something that lacks the 'bite', so to speak, to draw me in.

Nemesis X
The only free romain game that'll really blow our minds will probably be Fallout 3. The graphics and areas look incredible. Especially when you can drop nukes on cities and I thought the nuke blasting in Mercs 2 was better but Fallout 3 proved me wrong.

Alpha Centauri
Originally posted by DigiMark007
I feel like I'm still able to differentiate between quality and crap, even among acclaimed games. Hated GTA IV, for example...the sandbox aspects don't nearly make up for the crap mission structure and needlessly complex controls.

I do, however, feel like the praise is warranted with some, such as Oblivion. Taste is subjective, of course, so I won't pretend to be "right," and mistrusting critical acclaim is fine for those who know their own tastes better than game reviewers ever will. But mistrusting praise and shirking mainstream titles just because they're mainstream doesn't seem right either. If I understand AC correctly, he doesn't do that, but such fears aren't too far from that kind of extreme.

What you've got to realise is that mainstream acclaim often comes from the mainstream public, and the mainstream public honestly don't know shit from clay.

If EVERYONE is saying a game, album, song or whatever is really good, chances are that I definitely won't like it. It may sound presumptuous and elitist, but I base this on a lot of times it's happened. I'm right about it 99% of the time, and even if I'm not, and I do like something that's embraced and acclaimed publically, I don't like it nearly as much as they do.

I'm confident enough in that to the point that I often won't even check out the subject just because I know. People say "You don't know until you try.", but that's just it, I do. The few times I've ignored my instinct and actually given it a try, I've been disappointed and frustrated that I even bothered.

-AC

Jedireaper
GTA San Andreas... because it rocked my gaming life for over four years.

Burning thought
GTA games bore me after about a day, Mercanaries 2 I enjoyed, Oblivion is the best imo although considering WoW, that would be the best as well especially after the exp pak.

Red Nemesis
Me too. There are only so many point blank rocket launcher induced laughs to be had.


Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis is free roaming, old, and amazing. I love it. Fable is the most recent 'sandbox' game I've liked though. KotOR 1 and 2 don't really count.

Dark-Jaxx
One thing I will say is that Nico Bellic of GTAIV is my favorite GTA protagonist in the series. Just a thought.

Nemesis X
I also enjoyed Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. At least that was one Marvel game that barely sucked.

Dark-Jaxx
Barely sucked?

That game was fun as hell.

Nemesis X
Ultimate Destruction was fun. Heck, if I knew where to find one I'd get it. It's better than that god awful 2008 one.

First_Tsurugi06
How is Legend of Zelda not on the list?

Of those ones on the poll, I'd say either Oblivion or one of the two GTA games (I liked both kind of equally really), but only rarely have I not gone back to a Zelda title.



Yeah, I liked that game too. Def my favorite Superhero game (the fact that it wasn't directly based on a movie may have had to do with it's favorable reception, but it's probably just a coincidence)

DigiMark007
Originally posted by Peach
I'm just not a fan of that sort of RP style in video games - I would much rather prefer to actually roleplay it out

It's Lana's world. We're just the NPCs providing background noise for the game experience.

ermm

occultdestroyer
GTA: SA beyond a shadow of a doubt.
****in epic to the very end.

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