What's the Most Immersive Game You've Ever Played?

RADIALTHRONE1

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rayen020 said:
gta san andreas
Morrowind
kingdom hearts
harvest moon 64

I consider myself immersed when i don't notice the weather outside or else think the weather on the game is the weather outside and am surprised when it isn't.
I'm appaled that it took this long (52 posts) for someone to mention kingdom hearts.
OT:
-kingdom hearts 1+2
-oblivion
-fallout 3
-oddly Call of duty 4
 

NuclearPenguin

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Amnestic said:
Simonccx said:
baldurs gate triology, gotta be
o_O Baldur's Gate only had two games and two expansions (not including the abysmal Dark Alliance games which shouldn't bear the Baldur's Gate name).
If you don't think of Dark Alliance 1 & 2 as Baldurs Gate they're actually really good games.
 

deckai

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Probably Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the Wii, with a minimalistic Ui, the way the game mechanics worked and the way the story was told, paired with the graphics (design wise, not power wise), this all in the evening, while sitting in the dark on my couch... yes, the most immersive game I have ever played. (But it's not one of my favorite games, not even my favorite Silent Hill game, but immersive wise, definitely the best I know)
 

Ironic Pirate

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Amnestic said:
Simonccx said:
baldurs gate triology, gotta be
o_O Baldur's Gate only had two games and two expansions (not including the abysmal Dark Alliance games which shouldn't bear the Baldur's Gate name).

I disagree, Dark Alliance kicked ass. It wasn't a Baldur's Gate game by any means, but it was the best PS2 hack and slash game by a landslide. But then again I was like 11 when I played it...
 

Blondi3

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Cowabungaa said:
Tie between:

- STALKER
- Metro 2033
- Skyrim
- Mass Effect 1 and 2
- Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines

-Amnesia
-Mount and Blade Warband
-Tabula Rasa
-Fallout 3
-Fallout New Vegas
-Morrowind
-Baldurs Gate 1/2/Expansions

It's not without reasons that those games would top my favourite games list. Immersion is the quality I look for in a game.
Basically what this fine gentleman said with my own omissions and additions. I also agree with this person's sentiment.
 

JasonKaotic

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Probably Lost Odyssey. Probably. Storyline like that immerses the shit out of me.
I would say Final Fantasy VIII I first played it when I was about 4 or 5, so I can't really remember how immersed I got when I had the full impact...
 

Jack Rascal

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uzo said:
A lot of people in this thread seem to be just describing a game they like, and using 'immersion' like you would use the word 'good'. Seriously ... Final Fantasy? Are you fucking kidding? A game where bitter foes line up and take turns using their most powerful attacks on each other? Sounds like fucking Roshambo to me.
Like you said, everyone has their own interpretation.

I went to the Azores last summer with my friend. The towns were filled with white houses with red tile roofs. My friend was commenting how cute and beautiful they were, I imagined the sound of the roofs if I ran on them and how I would be able to jump from roof to roof, Assassin's Creed style. Even some of the church towers there had nice niches were I could grab and climb. That's immersion for me.

Fair enough, I played a little bit too much AC before I went on that holiday, but still :)

Immersion is when the story takes me and doesn't let go. I must unravel the whole story and need to know what happens to the characters. I do admit that Skyrim's take on the menu is somewhat immersion breaking, but Skyrim is not the most immersive game I've played anyway. For me it would be FFVII and FFX, Assassin's Creed (the first more than others), Demon's/Dark Souls and others I can't think off right now. I need a good story and characters.
 

marcooos

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Theres many in my list so I'll point out the weirdest one which is Crysis 2 it was paced so brilliantly and just drew me in well and truly.
 

Malrock

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World of Warcraft for me, though it would be very close between that and Planescape Torment
 

DanielBrown

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I never get very immersed with games, but there are a few I really got sucked into thanks to amazing stories. The Uncharted series, Red Dead Redemption and Mafia II comes at the top of those.
LOTROs exceptional atmosphere also made me feel really immersed. Especially the first time I ran around in the Bree-fields.
 

dystopiaINC

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KoTOR 1-2
ME 1-2
Assassins Creed 2, Brotherhood, Revelations
pokemon red,blue,yellow,silver,crystal, sapphire, diamond, soul silver,black

(pokemon red gets bonus points for being my first game ever)
 

Al-Bundy-da-G

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Skyrim hands down.

Never before have I spent four straight hours on a game attempting to seperate my book collection based on it's thickness, or organizing my belonging based on which area of the house they belong in.
 

RedDeadFred

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May 13, 2009
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Al-Bundy-da-G said:
Skyrim hands down.

Never before have I spent four straight hours on a game attempting to seperate my book collection based on it's thickness, or organizing my belonging based on which area of the house they belong in.
Agreed. Making your house perfect is an art in Skyrim.
 

Snowblindblitz

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Only seen a couple Heavy Rain posts, but that is the one for me.

The game is mostly an adventure, QTE game, but I've never been so worried for my character in any other game. Knowing that if I fail, the character is DEAD. Not reload and try again, but the story goes on, way to go, you let that person die.

I even felt bad about a bad decision, and when an NPC got in my face about it, felt worse. I think I played that in one setting, and was very tired the next day.
 

Suncatcher

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I've always defined immersion in a game as the point where you forget that you're playing. When you're actually afraid of death in-game instead of going back to your last quicksave, when you make decisions based on what you or your character would really do instead of what benefits you most at the time, when you're excited by your new find or you really want to defeat the villain or really care about the person you're saving. Realism is easy and can be fun; Mount and Blade is the best melee combat simulator I've found and one of my favorite "toys" but I can't get immersed in the flat world and nonexistant story, and there are hundreds of shooters that have beautiful graphics, perfectly bullet paths, and realistic damage effects, but I've never enjoyed playing one.

My top pick for immersion (disclaimer: I have not played Skyrim yet in order to not drop out of university) would probably be Morrowind. I might be influenced a bit by nostalgia here (I spent hundreds of hours in that game as a kid, when I had free time), and I'll be the first to admit that the graphics are crap, the AIs are idiotic, and it's glitchy as hell, but I've never forgotten myself in a game quite as well. The excitement of exploration... the quick and deadly combat... the massive variety of quests and people... the infinite possibilities for your hero that force you to play again and again... the sheer openness of the world...

I was very disappointed by Oblivion in comparison. Sure it was prettier, and smoother, and the combat and control systems were vastly improved, but it lost everything that made the previous game great. There was no point to exploration. Where Morrowind allowed anyone to die, no matter what that did to their precious plot, Oblivion arbitrarily marked half the characters as immortal until they'd served their purpose to some side story that doesn't matter to you. Invisible walls abounded and transportation spells (levitation, mark and recall) were removed to prevent the player from leaving the rails, and replaced with a fast travel system that kills any sense of scope, isolation, etc. Instead of hundreds of quests such that even I haven't found them all in my extensive travels, there were few enough that you could finish them in an afternoon or two. Instead of a complex world filled with competition, politics, and outright war between factions, forcing you to choose between your possible loyalties, you could literally make the same character into the head of every organization in Cyrodil without anyone questioning it. Instead of starting you off as a normal person, barely stronger than a mudcrab, and gradually building up to demigodhood and deicide, you're put up against daedra right from the start and win effortlessly. Overall it just felt so small, and I was always acting for the best game result because I couldn't get past the breaks in immersion.

Enough off-topic ranting. Especially since Oblivion was honestly a good game and decently immersive, just a huge dropoff from its predecessor. Other games that did the immersion well, in my opinion, include the original two Fallout games, New Vegas, Mass Effect (the first more than the second, but both were good), and The Witcher.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines came close, but spent too much time on the rails for me. Though I suppose it makes sense to be railroaded if you're a young vampire being forced along by the domination of your elders...
One that did surprisingly well was Half Life 2; I never had my own choices to make, but the atmosphere of it was such that I lost track in spite of myself and when I hit Ravenholm my first time I was paranoid enough to waste all my ammo making sure corpses would stay down, and while frantically bashing zombies with my crowbar (I was absolutely rubbish with the gravity gun) I discovered that I was actually laughing maniacally and shaking a little IRL.