There’s a song that goes “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” For the sake of being on topic, let’s say a videogame character is the modern-day Shakespeare behind those heart-rending, tear-jerking lyrics. As a videogame character, he can do quite a lot. Grapple up mountains, drive cars off said mountains, steal planes and then leap out of them to steal better planes, etc. “Anything,” one might say. However, he still won’t – or really, can’t – do “that.” What is “that,” you ask? Well, anything that actually matters, to be honest.
Sure, when playing games like Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause 2, or Red Faction: Guerrilla, I can mow down crowds of people like they’re an unruly, weed-ridden lawn, but – like actual plants and unlike actual people – they grow back. And if I die, I grow back too. I can cause traffic pile-ups so large they’d fill three nights-worth of evening news programs or send entire buildings crashing to the ground, but when I turn around, everyone’s come back to life and moved on with said lives. The only time I can ever do anything that “matters” is during scripted, generally linear missions. But those run so contrary to the message of “freedom” open-world games proudly trumpet that they may as well be from separate games entirely.
The end result? The game world feels false – less like an actual living, breathing place and more like a theme park where half the rides are out of order. It’s not convincing and – in some cases where story and non-story gameplay clash, ala Grand Theft Auto IV – serves to yank the player right out of the experience.
That’s not, however, to say that the idea of some wanton, consequence-free havoc doesn’t put a wry grin on my face. Rather, I’m just wondering when the definition of “sandbox gaming” became so constricted. Why not allow players to affect – or, if they so choose, wreak havoc on – a game’s story in the same way they can currently, well, blow sh** up? Why not allow them to experiment with characters and scenarios the way they can currently experiment with tank jousting contests?
Better still, the framework’s already in place for a hypothetical something-other-than-explosions-centric sandbox game. Two games in particular, I think, pave the way for a truly interactive style of open-world game, and both of them preach a message that might leave the choir scratching its collective noggin – at least, at first. That message? Constrict. Downsize. Make the world smaller. In other words, do away with a few unnecessary variables for the sake of feasibility.
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David Gerrold
July 14, 2010 at 6:00pm
Synchronicity. I was listening to that song two minutes before reading your column.From Wikipedia:I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) is a song composed and written by Jim Steinman, and recorded by Meat Loaf. The song was released in 1993 as the first single from the album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. The song was a commercial success, reaching number one in twenty-eight countries.[1] The single was certified platinum in the United States and became Meat Loaf's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and on the UK singles chart. The song earned Meat Loaf a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo.Personally, I think that 'Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back' (from the same album) is a much more brutally appropriate song for the era....
jrd417
July 14, 2010 at 5:21pm
If you actually play computer games and want a game that is truly open ended try X3 Terran Conflict. It is made by a small group called Egosoft in Germany and it is as open ended as you can get. You can ignore any or all the missions and just have fun.
Mark17
July 14, 2010 at 4:30pm
This may be a little extreme, but I think they should take a game like Grand Theft Auto and instead of allowing you to come back after you die, make it so that when you die it would be game over. One life. No redoing the mission after you die. The game would erase all progress, all saved games, and everything you have accomplished would be gone. It wouldn't matter if you invested 50 hours in the game, when you die, everything would be gone. I think something like that would definitely make it more like real life. One chance. Though, after investing 50 hours in a game to then die and lose everything, I think some people would probably kill themselves in real life...then it would be even more realistic.
It would be nice to see games with more non-linear gameplay. I think the reason we don't see more games like that is because there are almost an endless number of scenarios that could happen in a dynamically changing storyline. The game developer would not only have program a set of events and challenges in the game, but other events that could dynamically change the game's storyline based on things that the player has done in the game, and the events would still have to fit in, make sense, and avoid conflicting each other so that the the game will be more realistic and not feel gimmicky. It seems that the amount of programming would increase exponentially. Anyway, it would definitely be great to play a game that actually feels like your actions affect the ultimate outcome of the game.
lordmidnight
July 14, 2010 at 12:32pm
Have you not played Morrowind? Sure, in that game you can't destroy buildings, but you can undertake a quest however and whenever you like. You can kill anyone, including the "god" Vivec. You can completely mess up the main quest line and still complete the quest via an alternate route (that involves killing Vivec and looting his corpse). But you're under no pressure to complete the main quest anyway! Once you leave the character creation portion, you're on your own. It's a fantastic sandbox that was dissapointlingly dumbed-down a little in Oblivion. But we still have Morrowind! And its mod community is still going strong.
Arrowdodger
July 14, 2010 at 8:20pm
Morrowind is the ultimate sandbox. God i miss it. I'll have to fire it up soon. Know of any steller graphical improvements?
Jasker
July 14, 2010 at 11:46am
Never played Fable, but in Fable II you could kill just about anyone... maybe not all key story members.
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