Top Five Open World Games That Should Be Linear

OnlySP: Freedom is a wonderful thing: the thought of doing whatever we want, whenever we want. To open your front door, look out in to the world and feel like you can achieve anything is something we can all dream of.

[breakpad]

Add to that list MGS V TPP...the game was ruined after its mutation to a complete open world ...MGS series always gave freedom to players to chose their ways i dont understand the need to mutate the game to a (by necessity) repetitive, frivolous , almost boring open world game

[Shadowsteal]

MGSV was an evolution to the Portable Ops, Peace Walker gameplay.

Which I welcomed, as it truly expanded the game on every front. I understand it can feel repetitive to a degree. But It's very addicting to me to be able to grow your base and recruit soldiers etc.

For those who expected MGS5 to play as if it were a branch from MGS1, MGS2, MGS3, or MGS4 you're looking at it the wrong way.

MGS5 is a Peace Walker sequel first and foremost, and for what the game has become; an open-world mission based game. It makes plenty sense.

[OhMyGandhi]

so your saying that if we expect it to play like any other game in the series besides its portable counterpart, that we would be disappointed. Gotcha.

Phantom Pain, being the swan song of Hideo Kojima, should be on this list. It should have been a celebration, a magnum opus of the entire franchise. It wasn't. It was not a bad game by any stretch. But for me, Metal Gear was much more then building your base and recruiting soldiers, it was the kind of game that made you think, and it's insanely impactful narrative and visual design was a force to be reckoned with.

Say what you want about the overlong cutscenes, by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, I think I cried at least a few good times. I was propelled forward by the mysterious nature of the twist and turns of the narrative. The sense of intrigue and conspiracy permeated every set piece, punctuated by interesting characters that demanded our attention.

I'll never forget the feeling of nudging forward a wounded, weathered Snake, his frail body dragging on the ground, inching forward while Jackie Presti's Love Theme plays in the background. That remains one of the most emotionally charged segments of gaming I've ever experienced. Now, people will remember Metal Gear with the concept of attaching a balloon to a goat, and watching him to shoot up into the sky at 150 miles an hour.

[MysticStrummer]

"if we expect it to play like any other game in the series besides its portable counterpart, that we would be disappointed."

That hasn't been my experience at all. It plays like Metal Gear, same stealth against the same sort of AI, same sort of weapons. It's just that you can go to any level (base or outpost) at any time if you want to. I enjoyed Free Roam enough that often I went to locations before the story required me to, so I had some knowledge of the bases and had maybe destroyed the radar or some other defensive equipment. I found that to be very cool, personally.

"for me, Metal Gear was much more then building your base and recruiting soldiers, it was the kind of game that made you think, and it's insanely impactful narrative and visual design was a force to be reckoned with."

Building the base and recruiting soldiers were both secondary at best to me when playing MGS5, and it's open design made me think more than the linear games ever did, as did the story because it wasn't spelled out for me like it always was before. Imo the story is much better than some people are giving it credit for, though it's clearly much more straightforward than past MG stories.

"by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, I think I cried at least a few good times. I was propelled forward by the mysterious nature of the twist and turns of the narrative. The sense of intrigue and conspiracy permeated every set piece, punctuated by interesting characters that demanded our attention."

MGS4 was great indeed, and I agree about it's narrative and characters. Awesome. What propelled me forward with MGS5 was and is the gameplay. I've gotten so much game time with TPP, I could have played all the previous games at least once if not multiple times. As for emotional impact, the story hit me hard at least once and it's a gaming moment I'll never forget.

"I'll never forget the feeling of nudging forward a wounded, weathered Snake, his frail body dragging on the ground, inching forward while Jackie Presti's Love Theme plays in the background. That remains one of the most emotionally charged segments of gaming I've ever experienced."

Agreed wholeheartedly. So cool.

"Now, people will remember Metal Gear with the concept of attaching a balloon to a goat, and watching him to shoot up into the sky at 150 miles an hour."

Disagree wholeheartedly. I'll remember Metal Gear the series for the same kind of stealth fun I've had with TPP, against the same distinctive and entertaining AI, but with TPP specifically there are just so many cool moments, created by me and the AI… not scripted so that the same thing happens to everyone almost exactly the same way. Even when doing the same sort of side mission back to back to back, I find the difference in terrain, patrol patterns, and the type/positioning of the enemies can lead to some very different results, especially when I start feeling so badass that I get careless. Those spontaneous moments of awesome are what I'll remember this game for, not extracting animals, which I rarely do.

It's clearly a divisive title though. IGN gave it a 10 but I just watched a video of them talking about some 1 star Amazon reviews. Needless to say I don't agree with those reviews, and I have a hard time believing that people honestly hate the game that much, but if that's how they feel so be it. In the end it's all just opinions, mine included.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed. Making it smaller and adding less options doesn't some how help the game. Those who wish to play it like other MGS games...auto assign members to mother base, don't use the features ie air strikes, supple drop etc, go into the missions with 1 set of options, fast travel the whole way and live life lol.

One can play MGSV like the other MS game as no one is forcing anyone to actually play MGSV that way, if you like those ways of playing...its not really stopping you from playing that way.

You had bases you had to enter in MGS..

Missions to complete, people to save, bosses to fight. Don't feel like sending a dude off to mother base? lol...don't.

If you go back and play MGS1, clearly you didn't need to do that, you still don't really need to do that unless its part of the mission.

The previous MGS games where levels where you had to get past parts not being seen....you still actually do that in MGSV, those levels are not just in 1 area, they are in many, many areas. The meat of what you do in MGS games is still very much in MGSV.

Infiltrate

Save someone

Kill someone

Question someone (ie MGS3 fame!)

Boss battle

Cut Scene

Don't get caught.

All that is still very much in this title, even if some try to use the whole "cassettes thing" soooooo we didn't have codecs in MG series? I mean...must you stop the game play to hear such a thing? The last games stopped you to hear those specific story driven conversations, this game lets you continue playing and have the choice to listen or not listen to them.

That is like saying none of the other MGS games had story because you choice to not call certain people on the codec or RE has no back story because you choose to not read the documents placed ALL OVER THE GAME lol MGSV is very, very story rich if you choice to actually listen to all the cassettes regarding events in the series. I always have them playing during side missions.

MGSV is perfectly fine open world as you can choice to take advantage of it or not. Real life is not played in some tunnels of events, you live in a open world, this just made MGS series just that much realistic. Watch someone's lets play where you never see them travel and legit tell me it some how hurt you...you don't actually NEED to traverse the open world, fast travel and live life.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@Rusted- " Now, people will remember Metal Gear with the concept of attaching a balloon to a goat, and watching him to shoot up into the sky at 150 miles an hour."

Who stated you needed to? Those are all optional and MGS has never even taken itself seriously.

" by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, I think I cried at least a few good times"

Subjective, you mean the one where he lives at the end? The game that is the most linear out of the series? Where your not even fighting people the last half of the game? The first 3 parts have stealth, the last parts are literally a straight action game of fighting robots, then fighting more robots etc.

"it was the kind of game that made you think, and it's insanely impactful narrative and visual design was a force to be reckoned with."

Pretty sure thats still in MGSV as I don't think promoting child soldiers is a positive endeavor.

"The sense of intrigue and conspiracy permeated every set piece, punctuated by interesting characters that demanded our attention."

I'd rather have a real life open area vs a fixed "set piece". I didn't care for the globe trotting MGS4 did as the areas where fun to go in stealth wise, but they were just small, limited and you didn't have much options when attacking an objective.

" Metal Gear was much more then building your base and recruiting soldiers" You sorta didn't need to do that either...also this title is very much about that was your not Solid Snake...your Big Boss, they can't just keep him on some mission for THE WHOLE GAME and ignore that he builds this huge army, this game is not about 1 mission, series of bosses, its about Big Boss building his army (regardless of the ending too lol) its very much showing you the events in real time of him seeking to conquer the world. It can't be like other Metal Gears as other Metal Gears didn't have you playing as Big Boss ,even the ones that did where prior to him gaining all this power and going against the US and the world.

I enjoyed everything in MGSV as it didn't treat this like a regular MGS game, it treated it as the 5th and really made it stand above the rest of the series as a separate entity and not merely more of the same, you CAN do more of the same, but why limit it to just that? Nothing you can do in other MGS games, you can't in some form do in MGSV. You can again play MGSV and not Fulton out dudes and animals (unless part of the main mission) you can choose to not do much with mother base and just only use it to get certain items to beat certain mission as I believe you can ignore mother base and still beat the game.

Its hard for me to have a problem with a feature in a game that is literally AN OPTION.

[Forum_Pirate]

Batman. Remember when those were mostly linear stealth games instead of batman themed beat em ups with stealth bits attached?

[zep]

wtf ff 13 is not an open world lol no world map no airship its point A to point B then C and back to A again

[_-EDMIX-_]

LOL! This author just lost a lot of credibility. I mean...picks games that shouldn't be open world, picks a game in the series that wasn't open world and hated on HARD because of it LOL!

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Metal Gear Solid V should be one. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker should be two. Nuff said.

[urwifeminder]

Seen Watchdogs for $12 the other day still could not bring myself to buy it lol.