Into The Sandbox: Is Freeform Gameplay Really The Future?

gaminoz - 334 days 11 hours ago

On one hand you get the great set-pieces and story-telling in more linear corridor shooters, but on the other the freedom you can get in sandbox games makes it so you can make up your own fun!

Hopefully we will have both: COD: WAW worked with its more restrictive play but so did Far Cry 2 with the open style. I'd love to see a blend of something like MOH: Airborne with Brothers In Arms...in other words more freedom and open pathways like in a level like Adanti in Airborne, but more tactical AI and gameplay like BIA.

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Sasanova - 334 days 11 hours ago

no its not. its retarded to think that. why? why the fuk would u want that? thats like saying u want to play only RPG games from now on...or just FPS and never play another fighting game again...

u want a freeroam street fighter too? stfu, u dont deserve an opinion

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poindat - 334 days 11 hours ago

Neither is better. Both styles of gameplay each have their own merits and demerits, but the success is really based on the individual games. You wouldn't judge all linear shooters on games such as Haze when there is some great quality out there. Likewise on sandbox games.

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Acj2323 - 334 days 11 hours ago

Well I don’t think it’s the complete future, there will be linier games. But I guess as games are developed the companies who make them have free dome in their mind, because if you compare games from today’s market to games when they were first developed, there is allot more freedom into day’s games and maybe it will always be that way.

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Cajun Chicken - 334 days 10 hours ago

The worst thing to worry about is the demise of the healthbar (units) all this recharging health gimmick is annoying me. Just stop it, be different. Its like freaking bullet-time all over again.

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AclayPS3 - 334 days 10 hours ago

Every single game doesn't necessarily have/need to be Open World, but I would like to see MORE open world games because there's very few of them, But at the same time I wouldn't want every game to be open world and for me it would depend on the Game Genre.

For instance, I simply hate open world racing games. The only reason I didn't buy Burnout Paradise is b/c it was Open World... I played the demo and I still didn't like it because of the Open World factor... I don't want to drive around to find a race, I want to choose a race from a menu and jump right into it. On the other hand I have Burnout 3: Takedown on the PS2 and loved that game to death because it was a traditional racer and you chose races from a Menu.

Anyways, I'd like to see the majority of games with Open Ended gameplay and the story in a game could branch off into 3 or 4 different paths depending on your decisions in the game like what Heavy Rain is doing or similar to Fallout 3.

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XboxOZ360 - 334 days 10 hours ago

I'm split on it actually. SOme games require it, some do not. Some will work with it, some will not. Some could actually benefit from having it included, while others simply would not work at all.

The main thing I worry about is. That those games that chose to use it will not get the fair coverage or playtime they might well deserve. Why?

Well many new-comer gamers and many younger gamers find such games either boring, repeatitive (one on my pet hate words of late - as games are repeatitive my nature and definition - dahh) and diss the game before even giving it a chance.

Mainly because games of that nature require this thing called time and patience to explore and work with. It also requires some forward-thinking and planing. Plus the use of some real skills when required.

So if a developers does include the sandbox style o=into say a genre that is usually a linear style, they run the risk of not selling the numbers they normally would, even though they are bringing some innovation to the genre.

One only needs to look at Far Cry 2 to see that. The run-n-gunner hate it, those that want action all the time hate it, those that think a game should never repeat its self hate it, and those that have to try and think of other ways around a problem (problem solving) hate it.

I've spent countless hours in the game (68%) complete yet still have put in around 20-30 hours into the game, and still find it challenging on each boot-up. But overall, the sales were hurt because Ubisoft dared to change it to a more realistic style FPS, and give it some real storyline, and ask the gamer to think about his or her actions.

After talking with Clint Hockings of Ubisoft once, you can see and understand their passion in wanting to change it, rather than have it run on rails. The problem is that the majority of those that have purchasing powers these days wanted the usual, dumbed down, on rails shooter that gave nothing really other than blood, gore, bullets flying and lots of BFG's.

And then in the next breath, those very same gamers (term used very losely btw) 'demand' the developers give them innovation . . . well they just did, and the gamers bagged them for it.

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Godem - 334 days 10 hours ago

no its not, i hate completely freeform games such as Far Cry 2 or GTA... I need a little direction to progress the story etc.

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darkmurder - 334 days 5 hours ago

Not the future, but they're damn fun!

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Steelspawn - 334 days 2 hours ago

I will sit on the fence with this one. As mentioned earlier I was a fan of Burnout Revenge but just couldn't get into Paradise for this sandbox reason. I want to jump through menus and choose the races and such.

Shaun White Snowboarding bored me to tears having to spend most of my time heading towards races, staring at the same backgrounds for a race that was over in no time.

Sandbox is great so long as there isn't too much downtime.

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