Freedom Within Gaming
That got me thinking, when was my first experience with a game that offered a true sense of freedom (however useful), and my journey into my gaming past began there.
The first time I was faced with a game that gave you a comparable level of freedom was Big Red Racing (an old DOS game) which holds a place in my heart as the first game I played where you could deviate from the track more than 2 feet. The hours I spent as a child driving into static concrete sheep, falling off the map, finding new hidden areas in this game - you have no idea. This was my first taste of gaming freedom - games like Need For Speed and Lotus Sport Challenge left you virtually glued to the track, with about 1 metre of dirt/grass either side. Being able to drive for a few minutes away from the track was such a thrill.
No other games really came along allowing the same level of freedom (Action and FPS games need to be entirely linear to make the user follow the story. But then one big player in particular blew the mainstream gaming market WIDE open with three simple words. Grand. Theft. Auto. By giving you an entire functioning city upon which you could do pretty much anything it captured the imagination/malice of an entire generation (or several). GTA was the single most attractive game a child could play. A simple interface with mind-melting levels of violence and general "naughty" things, with an entire city for you to pillage at any one time. Running over Elvis impersonators never felt so good as it did back then... And while excellent games like TES: Oblivion excel in offering freedom, the GTA series still holds the crown in my eyes (sounds painful actually).GTA3 brought the games into 3D and allowed you to kill hookers in increased realism. Using a baseball bat to murder old ladies never looked so good.
The series continues to improve and impress, with San Andreas providing a truly astonishingly huge map for you to befoul.
"So what next... I don't think I'd flourish in a prison environment"
The Final Fantasy games (notably VII and VIII) offered a new sensation of freedom - a fake one. While you get the feeling of freedom in where you go and what you do, your actions are entirely linear - ensuring you do not reach towns of relevance until the appropriate time in the story. The player feels in control but their game play is still scripted. The illusion that you're in control (and that the decisions are your own) adds to the connection you have with the story and it's characters and is ultimately the best freedom available for RPG's.
Now, on a similar note TES: Oblivion suffered from an overkill of freedom. You could do WHATEVER you wanted, wherever in the world. There were so many tasks, quests, sub quests, characters and general "stuff" you could do that it left players such as me sitting in awe, unable to decide upon a starting point. While a near infinite freedom of decision allows for maximum replay-ability, it caused the game's biggest problem - making the player return. Without a meaningful structure, once the main quest is completed (which doesn't take long) there is little to hold you there, leaving massive portions of the game untouched. I played Oblivion for weeks and yet failed to make a proper connection with the game and GTA: San Andreas was reinstalled on my machine for more inner-city violence.So what next? Well I'd like to see a fully 3D GTA, first person style, behind the wheel etc - maybe introduce a real supermarket environment so that I can take out my pent up rage by machine gunning people ahead of me in the queue. Until then, sure I'll get Dark Messiah when it's out, and yes San Andreas will still be my outlet for running people over. I don't think I'd flourish in a prison environment anyway.
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Final Fantasy X was less in the freedom route as the story centred around a pilgrimage journey so you were always going forward following the road. But like any FF once you get an airship your free to roam the world.
GTA was good, although the sheer size of San Andreas was daunting and if, like me, you were foolish enough to wreck your car in the middle of nowhere you have a good 10 minute hike to find a new one. For me Vice City is the better game.
Oblivion bored me, i’m afraid to say, after watching you complete it while my gfx was AWOL meant there was no real reason to continue. Therefore the game abandoned.
Therefore I feel that the better games are once with tighter more detailed stories and less on the subquests. Sandbox is all well and good but the size needs to be right. Too big = daunting and too small = constricting.