In the gaming industry today, it seems like many developers won’t release a new title without including an open world as a feature for the player to explore. Open worlds used to be something that set games apart, a mark of innovation that players had never experienced before. This made games more immersive, creating the …
In Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games’ sprawling, open-world, epic crime series, you assume the role of a criminal, tasked with amassing wealth, evading the cops, and taking down those who have wronged you. This plot holds true in virtually all of the major releases by the New York based studio. This isn’t necessarily a bad …
While gamers could be forgiven for being a little trepidatious at the prospect of the Walking Dead series continuing without most of its main cast from the first volume, luckily those concerns turned out to be needless. The second season in Telltale’s zombie anthology focuses on Clementine, the most vulnerable of its cast of characters, and uses her vulnerability as the narrative crux of the plot.
After steadily working your way across the bare map, you’ve finally reached it. You’ve dodged enemies, commandeered vehicles, maybe even taken part in a spot of violence to get here. But you don’t mind the long slog, because you know that in a few minutes you’ll have a fast travel point unlocked. You just need …
Game worlds keep getting bigger. The arenas for our play keep expanding and expanding. As game systems become more powerful and developers are given ever increasing budgets, the future of gaming seems to be the open world. Though they are great achievements, open world games are not necessarily the best kind of game for all …
Red Dead Redemption is often considered one of the best video games of the previous generation, a reputation it hardly deserves. The game routinely takes control away from the player when agency is needed, and gives too much freedom when it’s superfluous. Red Dead is totalitarian in its gameplay and narrative presentation, but provides a hollow, laissez faire open world in an attempt to compensate. These problems culminate to create a game that misunderstands, and straight up ignores, the interactive nature of the medium it’s in. Despite its dazzling production values, Red Dead Redemption fails as a video game because of its unengaging, scarce, and meaningless interactivity.