Open World Gaming: is bigger better?
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These days we continually here about how vast skyrim is or how massive fallout is or the fact that GTAV is bigger than GTA4, Red dead and whatever else combined, is this a good thing though
i've been playing Vice City which is an incredibly small game by today's standards but when it comes to the game asking me to go to a certain place i can drive there without looking at the map if there are hidden weapons or items they are easier to find
but if i put GTA4 on i'll just get a taxi across the map or fast travel in fallout because the maps are so huge, ask me to drive somewhere on GTA4 and it would need to either be on the map as a location or you'd need to tell me where the way points needs to be, even after 4 years i could barely tell you where anything is on GTA4
So is bigger better?
i've been playing Vice City which is an incredibly small game by today's standards but when it comes to the game asking me to go to a certain place i can drive there without looking at the map if there are hidden weapons or items they are easier to find
but if i put GTA4 on i'll just get a taxi across the map or fast travel in fallout because the maps are so huge, ask me to drive somewhere on GTA4 and it would need to either be on the map as a location or you'd need to tell me where the way points needs to be, even after 4 years i could barely tell you where anything is on GTA4
So is bigger better?
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I wish Far Cry 3 and Sleeping Dogs had bigger maps but on the other hand I'm thinking about getting Skyrim but the sheer scale of it's world seems quite daunting I'm not sure if I will be able to fully enjoy it.
With GTA IV however, whistling for a taxi became second nature. I wouldn't drive down the road let alone across the map. Nothing to do with the scale. I just hated driving.
Not quite open world, but the one game that I remember being frustrating due to the large maps was Tomb Raider 3. You could easily go miles in the wrong direction.
unlocking a part of the map is a big deal!!!
That's one of my major gripes with Skyrim, navigating its huge map doesn't really entertain me. Walking from one mission to the next should be an adventure, not a chore. Skyrim is the only game in which I regularly used fast travel.
Far Cry is the absolute opposite. I find the world fun to be in and walk around in, quite often getting side tracked for half an hour following just one tiger. Not into another mission, but doing something completely random.
GTA 3 is much the same, it isn't fun to walk around in. Only way to make it fun to me is to hop in a car and mow down pedestrians/smash into things
It is very big still though, but I was surprised with the world on Assassins Creed 3 it's huge probably the biggest open world game I've played.
:eek: Really?
I'd rather walk 20 yards to get my next bit of content than spend 5 minutes driving to it.
San Andreas hit the nail on the head for me, perfect map size, plenty to do and see, vastly differing tones and cultures, that's why it's still my favourite game of all time.
Bigger the better for me, as long as the content is there, which sadly it 's isn't from most games these days, Far Cry 3 was a good example of this.
Absolutely unless you taking the mick and have it and think it's not? for sure bigger than Skyrim.
I'm not a fan of Just Cause alot of people say this I would agree even from the demo.
Nothing worse than a huge map of nothing going on!
OF: Dragon Rising made this mistake!
A good example of an open world game with a to small map is Forza Horizon, I got the the achievement for driving on every road in 2 days, you could drive round the entire island in 20 mins. I think it would have really benefited from a map, maybe twice the size.
Generally I think bigger is better but at the end of the day its what the game creators do with that space, that's what it boils down to.
San Andreas got this right for me, each area was well defined and had its own identity, navigating was from one city to the next was easy enough without needing to constantly refer to the map and even with a map so large you could always find something to do near by.
With the abundance of sandbox games these days I find it disappointing when you can drive from one side of the map to the other in less then a minute, it that's the case you map is too small.
Skyrim is great for this, likewise GTA IV and Mafia II, both of which have a lack of events/side quests compared to many of today's sandbox games but make up for it in the sheer detail that's been poured into the environment which even by today's standards is staggering and exploring it is a total pleasure! For me anyway. Sleeping Dogs may be compact but it's not nearly as enjoyable walking around and exploring the game world as it feels like a last gen title in comparison to either GTA IV or Mafia 2. Sometimes I prefer detail to be put into the game world itself as it tends to draw you into the experience more.
Fancy graphics has taken precedence over quality game content. And whats worse is some of these best selling open world games fit on a DL-DVD with gb's to spare.
And then you have to buy DLC.