411 Games Top 5 08.26.10: The World is Your Sandbox

Posted by Todd Vote on 08.26.2010

This week, hot on the heels of the release of Mafia II, the Games staff break down their favorite sandbox/open world games. From Elite to GTA, and even Shenmue. Come in to see what made the lists.


Comment Time with Toddo!
Let's start comment time off with giving us all a chance to laugh at the people who just didn't get it. I'm impressed there weren't more, and kudos to those of you who got that the article wasn't meant to piss people off and that we are all entitled to an opinion of our own. Now let's laugh at some idiots, shall we?

Wow you guys are fags. Not liking the GTA series? Pussies.
Posted By: El Guesto (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 03:03 PM

are the writers on this site a bunch of high school kids? i feel dumber every time i read an article here.
Posted By: Guest#6444 (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 02:15 PM

He proves his argument by butchering the written word.

every one of your video game writers has zero credibility. all of you wouldnt know a great video game if it slapped you in the face.
Posted By: mike (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 02:13 PM

1.) The Legend of Zelda

- Hey guess what, Target Terror actually made good use of motion controls on the Wii. Oh and Link, you're still a virgin. The guys in Target Terror actually know how to use their master sword. Target Terror > Twilight Princess.

Fuck you. actually try playing any zelda game not on the wii you fucking toolbox. Target terror can lick my nuts. Also, ill bet you are a virgin too.
Posted By: Punk ass bitch (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 02:52 AM

Ready everyone: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Guys, calm down. Seriously, if you can honestly sit there and tell me that there is not one single game that you have never played, I'll concede that you are the most badass gamer on the planet. We all have shit we don't like get over it and quit getting your panties in a bunch over someone else's opinion.

Now for Punk Ass Bitch using the lack of playing a Zelda game as proof of someone's virginity… Well that may just be the greatest thing ever. You heard it here first, playing Zelda combats virginity. Thanks for filling us all in. Or maybe with his use of the word ‘too' he was subtly trying to tell Salms that he is not alone in virgindom.

Did you see how many people included Mortal Kombat on their list? Nearly all submissions had it in some capacity or another. Do you see me getting all bent out of shape about it? No, I simply plan on visiting each and every one of them individually.



Who's the big pile of wank that doesn't like Street Fighter? That's just weird to the Truck
Posted By: TheTruck (Guest) on August 22, 2010 at 08:32 AM

Uh, I guess that would be me. Sorry things are weird for you.

LISTS!

Final Fantasy MUST DIE! Target Terror is OVERRATED! MK is ok.

5. Gran Turismo - if I want to drive, I hop in my Jetta
4. Borderlands - Just bored the hell outta me after 30 min
3. World of Warcrap - Ok sure it's fun, but destroying all other aspects of your life over it? I think not
2. Devil May Cry series - After I played the second one, the series was dead to me
1. Bioshock series - Lousy gameplay, lackluster story, and just not really fun at all. Even the multiplayer sucks

Is Salmela dating his Target Terror game. It sure seems like it.
Posted By: 80's kid (Guest) on August 18, 2010 at 11:39 PM

No Mario? Seriously, Nintendo has worn him into the ground and then some.

#5 Street Fighter
#4 Madden
#3 Final Fantasy
#2 Mario
#1 Pokemon
Posted By: Jim (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 12:39 AM

HM: Final Fantasy- from FF II on the SNES all the way to FF IX on the PS this WAS RPGs. Everyone of them were great stories with great characters. Now they've killed the turn based gameplay, added stupid action gameplay which makes it too hard to follow 3 characters at once. The stories are all recycled by now and nothing is memorable anymore. the series is stale.

5. MADDEN- Every year the same shit. they add new stuff that isnt new stuff. "Oh this year you can throw a block as a offensive lineman" WOW sign me up. Give me something new or improved. make the Free agent period appear like you can actually negotiate with people. Currently its you pay them what they want or nothing. Let me create my own ring every time i win the superbowl and have a ceremony where my guys are given the rings. Have a player hall of fame in franchise mode. ANY of these would be better than any new crappy lineman or punter option they advertise as "New" every year.
4. Metal Gear solid- LOVED MGS 1. its in my top 5 games of all time. Now the story is so over played and confusing and the gameplay has gotten so ridiculously overdone its not fun to play anymore. Its like a chore to play instead of a game
3. Gran turismo- I love racing games. I can deal with time trials. I can even deal with an aggressive computer that spins your ass everytime u try to pass them. what i can deal with is the damn liscense trials that you have to pass to play a course. i bought the game to race the races, not try to qualify for the damn things. Also fix the damn breaks. either your turn so slowly the entire field passes you or you slam into the wall at 190 MPH. there should be a middle ground there.
2. Mortal Kombat- Great idea. Let's make a bloody version of street fighter, then ruin it with jammy controls and finishing moves that require you to hit back, forward, back back back, up down left right A back back forward B X Y forward back dow...oh shit the guy fell over before i could finish my final move....damn
1. Halo- I've played this series and I dont get it. If you played one shooter you played them all. This series is a shooter series. Nothing is special about it. The story is boring as hell, the gameplay is average at best. Hell I found Transformers War for Cybertron to be more fun than anything this series had to offer.
Posted By: Guest#9466 (Guest) on August 19, 2010 at 01:23 AM

There were plenty of other great comments and lists, but we can't revisit them all. Let's get on with the show.




So Mafia II released this past Tuesday, and that of course gets the brain going to how it will stack up to other sandbox/open world games; which lead to this weeks topic of the top 5 sandbox games. We are looking for games that offer you a chance to go anywhere or do just about anything. That's what we are looking for this week in the Top 5. Let's get to it.

READER VOICE Dominic HolleyHONORABLE MENTIONS

Spider-Man 2 (PS2) - This without a doubt the best Spider-man game to date if you're looking for replay value, and while I know I will probably eat a lil shit for this, there is another SM game I had a lot more fun with.

Prototype (X360) - I know this game got lackluster reviews and a lot of fans seemed to be left unfulfilled by this release, but to me, it was an updated version of Ultimate Destruction with a little extra abilities kicked in, so it's pretty needless to say that it was indeed awesome to me.

5.Dead Rising (X360) - I'm pretty sure I'm probably the only one that still feels this way, but I can't get enough of zombies. Moreover, every time I watch a zombie movie I always think, "why are they so afraid of these slow, stupid fuckers? If you really feel that you are doomed, then sack up and kick the shit out of those ankle-dragging bastards!" I mean, really, unless it was some of the more advanced zombies like in the 28 days series', I see no reason why people are being overwhelmed by them, even with the overwhelming numbers. Dead Rising finally let me take matters into my own hands, and they did it as well as one could hope for. MEGA BUSTER FTMFW!

4.Saints Row 2 (X360) - Thank God for Volition and THQ for finally allowing me to get my gangsta on with more options than the GTA games. Tons of minigames help SR 2 trump the GTA series for me because the thrill of being chased around by the 5-0 only lasts for so long and I find no more fun in GTA than doing just that, so it runs dry very quickly. SR made sure they had plenty of things to do and even had a pseudo-deep hand to hand combat system. I've enjoyed running into police stations and just Death Valley Driving officers left and right. GTA can't beat that...it just can't.



3.Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (X360) -The combos on here are endless, the only problems I really had with this game is the glitchy-ness of it and just being tired of the Black suit storyline. But I mean, the combos, well shit, you can't get any better than this with SM combos, not to me, anyway, this just had endless strings of combos and not just the gay ass spam combos from all the youtube vids (sorry, want to show people how great combos are, but no vids do it justice).

2.Red Faction: Guerilla (X360) - Man, I loved the shit out this game, and bias be damned this would have been number one, but no. Seriously though, this game is awesome. I never even knew anything about a destruction engine until I played this, and wow, EVERY GAME needs a destruction engine like this. What the hell was SEGA thinking not incorporating an engine like this into the Hulk movie tie-in? Yeah I forgot; when they get movies they know the kids will blindly purchase so fuck quality.

1.Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (PS2) - Man, man, man. If Sega had known what they were doing instead of blindly copying this game without even doing that right, they could have had something monumental on their hands. Anyway, this game was soooooo fucking great to me. For once someone had finally properly made a great Incredible Hulk game (and to this day it stands alone as the only good Hulk game). I am a Hulk freak, so I was overwhelmed with joy that this game turned out to be so damn awesome. I remember baiting my girlfriend into renting this for me from blockbuster because I was afraid of buying a stinker. She came over one day with this in hand, and she nearly lost me for a full week with no contact because of this game! Hell, the movie could have been a silver-screen version of this game and still been awesome, because even the story here rocked, Ultimate Destruction was just the shit, especially for comic book game standards.

Lee PriceHONORABLE MENTIONS

Just Cause 2 - Ironed out a ton of the original's bugs while retaining its daft conceit. It's just fun.

5.Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - I have invested near a hundred hours into this game and still haven't finished it. That right there should tell you how expansive it is. There is simply a lot to do in Oblivion. Some would argue too much. For me it all comes down to choice. Oblivion provides you with a world to explore. It's entirely up to you how much you choose to see of it.

4.GTA: San Andreas - For my money still the best game in the GTA series. GTAIII may have brought the series into the next generation. Vice City may have been more fun at time and GTAIV may be one of the most spectacular programming achievements in gaming, but for me the greatest GTA is San Andreas. Combine an enormous game world with an engrossing storyline and the ability to do things like jump out of an aeroplane and parachute onto a moving car (if you're good enough) and you have one of the greatest games ever made. I've have lost hours just faffing about with San Andreas.



3.Fallout 3 - I adore Fallout 3. It is up there with the first BioShock as one of my favorite games on the 360. There is just so much to do and see here that is outside of the main story. I've lost many an hour to just exploring in this game. It struck a balance between a sandbox environment and the complete open world of Oblivion to provide a slightly condensed and yet still enormous gaming experience. Everyone should play this.

2.Elite - It had to be near the top of the list didn't it. Hell just last week I wrote a Retronomicon up on it. This is the game that started it all. Without Elite there is no sandbox genre and, even today, there are few games that rival it in depth or scope. This is truly a gaming classic and one of the greatest of all times.

1.Shenmue - The Shenmue series is one of my favorite of all time. I would kill for the series to get its proper ending but with each passing year this seems less likely. Shenmue was one of the first games to completely engross me in a living, breathing city. There was just so much to do and see and the game was amongst the most visually stunning I had ever seen. I loved the fact that I could go from caving someone's face in to having a quick blast on Hang-On at the local arcade. While it didn't invent the genre as Yu Suzuki like to claim, it took it to a new level and showed the potential that later games would go on to realize.

Trace AberHONORABLE MENTIONS

Prototype - While the game itself was a bit disappointing, unleashing war upon the game's large city was a blast. Who can take down a man that can morph into others and throw helicopters with ease?

5.Shenmue - Perhaps one of the earliest sandbox games, Shenmue offered players a world unlike any other experienced on a console before. I remember first playing the game and being creeped out by how realistic everyone seemed. Sure, looking back it might be a bit dated, but I can't see how anyone could think the graphics look bad by any means. Hell, they look better than some current gen games, and although the world is much smaller, I have found few games that feel more alive than the world of Shenmue.

4.Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - To this day, my favorite GTA title overall. Sure, other games in the series have improved much of this game, but being able to run different business, purchase property, and gain benefits from all of it was too much to not be my favorite. The fact that it's set during the 80s makes it all the better.

3.Fallout 3 - Even though I enjoyed the world of Oblivion more, I will say that Fallout 3's world was designed better. There was also an in-depth back story to just about everything going on in the game, and it's hard not to become immersed.



2.Red Dead Redemption - Outside of my number one choice, no other game has sucked me into its world more than RDR has. While I won't be logging 100+ hours, I still have plenty left to do in the wild west. I think a large part of what makes the game so special is the fact that there aren't a lot of western games out there, much less one that creates such an engaging world

1.Oblivion - To me, Oblivion is everything a sandbox game should be, and probably a little bit more. The amount of things you can do in this game is ridiculous. I have put 100+ hours in on very few games, but with Oblivion it seemed like a breeze. There's never a dull moment as you never know what could be lurking beyond your vision. Dungeons, guilds, creating your own spells, whatever the hell you wanted - you could do it in Oblivion.

Adam LarckHONORABLE MENTIONS

Red Dead Redemption - Exploring the Wild West is fun, but I still haven't had a lot of time to take in the landscape.

5.Saints Row 2 - Whenever I don't care about realism in a city, I go to Saints Row 2. The mini-games you can found in various places of the world offer a nice change from the standard open world fare, and are great to play with friends. While I've pretty much done everything there is to do in this game, I'm already looking forward to the release of Saints Row 3.

4.Grand Theft Auto - I'm going to lump all the games in the series into here, as the main reason I play any of these games are to run around and explore. I especially like GTA IV with the inclusion of the online Free Roam mode. Lately, a lot of friends and me have been running through the city causing chaos. However, most of our chaos ends up near the airport, with us using the airstrips as drag strips and helicopters raining bullets down from above.

3.Crackdown - While the sequel may be similar to the original, I still like the original game more for exploring. Whether it was just jumping around buildings or going to find orbs, exploring the city never got boring to me. Add in the Keys to the City, and you could spend hours in the game making up huge explosions and other weird things in the game.



2.Oblivion - Until my No. 1 game released, I would have always gone with this title. There were numerous things to see, and a nearly infinite number of ways to get to a place. Often, while going to one quest to another, I'd just roam the countryside to find new areas and see what the world had to offer. It offered a lot of fun, and was a lot of the reason I put 100+ hours into the game.

1.Fallout 3 - I still haven't uncovered everything in the game, and that doesn't bother me at all. It always gives me a new reason to go back to the game and explore. Besides the many places to explore and find, there are also random events that can happen. Probably the best random event I've seen was the alien ship that drops the blaster. It was just awesome to see it happen, and then find that great gun just sitting there.

Todd VoteHONORABLE MENTIONS

5. Tony Hawk Underground - I loved the classic Hawk games. They were highly addictive, and extremely fun to play. So when they opened it up to an open world, what was not to like? You take an, at the time aging, THPS formula and you give the players the ability to skate anywhere they wanted. If you could get to it, you could skate it. It extended the life of the franchise briefly, and that was okay with me.

4.Crackdown - Not to be confused with the Crackdown 2. The first Crackdown game is one of the funnest experiences I've had in an open world. How do you make it better? Bring a friend in with you of course. The giant metropolis that is Pacific City is like a playground for you and a friend to run around as a super human agent.

3.Saints Row - I know I know, Saints Row 2 is a far better game, right? Well I can't include something on my list that I haven't had a chance to play yet. So Saints Row gets the nod. This is the game that I bought while waiting for GTA IV to be released. What I got was a great open world game that offered quite a bit more than GTA did once it released.



2.Red Dead Redemption - Take GTA and drop it in the old west… Red Dead Redemption has been tearing up the writers forum since it was released, and with good reason. It is easily one of the absolute best games I've played in this generation or any previous. It might not be everyone's cup of tea if you hate westerns *cough* Lansdell *cough*, but for the rest of us, this shit is a blast. The Free Roam multiplayer is blast as well.

1.Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - Tommy Vercetti's version of GTA still remains my favorite in the entire series. Sure San Andreas is probably the better experience overall in a lot of minds. For me, the setting of Vice City sets it apart from the rest of the series, and that is enough to make it stand out. Oh, and it had a chainsaw.


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Well that does it for this week. Be sure to let us know your favorites down below. Also check back next week for a Metroid themed Top 5. See ya in seven.

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