The Hot Topic Returns

[Nag]

I don't think things like Digital Foundry help matters nowadays, fair enough it's meant as an aid to show how a game performs but it gives so much ammunition to console warriors when such and such a version has 2 less frames per second for a pre-rendered cutscene.

[OCH]

Definitely wasn't a thing at school for me, either. Much as others have already said. Different friends had different consoles, so we all just played whatever when visiting. The PSOne era was the only one with a noticeable change though. Not a case of fanboying, so much as I can only recall like two people that owned a Saturn. They never really bragged about it, nor were asked questions. Virtually everyone had a PSOne and seemingly every group of friends were gathered around a N64. 

[Sly Reflex]

PS1 changed games in a way that cannot be understated. It made everyone else look silly, it was such a behemoth that even people that didn't really do games did games.

 

It was the first time I saw people in the pub chatting about games, especially when piracy took root. Everyone knew someone with a huge A4 binder full of titles you could pay a few quid for to get a copy of.

[DisturbedSwan]

I think up until the 360 era I didn't really know there was 'console wars' going on, I preferred certain consoles before then and would say stuff like 'oh I don't play my gamecube much' to other kids in class at secondary school and extolled the virtues of the Xbox to bemused looking classmates who thought I was mad for loving it so much compared to their PS2s. 

 

I was a Sega kid growing up and didn't really know Nintendo made home consoles (only Game Boy) until I got an N64, I just thought everyone had a Mega Drive really, they certainly did round me, I didn't know anyone who had a SNES. As I got my Mega Drive quite late in 95/96 a lot of kids were already beginning to transition to the PS1. 

 

The landscape for the PS1 era was a little different for me as I was now old enough and a tiny bit wiser to realise there were 3 competing consoles in the mix. I have a fond memory of going into a Comet back in the day where there was a long queue to play the N64 and PS1 demo units on display but no one playing the Saturn, so I had a go on this and really enjoyed it but shortly after kind of forgot it existed lol. Most people had PS1's and it was still the default console when talking to other kids in my classes but a lot of folks including some neighbours up the road and some of my best mates from school had N64's either as well or instead of a PS1, and that became my far my favourite console of that era. 

 

Going into the next generation I assumed the Dolphin (Gamecube) would be my favourite again but throughout the generation I just never fully warmed to it. So it was the PS2 that was for a long time my favourite until late in the Gen when the OG Xbox and Xbox Live stole my heart. 

 

So we get to the 360 era where my worst fanboy tendencies came to fruition as I fiercely felt the need to defend the 360 no matter what. I absolutely loved that console and hated the PS3 for the majority of the generation and would fiercely respond to anyone that said the opposite. Which was pathetic, but I just loved that console so much despite 2 consoles RRODing on me during its lifetime. 

 

Towards the end of that generation though things began to turn as Xbox focused on Kinect and kid-friendly motion controlled games whilst I was still into the macho dude-bro kind of stuff Xbox put its hat on back into those days. Whereas some PS3 games like The Last of Us released and became one of my favourites of all time, meaning I went into the next generation with a more open mind. 

 

Then I saw the Xbox One launch event, the DRM, the focus on TV and sports and the amazing PS press conference from E3 that year where it felt like they were actively sticking daggers into the XB1 already and my mind was pretty much made up from that point that PS4 would be 'the' console of that generation. 

 

So, definitely Xbox v PlayStation at this point as it's really the only 'console war' I've participated in in the past and had a part in (regrettably - I was a pretty silly 16+ year old).

[HandsomeDead]

I think magazines contributed a lot to this in the early days thinking about it more.  Like I mentioned most of the PS2 generation (well, mostly when the Xbox and GCN entered) I wasn't around other gamers anymore and just playing games myself and reading magazines for the most part (I was just with friends on nights out; some gamer shit could have been discussed but it was easy to dismiss because of booze).  I wonder if this is a contributing factor to why I have a particular fondness for this era 😅

 

But I digress.  The magazines did indulge in this nonsense a lot, especially the Official Nintendo Magazine.  I guess they did aim a bit younger than the others I would read and I think I did buy into the falsehood that official magazines were more legit at the time, despite thinking Cube, an unofficial mag, was a much better read as it did aim to an older audience (I think I had close to every issue of this, they got binned at some point.  Oops).  ONM was still saying shit like GreyStatoon Poo when referencing the PS2 for whatever reason.  I rolled my eyes at the time but I guess it set the precedent to what online discourse would be like as this kind of thing would turn up in the other mags.  I read quite a lot of them during this time and they were all pretty tribal, but ONM was the most childish about it so it stands out along with it being an official mag.

 

This was probably going on earlier than this but I definitely got more aware of it during this time.  It was probably why I ended up just reading Gamestm and the odd Issue of Edge eventually.

[Nag]

Games TM is still easily the most well rounded, digestible gaming mag I've read (and at one point I read a lot)... such a shame when it folded.

[DisturbedSwan]

Just while we're reminiscing about older gaming magazines and past generations.

 

I remember vividly reading N64 mag or something that Xbox had bought Rare from Nintendo and was absolutely raging, so much so I wrote in pen an angry letter that I sent in to them saying they're wrong and that Rare would forever be owned by Nintendo 😂 funnily enough they never printed it lol.

[Nag]

 

Quote

Readers discuss the most enjoyable open world games they’ve ever played, from Red Dead Redemption 2 to Dead Rising.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Grackle, who asked how intrinsic the open world design is to your enjoyment and what it is that made your favourite so engrossing.

 

As you might expect, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and Elden Ring dominated the discussion, but there were plenty of other games mentioned as well, with nobody seeming to be tired of the concept just yet.

 

[mfnick]

52 minutes ago, Nag said:

with nobody seeming to be tired of the concept just yet

☹️ I’m really fucking tired of them. I’m sure I’d seen more of a Anti-open world sentiment from critics and comments lately.

 

Anyway, GTA3 is the one that blew me away for obvious reasons. None have got me quite like that one did even though they’re technically better in every way. 
 

Forza Horizon 4 including the amazing LEGO expansion. The variety in seasons and the fact it isn’t so much driving straight through the environments/fields all the time in the way 5 is pips it for me in this series. 

Sleeping Dogs. This is probably my favourite GTA type of open world game ever made. I love everything about it, the style, location, the brutal combat system incorporating environments, the car shunting stuff etc. all of its great.

 

Spider-Man PS4 is great. The actual

open world part of it is boring though really. 
 

They probably don’t count in the spirit of this but the best open world games are ones like Yakuza. They’re relatively tiny but just packed with every inch being designed never feeling like they just left a computer to populate the building, trees, expanses of nothingness etc. You actually learn those environments and they have so much more character. But like I say I’m not sure they’re classified as open world really. 

[one-armed dwarf]

The overuse of open world isn't really a problem with open world, it's more a problem of lots of games being very influenced by MMO style content-churn imo, just fill these maps up with time-wasting activities that don't attempt to weave into any grand overarching storyline or design philosophy. Just bullshit to do and check off. Companies like Ubisoft just churn those games out at such a fast click and there's little sense of the designers hands except in the environments themselves which always look good.

 

Anyway Morrowind and Breath of the Wild are two of the best games I've ever played, hard to decide which is better tbh. MW for how its narrative and lore is a part of everything you do in the game, BOTW for how its open world and environments silently guides you and moves you through it without you noticing. Those are just really cleverly designed games, so again the issue isn't open world itself imo. Just that there's a lot of mindless open world games out there

 

Also Dead Rising is a really interesting game to put there. I suppose it isn't open world like we think of it now but it's an open space with lots of interesting obstacles. It's a game we should have gotten more of, I don't mean sequels but more games in that vein of design

[OCH]

Destroy All Humans

Took the big, boring "real world" sandbox of GTA 3+ and let you do fun stuff with it.

 

Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

From the nerdy, comic book standpoint. Turn a car into boxing gloves, "surf" on a bus etc, etc By the time you're roughly mid-game. The landscape just exists to be moulded by your actions and to have that level of interaction with such a sandbox is glorious.

[DANGERMAN]

In terms of Open World as a 'genre', as muddy as that is, it's Sleeping Dogs. For whatever reason that really clicked with me and I rinsed it, did everything in the game and all the dlc. I've toyed with rebuying the remaster on console to play through it again but it's a big commitment for something I've already played

 

If they count, because they are open world's but I think that's more incidental to them being RPGs, but Skyrim and Fallout. Even Fallout 76 had a relatively interesting world. Less so Fallout 4, what a disappointment that was

[OCH]

Since every console Zelda since Ocarina of Time (aside from Skyward Sword) is open world. I'd add Majora's Mask as my pick for that series. Termina isn't the vast, sprawling yet empty fields of BotW's Hyrule. By the nature of the game however, you become invested in just about every corner of it. Playing the game through fully. You know every dwelling and every NPC that lives there, by the end.

[Maf]

I think my 2 favourite open world games recently are BotW and Elden Ring. BotW definitely and Elden Ring maybe, I still need to finish it. But they do what I love most in games and that’s exploring and being surprised. My favourite thing to do in just about any game is explore. I love poking around, searching, finding secrets, seeing amazing scenery. Which these games do amazingly well. They create curiosity and constantly reward with the unexpected which is something I think every adventure game should do, but only the best really do. 
 

Hard to talk about open world games and not talk about R*. But most of my favourite R* games are the ones people don’t like. GTA3, GTA4 and RDR2. I know people moan about how slow RDR2 is and I completely understand. But I absolutely love it. It’s a world to marinate in. The first third of GTA4 is the most realistic gangster game ever and I wish GTA would return to that, but I think after the success of GTA5 we’ll never see a GTA that isn’t over the top, loud and stupid, and squarely aimed at teenagers ever again. 
 

Spider-Man PS4 is the best Spider-Man game but that series has had great open world games ever since Spider-Man 2, which was such a crazy game at the time. Me and my friend played Spider-Man 2 all the way through in one night before we even created a save file. That traversal is just so inherently fun. I think it might be one of the best game mechanics full stop. That concept suits video games so well. (Now do it in VR)

 

Lastly even though everyone moans about Ubisoft games (me included) in the beginning they were really awesome. AC2, Brotherhood and Farcry 3 were such satisfying, meaty games. The worlds were engrossing, the progression was compelling, and they felt fresh and new at the time. But then they just kept making them and poisoned the well. It’s not that they’re not fun anymore, but it’s almost like becoming desensitised to the formula. In the beginning they were exciting, though.

 

Can’t wait until November when we can add Sonic Frontiers to the list of classic open world games 😑

[OCH]

7 minutes ago, Maf said:

Can’t wait until November when we can add PokéMon Scarlet & Violet to the list of classic open world games 😁

 

More optimistic Edit😉

[one-armed dwarf]

The press did/has had a bit of a reaction against open world, but I think it's more muted lately cause of stuff like Elden Ring, Breath of the Wild and Death Stranding. All of which do a thing of having open world travel feel a bit dangerous if you go outside of a region you're suitable for (DS less so, but still a little bit), which prolongs the sense of discovery in each of those games and gives players a sense of agency in how they progress imo rather than just being able to do whatever they want all the time. Exploring the world should feel like a bit of a puzzle for the player to figure out as well, when it comes to dealing with what's out there. DS is pretty railroaded compared to the other two but it still has that a bit.

 

The doldrums for the genre was after the release of AC Brotherhood I think, which was a great game but mostly just recycled a bunch of stuff from ACII imo and I couldn't complete it, that's when I stopped playing AC originally. But there's more diversity in the genre now, and even Ubisoft is trying to course correct a bit (tho I still hated Valhalla, wasn't enough of a difference imo)

 

I'm looking forward to Starfield, at least I'm hopeful it has a bit more of that hardcore RPG edge. They're bringing back things like backgrounds and traits in that game where you pick a bunch of options for your backstory which give you certain benefits/weaknesses, some of that stuff goes all the way back to what they were doing in TESII Daggerfall which is like as hardcore as TES ever got. So I think the tide is shifting back towards more kinda in-depth RPG elements in open world RPG games now that publishers are realising that people actually like that stuff

[radiofloyd]

Favourite open world games?

 

As a child, San Andreas. As an adult, The Witcher 3. And I loved Fallout 3 in between those as well. 
 

How intrinsic was the open world to my enjoyment? Well, the design of the open world was pretty important. In San Andreas, the scale had never been done before. It had the wow factor. Fallout 3 and The Witcher 3 did a good job of always having something interesting waiting over the the next hill. All three games had great music, which helped a lot. I think what made them so engrossing was having fun gameplay, secrets to find, interesting quests…the open world facilitated that I guess.

[mfnick]

6 hours ago, DANGERMAN said:

it's Sleeping Dogs.

Yea boi!!

6 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

 

*quoted  the part about Dead Rising but was getting server errors until I deleted it*
 

That’s basically what I was saying about Yakuza. It’s not really open world but kind of is. & Dead Rising succeeds like Yakuza where other ‘proper’ open worlds fail. Much more tightly designed. 

[Nag]

 

Quote

Readers reveal what they do when they can’t get any further in a game, from hitting YouTube to buying an expensive guide book.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Pinky, who asks how you’ve coped with difficult games throughout the years, and whether you look for text-based help online, watch a video, ask a friend, or something else?

 

There was an even split between people using YouTube and those preferring text-based help but what was surprising was how many sat down with a guide from the start, with no tolerance for being stuck for more than a few minutes.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

If I get stuck I look up stuff online, can't imagine many out there are buying guide books in this day and age

 

If I think the game is being a cunt, I install a cheat engine table/use the console command line and make everything die in one hit until it stops being like that. 

 

Mass Effect is not one of these games however. I did cheat in Control and fully upgraded the main character at some point towards the end just cause the combat was a bit dull and that made it more fun. Cheated in my first clear of Hades cause it was too repetitive, cheated in Inscryption to get to the good bit.