On Exploration

[Cynical skeptic]

I don't know.

There are games that do exploration well, but the rest of the time it seems to exists only to excuse a lack of content. Oblivion/with-guns smacked quite strongly of this. The quantity of content in morrowind was excused by the limitations of the format at the time. But subsequent games were expected to have more of everything and exponentially more content per square yard. Instead we got bigger worlds with less content and some dodgey voice acting. Oblivion-with-guns, for example, becoming more the search for more dialogue from the only decent talent in the cast than anything else. While all the side-content is just that. Random crap with no relevance to the story or purpose in establishing the world as real.

Another example of over-priced fluff standing directly in the way of making a bigger game with more to explore and do is mass effect and it's sequel. Instead of paying some guy to read off a couple thousand pages of flavor text, how about some more variety in missions, planets, and environments with more plot missions and missions that directly establish whats written/spoken in the codex?

We have the tools to make living, breathing worlds. In these worlds, hundreds of pages of text can be compressed into a single observable event. The bachelor party in me2, for example, gives more information and context on the asari than EVERYTHING written/spoken in the codex.

 

[Xerosch]

I think the exploration in Oblivion was very well done. Locations are unlocked once you find them and you can instantly beam to places you've already visited. Yes, it's not exactly realistic but really made me to explore. And normally I hate the concept of an open world.

 

[Yelchor]

I thought Yathzee was negative towards the use of plot/setting information being strewn around the game for the player to pick up along the way. Or maybe as long as the main story has been properly shown and explained the details about certain things related to the game world can provide with interesting insight in a positive way?

I've only played Shadow of the Colossus once, briefly. Everytime people mention it I become more interested in getting it. The few hours I was able to try out at a friend's place certainly made me interested. The Last Guardian in development for the PS3 is apparently a sequel. I have no idea how the project is fairing though, as information about it has stopped being announced.

Exploration has always been a major plus for me. The illusion of freedom can do wonders to one's immersion with the experience.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

How exactly is Arkham Asylum based around exploration? The game is linear, and the most you can hope for in terms of exploration is backtracking ala Bioshock.

Also, SotC was one of the best games I've ever played, but I would argue that the 'traveling' is the weakest part of that game. They have nothing special about landscape except that it was inspired by sepia. Yes, I'm going to ***** at a game for bad graphics when all it wants us to do is explore what I would call a weak excuse for a world. Myst did better than they did!

Myst? Really, Myst? You can't be serious.

 

[PurpleSky]

The daily prize for "Person I Most Want to Throttle," sounds extremely homo-erotic Yahtzee, or did you meant it to be that way?


And is it me, or is it cool as of late for people on the Escapist to disagree with every single article/video Yahtzee makes?

 

[Amazon warrior]

My absolute favourite Thief levels were the roof-top and tailing missions. I tried a lil roof-work in TS, but gave up in disgust when I finally wriggled my way up to a vantage point, looked down and realised that the world had all the depth of a Hollywood film set. *sigh*

ETA: Also, rope arrows. Need more rope arrows!

 

[Forgetitnow344]

I do love how Extra Punctuation reveals that Yahtzee isn't just some casual sod who talks really fast and tells formulaic jokes, and this article definitely reinforces it.

A lot of my gamer friends don't understand my love of games like Silent Hill, Metroid Prime, and Windwaker. They claim all of those games are boring and repetitive, yet I pose the idea that they never even put forth 20 minutes of effort if they believe that. What's boring about a game where you are walking down the street, and suddenly enter a chase with a skinless dog that ends with you at the edge of a cliff at the town square? What's boring about a game where you can scan damn near every rock on the planet for a little tid-bit of knowledge about the game's universe? What's boring about a game that has you actually fucking sailing through storms over miles of in-game ocean with dozens of mysterious islands to explore? All of those games have made my favorites list with exploration being one of the biggest key factors. Unfortunately, I never had a PS2, so I've never had the chance to play SotC. I would absolutely love to, though, given the opportunity.

 

[hermes]

I enjoy exploration in games, but I wouldn't consider SotC as a great example of it. It is truth that you had a huge world to travel trought, but I didn't found it specially mandatory or rewarding to explore it, mostly because it was almost empty.

I preffer games like Fallout 3 or Zelda, were some tought and detail were given to every location, than something like SotC, Assasins Creed or Pure, which seems to be some small pieces or content surrounded by randomly generated landscape.

 

[Neuromaster]

How exactly is Arkham Asylum based around exploration? The game is linear, and the most you can hope for in terms of exploration is backtracking ala Bioshock.

I wouldn't say that it's based around exploration so much as that it expects and rewards exploration. Exploration in this sense is closer to "searching for secrets" than "mapping the country".

 

[challenger001]

I'd like to throw up a game to the mix that actually didn't get a lot of praise when it was out but I loved it for the exploration - Fuel, a 2007 release by Codemasters about post-apocalyptic racing dirt buggies and the like through an enormous open sandbox world.

The races were frustrating and the AI cheaty, and the game was a bit buggy at times but there was nothing more peaceful for me than picking my fave car, and just hurtling off into the wasteland with the GPS off to find a beauty spot, and to smash some fuel cans over. Given that you get fuel (money) for either doing races or smashing through cans laid out on the ground in the open world, it's possible to collect tonnes of cars by just exploring.

I know Yahtzee's not a fan of driving games, but if he or anyone else is understandably struck impoverished and can't afford more games when the November releases come around, I say go fool about in Fuel for a bit. You might like it.

 

[VondeVon]

Extra Punctuation: On Exploration

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer

This always makes me laugh, as it seems to strongly suggest that relocation is not only possible, but greatly desired.

But if you left the land of over-priced games, delayed releases and prohibited titles, surely your rage would decrease equally. We'd be left with only 'Mildly vexed Yahtzee'. I am concerned.

Also, exploration is my first love. It is why I loved Oblivion and was surprised that you didn't.

Although, I confess: more variety in models, buildings and voices split by regions would have been nice. Discovering another random bunch of sheep to murder and people to turn into sheep and THEN murder... I would have preferred the odd 'nekkid dancing cultists' discovery.

Who you could then turn into sheep and murder.

 

[zjspeed]

I got bored with Fallout 3 and Borderlands. Too often I wasn't well rewarded for my exploration.

I agree with the Escapist article "Gordon Freeman, Private Eye" by Craig Owens from January. Valve's Half-Life and Portal games encourage exploration in an amazing way--especially considering the narrative is always so linear.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_236/6999-Gordon-Freeman-Private-Eye

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think Hitman blends stealth & exploration quite well. It's not a sprawling countryside, but many of the quieter or more creative assassinations require quite a bit of searching & investigation to reveal and carry out the key method of ending your target's life.

I'd also argue that at least for me, exploration was a fairly central part of Oblivion and Oblivion 2: With Guns! (Fallout 3). While you rarely had to explore, I sort of thought it was the point of the game, and Bethesda went to a lot of work creating content for you to discover. Exploration was also graphically gorgeous, frequently profitable, and loads more interesting than the main storyline.

My problem with exploration in Hitman, especially the more recent games in the series, is that it leads to a trial and error approach to the game. In Hitman 2 for example, disguises rarely held up under any sort of scrutiny and thus I was left with two approaches to the game. Either, I'd simply get frustrated and start shooting my way to the target (which no Hitman game after the first actually penalized you for in any significant way), or I could painstakingly memorize guard routines in order to find a decent route through a level in order to conduct my murdering with utmost discretion.

The last game in the series, Blood Money, actually balanced things quite nicely by making disguises more durable and allowing the player access to means to remove a handful of obstacles without resorting to a shooting spree. The game still had an "ideal" way to conduct each mission, but the changes allowed me freedom to conduct a hit in a way that seemed more professional than psychotic.

I can agree on the bit about Oblivion however. Beyond exploration to find new things to do, there was always the chance that the next NPC would carry some piece of armor that would complete a set or a magic ring that offered some fantastic benefit. I even appreciated the fast travel system that allowed me to move to a known location if I chose to do so. Sometimes I don't want to actually walk for 20 minutes to reach the dungeon of vampire accouterments or what have you. Other times, I did just want to walk from place to place to see what I might stumble upon. The trouble I had with the game is that the wonderful variation of the overworld is negated when you spend most of your time in either an Ayelid ruin or an Imperial ruin, which suffer from the "This looks exactly like the other 20 ruins I've been in" in much the same way that Fallout 3 forces the player to spend quite a bit of time in copy pasted Subway terminals.

 

[AgentNein]

Thank you dude, you once again prove that you're more than a 'funny snarky reviewer' of games. You GET IT.

I grew up in a rural area, huge expanse of hills and trees and forest behind my house, me and my nephew would explore regularly (my nephew only being three years younger than me, more like a little brother), and the only game that really captured that feeling of scanning your surroundings and getting a bead on the best way to traverse it has been Shadow. It wasn't about finding stuff, unless by stuff you mean just cool vistas. Just knowing your general direction, and figuring out how to get there. Some people just can't appreciate that. Then again I regularly get myself lost in NYC just to explore, so I might be in the minority.

 

[VGFreak1225]

Looking at that list, it's impressive how many of those games I love; The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Metroid Prime being the highest on my list. Those games pull off atmosphere and exploration soooooo well.

Metroid Prime's first person perspective did horrible things to the platforming element...

I would actually say that Metroid Prime is one of the few first-person games where the platforming wasn't crap. Ah well. BAH. OPINIONS.

 

[Dhatz]

I've noticed this phenomena a long time ago: exploration is being widely overrated. I'm not saying we should know the maps from gametrailers or learn the city from published maps, but you can't just think leveldesign or map are enough to make a great game, look at MMOs, they are specifically crafted for exploration of meaningless stupid worlds(you're not convincing me otherwise) and so is all the world, and that's whyI stopped playing borderlands and won't return untll there's a gaming void large enough for me to download 'n' run through Viva la Robolution.

 

[Dave Brohman]

Spot on, sir, once again. I absolutely *adore* exploration in games. I enjoy few things more than seeing what's around the next corner or over the next hill.

One of the things that drove me bonkers while playing the original Fable was all the beautiful, expansive vistas that I wanted to explore but which were forever denied me thanks to the impenetrable barrier that is a two-foot-high split-rail fence.

 

[reiem531]

I have to say, the incredible detail and unsurpassed hugeness of SotC's world set it apart from every other conventionally "big," over-world. While looking for somewhere around the 9th or 10th colossus, I stumbled upon a small lake with beautiful scenery. I later found the shortest path to the next colossus and realized that through the entire game, had I not gone off course and instead taken the shortest possible route I never would have seen that place.

 

[Booze Zombie]

"You know. Fuckwits."
I love it, Yahtzee!

Would Saint's Row 2 fall into the category of "exploration" or does it being in a sandbox make it more of a "dicking around" sort of game, due to every area being built more just to contain the activies and diversions than for aesthetic appeal?
Either way we slice it, though, good fun.

Looking forward to your next video and article, keep up the great work!

 

[MasterV]

Exploration is a good thing, but only if the world is worth exploring. Wind Waker and SotC are the perfect examples of a world not worth exploring imho. Empty, bland with next to nothing in rewards.

On the other side of the scale we have games like the Metroid Prime Trilogy and the recent 2D Castlevanias. Games with worlds full of secrets and wonders at every turn.