Open World is Getting Boring

I touched on this when I was writing about Metal Gear Solid V, but lately it seems every game is open world. Even worse, it seems that they're all boring. Kind of. Even worse, I'm not completely certain as to why, so this ramble will hopefully allow me to figure that out. And for you to hopefully not get too bored.

These types of games usually have some fun mechanics, and I enjoy a lot of my time with them, but for some reason they seem to lose me a bit more easily than something a little more linear. For example, I liked hunting animals in Far Cry 3/4 to upgrade my gear. I liked riding elephants, in particular. I enjoyed fighting dragons in Skyrim (the first few times anyway until I trivialized them by being myself - a fire wizard). Ramming cars off the road in Burnout Paradise was always entertaining, and collecting glowing blue orbs that represent weird objects is always somehow soothing in Xenoblade Chronicles.

After the novelty wears off, though, I always find myself referring to my map every few seconds, trying to clear out a few of those collectible icons, or knock some sidequests over. When I get completely jack of it, I'm constantly referring to the map so I can ignore everything that's not the main storyline. At this point, even Metal Gear Solid V is starting to receive that treatment - even though I love it to death (though that may be more due to oversaturation - I've played it A LOT, and when I'm not playing it I'm working on my Venom Snake cosplay). 

I usually find that I cannot tell anyone much about an open world. I can barely find my way around them while playing without opening my map constantly. This may be part of the problem - by focusing on creating something so HUGE, a developer can easily lose focus on making it memorable.

So much space! And after 30 minutes, you'll be sick of it!

Take The Witcher 3 - universally acclaimed (to my knowledge). I couldn't tell you where anything other than Novigrad is - and that's because it kind of eats a massive portion of the map. I can't find my way around Novigrad. I look at the map and see a mess of icons. I get exhausted, knock a few quests over and close the game.

Meanwhile, look at Bloodborne. Not open world, not completely linear either. There are multiple paths, and they twist and turn on themselves and each other. The different areas are very distinct from each other. Pop me in front of that game, and I can generally find my way around without a map. That's fortunate - there isn't a map. However, I can tell you of the burnt devastation of Old Yharnham, or the horrific imagery of the Nightmare of Mensis, or the snowy surroundings of Cainhurt's Forsaken Castle (though admittedly I couldn't remember that location's name).

Am I the problem here? Do I just get bored too easily with these huge games? Is it because I don't have time for them any more? Or is there something else to it? Replaying Baldur's Gate last year, I didn't face this issue - and that's kind of open world!

Maybe having a more controlled trickle of new locales is the trick? MGSV has a smaller map than the others, but it has two distinct locations, the second of which you don't unlock for a while. Baldur's Gate effectively blocks off a large chunk of the world until you reach a point. Xenoblade Chronicles drip feeds you wide open areas as you progress through them (in a linear fashion, but each area is open world and you can easily return to prior areas).

Also, it's always Reyn Time

Farcry also drip feeds areas to you, but you're given a massive area to play in, and effectively unlock the second half of the map. Maybe if things were locked up a little more and gradually opened, as well as actually putting some effort into the design of the areas themselves, I would find them more memorable, and fun.

What do you think?

Metal Gear Solid V: The Fultoning

This isn't a review. I haven't finished the game yet (though some asshole spoiled the ending for me so, fuck you, Internet), but to be completely honest I was stuck for a topic today and a friend suggested this. Thanks, Mags.

So I'm just gonna ramble (nothing new there) about why I've been spending as much of my free time on this as possible. Especially when I struggled so much to get through MGS4.

I struggled to get through MGS4 mainly because of the cutscenes. They were cool and all, but when I felt like playing the game, I wanted to PLAY the game, as opposed to watching the game play itself for an hour, and then being allowed to play. I still very much enjoyed it, but it took me a lot longer than you would expect to bring myself to return to it, due to the movie-like aspect.

MGSV is the exact opposite. It brings the same brand of Metal Gear insanity (minus David Hayter, which upsets me to no end) but does away with a large portion of the cutscenes - instead relegating the overly long story to cassette tapes I can listen to as I wander around, randomly completing side ops. Not a perfect solution, but it allowed me to play when I wanted, and to interact with the world while portions of the plot unfolded - without resorting to the dreaded quick time event trap.

I don't much care for your poly count, young lady!

The gameplay absolutely shines, though. Usually I'm quite critical of open world games - they tend to be usually made of a large nondescript world where I'll get lost, not actually care about any of the locations, and collect a bunch of random crap - none of which actually matters. Or very little matter anyway.

"B-b-but emergent gameplay!" No. In Skyrim, I just threw fireballs at things until they stopped attacking me, took their stuff, and moved on (though I actually rather liked Skyrim - but not for its map, though at least it wasn't a collectathon). In Farcry 3 and 4 I pretty much did a bunch of random stuff, eventually got bored and mainlined the story (and the less said about Farcry 2 the better). And in pretty much any open world game, I couldn't tell you a single thing about specific locations in the world, because they all feel the same to me.

Metal Gear V manages to sidestep my main issue here. Can I tell you about the exact section of the world I was in when I did my shenanigans? Well, while I can't tell you by name (those names are far too long for me to actually memorize), or by the part of the map, I can tell you the facility I was in when I got annoyed with my mission and instead decided to just Fulton everyone in the base before moving on (the mines in Africa, for the record).

Speaking of Fulton. What. The. Fuck.

Baaaaaaaa!

Why is such a silly game mechanic my favourite thing ever? Well, that's pretty easy to answer, actually. Precisely because its silly. And for some reason, I cannot help but attempt to Fulton pretty much anything that isn't bolted down. I'm certain I have far too many sheep on base to keep, yet I keep capturing more. And if I ever see a bear, you can be damn sure I'm going out of my way to balloon that sucker.

Oh, and of course, the slightly more useful/thematic heavy machine gun emplacements, and strong soldiers. And tanks. Every. Damn. Time.

You want to see emergent gameplay? How about the time I attempted to infiltrate a mansion, but set off a landmine? This resulted in many rocket punch and sleep grenade shenanigans in an attempt to not get caught - which held them off me for another good 20 minutes or so, until I eventually slipped up badly enough for the game to go all out combat on me, which ended in my death. None of what I'd done had stuck, which was annoying, but hey, I'd learned how to better use the rocket punch as a result!

Yes, that video was me.

I don't quite understand why I love this game so much - it has many elements I find banal about gaming nowadays (overly large maps, arbitrary limitations on some things, most annoying fast travel system ever invented) but MGSV just... understands me, I guess.

Nevermind - The Biofeedback Horror Game

Disclaimer: I backed this game on Kickstarter. Both in its failed initial run, and on its later, successful reattempt.

It's never really been a secret that I enjoy horror games. Far more than I've ever liked horror movies, at that (though really, I don't watch movies particularly often - much to the chagrin of my housemates).

I have fond memories of first playing the original Resident Evil, as a child, and being terrified when I encountered a corpse that had been pecked to death by crows - and got subsequently attacked by said crows. I turned off the game and didn't return for MONTHS. Felt like a badass when I did and got through that part, though.

Or the time I was playing Silent Hill 2, late night, lights off. Turned the game off to go to bed, and saw a... thing out the window. That was also terrifying, though it didn't stop me from returning to thegame the   next evening!

Therefore, it should be no surprise that Nevermind is, and always has been to me, an interesting concept. A game that detects your fear through a heart rate monitor, and makes the game SCARIER until you can calm yourself down sounds like a great step in the direction of using tech to scare the crap out of people!

Therein lies my biggest problem with the game, though. I couldn't try that feature out, because I don't have, don't need, and can't afford, a heart rate monitor for a single game.

Fortunately, you don't need one for the game to work - and its still damn creepy without it!

What I Liked

Story Conceit

The story is that you are a psychologist, of sorts. You plug into a device that allows you to delve into the subconscious of your clients, to try and find hidden memories, which will point you towards the source of their traumas. Once this process has been completed, treatment can properly begin - though your task in the game is purely to make that breakthrough.

While I seem to vaguely recall hearing a similar plot germ a while ago, I've not actually experienced any fiction that takes this tack, and it piqued my interest. The tutorial level, in particular, was clever in using a well known story to ease you into how the game works, as well as providing a good level of creepiness to whet the appetite.

Why does this remind me of the clown game at the fair?

Subtle Puzzles

The puzzles (beyond the tutorial level) range from being rather straightforward (oh look I found the photo I needed) to hair pullingly subtle (looking at clues on a wall and comparing that to the room's layout to figure out a safe combination). I quite enjoyed the tougher puzzles...

What I Disliked

Subtle Puzzles

...except that the toughest ones were absolute walls, and there isn't the concept of a hint button in the game at all. One puzzle locked me down for a good 20 minutes, and I eventually resorted to using a Let's Play video to get the answer since I was so stuck! 

Let's be clear - in this particular instance I couldn't even figure out what my actual goal was, let alone achieve it. This is, however, completely subjective - some people may well breeze through those. 

Length

I liked the game a lot, and was a little galled to find it had only two clients (beyond the tutorial level). While you can replay levels to find extra stuff, I've always found that scares don't hold up nearly as well the second time around, since you know what's coming! Therefore, I didn't bother with that.

You could, threoretically, blast through this game in a couple of hours. Seriously. I'd love to see some more content!

Let's face it - I would live on this street if I could

Verdict

While I wasn't able to try with the heart rate monitor, I still found myself enjoying this quite a bit. If you're willing to throw $20 US at it (and let's face it - that's the cost of a movie nowadays, which is roughly the same length of time and not nearly as fun unless that movie happens to be Fury Road), you'll find your money well spent.

Also, I recall hearing that the tech was being used to help people treat anxiety (though I doubt it would do so using the horror game - at least not for people who have actual panic attacks), so that's damn cool too!

The (potentially) Triumphant Return!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

How are you lot, nowadays? I'm a mixed bag, as usual.

So... uh... this is a little awkward, its been years (I think) since I've made a post, but I think its time to reappear and write again!

What, you want to know why?

Well, why not? I don't really have a good reason, other than something to do. Maybe an outlet for a bit of randomness. Things and stuff.

I'm not exactly selling myself well here, am I? Ah well, whatever!

Anyway, today's post is just a short one saying hi again! I'm gonna try and commit to at least 2 posts a week, hopefully 3 depending on how busy I am, and my general mood.

Let me know if there's anything in particular you want me to vomit words onto a page about! Otherwise I'll be rambling about games again! :P

As always, Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.