Rock, Paper, Shotgun

RPS Asks: Maps In Games?

By Jim Rossignol on December 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm.


People of the readership, I need your help. I need to know what the best in-game maps are, and why. To be specific: I need your reason. Is the map you mention best because it’s the prettiest? Because it maps things in a unique way? Or is it just a fun piece of design? Or is it something that is actually so integral to the game that it makes the game? Your nominations, please.

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239 Comments »

  1. 01/12/2009 at 12:12 Sun says:

    EVE Online. Hit F10. Lovely

  2. 01/12/2009 at 12:15 Ragnar says:

    The map of Europa Universalis 3. The game is played on the map and a lot of information about the world is displayed on the map.

    • 01/12/2009 at 12:26 moss says:

      Theatrum Orbis Terrarum even makes it look like a map (and better overall), http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=359352

    • 01/12/2009 at 13:17 rhizo says:

      +1 for TOT, though I’ve enjoyed the 2D maps of the earlier Paradox games even more than the EU3 map. The Paradox games depend on the map view and the massive map not only puts the grand scheme of things into proper perspective but also creates the perfect feel for the marvellous historical strategy games that leverage it. One of the most crucial aspects of ever making the decision to dive in to the EU series was the look of the map back in EU2. Considering that EU gaming sessions usually last for hours, the map really needs to be pleasing for the eye. For a “history enthusiast” such as myself there is always that little something about well made maps that makes me inexplicably excited.

  3. 01/12/2009 at 12:15 shiggz says:

    I liked the maps in Vietcong, the realistic map helps with immersion. When they look and feel like the sort of maps some soldier might have scratched down to drag around.

    Too often of late however the maps are a small a part of the screen. Likely a port from the console issue. Oblivion’s terrible default map that seemed to be designed for people playing on 13in’ black and white tv rather then1600x1200+ resolution pc monitors.

  4. 01/12/2009 at 12:15 TotalBiscuit says:

    Well since you just showed the best map, case closed.

  5. 01/12/2009 at 12:16 Tim says:

    Diablo. I couldn’t have explored each dark corner were it not for that transparent bastard of a map.

  6. 01/12/2009 at 12:17 cqdemal says:

    Test Drive Unlimited. Very pretty, even with delayed LOD. Zooming into the game feels very seemless. And it’s HUGE. Being based on a real-life location helps too.

  8. 01/12/2009 at 12:20 Eproxus says:

    +1 for the Vietcong maps

  9. 01/12/2009 at 12:20 Laurence says:

    The Original GTA map.

    Real paper and ink- none of this pixellated nonsense!

    • 01/12/2009 at 12:33 GibletHead2000 says:

      +1. Something about driving around a new city with an actual paper map, checking it and looking for landmarks, just like we used to do IRL before satnav.

      Incidentally, I think the satnav in GTA4 ruins it a bit. Sure, it’s more realistic and makes the game more approachable, but there was something very satisfying in the GTA3 based games where you got The Knowledge, and ended up knowing the quickest route from anywhere to anywhere. I still know my way around when I go back to those games. With GTA4 (just like RL today) you end up not knowing where you’ve been because you just followed the directions on the computer.

  10. 01/12/2009 at 12:20 Antlia says:

    ARMA II. Works like a real map and if you turn off the markers that show you on the map, you really have to do a bit of orienteering with the compass. It’s a lovely feature that you can also arrange the clock and the compass wherever you want… Also I like that if you don’t know where you are, you can ask from the villagers.

  11. 01/12/2009 at 12:21 Finn says:

    The Far Cry 2 map is a good example; I think it depends really, for an FPS or an open-world game the more detailed the better, in some other cases it’s more of an aesthetic choice than anything else (Dragon Age’s map, for example).

  12. 01/12/2009 at 12:21 Fenchurch says:

    I must mention that Morrowind/Oblivion had awful maps because the “fog of war” you uncovered with each step was so small you never got a helpful “local map” at all, and only ever really used the “national” map to move about broadly.

    Was the map in SS2 any good? It never worked for me for some reason. :-(

    My fave map ever was in the sadly neglected Deep Space Nine: The Fallen game, where whipping out the tricorder gave you a little 3D view of local enemies, points of interest etc. Not 100% a map like you’re asking but I loved it to bits.

  13. 01/12/2009 at 12:21 phanteh says:

    Supreme Commander?

  14. 01/12/2009 at 12:22 phanteh says:

    Oh wait…

    Forza 3 ¬_¬

  15. 01/12/2009 at 12:23 monchberter says:

    wireframe overlays! The likes of which you got in Doom and Dark Forces! :)

  16. 01/12/2009 at 12:24 Arnulfo Briseno says:

    i like the maps in ofp and arma 1 y 2 they can be really detailed.(or not) you can choose.

  17. 01/12/2009 at 12:25 Kleevah says:

    I always found the map in the original Jedi Knight totally amazing. It mapped out the complete level in 3d wireframe as you went along. Sure it wasn’t easy to navigate by, but it was very impressive looking, especially for it’s time. Only games I’ve played since that has sort of done the same thing is the Metroid Prime games on the GameCube.

    • 01/12/2009 at 12:27 CMaster says:

      Descent did that too.
      The maps weren’t a huge amount of help in decoding the very, very confusing levels, it has to be said.

    • 01/12/2009 at 12:45 Markside says:

      I totally loved the old-skool wire-frame rendering. Sure, the maps didn’t actually help you navigate at all, but they did enhance the feeling of isolation and scale; of being one lone Jedi battling through an immense sci-fi drainage system.

    • 13/12/2009 at 13:18 Manley Pointer says:

      I remember Daggerfall building some kind of spectacularly confusing 3D map for you as you explored its dungeons. I feel like it was simpler to draw a map by hand than try to figure your way out of some of the larger randomly generated dungeons in that game. Then again, I haven’t played the game in years and memory may be faulty.

    • 13/12/2009 at 13:20 Manley Pointer says:

      Wait, Rinox already said that below…I fail

  18. 01/12/2009 at 12:25 Sitting Duck says:

    best map for me is Uplink: Hacker Elite. The map IS the game, and what a game.

  19. 01/12/2009 at 12:25 David says:

    Fallout 1/2. Overland map is awesome as it gives the game the feeling of being larger than it really is. And the town maps are old and battered, dripping with character and atmosphere.

  20. 01/12/2009 at 12:25 Derf says:

    A couple that pop into mind:

    - Red Orchestra: Simplified, centered and instant.
    - Knight of Honor: The ‘Political View’ map is a major part of the game. Brings a smile to my face when I see thing such as a Lothian kingdom stretched across all Engand to northern France, or “Sweden” reaching all the way down to the black sea.

    • 01/12/2009 at 12:28 Derf says:

      Oh! And the Caesar III minimap. On-screen, my city would look pretty messy, but the minimap would reveal a logical structure to the whole thing. You know, aqueducts evenly spaced, housing blocks evenly sized, etc.

  21. 01/12/2009 at 12:26 Phoshi says:

    Metroid Prime.

  22. 01/12/2009 at 12:26 Langman says:

    I like the local dungeon maps in Dragon Age, they have a nice HeroQuesty feel to them – although the world map is pretty pointless.

    Back in the day, the Doom auto-mapping was actually quite unique. Ah, memories….

  23. 01/12/2009 at 12:27 Paul says:

    FarCry 2 and Stalker had great ingame maps! Though what I missed in FC 2 was a compass and ability to use watch at any time (and it was there, but I suspect they removed it thanks to consoles).

    Simple – I like any map that does not break my immersion. Mafia had also great map.GTA4 could learn from that.

  24. 01/12/2009 at 12:28 Redd says:

    de_dust. :|

    idk, EVE’s springs to mind as being both beautiful and stuffed full of delicious data. And you can’t deny the detail of Dwarf Fortress’ world maps (if you can decipher them and know enough about how they’re created to appreciate the depth of simulation).

  25. 01/12/2009 at 12:29 Danny says:

    The maps in the Ultima games, where you actually had to buy certain maps to find areas of interest. Besides that I normally don’t like maps, as I tend to enjoy games more when I need to figure out everything myself.

    I loved MMO’s like UO, Everquest and DaoC for that reason. It actually felt like a world, not like some small areas that you can view instantly using maps that show too much detail.

  26. 01/12/2009 at 12:33 diebroken says:

    DOOM episode progress map – all you ever need! : http://www.doomworld.com/pageofdoom/graphics/Wimap0.gif

    Also System Shock 2 maps: http://www.starshipvonbraun.com/

  27. 01/12/2009 at 12:34 Acidburns says:

    In Defcon the deaths of millions of people are conveyed with little white circles on your map, while ICBMs trace beautiful little arches overhead.

  28. 01/12/2009 at 12:34 Davee says:

    Vietcong and FarCry2 because of the immersion. EVE because of the prettiness and crapload of info you could get from it (altough its very hard to navigate properly).

    @ Paul: Stalker’s map was okay for it’s belivability (a GPS hand computer makes sense) and immersion, but it had so many bugs/flaws that I just can’t nominate it myself.

  29. 01/12/2009 at 12:35 Dzamir says:

    L4D2, without maps, but the survivors always point out the right way to follow

  30. 01/12/2009 at 12:35 Tunips says:

    I think it was Empire Earth that had a strategic map where players could draw borders and Napoleonic attack arrows at each other.
    On a faintly related note, Cossacks 2 has the best in-game Napoleonic attack-arrows.

  31. 01/12/2009 at 12:38 Tom Armitage says:

    Far Cry 2 is probably my favourite of recent years.

    Spinny 3D maps: Descent, Jedi Knight, but also Dead Space, which at least has a crack. Still not super-useful; the line-in-the-ground is a more useful route finder than the map. But, I’d argue my favourite historical map would be the Ultima Underworld maps – useful, auto-generated, but with a pen so you could annotate them. And lovely pixel fonts.

    Also, special note for Rogue, where (and I say this thinking of Jeff Noon’s Pollen) the map is the game.

  32. 01/12/2009 at 12:39 mojo says:

    descent map ofc.

  33. 01/12/2009 at 12:40 RGS says:

    Vietcong – One of the most immersive FPS in game maps IMO. + no silly ‘game’ icons like in FC2 above, you had to work it out for yourself (also one of the first games to use iron sights btw…).

    ArmA 2 – (though only played the demo, *very* tempted to get the full game as it’s so much my sort of thing + a true PC title + really like the dev’s attitude – but the mouse lag’s a killer…) Map looks very, very good here too. Detailed, realistic + tailored for PC.

    Empire Total War – Very nicely done + conveys a lot of info. Mixes well the feeling of being a paper map with 3D animations + effects.

    • 01/12/2009 at 14:15 Paul says:

      Hi, mouse lag is fixed in patch 1.04 in Arma 2, you can turn mouse smoothing to zero in options which eliminates it completely.

  34. 01/12/2009 at 12:41 Gregg B says:

    That was the first map system that came to my mind too. Very robust and a great help when you were trying to find a specific location without physically going there. I don’t remember there being any way of making notes in it though which I sort of expect from a map especially with games of their size.

    The other maps I really liked were in the Thief games. Vague enough to allow some element of surprise but drawn with the mission objectives in mind. They also allowed notes but due to the smaller levels I didn’t really need that sort of functionality.

  35. 01/12/2009 at 12:42 Kakrafoon says:

    Maps are all fine and dandy, and I don’t like my games without them. However, I submit to you that games make it too easy for us to get around. In most games, you can just ignore the map and follow an arrow to your next objective, with the arrow either on the (mini)map, in the corners of the main view or floating above the character in immersion-destroying obviousness. This development parallels humanity’s growing dependance on navigation gadgets, which will, as some geographers say, deprive us of our ability to get around and read our surroundings.

    • 01/12/2009 at 13:24 Clovis says:

      My favorite side missions in GTAIV were the ones where it turned the map pointer off: the text message based find-a-car. You got some clues like an area of the city or a landmark, a photo of the car, and sometimes some more landmarks in the photo. I really enjoyed driving up and down the streets looking for those cars (or flying through them in a heli). The GPS was great, but really the player should be making the decision of where to go and placing the marker themselves.

  36. 01/12/2009 at 12:44 faelnor says:

    Well I loved the morrowind map :/ Though what I used most was the paper map.

  37. 01/12/2009 at 12:46 JuJuCam says:

    Obligatory Thief nod. Surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already. I was far too late to the party to enjoy Thief except for vicariously, but I still love the idea of an ambiguous map scrawled on whatever.

  38. 01/12/2009 at 12:50 Cunzy1 1 says:

    I know it isn’t PC (LULZ) but the map in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is pretty good.

    Not for any particular amazing reason other than you could have it as a transparent overlay, displayed on the top screen or just totally off.

    Gives us options for the goddam maps people and map heavy games that don’t let you set your own waypoints should be banned, exiled, defiled and stomped on.

    • 01/12/2009 at 13:26 Clovis says:

      Also not PC, how about The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Making notes on the map was great with the stylus, and the game pretty much forced you to keep track of the best route through the Temple by using the map.

  39. 01/12/2009 at 12:52 Gregg B says:

    Ah, crap, I meant that as a reply to Metroid Prime.

  40. 01/12/2009 at 12:52 The Sombrero Kid says:

    dead space without a doubt, the augmented reality idea is a great one and one i’m going to embrace personally.

  41. 01/12/2009 at 12:54 LionsPhil says:

    All hail the automap. I quite like System Shock‘s version, with marker placement, and the fact that it’s supposedly really there in my field of view due to cyberware.

    Nice point about Fallout and GTA3 maps above, though.

  42. 01/12/2009 at 12:55 Markside says:

    Yeah, I’d also like to big up paper maps! Like the one you got with Mafia, which doubled as a poster. Or the one you got with Oblivion, which doubled as a much less interesting poster.

    Also, a quick shout out for Fallout 3′s map, which was okay until you got into DC, where it becomes icon soup. I mean, I know I’m at the Raven’s base, but I have NO idea where I am. It took me hours to find my was to the glasses shop… and so many dead…

  43. 01/12/2009 at 12:57 MinisterofDOOM says:

    The way I see it, a good map must fulfill two duties: finding your way to your next objective (whether it be game, story, or self-assigned) and orienting yourself in your current surroundings. Unfortunately, the qualities that make a map well-suited for one of those duties makes it ill-suited for the other.
    So, in my line of thinking, a combination of both is the best. To fulfill the fomer, you need a high-detail map that is pannable and scalable (and maybe even rotatable if the game world has lots of altitude variance). That map should support some kind of point-of-interest marker system, a user-placeable marker system, and some variety of user-placeable waypoint setup.
    But to fulfil the latter duty, you need a small minimap. It does not need much detail, only enough to give the player an idea of his place in the grand scheme of game locations. It needs to be similar enough in design to the “big” map that the user can easily correlate the two to make the most effective use of both. It should also echo any nearby POIs, user-placed markers, and the user waypoint for even easier orientation. But it should also be out of the way when not in need. Making the map small and transluscent helps there. It might even have a “quick hide” option like the minimaps in some of the 3D zelda games so the player can make full use of the viewport when necessary.

    One other very important thing to keep in mind is that striving for extreme realism with maps is sort of beside the point. In the “real world” we have an innate sense of orientation. We don’t need maps to get our bearings to the same degree we do in games. Maps in games are a sort of compensation for the lack of sensory feedback in games. They help us make up for that lack of natural orientation. So the minimap needs to be as naturally and easily readable as possible. It is not breaking the realism because there will never be realism in that respect until PCs are replaced by holodecks. The more effort/time a minimap takes to read, the less immersed in the game a player can be. Having to pause or even not pause to bring up the “big map” every few seconds is not “realistic,” it’ i tedious. It breaks immersion and more importantly breaks enjoyment. The UI/HUD exists purely to serve as an information buffer. Whatever info a person would have available in “real life” but can’t because the game isn’t real must be presented as fluidly and easily accessibly as possible on screen. Pausing for more detail is great as long as you’ve got the minimal orienting detail available at all other times.

  44. 01/12/2009 at 12:59 unitled says:

    Pretty much any space game… Think of Sins of a Solar Empire’s maps (integrated beautifully into the gameplay), or the sprawling maps of the X universe.

    At the moment I’m playing Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (an absolute bargain on Steam!) which has an extensive map of the solar system. It’s just a pity you can’t explore it more… It’s almost a map without the game to match.

  45. 01/12/2009 at 12:59 Tei says:

    Doom…or was Doom2? I have fond memories of these vectorial 2d maps.
    The Farcry2 of he screenshot is also rather good.

  46. 01/12/2009 at 12:59 Mr Pink says:

    OK, so it’s not a PC game, but I don’t see that in the brief… I liked the map in Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Being able to scribble on the map yourself was a revelation. It’d be great if more PC games did this (especially as I have a graphics tablet!). Probably won’t happen though.

  47. 01/12/2009 at 13:00 Rinox says:

    The map for the Daggerfall randomly created dungeons

    ….OH NO GOD NO

  48. 01/12/2009 at 13:00 unique_identifier says:

    command and conquer / red alert minimaps – remember how you needed to build and power a structure before the game granted you a minimap? seems almost quaint these days, where an ever functional minimap in an real-time strategy game is very much an expected part of the interface

    total annihilation – for a minimap mechanic that distinguished between line of sight and radar signatures. for the thrill of powering up advanced radar to see a horde of enemy contacts but having no idea what exactly they were. for automated radar targeting.

    that far cry 2 map – adding to the immersion, and especially good fun during car chases through rough terrain, where pulling up the map would block visibility and lead to accidents

  49. 01/12/2009 at 13:00 Craig L says:

    Morrowinds map was beautiful. And I can recall most of it from memory.

    • 01/12/2009 at 20:38 matte_k says:

      Seconded. I know the shortest route from Balmora to Vivec on foot better than I know some parts of my home town…Is that sad?

  50. 01/12/2009 at 13:02 Garg says:

    NWN2: Storm of Zehir addon had a kind of meta-world map that you could wander over and use to manage your trade empire. It was a cool idea, that just didn’t fulfil its potential.

    One thing I loved inordinately is the map in World of Warcraft; specifically the fully zoomed out one showing the Outlands on one side and Azeroth on the other, and how the surrounding godlike figures were illuminated as you moved your cursor over to one or the other world, which would change the light source. It’s a silly little thing but I liked it.

  51. 01/12/2009 at 13:02 Maximinus says:

    I liked the maps featured in Jedi Knight, the true Fallouts (1&2), and Far Cry 2, as previously reported. I don’t want to sound like a salesman, but I am currently developing a video game which concept is based upon the map of the whole planet Earth, with real satellite photos from a well-known american space agency : Globe Clicker, website, Youtube Trailer.

  52. 01/12/2009 at 13:05 GS says:

    Crysis, it had working GPRS co-ordinates which tied into your bi-nocs

  53. 01/12/2009 at 13:11 Cooper says:

    Again for thief – not lacking enough detail to be useless but impossible to use as a guide alone – and fit the theme of the game perfectly. If only it allowed me to make scribbles on it, and I’d have loved it even more.

    Also another vote for EVE’s – excellent map given how much information they cram into it, but can still be a bit confusing at times, especially in 3D (I always tend to flatten it.)

  54. 01/12/2009 at 13:15 Krikey! says:

    Check out the map in System Shock 2 too. Very complex looking – fitting to the theme. I don’t want a map that doesn’t show me anything. I want a map that looks complicated, something that tells me more than just the fact that I’m in a room with 4 walls.

    Or, how about the “maps” that are in Thief? These don’t follow standard “guidelines” – they differ from level to level, place to place, depending on other factors too, like whether you bought a better copy from the store or not. Just some ideas…

  55. 01/12/2009 at 13:15 deABREU says:

    diablo II. it stays out of your way, while occuppying the whole screen with guidefulness at the same time.

    and I don’t even like that game.

  56. 01/12/2009 at 13:16 Heliocentric says:

    Sup com and sins of a solar waffle, sots to a degree. The game is the map, every strategy game where the map isn’t the game and you can’t scroll at any level inbetween pisses me off madly.

  57. 01/12/2009 at 13:16 manintheshack says:

    Modern Warfare. I spend half my game time looking at that map and find it simple and brilliantly informative. I mainly use it for stealth and when you’re behind enemy lines it’s essential for locating and prioritising threats. Brilliant stuff. When it’s taken away in MW2 by the jammer you really feel the pressure.

  58. 01/12/2009 at 13:17 Dominus says:

    Just played Ultima Underworld again, gotta say that kind of map has enough information for me, not very complicated, good idea where you are, also you could write things on it too, just like Thief maps! :)

  59. 01/12/2009 at 13:25 Sajmn says:

    Battlezone’s 3D wireframe minimap.

  60. 01/12/2009 at 13:25 Psychopomp says:

    Thief or Far Cry 2. The shittily scrawled Thief maps, and pulling out a map and GPS are nice touches.

  61. 01/12/2009 at 13:26 Lilliput King says:

    Swat 4′s maps. Either complex floor plans or something scribbled on a napkin, depending on the situation. Sometimes so precise you could plan a whole assault by them, sometimes completely useless.

    That said, I know all the maps like the back of my hand now, but it was interesting for the first playthrough, trying to visualise what you were seeing on the floor plan/napkin in 3d, guessing which rooms would be most difficult, how you’d need to approach them etc.

    • 01/12/2009 at 14:54 ascagnel says:

      SWAT4 had it right in the sense that you only had what you’d expect in the situation. The business had blueprints, while the club was a cocktail napkin sketch. The entire lead-in to the missions, including the timeline and the 911 call, created a great atmosphere and might provide little hints to the missions.

      I still need to go back and replay the SP. MP was a riot, too.

  62. 01/12/2009 at 13:28 ben says:

    Supreme commander because if you wanted to you could zoom ALL the way in and use it as another tactical view! (especially with 2 monitors)

  63. 01/12/2009 at 13:31 EaterOfCheese says:

    Thief maps were the bomb – though I’d have to go back to Ultima Underworld’s awesome auto-mapping for my absolute favourite. In Underworld, you really, really needed an excellent map, and amazingly enough, there was one.

  64. 01/12/2009 at 13:32 Psychopomp says:

    I would also like to nominate the maps from the original Metroid and Bards Tale games.

    • 01/12/2009 at 14:09 Antsy says:

      The ones you had to draw yourself on graph paper you smuggled out of maths class? :P

    • 01/12/2009 at 16:27 kitchendon says:

      yes! Making my own map in Bard’s Tale was part of the fun. Same with the old Infocom games. The text adventures weren’t really on a grid so it made for some crazy connections and squiggly connecting lines.

      I remember using lots of maps in the original Everquest – many of them downloaded from the Allakhazam website. First time I remember a site being so full of user generated maps and other info about a game. I ran a sort of guide service, shuttling people back and forth across the game world and those maps were quite useful.. One wall of my computer room was plastered with dozens of maps.

  65. 01/12/2009 at 13:33 Kris says:

    Second the Phantom Hourglass shout – like the way in all Zelda’s that the level design subtley nudges you to the map and compass, but instill a sense of being lost in the unknown until you obtain them. Same goes for 16bit Metroids onwards as well.

  66. 01/12/2009 at 13:35 Quercus says:

    Sins of a Solar Empire – lovely map. Seemless zooming.
    I also liked Freelancer’s map it was very useful within the game.
    Far Cry 2′s map was absolutely necessary as well. The GPS mini-map was very difficult to make sense of while driving.

    • 01/12/2009 at 14:42 Fergus says:

      That’s a second for Freelancer’s map, very easy to use, filled with information if you wanted it, but also just a very useful how-to-get-from-a-to-b deal.

  67. 01/12/2009 at 13:40 Fashigady says:

    I enjoyed the way both Far Cry 2 and Dead Space had maps that were in-game, and not in a game-pausing menu.

  68. 01/12/2009 at 13:47 tikey says:

    Hitman. The First one. It was essential for planning a successful assassination yet it didn’t tell you everything (like it did in subsequent games)

  69. 01/12/2009 at 13:47 Mythrilfan says:

    Mafia – because I know the damn thing by heart after all these years.

  70. 01/12/2009 at 13:49 Stense says:

    I loved the maps in Thief too. They were wonderfully stylised, but did give a good idea of level layout without babysitting you and getting you to put a little more thought into planning your route through.

    I’d also say that the maps in Metroid Prime were superb aswell. Studying them after getting a new toy or power up, then spotting a place on the map that looks like it could now be accessed was always a fine revelation. And it was detailed but remained easy to use and navigate, which is always a bonus.

  71. 01/12/2009 at 13:50 Kieron Gillen says:

    Supreme Commander’s map was awesome, in a very different way from any map mentioned here. So good, you played most of the game from it.

    KG

  72. 01/12/2009 at 13:51 JKjoker says:

    i liked dead space and diablo 2 ones, Farcry 2′s map was ok but it was annoying during driving because it was a little hard to watch the road and the map at the same time

    i remember the descent maps, awesome but unpractical, ive never been able to find anything, of course d1 and d2 level design was just freaking insane, but the guidebot was awesome (does it count as part of the “map” features ?)

  73. 01/12/2009 at 13:52 Jeremy says:

    The same thing as many commenters said sprung to my mind when I first saw the post: The FC2 map is among the best I’ve seen in a while. I used to run around with it enabled, which is a great thing to be able to do. it showed enough of the real world to allow you to run around, but not enough that you could play the whole game with the map on.

    I don’t remember the STALKER maps, though it’s been awhile since I played. And I’ve always liked the Fallout maps, even fallout 3′s.

    As for non-FPS maps, I think Rome: Total War is my favorite, since the game was played on it. Not played any other TW games though, so no idea how their maps are.

  74. 01/12/2009 at 13:55 Timmy O'Otoole says:

    This may be a bit redundant, but I want a map that gets me where I want to go. For that reason, I like Fable 2′s “breadcrumb” trail. It was a really nice way to keep you in the game at not staring at a minimap in a corner of the screen.

    For an open world, Fallout 3′s compass and map marker system was good.

    In a more closed setting, I like Dragon Age’s map and mini-map displaying points of interest. It always me to get to where I need to go quickly and just play the game. I do not like the “hunt for the peasant who has your next quest goal” mini game that so many titles seem to have.

  75. 01/12/2009 at 13:57 Persus-9 says:

    Well I love the way Far Cry 2 had the nice in game hand held system because it kept you in the game but that good work was completely ruined by the actual map design because just a glance at it tells you it isn’t a map of a real place.

    Test Drive Unlimited had a really realistic map (they just used the island of Hawaii) but the implimentation within the game was down right shoddy and it helped ruin the game by letting you fast travel.

    I think in the end my vote has got to go to Dark Forces. It was pretty well implimented with a basic heads up version and a pause menu version that let you look at different floors and stuff. It was also really necessary at times because those levels got pretty damn confusing at times. However most importantly of all however (no, I’m not being serious) it was the only map to ever really help me in combat and shoot the switch puzzles. See Dark Forces didn’t have a crosshair so if you wanted to shoot a stormtrooper or a switch then you just had to judge where the center of the screen was a hope for the best. The laser bolts would adjust to hit stormtroopers and other bad guys and you would be able to see where they hit but when making long distance switch shots I found I often had to take multiple shots at it, particularly with shots that weren’t on the level thanks to the lack of up/down mouse look, it was basically just a real pain. The heads up map solved this problem because it always put the red mark to indicate your location in the exact centre of the screen and adjusted the level around it – instant cross hair! Thanks, Dark Force’s map!

  76. 01/12/2009 at 14:02 Diziet Sma says:

    I vote for Far Cry 2, which i’ve only just started playing, as it’s integrated and useful. Also Supreme Commander, it’s map system has ruined almost every other medium/large scale RTS for me. Why can’t I zoom out to distance x+dx in your map ffs? You’ve got a fully functionally 3D engine what’s the problem? (C&C and RA i’m looking at you amongst others).

  77. 01/12/2009 at 14:04 Simon says:

    I’d like to take a moment to nominate the worst map in any gave, ever, as far as I can tell: Splinter Cell (Chaos Theory and Pandora Tomorrow for definite – can’t remember what they were like in the original and never played Double Agent).

    They’re the only maps I’ve ever seen which make finding your destination more confusing.

  78. 01/12/2009 at 14:14 Mark H says:

    I’m torn between the first Rainbow Six and Diablo II as my favorite

    The first Rainbow Six could have you spending as much time planning the perfect execution of your mission as you actually spend executing it. It worked great for me.

    Diablo II’s map was simple, versatile, and very effective. I loved being able to make it full screen when I wanted to run around or switch it to minimap when I don’t need it constantly.

  79. 01/12/2009 at 14:16 Meayn says:

    I think the map in Dead Space is a strong contender, although my decision is possibly influenced by the slick user interface design rather than the actual map itself. The slick map is more a by-product of process than an actual feature. Either way it’s still good to use and doesn’t leave you unaware of your surroundings like some map interfaces.

  80. 01/12/2009 at 14:16 KilgoreTrout XL says:

    Ghost Recon & Ghost Recon 2. Sleek, simple, and effective (though not pretty)

    I liked the maps in Shadows of Amn a lot as well (pretty).

  81. 01/12/2009 at 14:19 disperse says:

    I have a nostalgic fondness for the cloth maps provided for the Ultima series.

  82. 01/12/2009 at 14:25 ShavenMonkey says:

    Whilst the maps in Op Flash One were unwieldly, that was mostly due to having simply massive maps. Having a compass and a map with contour lines was a big part of the immersion though and really added to the “I’m standing in a field” effect.

  83. 01/12/2009 at 14:25 KIngC says:

    I like the implementation of maps in games like OFP, arma and IL2 for example, as with realistic settings you don’t see your position straight away, but you need to interpret the map like in real life.

  84. 01/12/2009 at 14:39 Cynic says:

    NOT The X2 or X3 maps, god those things were annoying to use to get anywhere manually. Being able to set the autopilot to go to where you’re looking was the best feature.

  85. 01/12/2009 at 14:45 Walsh says:

    Far Cry and Crysis because of the GPS/Awareness/Binoc tagging. Much joy performing hit and run attacks.

    Far Cry 2′s map was inventive and immersive in execution even though world looked like boxed in silliness.

    Oblivion/Fallout 3 because of the fast travel feature. I feel it’s more immersive if you mod out the point of interest indicators on the compass however.

    Total Annihilation/SupCom for the various filters for range, radar, etc you could display on the map.

    MS Flight Simulator series because the map was so detailed and replicated a lot of NCAO/FAA paper maps, heck you could use a real paper map to fly in game. It would display current weather (pulled from the real world if you wanted), navaids, etc. You could instantly zip to anywhere in the world, change the time of day and weather. It had flight recording so you could trace your movement on the map with airspeed/altitude etc.

  86. 01/12/2009 at 14:46 nabeel says:

    I guess my vote goes to Far Cry 2. Immersive and non-intrusive.

  87. 01/12/2009 at 14:50 Andrew says:

    I submit Dragon Age’s map. It’s functional and stunningly beautiful: looks as though it was made by a master cartographer.

  88. 01/12/2009 at 14:50 Troy Goodfellow says:

    God, where do I begin. I wrote a whole series on strategy game maps for my own blog (which you can check out at your leisure) but a good map is so dependent on so many things. How tightly is it integrated to the game play? Does the map art evoke the theme? When does a map transcend a “board”?

    So short list of favorite maps:

    1) Imperialism series
    2) The Total War maps post Rome engine
    3) the map script generator in Rise of Nations

  89. 01/12/2009 at 14:57 Chaz says:

    The map that springs to my mind straight away, is the one in Doom. It’s nice and simple, easy to see where you are at a glance, and best of all you can still move around whilst in the map view, making it a snap to find your way out of mazes or locate those hidden doors.

  90. 01/12/2009 at 14:59 GC says:

    Maps in Operation Flashpoint and ArmA because they are… maps. Options allow you to see or remove what you want on it so that everyone can like it.

    For anything RTS Supreme Commander did it the best

  91. 01/12/2009 at 15:01 amoe says:

    siren blood curse had a pretty cool looking 3D map.

  92. 01/12/2009 at 15:03 airtekh says:

    Two votes for me.

    ArmA series/OpFlash1 – for pure geographical accuracy

    Thief series – for having maps which were not fully detailed (in a lovely hand-sketched format) and encouraged you to explore.

  93. 01/12/2009 at 15:08 Big X says:

    Battlefield 2

  94. 01/12/2009 at 15:20 Wulf says:

    I like a map that has the following…

    - Clearly defined lines, no obfuscation for the sake of it (a cartographer would balk at some MMO maps).
    - If there’s a minimap, it should be square and the only details present should be the important ones.
    - It should have clearly defined points of interest, or allow me to set my own.

    I liked the square map mod from NWN2, I found that Torchlight had very clearly defined maps and was enhanced by the brighter map and square minimap mods, and I rather liked the main map of Champions Online but hated the minimap.

    The thing is, a cartographer might draw frills on the edge of their map, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to draw every tree, and every bush, and there’s a reason for that. It’s because maps shohuld be easy to understand and follow, if a map is too “pretty”, it fails at that purpose.

  95. 01/12/2009 at 15:27 Now wait a sec... says:

    Kick Off 1 and 2, extremely important map. Without it I would suck even more.

  96. 01/12/2009 at 15:31 Dave says:

    Red Faction: Guerrilla had a nice map system. While it suffered a little from consoleportitits, the ability to set a waypoint anywhere and have it generate a path that renders in-game for you is quite nice.

    Just the sort of thing Borderlands could have used. Can I anti-nominate Borderlands? Inconsistent waypoint markers, completely unintuitive scrolling, unlabeled zone transitions and a general laxness about actually helping you navigate.

    • 01/12/2009 at 19:47 Wisq says:

      Seconded for RFG. Saints Row 2 had the same map system (being by the same company and all), and did much better pathfinding, although that’s obviously because they had the luxury of being in a city with well-defined roads and non-destructible buildings.

      The map is always north-oriented, meaning you get an idea where you are; the minimap is either north-oriented or forward-oriented based on your game options. Solves both problems — knowing where you are, and knowing how to get places.

  97. 01/12/2009 at 15:33 Man Raised By Puffins says:

    I really can’t think of any particular stand-out favourite.

    Brütal Legend has a gorgeous hand drawn map (yes, yes, I know this is console heresy, but I honestly can’t think of a nicer looking one), somewhat let down by its low level of clarity.

    GTA4 has an almost functionally perfect in-game map, crisp and clear, you can whip across it, zoom in and lay down GPS markers with ease. Unfortunately that clarity means the paper map carries a lot more useful information (eatery locations, clothes shops, place names) which could have easily been included in a secondary, information dense, mode for the in-game map.

    My opinion of the Far Cry 2 map is similar in the sense that while I find the implementation is great, looking down to check your position while driving works a treat, you still need to occasionally pause and consult the paper map because it shows all of the checkpoints, while the in-game small scale map doesn’t.

    • 01/12/2009 at 17:37 Benjamin Finkel says:

      Love is wunderbar and all that, but if the map isn’t the most useless token at this point I will eat someone’s hat. That map is *not good*.

      May as well just jump on a big tower and see the planet for yourself – it certainly works better.

      Ben

    • 01/12/2009 at 22:00 Jacques says:

      It’s not good as a map at the moment, but it’s got a massive amount of potential, unlike most of the other stuff mentioned here. And it’s also interesting to look at.

  99. 01/12/2009 at 16:03 minipixel says:

    Another vote for Diablo 2′s. A very effective design.

  100. 01/12/2009 at 16:06 Chiller says:

    Thief, because it fit in perfectly with the gameplay, giving enough information while encouraging exploration (actually, Thief 2, since it had the useful automap feature that highlighted zones you had visited thus removing some of the confusion that was possible at times).
    And, of course, Oblivion, because it had fast travel :D

  101. 01/12/2009 at 16:11 d00d3n says:

    I always found the map in Little Big Adventure 2 to be impressive. The in-game graphics are somehow very suited to being used both as a map (heavily zoomed out) aswell as the normal overhead view. Because of this the map becomes an essential part of how you visually experience the game rather than just a utility.

  102. 01/12/2009 at 16:37 underproseductor says:

    Maps in the first few Rainbow Six games and Heretic automap is good enough for me.

  103. 01/12/2009 at 16:39 Meesh says:

    The map in Natural Selection – as it gives you a decent overview of what’s going on from the commander’s viewpoint, as well as providing a good overview for people who don’t know the maps by FPS-view only. (I recently found a vent in the ns_ayumi level i never knew about…)

  104. 01/12/2009 at 16:39 Flint says:

    I like the one in Metroid Prime games. You can zoom in and out and rotate it however you want in order to get the right view you wish and the legend is detailed enough.

    However, even that lacks a feature which I find to be absurdly rare in game maps – the ability to write notes on the map. I don’t want to rely on my memory only where a suspicious looking object is, let me write it down for future reference!

  105. 01/12/2009 at 16:40 bananaphone says:

    There’s a mod for Oblivion that makes the map look really lovely, does that count?

  106. 01/12/2009 at 16:45 SheffieldSteel says:

    Best ingame map: Thief 2.

    Reasons: It is a plausibly hand drawn object, such as might be given to your character by someone who knows the location. It does not show your exact location beyond reminding you which room you’re in (in case you forgot). It does not magically update to give the current positions of enemies, quest givers, and any interesting shiny objects that you OUGHT TO LOOK AT.

    In short, it is a navigational aid rather than a nanny.

  107. 01/12/2009 at 16:45 Adrian says:

    i think the best map i know is the one of supreme commander forged alliance. i just love that game and map are not 2 different things anymore but that you can just zoom out until it looks like a mini map! i don’T know why but i can use this so much better than a fixed mini map!

  108. 01/12/2009 at 16:45 Jeremy says:

    I wasn’t really as thrilled with the FarCry 2 map as a lot of people seem to be. I can appreciate them trying the immersion thing, but when I’m looking at a map, I kinda want the world to stop. Generally, when I feel the need to look at the map, I don’t also want to be driving/dodging bullets/avoiding trees. For me it was actually more annoying because I had to find a safe spot to look at the map, and while realism is a great thing in games, there’s sort of a plateau where the reality ceases to be fun.

    My nomination would be for Sins of a Solar Empire, because of the ease of moving between a tactical and strategic view, and always being able to get exactly the information you need at any point. If I need to zoom in and control a group of ships, it’s incredibly simple to go from one side of the galaxy where you’re building or developing, and then to zip across a couple star systems and immediately be in a battle controlling individual frigates. Lovely stuff.

    I would say the Diablo 2 map is nice as well, the only problem being that I realized I was no longer playing Diablo 2 but, Fill in the Map and Make sure the Red Thing Doesn’t Go Empty (working title).

  109. 01/12/2009 at 16:52 jeremy says:

    It has to be Silent Hill. The Silent Hill games combined the authentic looking sketched/found quality of maps of the town and specific areas, and as you explored the environment dynamically edited those maps with your character’s red pen annotations, making it perfectly clear where each every one of the infamous “broken locks” were located without breaking immersion.

  110. 01/12/2009 at 17:33 dhex says:

    far cry 2 did it pretty dang well and in character.

    going back in the day, ultima underworld! loved that map.

    • 01/12/2009 at 17:53 Magnus says:

      I was going to mention Ultima Underworld!

      It was detailed enough so you could find your way about, and had plenty of space for writing notes. It was perfect for me, because I hated using squared paper, but I also don’t particularly like some modern automaps, which try and map everything for you (and sometimes don’t even have a note feature!).

  111. 01/12/2009 at 17:39 Agrajag says:

    WAR had a very nice map. Informative, just enough for you to know where to go and narrowed down the search areas, you could navigate even in map mode (and run into a tree). Everything borderlands map isn’t. As for tactical maps, R6 and R6.2 were excellent. No two ways to interpret where you can or can’t go, what’s an obstacle no matter how it looks (“What do you mean I can’t jump over it?”). Cod4 had was also very informative and simple to read, gave you quick tactical info – you, friends, enemies and possible routes.
    Having said that, l4d2 sometimes feels it can use a map. But I’m glad it’s not there.

  112. 01/12/2009 at 17:46 Sulkdodds says:

    The best map in a game was in the dinosaur management game Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. Every time I added something new to my park on screen I would build a corresponding feature in lego on my floor. As my in-game park grew, so too did my lego floor kingdom. However, this probably counts as user-generated content.

  113. 01/12/2009 at 17:47 mpk says:

    I remember playing about 80% of Heagemonia from the map.

    Other than that, Doom.

  114. 01/12/2009 at 17:57 linfosoma says:

    The GPS in Test Drvie Unlimited was cool, I liked the way it zoomed in and out.

  115. 01/12/2009 at 18:20 Zoso says:

    Another vote for Descent, full on 3D madness, and this was back in the early 14th century. Or maybe 1995.

  116. 01/12/2009 at 18:20 Jim Reaper says:

    The first thing that sprang to mind was the map in the original Dungeon Keeper. Gave you a nice clear view of what was going on….

  117. 01/12/2009 at 18:22 PleasingFungus says:

    Since we’re not limiting ourselves to PC games, and since no-one’s mentioned it yet, I feel I have to put in a mention for ODST’s maps. Google isn’t finding any good screenshots of it, but it’d be hard to get one that really shows off its true eye-candy nature, because it’s [i]3D[/i]. Far fancier than it has any need to be. Made me say “oooo” every time I saw it.

    Plenty of people have also given nods to Thief; the maps there were excellent for all kinds of reasons, but most memorable are the times in which you go off the map, your position now noted with something along the lines of “Where the hell am I?”

    Oh, and Flint’s comment reminds me about the Metroid Prime maps. “Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!” [zooooooom-out]. “Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!” [zooooooom-in] Good times.

  118. 01/12/2009 at 18:55 Bret says:

    I don’t know if it’s anywhere near the best (In fact, it kinda sucks for the more complicated 3D designs) but I like the Marathon series’s aproach to mapping a fair deal. Button to bring up a full screen automap, which stays up until you either figure out where you mean to go or you decide that you can’t kill the enemies attempting to slaughter you with a map in your #^%#ing face.

    Makes navigating the levels a lot easier once they’re clean, provides a little more tension when there are still folks out there that want you dead…

    I like it. All I can say.

  119. 01/12/2009 at 18:56 kateri says:

    Nobody has mentioned Etrian Odyssey yet? For shame.

    You have to draw your dungeon map yourself on the DS touchscreen, and you have lots of little icons you can add for traps and such, it’s the most fun part of the game, and gives you the fun of the oldschool without the hassle of the actual paper!

    • 01/12/2009 at 22:39 Vinraith says:

      Yes, the Etrian games do warrant special mention here, despite being on DS. They are, after all, the natural inheritors of the venerable PC Wizardry series, it’s just that they conveniently provide you with graph paper in-game.

  120. 01/12/2009 at 19:21 SirKicksalot says:

    Fuck all other answers, R.U.S.E. is the One True Winner.

    *goes back to playing the beta*

    • 02/12/2009 at 14:20 Schmitzkater says:

      I hate how, whenever you move the camera even the slightest bit the angle that you’re viewing the game at snaps back into some kind of standard position.
      Really made the beta pretty much unbearable for me.

  121. 01/12/2009 at 19:35 MyVote says:

    Operation: Flashpoint’s which (I assume) are based off of military terrain maps. You had to refer to it often since you were frequently given orders to go to whatever grid sector which added immersion (no quest compass arrow here!) and allowed to tactically plan a route using cover and obstacles.

  122. 01/12/2009 at 19:38 sidereal says:

    Civ IV. The game is played on the map.

    Diablo 2 (did Diablo 1 have this?) for introducing a semi-transparent minimap that you can just leave on as you play.

    LOTRO, for putting quest icons on the map, so you don’t have to spend any time trying to find anything.

    • 02/12/2009 at 20:01 Edgar the Peaceful says:

      There’s nothing quite like slowly revealing a CIV IV map during the Ancient age – little inklings of resources, river valleys and other civs here and there. – Best bit of the game.

  123. 01/12/2009 at 19:44 stormbringer951 says:

    Thief series

    It was an actual parchment map, an in-game object of sorts. It didn’t have a fancy compass attached to it, with your view oriented. If you lost your way, you’d lost your way. Go find a landmark and reorient yourself. And if you wanted to use a compass, well, you had a compass as another item, right?

  124. 01/12/2009 at 19:45 Owen says:

    I have to second the mention of Defcon as the perfect map wielding game. While one could argue that any strategy game is wholly reliant on its map, the fact that Defcon has only been mentioned once ( I believe ) so far, for me, sums up what makes it so unique.

    The entire game is a map, not a landscape or terrain but a map.

    Despite that, it becomes so much more.

  125. 01/12/2009 at 19:52 Scalene says:

    I’m going to go for a non-PC game… Fable 2.

    It has one of the most beautiful maps in a game. Minimaps fucking blow, you’re looking at this tiny, grainy image instead of admiring your surroundings. The map in Fable was *lovely*.

  126. 01/12/2009 at 20:14 Simon Jones says:

    Far Cry 2 is probably my favourite map, because it actually feels like a map. Rather than, say, a menu screen. Although the Far Cry 2 world is disappointingly simple and there isn’t a huge amount of interesting things to actually FIND on the map, it still is the only map I’ve ever encountered in a game that gives the feeling of *using a map*.

    In real life, maps don’t conveniently pause life while you figure things out. When you’re walking or driving, using a map is a hazardous thing. That’s absolutely essential to a good map – if it doesn’t have that thin line of panic and discovery, it’s not a map. It’s just a computer game interface.

    On the flipside, I loved Morrowind’s map. The map itself was interfaced very simply, but it was beautiful – as was the paper version. There was so much on it, it felt like you were really charting unknown territory. Epic.

    A combination of the two, please!

  127. 01/12/2009 at 20:49 PHeMoX says:

    A map should be functional. Lots of fancy looking maps aren’t very functional.

    I think among the best mini-map designs is the GTA one, first introduced in GTA III. Useful, clear and fast. Add an overview map of the entire city and you’ve got all you need.

  128. 01/12/2009 at 21:17 Yunny says:

    Silent Hunter III and IV, anyone?

    You can go as realistic as to mod your own icon out of the map so you would have to do celestial navigation. You could manually enter markers for all contacts reported from hydrophone or from the observation scope. You could manually plot courses for contacts and make interceptions.

    Of course you could turn on all the assisted stuff, too (that’s why your crew members are there, right?), and plot your torpedo attacks manually instead.

    The map is detailed and accurate (some mods make it even better, with reference charts and graphs on the side). The tools they provide for marking and plotting are easy to use.

    Even though SH3 and 4 are both 3D sub sims, 90% of the game is actually played from the map.

  129. 01/12/2009 at 21:36 DMcCool says:

    Another vote for Morrowind’s lovely, lovely map. The way it showed the world -precisely- how it was somehow excites me to this day. Not that I ever used the map that much as the real life one they provided you with was even lovlier.

  130. 01/12/2009 at 21:41 Canarduck says:

    Mercenary. Apart from inventing from scratch the concept of a 3D sandbox world, it had a very elegant map system. Once you found the jet plane, you could go straight into the sky to see the whole city layout from far above, then zoom in seamlessly to any location by navigating your jet towards it. Like Google earth, but in a game. On an 8-bit machine. In 1985. What now, I’m too old for this site?

  131. 01/12/2009 at 21:43 Stijn says:

    The “map” in the alpha version of Love I played was unusable, but looked very pretty.

    (It basically was a 3D view of the surroundings, with a tiny cube for every object. Except all cubes looked the same and there were so many you couldn’t really recognize anything. It looked awesomely magical and mysterious, though)

  132. 01/12/2009 at 21:52 Collic says:

    Add another vote for Morrowind. What I loved about it was you had to actually to read it; along with your compass it was the only way of navigating the world. One of the few maps I’ve ever had to actually use, you know, like a map while playing a game.

    Far Cry 2′s map deserves mention for trying something different, but once the novelty wears off, trying to find out where you need to be heading while driving into trees, or being attacked by plastic skinned, shirtless men loses it’s appeal. I think i’d remember it a lot more fondly for preserving the immersion if there weren’t so many other elements in that game that cruelly destroy it for you.

    Insta -re-spawning guard posts anyone?

  133. 01/12/2009 at 22:01 Web Cole says:

    Yes, I would say Morrowind’s map as well. Despite having played it a very long time ago, and not for all that long, something about that map impressed me.

    I always used to love drawing imaginary maps when I was a kid, a good map should make you want to explore, or should act as a kind of focal point that connects everything in the players mind. Warlords Battlecry 2 did that pretty well, and had a lovely campaign map as well.

  134. 01/12/2009 at 22:17 sebmojo says:

    Hired Guns on the Amiga. Stunningly beautiful and clearly a labour of love for the programmer. Also completely useless (it’s just a non-interactive backdrop for choosing the next mission) but that wasn’t the question, was it?

  135. 01/12/2009 at 22:35 Hmm-Hmm. says:

    Maps are awesome. Then again, I’m also the kind of guy who likes making maps for his own use when the type of game makes it worthwhile (in that it’s usually that, downloading one or wandering around blindly).

  136. 01/12/2009 at 23:03 duel says:

    Populous: the Beggining

    zooming out to see the globe was the epiphany of god games.

  137. 01/12/2009 at 23:03 Hobbes says:

    The star map in ‘Warhead’. I used to spend ages just playing with it.

  138. 01/12/2009 at 23:23 Bib Fortuna says:

    Strange. No-one mentioned Fallout 3…

  139. 01/12/2009 at 23:28 Thants says:

    Yeah, the Marathon one was good. I liked that you could still walk around while looking at the map.

  140. 01/12/2009 at 23:50 Kroker_bambambam says:

    Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising by Rage

    Both the war room map and the 3-D-mesh-topgraphy-and-elevation-and-bogey-speed-and-altitude-and-offmap-objects-direction-you-are-facing ingame minimap.

    The map is smooth, clear, uncomplicated, stylish, builds well into the background fluff and is seamlessly, and I do mean seamlessly integrated into gameplay; you can actually play the entire game from the war room map (by boucing back and forth with F2 to create your own ersatz full-turn-based game)

    From the map alone you can tell that Hostile Waters fully embraces its identity as an actual, honest-to-god videogame (as in digital artefact), so the minimap is all mesh topography and angry pixel-shaped blips zipping around and the war room map is all raw untextured coloured surfaces on frozen mesh.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if no other game map ever has been more honest and any more seamlessly integrated than in Hostile Waters. No muss, no fuss, and everything a videogame interface should aspire to (yes this a computer running this and yes things will look raw-digital as opposed to GPU porn).

  141. 02/12/2009 at 00:09 Ace says:

    There isn’t one that I like specifically, but I would like to mention the one thing I hate when it comes to a lot of games maps; they make you stop moving! It is best when you are able to continue moving while viewing them map. It helps you be more efficient and you can see your adjustments to your direction in real-time.

  142. 02/12/2009 at 00:26 nemryn says:

    I know it’s got a real map as well, but does the magic sword from Shadow of the Colossus count as a map?

    • 13/12/2009 at 13:26 Manley Pointer says:

      Maybe, but can it port the game to the PC?

      (The sword was a great idea, and I really liked the look of the SotC world map.)

  143. 02/12/2009 at 00:36 Tommo says:

    Operation Flashpoint, Arma1, Arma2
    Same map basically. A realistic MIL-SIM with a realsitc map. Has everything, contours, altitudes. grid refs…
    Disable your icon on the map and yo have to use GPS and environment to know wtf you are. love it!

  144. 02/12/2009 at 01:07 VTgamer says:

    I nominate – CIV IV, not only did zoom from close up to a representation of a globe, but i used all the zoom levels to figure out my influences like culture and religion or finding that key resource that let me have a technological advantage.

  145. 02/12/2009 at 01:37 e n i g m a says:

    Please for the love of FSM start designing games where players can take advantage of dual/multi-monitor displays by having a dedicated map screen.

  146. 02/12/2009 at 02:08 Malacola says:

    I’d have to concur with the EVE suggestion. That’s a case of a map not only being useful but also sort of iconic, such that most of the game’s history can be told with the map. It also means that there’s some interesting map vs territory elements, like faction warfare or traveling from system to system, where the map essentially is the game.

  147. 02/12/2009 at 02:09 wileybot says:

    The only map i can think of that was super critical was in jagged alliance, remember that game 100 years ago?

  148. 02/12/2009 at 02:44 dstryr says:

    The metroid prime maps were great because they were so transparent and complicated that interpreting and navigating the map became a game in it’s own right.

  149. 02/12/2009 at 03:04 MrSpandex says:

    Obviously, the best map was in Planetside. Not only did you get a completely separate chat box for hate tells, but your squad leader would always draw up some inappropriate ms paint masterpieces for your entire squad to appreciate while respawning. All kidding aside, the map in that game was everything. It showed you where the battle was, who owned what bases/continents/towers, how the warpgates linked, where your squad was, where you could spawn, and more subtly, took no time to open at all.

  150. 02/12/2009 at 03:35 Caiman says:

    The best maps are the ones we made ourselves, on sheets of square paper with lovely pencil illustrations.

    • 02/12/2009 at 22:21 Iain says:

      I remember doing this for the Spectrum version of Aliens. It was the only way I could ever find my way to and from the Armoury. I mapped it out all the way to Medical and the Generator room and then the lights went out. That game still gives me the creeps to this day.

    • 03/12/2009 at 01:48 mpk says:

      I remember mapping one of the Dizzy games with a mate on graph paper, with the intention of sending it into one of those them there olde fashioned paper magazines. Spent hours meticulously mapping page after page and then spilt some Irn Bru on it and wasted it all. Goot dimes goot dimes.

  151. 02/12/2009 at 04:46 Ed says:

    Operation Flashpoint in Veteran mode. I like the fact that reading the map requires actual player skill and observation/orienteering-esque activities, and annotating the maps as you go along was always very useful in co-op.

    I liked the simplicity of Thief/Thief 2′s map, I also liked the fact that the map could (and frequently did) bear no relation to the way the level was actually set out.

    Sadly the map in most games these days consists of “You are here, quest marker is here, go directly to quest marker, do not pass Go, do not collect 100 angry boar pelts”

  152. 02/12/2009 at 07:22 Ninja Dodo says:

    I like how Assassin’s Creed lets you turn off the GPS mini-map. It makes the exploration more agreeable. You feel less obligated to head straight to the next checkpoint or whatever and stumble upon things more casually. In AC2 it’s also pretty nice how you can customize the map to your preferred level of hand-holding (like showing only story-critical markers, or showing all treasures, hideouts, important NPCs etc).

    Outcast had an interesting map, though I don’t know if I would rank it among the best. It was well-integrated into the fiction, certainly. Was pretty cool how it scanned the landscape the first time you open it up in a new area.

    • 02/12/2009 at 16:53 roryok says:

      or less obliged even.

    • 02/12/2009 at 16:56 Sunjammer says:

      Outcast is still next-gen to me. The world wasn’t ready for that game.

    • 03/12/2009 at 21:58 Ninja Dodo says:

      Indeed. Open-world games still have much to learn from this ten-year old title.

      @roryok: I stand corrected.

    • 13/12/2009 at 13:04 Manley Pointer says:

      The feature you mention for the AC map is indeed pretty cool, but when you are actually trying to use their minimap I found it quite frustrating. Perhaps it was designed for those playing in HD, but in standard definition I found the symbols on the map very hard to tell apart. I remember the icons for “Official” and “Poster” in AC2 being annoyingly similar, to the point where I kept having to pause and use the full map to check.

      The decision to turn off the “memory start” icon — I think it was “!” — whenever you were being chased was also extremely annoying. I know that you can’t begin a mission unless you’re anonymous, but is it too much to ask that you be allowed to tell if you are TRAVELING TOWARD one or not? Ditching or killing the guards was always easy, but it was irritating to discover I’d been running away from my objective after it finally reappeared on my minimap.

      Unless there was some option to adjust this that I failed to discover, in which case…shit.

  153. 02/12/2009 at 07:54 P.T. says:

    The paper maps I made of Bard’s Tale 1 and 2 were great. Really part of the game to make a useful, readable and correct map of the dungeons. Wasted a lot of graph paper on those … (If you enjoy that, check out Etrian Odyssey on the DS as some other folks have mentioned.)

    I remember being amazed by the original Doom auto-mapper. You could actually zoom around in the top-down mode and often could find “hints” (I don’t think they were intentional?) about secret doors and walls in the colors and extra lines on the automap.

  154. 02/12/2009 at 07:58 Melf_Himself says:

    You have to be able to walk on the map!

    If you have not played Sword of the Samurai, I recommend that you do so immediately:

    http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/264/Sword+of+the+Samurai.html

  155. 02/12/2009 at 08:46 ./ says:

    Battlefield 2

  156. 02/12/2009 at 09:29 threeheadedmonkey says:

    The in-game map feature implemented in Diablo 2 has to be one of the less intrusive map systems ever devised. It used to overlay the entire game screen with a semi-transparent outline of the area being explored, marking only a few core locations: player’s own position, the position of his companions and the location of certain landmarks.

  157. 02/12/2009 at 11:37 Swiftasaurus says:

    I’m totally drawn in by the map in Silent Hill 2. I love how you might not even find the map for the area you’re in… and that’s cool, no big deal, you’re just going to have a harder time of it. If you did happen to actually pick up the map thouh, you realise it’s utterly useless at first. Sure it maps out the area, like any good map, but it doesn’t show what doors are locked, what doors just won’t open, what areas might be blocked off by some weird interdimensional growth. However, when you reach an impassable object, or something of note… or even when you’ve been given some kind of an objective, good ol’ James Sunderland pulls his trusty map up and scrawls on it with black marker pen. I always thought this gave the game a real sense of loneliness, his trusty companion IS his map, any people he meets along the way just aren’t helpful to him and 9/10 times are trying to kill him. It looks like real marker pen as well, which is pretty funky.

    Damn… I really want to play Silent Hill 2 now. :/

  158. 02/12/2009 at 12:30 tigershuffle says:

    Lords of Midnight map…………….if my slightly rosetinted glasses of yore are working…….

    not sure if it was included in the game or was a freebie in Crash! magazine that I stuck together with sellotape

    • 02/12/2009 at 18:09 Edgar the Peaceful says:

      Yes indeed – Lords of Midnight – what a fantastic game (in 53k or whatever it was). I mapped its sequal Doomdark’s Revenge, lovingly on graph paper. I remember pulling a sicky from school to get on with it.

      Magnificent games

    • 02/12/2009 at 22:30 Iain says:

      There was a map supplied on the back of the manual for both LOM and Doomdark’s Revenge. A few years later Crash! had both games on the covertape and printed a large, glossy, double-sided map which gave a location square-by-square breakdown of the terrain – one game map on each side.

      It was a thing of beauty.

  159. 02/12/2009 at 13:11 dingo says:

    Usually I don’t care much about maps and they don’t break my immersion in games.
    However 2 stand out mainly because of the way they are presented / made.

    1. Fallout 3 map
    The whole Pipboy interface rocks. Only sour point: The game is paused while using it.
    I would prefer an option to let it run while using the Pipboy.
    Feels a bit like cheating to be able to med up and switch weapons mid-fight while the situation is freezed.

    2. Marauder’s Map from the Harry Potter games
    The map simply rocks (the idea behind it). “I’m up to no good” to make it visible and “Mischief managed” to hide it again. Genius idea to have such a magical map in Hogwards.

    I’m very criticial towards using GPS every da since it really makes us stupid and less able to find the way ourselves although I use those devices once in a while, too.
    I hope that most games will have an option to disable this so I can find my way myself in them, too if I wish to.

  160. 02/12/2009 at 14:48 Hyoscine says:

    Man, I couldn’t agree more. About the map, and now wanting to play Silent Hill 2. Also, what other game gives you story and flavour the way the SH2 maps do? Finding the map that an older, deader you had started to mark up with the “Meet me at Bar Neely” thing was an incredible plot device, underlining the cyclical nature of the town in a way that a cut scene would probably be much too heavy handed with…

  161. 02/12/2009 at 15:13 Quentillius says:

    Far Cry 2′s map is lovely, but games with real ink+paper maps are the best. Role-playing in Oblivion ( If such a thing exists, http://gamingphilosophy.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/first-meditation/ ) I decided not to use the in-game map or that disgusting thing called fast-travelling and relied completly map I had. Oh, what memories….

  162. 02/12/2009 at 16:37 Martin Coxall says:

    Dwarf Fortress’s maps are a thing of beauty. Minimalist and yet hyperdetailed. As they should be.

  163. 02/12/2009 at 16:53 Sunjammer says:

    In terms of look and functionality the Metroid Prime maps are absolutely stunning. But to draw me into the world? Thief. Those maps not only inform you, but make you curious. You see a big block marked “Storage”, you’re going to want to find out what’s in there. It strengthens the illusion of the world.

  164. 02/12/2009 at 16:57 Sunjammer says:

    I think the use of a map as a navigation tool is secondary to its usefulness as incentive to go explore. I know games today are all about rapid checkpointing and leading you by the nose, but for that you don’t need a map. You just need a waypoint on the hud. A map should make you curious and make you wander. This is why the Monkey Island maps were so rad too. First time i saw the Melee island map i wanted to explore the hell out of that island.

  165. 02/12/2009 at 17:01 roryok says:

    Can’t believe no-one mentioned Interstate 76?

    Maps for each mission were a different scribbling on a bit of paper (a napkin, a menu) – no features but what u needed, just like someone had drawn it just for the mission.

    Best of all (if I remember right) when you looked at the map, it didnt pause the game, and you could easily veer off the road if you werent careful, or didnt stop before checking out the map.

    That game was solid gold… I miss it so.

  166. 02/12/2009 at 20:05 Edgar the Peaceful says:

    Bit of a tangent, but does anyone else but those lovely ordenance survey Explorer Maps at 1:25000 scale? I buy one everytime I go away on holiday in Britain, whether I’m planning on doing a lot of walking or not. Truly things of beauty.. Give me contour lines and I’m a happy bunny.

  167. 02/12/2009 at 20:33 chesh says:

    I have not yet played it but Quinns suggests that the map in Pathologic is pretty amazingly integrated into the game and the story (spoilers, obvs, but if you haven’t already read the series, shame on you!).
    Otherwise, I’m incredibly fond of the map in the Etrian Odyssey games for the Nintendo DS. Which is to say, the touch screen is a sheet of graph paper, and you have to draw the map. The only concession to auto-mapping it gives you is shading ground that you’ve walked on.

  168. 03/12/2009 at 11:48 Rhade says:

    Anything that’s practical and easy to interpret. I am so sick and tired of games trying to make their maps fancy or realistic at the expense of practicality. It’s a tool, dammit!

    I remember being insanely frustrated with the map in Fallout 3… oh pip-boy. I hate you with a vengance. So that’s an example of a terrible map system.

    And right now I can’t think of a good one. All I know is that I want detailed and easily interpreted information about the terrain and important areas.

    • 13/12/2009 at 13:14 Manley Pointer says:

      Agree about being frustrated with the Fallout 3 map, despite its nifty integration into the Pip-Boy. The worst thing about it was that when you got into the city, it was often very bad at representing where you actually had to travel — which is sort of the point of a map, right? You would consult the map, decide to head N because your destination was to your N, and then hit an impassable wall of junk that prevented you from going down the street that would lead to your objective.

      I’m not saying there was any way to integrate an “impassable wall of junk” symbol onto the Pip Boy map — it wouldn’t have made sense. Those walls made no sense either, though, and broke immersion for me; I could hop over objects of their height elsewhere in the game, but in the city that apparently wasn’t allowed. Really that map was only useful for setting destinations so that the Magic Arrow would guide you through the correct subways. Then later it was useful for fast traveling so you didn’t have to deal with those bullshit walls.

  169. 05/12/2009 at 06:11 Tiki says:

    I have to agree with the ArmA 2 Map on hard mode, so you had to actually orienteer your way through it, navigate past landmarks, and get lost in the forest etc etc. But for games that are all about the action, Diablo 2 nailed the map problem perfectly non intrusive, not too simple, or stupified and it doesnt feel like cheating, although i always used maphack, because the Light Radius used to piss me off. And I disliked Far Cry 2 so much, played it once, haven’t touched it since, horrible run & gun game.

  170. 06/12/2009 at 16:34 Jakkar says:

    Morrowind paper map! That thing was wonderful.. -everything- was visible on it, beautifully sketched in a slightly scratchy ink style, and pleasantly coloured. So many little black crosses marking hidden secrets all over Vvardenfel (and often under it, or in the waters surrounding).. You could spend forever staring at that map, and then another eternity following it.

  171. 06/12/2009 at 16:44 Jakkar says:

    Ah, forgive the second post – I wished to provide the ‘why’.

    Why is the Morrowind paper map so damn good? Because it makes the game a multimedia experience – I sit at my desk with a sketchbook and pen noting down names, rumours plans and ideas already – now I sit with a map unfolded beside me, propped against a chair – I refer to it as I walk, looking away from the screen but never feel that I’ve lost my sense of immersion, for I am looking straight at an authentic, beautifully painted/sketched map that feels like something a rich man might own on Vvardenfel. It’s not just reference of location, either – it’s showing me secrets that are not hinted at in the game. So many little symbols and crosses – the basic architecture of a ruin depicted in miniature, mixed with some bizarre spiky runic phrase suggests this is a Daedric Shrine. I compare it to the world I see around me onscreen and decide “Yes, this is the place.. Daedric, hm?” and select a silver shortsword, and place magic arrows into the quiver of my bow – then drink a potion of chameleon specifically because this map has hinted that the location is dangerous and likely to be inhabited by dangerous creatures.

    The map wasn’t an addition to the game – it was part of it. Morrowind’s map enhanced the actual gameplay and significantly broadened the appeal of the experience by bringing the game into the real world with you. It had significant connection to the gameworld, it held great value both tactically and in terms of discovering secret riches and exploring unsuspected hidden locations.

  172. 06/12/2009 at 23:12 Doctor_Hellsturm says:

    Ah! Huge ups for reminding me of the great Interstate 76!

  173. 07/12/2009 at 00:54 the wiseass says:

    Guild Wars has one of the best maps every. Well not so much the actual map, but the in-game radar which allowed players to draw stuff on it and share the information with the group. That was just pure awesomeness, simple and effective. You could convey complex information without typing lots of text or be in a voice-chatroom. It’s still a myth to me as to why this features hasn’t been copied by other games.

    Also Zelda: Phantom Hourglass as mentioned already. Being able to take notes on your map quickly became a main feature of the game (especially to quickly find your way around the temple).

    The Freelancer map. Simple, beautiful, effective and yet it got you around a whole universe.

    MY own hand drawn map for Metroid on the NES. Yes back in the old days, the first Metroid did not feature any in-game map at all. So in order to get around without getting lost it quickly became MANDATORY to draw your own map. Unfortunately my scale was a little off when I started doing so and by the end my map was composed of more than 30 single Din A4 pages taped together. It was a beast!

  174. 07/12/2009 at 05:11 Urthman says:

    One of my favorite game maps was a mod for GTA: San Andreas that used overhead screenshots of the game world taken from this awesome video game map webpage to make both the onscreen mini-map and the full-screen map look like the Sattelite View option from Google Maps.

    Since I was playing GTA:SA about the same time that I first started using Google Maps, it gave the game a really cool extra layer of verisimilitude.

    I also really liked the map from Duke Nukem 3D, because you not only had the cool Doom-style vector-line map, but you also had the option to add floor textures which looked really impressive.

    Finally, I have to echo the praise for the Descent map. Rotating that thing around and zooming in and out made me feel like I was living in The Future.

  175. 12/12/2009 at 04:48 Zerahl says:

    Agreed, Defcon’s map is so subtle in its sanitised portrayal of the deaths of millions upon millions in such an alarming context.

  176. 13/12/2009 at 19:37 SomeCallMeDave says:

    Battlefield 2 had the best mapping system IMO, it showed everything you needed to know about and even a live feed on full zoom, perfection!

  177. 14/12/2009 at 02:17 Seth says:

    Sins of a Solar Empire! The best part of the game was how succinct and fluid the map was (mind you, that was a great part of the game)

    Far Cry 2. The map never made much sense to me, but it’s the only game of its kind I can think of that lets me have a truly comprehensive map while still playing the game, i.e. not jumping to an otherwise non-interactive screen. Best of all, I can put it away when I don’t need it. An excellent example of managing space in the game interface.

    But the best map is in Homeworld, period. I can’t believe no one’s said it yet. That ancient map you found in the ruins is your guiding motive throughout the game. It’s not informative and only shows up during load-screens, but its emotional importance within the context of the game is incredible. I wasn’t just at war with the Taiidan. At the load-screen to each new level, the game reminded me that I was a little closer to the Homeworld, and that made all the difference for me.

  178. 14/12/2009 at 08:22 Frosty says:

    I fondly remember unwrapping ultima VI (yes, this was a long time ago), to unfold a nice map of Brittania, printed on something not-quite-canvas, but with a nice sturdy feeling (not like those glossy paper sheets some new games have). This map WAS the in-game map. I played the entire game with it on my lap, wondering about all the strange markings/notes on it. Much of it was written in that runic language the Ultima universe uses, and I had lots of fun exploring/translating the runes and generally puzzling it all out. More than anything this felt like a real map, of a real world and it invited exploration. And so that’s my definition of a good in-game map: It makes you wonder about the places you haven’t been yet and invites exploration. Not to get that sense of completion, but because you want to really KNOW what lies over those hills.

    Ofcourse there’s something to be said for a real, physical map, which you can hang on your wall and study, even while playing other games. I dont see how any purely in-game map can ever hope to compete with that.

  179. 14/12/2009 at 22:31 Bob Bobson says:

    The (complete lack of) maps in Wurm online help it enormously. The wiki has a couple of out of date only roughly accurate maps and the inside of my head has a map growing up around the area I’ve settled in but I can still get impressively lost Even with a compass (and getting one of those rather than navigating my sunrise/moonrise was a heck of a moment of acheivement).

  180. 27/12/2009 at 05:29 Shadowcat says:

    Here’s hoping this doesn’t wind up as a double-post. After about an hour, I’m going to assume that the original post genuinely did fail.

    This is mostly just reiterating what others have already said, but:

    Anything with paper or cloth maps in the box. (It still happens occasionally, but the days of awesome documentation are well and truly gone.)

    Vietcong (obviously)

    Looking Glass did really awesome in-game maps:

    Ultima Underworld & Thief (both awesome)
    Terra Nova (well integrated into the gameplay)
    Honourable mentions to System Shock 1 & 2.

    Irrational carried that trend of believable and non-comprehensive maps into SWAT 4. They’re just static images — as far from a dynamic in-game map as you could get — but they’re appropriate, and immersive.

    Test Drive Unlimited (only just got this a couple of weeks ago, and the first time I hit the map key, my jaw dropped)

    Mafia (probably the best overlay map out there)

    Little Big Adventure 2 (if largely just because I love that game so much :)

    Interstate 76 (thanks roryok)

    Populous: the Beginning (thanks duel)

    And of course, Descent. Which has had some mixed reviews in this thread (some people even claiming its map was useless), so I wanted to say something about it.

    Sure, Descent’s map wasn’t the easiest to use, but that was mostly just a consequence of the complexity of the game environment. The reality is that Parallax clearly worked hard to make that map feature as good as they could, and their efforts paid off.

    Descent’s map was great for several reasons.

    Firstly, you used the same controls to move the map as you did to fly your ship, so panning, rotating, and zooming the map was immediately intuitive.

    Secondly, it was an automap which built itself up as you explored (and some of those levels turned into really amazing structures), and it shaded the lines of the map intelligently to make the layout as legible as it could without hiding any detail.

    Thirdly, if things became too confusing you could easily remove the more distant details to improve local visibility.

    It really gave you everything you needed, and it did its job well. And as much as I loved the Guidebot in Descent 2, manually planning and memorising your escape route in the original game before hitting the reactor was always a fun exercise :)

    Descent 3′s brand new engine meant a brand new map feature, and it probably warrants a mention here as well. D3′s map ditched the wireframes for solid shading with cut-away walls. It’s fairly impressive, and possibly again a necessary consequence of the increased complexity of the environments, but it was certainly harder to navigate in many ways, even if individual portions of the map were more immediately recognisable.

    My major complaint about D3′s map was actually that (like Thief in the pre-DDFix era), it forced a resolution switch. Unlike Thief, there was no particularly good reason for that — the D3 map was still rendered by the 3D hardware… it really should have been resolution independent, and they could have ditched that bitmapped framing to enable this. Resolution switches being slow and noisy on my CRT, this kinda sucked. Ah well.

  181. 27/02/2010 at 15:33 Spork says:

    Not sure if it’s been mentioned, but Silent Hunter 3 on realistic with modded in nomographs. With all the pencilled courses you really feel you’re hunting something.
    FC2 for the sense of immersion, as has been said it’s a pity they swapped the compass for GPS.
    Arma2 for being able to take bearings and do things properly, though would be nice if it didn’t break the immersion a la FC2. Pencil marks would also be nice, but not realistic.
    SWAT4 for the sketch maps.
    EDIT: just realised thread got bumped from wayback by spambots. Oops.

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