Aquaria
Knytt Stories
Everything was made by hand in these, and damn, it shows. Beautiful, mysterious, inviting; a constant pleasure to inhabit.
"The Veil" section of Aquaria is stamped on my brain forever, as is the opening guitar music of Knytt Stories. So good!
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/56...47783424A7849/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/56...3C817C826C33B/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/56...ADCB04C6D1B41/
Far Cry 2 made me go a little bit crazy with the steam screenshot button. If it hadn't been for the damn enemies at every junction and patrolling everywhere it would have been the perfect game for doing nothing more than jumping in a vehicle and riding around. Its certainly the first time I've really wished for sense-o-vision, to experience the heat on my skin, the breeze on my face and the smell of the place.
And Oblivion. Because nothing beats clip-clopping around expansive, beautiful countryside on my horse or sitting by the shore under a star-filled sky.
The very little time I spent playing the Void at a friends house was about sightseeing for me. Such a beautiful world.
I'm going to go with Cloud; which had a great vogue a few years back. I just ignore the main gameplay and just fly about, and it's wonderfully therapeutic.
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/
Stalker. Always.
Originally Posted by CROCONOUGHTKEY
^^^ That. Especially SoC and modded. I wish there was a mod where you were alone in the Zone and you just wandered around till you die...
Wow, a shame that one didn't see the light of day, and a very poignant tale of the aftermath - you know the devs were doing it for the love of it.
I'm going to add in WoW circa Burning Crusade because the first time getting a flying mount was really something (it took a bit more than 5 minutes to scrape the gold together in those days as well :) )... Outland wasn't liked by everyone but there seemed to be no end of little areas that were either only accessible from the air or that weren't very visible from the ground and I spent a while pootling around setting up some rather nice screen grabs.
There's a third person actioner from about 1999 called Shadowman which was about the third or fourth PC game I bought which had some pretty cool features for the time. It was non-linear, although some areas would only open after you did certain things in the game), it took place in the everyday world (Liveside) but soon ended up in a parallel world called Deadside. In Deadside, the protagonist, something of an anti-hero, became the powerful and titular Shadowman, armed with Deadside versions of earthly weapons. The theme was voodoo and the Liveside levels were set around New Orleans, with Deadside being suitably grim and surreal. Exploration paid off because some very cool weapons were quite well hidden - the graphics seemed fantastic at the time and once you did away with the resident zombies, mutants, demons and other beasties in each area there was a good bit of exploring and tomb raidery platforming to be done. It didn't get rave reviews but it struck a chord with me and I absolutely loved it.
There is nothing more powerful than a bad idea who's time has come...
No one said Witcher 2 yet? I think I walked around the first chapter for 8 hours.
Is Fuel a decent game? I'm looking for a racing/open world exploring game. I've been thinking about picking it up but I've read a lot of bad things about it.
"You go up to a man, and you say, "How are things going, Joe?" and he says, "Oh fine, fine — couldn't be better." And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Yes, the Void is an absolutely stunning game that manages to create some really interesting environments with some pretty minimalist designs.
Also, any STALKER game.
I remember the first time I saw Atlantis. I had an old laptop that could only play simple games, and the forests in Atlantis were beautiful! I still think of them when in real forests. Unfortunately every other part of the game was disappointing... :)
If you mentioned a game I've played, I agree with you. I regret that I spent only a small amount of time in WoW exploring. Invariably when I did it was geniunely interesting and hilarious fun too (helps to have a lore guide).
Assassins Creed 2 and Bruvs (actually even 1) have some fantastic cities to explore. And Just Cause 2 just destroys me with it's scale. I'm impressed every time I fire it up and get in a plane. But the clone brush is sadly apparent in that one (don't get me wrong; fugging love JC2).
I would add Oblivion to the pile. I didn't use fast travel. And found many an impressive sun rise. Minecraft hasn't had enough noise either :)
A recent Skyrim trailer and thinking about Minecraft made me realise I'd actually like to just walk around the world. To explore in the most rudimentary of senses (hey there's a thing, lets go there!) is something I want to do not only in games.
Yeh the first chapter (and to a lesser degree the others) is extremely beautiful.
Running around in AssBro. With Echoes of the Roman Ruins playing in the background.
Totally this.
I've been waiting for a mod for FC2 which removed all the human enemies, replaced your guns with cameras and then let you roam around taking pictures of wildlife.
As morrowind has already been mentioned multiple times I'll go with Shadow of the Colossus, the sense of scale in the game was amazing. I've never felt so isolated and lonely and yet joyous at the same time.
Just cause 2!
One of the games I am currently making:
http://www.big-robot.com/images/11/dude3.jpg
http://www.big-robot.com/images/11/dude.jpg
http://www.big-robot.com/images/11/dudes.jpg
Nice use of flat shading.
Oh yeah, I've been playing TDU2 and it's great just driving idly through the island, finding others players here and there for a race heh
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