Gamasutra dissects open world games

by Jason Dobson { Sep 26th 2007 at 10:29AM }

Following up on his recent look at difficulty in game design, Gamasutra's John Harris is at it again, this time offering an ample look at what he calls 'open world games' -- titles, according to Harris, where a player is dropped into a larger world and left to figure things out on his or her own. Like his difficult games feature, the lion's share of the article is spent looking at specific examples of games he feels fit this mold, from arcade and 8-bit classics to more contemporary examples like the Grand Theft Auto series.

Interestingly, despite GTA's inclusion in the list, Harris concedes that most of the article is spent talking about older games, an observation for which he makes no apology. According to Harris, older games feature "more elemental designs," meaning they don't get all caught up in trying to be more than just a game. Even so, the list is pretty random, with nods to titles such as Cadash, Crazy Taxi, and even Warren Robinett's Atari 2600 classic Adventure, while MMOs go strangely ignored. This last bit seems more peculiar given that that author himself spends time writing scripts for Second Life, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.

[Disclaimer: I wrote for Gamasutra from March 2006 to August 2007.]

Tags: adventure, cadash, crazytaxi, gamasutra, gta

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

J.Goodwin @ Sep 26th 2007 10:47AM

Good god, I love the Cadash.

I'm honestly not sure that it's materially different from Lord of the Sword or Zelda II though. I haven't played Adventure of Link, but I played quite a bit of Lord of the Sword.

Cadash is basically just an iteration on that side-scrolling ARPG theme, adding additional classes and a lot more speed (duh, it's an Arcade title).

Slinks @ Sep 26th 2007 11:06AM

What, no Shadow of the Colossus?

Clack @ Sep 26th 2007 2:01PM

Hah, I was nearing the end of the list and I thought
"Hmm, no Legacy of the Wizard, what a shame."

Fortunately they came through for me :) It's a great little game, one of the few NES rentals I set forth to beat and never did. Great mesh of RPG, adventure, and puzzle elements.

shoez @ Sep 26th 2007 1:09PM

Where the hell is Ultima VII? I feel violated.

John H. @ Sep 26th 2007 2:48PM

Disclaimer: I wrote the article in question.

Why no Shadow of the Colossus? Really, because I didn't think of it. D'oh! Also, I'm trying not to duplicate games between series, and there's a good chance I could end up talking about that one later.

Why a random mix focusing on older games? Not just for the reason I gave in the article. Older games are less likely to be known to a wide audience, and by focusing on the list's theme in a wide variety of ways, I hope to cast light on the subject from many different angles.

I feel I should remind everyone that game developers are the primary audience for this article, so I get into some fairly esoteric issues here (like in the Dragon Quest III section).