Most fun game world to explore?

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Ok, I'm going to give a FIFTH answer for the "single most fun game world to explore". Although I don't know if "fun" covers it, but it's certainly one of the most rewarding. "Fallout 3". I go for F3 rather than "New Vegas" because I think the richness of the world itself is the one advantage that "Fallout 3" has over its sequel.

 

[pilouuuu]

Most have already been mentioned:

- Bioshock: Amazing world. Much better than Infinite, because here you believe you're in an Utopian society gone wrong.

- Sleeping Dogs: the interactions (hitting) with the people in the town are really funny. Exploring the place in a fast car is amazing and the city looks great and so alive, especially when it rains!

- Farcry 3: So good looking island environments with fauna and flora. Really fun just to go around hunting and setting the jungle on fire! And it has vehicles!

- Batman Arkham City: nuff said. I just wish you could drive the Batmobile. That's going to be solved in the next game though! And it'd be nice to have more people around the streets. Which we'll also be improved on Arkham Knight.

Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3 are probably going to be the best worlds soon. Hopefully Dragon Age Inquisition as well.

 

[his1nightmare]

Plain and simple: Metroid Prime.
Not a single polygon or frame I saw during my playtime went by without astonishing me. I'm also ranking this game so highly that I can't find a second example.

Metroid Prime 2/3 aren't precisely worse than 1 in this aspect, but 1 simply has this absolute feeling of loneliness, underlined by every portion of design.

 

[Hero of Lime]

2. Pokemon Black 1 & White 2 (I put them on the same spot, essentially they're the same region (Unova) just at different times)

Agreed! I know a lot of people think Unova is too linear and boring, but to me it's a really fun region to do stuff in as far as Pokemon games go.

OT: Link Between Worlds may have had a smaller map compared to other Zelda games, but that game is great for exploration and just running around having some fun collecting things and fighting enemies.

The Metroid Primes are another good example, it can be easy to miss a lot of the scenery in those games unless you do some exploration.

Far Cry 3 was pretty good as far as exploration is concerned. I didn't even do many optional missions yet I still had lots of fun just running around the island goofing off.

 

[TrevHead]

Darksouls get's my vote, but Morrowind & Skyrim are fun to explore even though repetitive after 100 hours, Morrowind while showing it's age is better than Skyrim due to the latter's overuse of fast tracking and quest markers. Dragon's Dogma Vanilla is fun to explore and not ruined due to the lack of fast travel until the mid point.

Best exploration in a 2D game? Hmmm Aquaria by far, although Dust: An Elysian Tail is fun too.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

D. Souls (pick any, they each have their highlights). All of them are fantastically designed, though Dark Souls 1 is the most polished.

Cyrodill (pick any TES game) because they are so vast and rich with lore. DC in Fallout 3 and New Vegas as they are densely packed with tiny details that make exploration worth it (the original games weren't that fun to explore, though I still love them dearly). Bethesda and Obsidian are great at world crafting.

Von Braun in System Shock 2 is sublimely atmospheric and to a lesser extent Citadel Station in SS1 (it can get tedious). Pretty much any "Shock" game really. Each game has their own unique atmosphere and the themes are really well implemented to make you FEEL like you are there. Whether it's lost in the vaccum of space hunted by aliens and rogue AI or finding your way around a submerged "eden" inhabited by the insane remnants, the Shock series is packed with atmosphere.

The Stalker games, with some modding (heck even vanilla is great if you escape the bugs), are very high up on my list of worlds to explore. Pripyat and the surrounding locals are dripping with atmosphere, stalked by spooky monsters and vicious bandits, inhabited by lonely wanderers and militant gangs... and dat lewt.

If I was to choose one of these, it would be Stalker with or without mods. That series is great at creating a play space that makes you want to explore and the trek rarely if ever gets boring or tedious (unless you have a poorly tuned difficulty mod or frequently encounter ctd bugs).

 

[Kyrian007]

I'm going to pick a game that I haven't even played: Far Cry 3. =3

The reason I say that without having played it is because I'd imagine it must be loads of fun to be stalking up on an enemy encampment, plotting out how you're going to infiltrate it, which guards you're going to take out when and where, only to have your plans completely ruined by..........a random, wandering tiger strolling into the camp and clearing it for you.

That doesn't happen. Encampments often have a Bear or a Tiger or something caged up, that if shot from a distance usually clears the camp. Then when your buddies come in and take over they can take care of the bear and you can take the skin for crafting. Win win.

Correction, it may not often happen... but it can happen.

I was scouting a jungle location from a nearby hill when I heard the ambient tiger's roar. I immediately juiced up (hunters instinct) to locate the tiger, because I had been caught napping planning an attack before. The tiger was down between me and the camp. I marked it and continued scouting the base. Caught some movement at the corner, a guard was walking the perimeter. And he walked close enough to see the tiger... and he flipped out and started blasting away. The tiger quickly mauled him to death, but his screaming drew 2 more guys from the base whom the tiger mauled to death first one then the other. While the tiger was on top of the second guy, a third emerged from the base with a flamethrower. He torched his buddy, and the tiger, and died when the resulting grass fire ignited a nearby barrel. Somehow the explosion (or maybe a stray bullet or something) hit the cage in the camp opening it up and releasing one of those big ass birds. It charged a guard running from the fire, and the roof sniper (who had been awfully quiet so far,) opened up on the bird. But in liu of a sniper rifle, the sniper was armed with a rocket launcher. The blast took out the bird, the guard, and a nearby jeep.

I don't know how the sniper died. I had to stop watching as the grassfire was nearing my position. But while hotfooting it to relocate I got the mission complete with the no alarm and unseen bonuses.

As far as gameworlds... I'd say Minecraft. You're always finding something new and different. The Elder Scrolls games and the Fallout games are great to explore, but I tend to find and explore everything by the second time through the game (if not the first.) With Minecraft it's new evey time.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Either Brothers or Far Cry 3

Brothers is a gorgeous world that takes you from the top of a mountain range to deep underground and everything in-between. It looks amazing, and the game actually encourages you to sit down and enjoy the scenery every once and a while. Kinda a "ENJOY MY SKYBOXES!!" moment.

And Far Cry 3 because you have no idea if you're going to be jumped by a heard of komodo dragons or, like I found the other day, two pirate cars crashed into each other, on fire, with the pirates just milling about, waiting to be picked off. The pure randomness of it makes it so exciting to just walk around and experience the islands.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Metroid hands down. Every game had an interesting, vivid, creepy world with many areas to open with new equipment and secrets to discovery. Except for Other M's constant chatter and dull Samus monologues and Prime 3's occasional radio chatter, you felt isolated in this hostile little part of the universe with no choice but to look for upgrades and fighting whatever acid spewing creatures found you. The art design in most games also made everything feel lush and alive despite the limitation of whatever hardware was running it, a testament to Nintendo R&D 1 and Retro's art teams. Other Metroidvania games by definition should have the exploration part, but many get the mood right, too. Aquaria's ruined cities and temples along with the Abyss will certainly creep you out while still peaking your curiosity. Castlevania's metroidvania entries of course need a mention, too.

Final Fantasy 1-9 and 12 also had many great lands to explore. In the first nine, you could explore to your heart's content as far as you could go an foot, then farther and farther as you got better vehicles and chocobos. I think that made the world seem more real. 12 at least let you walk to many different areas, some of which never needed to be visited for the main story and opened more as the story progressed. 10 regrettably was the first hallway before even 13's was conceived. But, it was a good game (so this went unnoticed, unlike 13) and did get better when you got the airship. FF world exploring magic was lost with that decision though.

People already mention The Elder Scrolls and the Fallout series. Any western RPG that puts great effort into a living world deserves a look.

Also already mentioned but not enough: Okami. If you like Zelda style games, vivid and colorful worlds to explore, and are even remotely interested in Japanese mythology, drop what you doing and get a copy and a PS2/Wii, now. Luscious landscapes made even more beautiful with your increasing arsenal of brush powers, mythical demons to fight and exorcise, crazy characters to meet, and secrets out the wazoo, this game had everything. It's DS sequel was good, but didn't live up to the original. Platinum Games or Capcom needs to make another full console sequel, and every should buy it.

The first Jak and Daxter, when I first played it, filled me with awe. It was a science fantasy adventure with anti-grav zoomers, magic energies of the universe and magitech ruins to explore. I was hoping Naughty Dog would do some world building with this series, then Jak 2 came out. It toned down the ancient technology and magic aspect and went with guns, racing and brink of Armageddon mood. They can keep Jak's tough guy attitude but I wish someone world pick up this series and go back to the roots with ancient machines and eco magic being at the heart of the story and gameplay. Jak 3 kinda turned it around but didn't go far enough, constant desert buggy missions didn't help that.

Pikmin, despite being "earth" at a near microscopic view kinda world, is really original. Looking for parts, pellets and treasure while fighting off the creatively designed wildlife in various locales makes that one crazy world to trek through.

 

[rutger5000]

D. Souls (pick any, they each have their highlights). All of them are fantastically designed, though Dark Souls 1 is the most polished.

Cyrodill (pick any TES game) because they are so vast and rich with lore. DC in Fallout 3 and New Vegas as they are densely packed with tiny details that make exploration worth it (the original games weren't that fun to explore, though I still love them dearly). Bethesda and Obsidian are great at world crafting.

Von Braun in System Shock 2 is sublimely atmospheric and to a lesser extent Citadel Station in SS1 (it can get tedious). Pretty much any "Shock" game really. Each game has their own unique atmosphere and the themes are really well implemented to make you FEEL like you are there. Whether it's lost in the vaccum of space hunted by aliens and rogue AI or finding your way around a submerged "eden" inhabited by the insane remnants, the Shock series is packed with atmosphere.

The Stalker games, with some modding (heck even vanilla is great if you escape the bugs), are very high up on my list of worlds to explore. Pripyat and the surrounding locals are dripping with atmosphere, stalked by spooky monsters and vicious bandits, inhabited by lonely wanderers and militant gangs... and dat lewt.

If I was to choose one of these, it would be Stalker with or without mods. That series is great at creating a play space that makes you want to explore and the trek rarely if ever gets boring or tedious (unless you have a poorly tuned difficulty mod or frequently encounter ctd bugs).

Stalker would be my favorite game if it wasn't for bugs. I'm not sure if the world was so great to explore as that the enemies were just great. Sporks and bloodsuckers truly made a creepy laboratory creepy, sure the darkness really helped. But the main reason I hated getting into a dark building was because I feared getting corned by those bloodsuckers and sporks. I never played any mods though. What would you say is the best mod?

 

[verdant monkai]

Elder Scrolls IV OBLIVION's Tamriel.

Tamriel is for the most part a rather dull green field but there are so many ruins, quests and things in this field that that the field becomes rather fascinating.

Also The Metacon from Xenoblade chronicles (which I cant be asked finishing) the whole game is based on the metacon who is a colossal humanoid robot.

 

[Amaror]

Risen or Gothic series.
They are not particulary pretty or have impressive scenery, but by god is it fun to explore in these games.
Normally i don't like exploration that much, theres just not enough happening, but in those worlds you usually find something everywhere, without things getting too crowded.
It can be something small, like a few more or less rare flowers for alchemy, maybe a single ore vein. It can also more like a cave with multiple gold or iron veins. Or maybe a treasure, or a digging spot, or a part of a legendary weapon to reforge, or just a chest with a few usefull items, or some enemies to kill, or a fun sidequest to stumble upon, or an ancient temple, or a lonely house, ....
It's SOOOO fun!

 

[Rangarig]

A game in which I really enjoyed the exploration is "Lord of the Rings Online". Not only does the game include some truly marvellous vistas (at least when graphics set to Ultra), but it was just awesome stumbling into various people, locations, and events from the books and role-playing games.

Fun little anecdote: I was fighting off a pack of wolves, and backing away from their lunges, when I suddenly backed into a stone wall. Killing the last of the wolves, I looked around and up, into the faces of three petrified trolls standing around an old camp site ...

 

[shteev]

Standard Bits. Rarely has a completely abstract, lo-res 2d environment been so compelling.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Stalker would be my favorite game if it wasn't for bugs. I'm not sure if the world was so great to explore as that the enemies were just great. Sporks and bloodsuckers truly made a creepy laboratory creepy, sure the darkness really helped. But the main reason I hated getting into a dark building was because I feared getting corned by those bloodsuckers and sporks. I never played any mods though. What would you say is the best mod?

Well it depends on what you want, but note the only mods I played to any significant degree have all been in Shadow of Chernobyl so that is what I'll talk about:

***To start with Stalker Complete is the most vanilla of the major mods. There is a version of this mod for each of the Stalker games, but I only played Shadow of Chernobyl. It greatly improves graphics and effects, and fixes MANY of the games bugs that were missed. If you get this mod you will likely never encounter a bug beyond extreme cases of the Xray engine getting bogged down by many world events.

It doesn't change anything that would affect the core games feel, it's all aesthetics and polish, so if the core game is sufficient try this out. However, later editions of this mod require a decent computer as the graphical overhauls becomes quite resource hungry. Some people say it simplifies combat against AI stalkers because of certain streamlining it did with the AI, but the combat was always rather simplistic in the vanilla game so I hardly noticed even on higher difficulties.

***If you want an overhaul mod that simply adds content to the game, try one of oblivion lost compilation mods. Oblivion lost, at it's core, just unlocks and restores a lot of cut content, mainly enemies and certain AI tasks that never made it into the finished game (like grenade tossing and Controllers actually controlling other AI). It also adds Blowouts which were absent from the first game and make them a random event that happens every few in game days, just to mix things up.

But, with a compilation mod you get tons of extra content on top of that (which aren't simply restored content from the CD). New weapons, new armors, more weapon customisation, better graphics, new effects, new AI variations. There are different compilations going by year (2007, 2012 etc.) The later ones include resource intensive graphical updates so again you'll want a decent computer to run it, otherwise stick with 2007/8 version, which were prior to graphical overhauls.

I'm not sure which mod does what, but there are overhauls to combat mechanics included making combat way more lethal to you and the AI. However depending on you skill as a FPS gamer, it can either be cripplingly punishing even on low difficulties or extremely easy as you can lay low entier swaths of enemies with a single clip. It also suffers from the same over abundance of ammo the original game had, even with tweaking the economy to make it necessary to scavange most resources (increased weapon damage means you don't need to "tier up" to better weapons later on, which means you can stock up on AK ammo which is extremely common in drops and blaze through the game).

The Oblivion lost mod has a few problems. The larger the compilations the more it burdens the xray engine, so it is possible to see a few CTDs in your playthrough, though there is enough tweaking to the core games bugs to make them a sight less common then vanilla. It's also not particularly well balanced and you'll find the difficulty spikes dramatically in certain areas (especially with snipers).

Regardless, there is TONS of stuff added in these compilation mods as to make it worth it and they all add up to improve the core game without changing the formula too much. I only touched on some of the more immediately obvious changes, but there is TONS of stuff. If you want the game to feel fresh and different, this is a good mod to go with.

***Now with all that said, I'm currently playing Zone of Alienation. This is probably my favourite mod as it injects a whole new level of tension to the game, but it is very much an "acquired taste" mod. It has some of the stuff that Oblivion Lost has, such as lore friendly cut content (certain creatures that were cut aren't canon and therefore aren't restored), and it also has a LOT of new weapons. There are massive tweaks to combat making it feel a lot more weighty and violent. Ammo is far more scarce and more integrated to the combat experience then in other mods. The reason why is due to one particular addition unique to this mod:

Weapon Magazines.

The game forces you to take time out and prepare for combat. Magazines and Ammo are still relatively common, but you need to collect specific magazines for specific weapons and ammo types. When you've done so you need to load each clip manually, bullet by bullet. This gives you a sort of soft limit to how much ammo you can carry. You'll find yourself limiting how many loaded magazines you carry knowing how long it takes to load each one, meaning combat becomes a lot more tactical as you use ammo extremely sparingly. No full auto massacres here, unless you really need to.

Loading ammo includes it's own nifty animation, though the audio is extremely repetitive (same sound bite for each bullet loaded).

Weapons unaffected by this are breach loaded weapons like hunting shotguns, double barrel shotguns (and their sawn off variants), hand loaded weapons like the Moisin Nagant and regular pump action shotguns (and their sawn of variant). These weapons are extremely valuable early on as they give you a go to weapon for any engagement, but their usefullness is limited and the rifles are scarce (moisin nagant is hard to locate and AI tend to drop near broken guns).

You'll find yourself rummaging through stashes and fallen enemies, find Magazines loaded with ammo, only to not have corresponding weapon to that magazine. So you collect the ammo by removing them from each magazine and then load them into you own weapon, then discard the unused magazine.

On top of all that, in combat, reloading a magazine that isn't empty doesn't transfer the ammo to the next stack or magazine, but leaves it in the expelled magazine. So classic FPS shoot reload shoot mechanics become a burden, meaning you have to think before you shoot. Also, the mod disables your ammo counter (and most of the hud) meaning your going to be counting your shots. You can get a vague idea how much a clip contains by looking at it in the inventory, but you'll frequently find yourself running dry and doing that long full reload rather then a partial reload, or reloading a partially spent magazine for a near empty one, until you get a feel for how the system works.

Overall, such a simple change drastically improves the tension and tactical feel in combat over the vanilla.

That said, the mod is brutal. It hates you and will tell you how much every chance you get. Enemies are vicious (so are allies, but that's a faint blessing). Enemies are just as cautious as you are with ammo, using single shots at range and going full auto only when they know they can hit you. Beasties of the zone are also very dangeous, some of them are considerable bullet sponges if you fail to use the right ammo.

On top of all that, it's well buggy to boot. If you haven't got the patience for the magazine mechanic, the nerve for the combat, or the stomach for the bugs, this mod is most definitely not for you. I should also mention it's a pain to get it installed, especially if you have the steam version of the game (it requires rolling back the game version as it requires version 1.0004, which explains why the game is so buggy as that was a relatively unstable patch).

It's still a work in progress though and it only seems to be getting better with each iteration. This would be by far my favourite mod to date in the Stalker Series. The author is keenly aware of many of the bugs and will attempt to address them in future patches, but they CAN hamper your experience, so modder beware.

***I should also mention another mod, but I haven't played it yet. Lost Alpha. It's a complete overhaul mod that breaks away from the core game but aims to recreate the game that was promised back in 2001, 5 years before we got the game we have today. There are MASSIVE changes, though much of the content (weapons enemies and so on) is lifted from the vanilla game so it looks familiar. There is a new story, new locations, new mechanics... a lot of new stuff. I'm pretty vague on details, but if your in the market for modding Stalker I'd check this out too. It might not be released yet, but it will be soon if it isn't.

I've played a few other mods, but they ranged from bland to extremely frustrating (one of them, I forget the name, added Auto Sentries to military/faction bases and certain choke points in the game. They have impeccable accuracy and dish huge damage... they also made the AI obscenely aware and lethal making trekking a huge chore and frequent pain in the ass. It was horribly balanced the mod creator was never going to tweak it... a shame because it got a lot right).

The above are the 3 best mods I've played and 1 I have high expectations for. Check them out if you feel up to it.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

I'd definitely agree with the world of Okami. The landscape is varied and of course it's beautiful. I also found the world of Johto a lot of fun to explore time and time again in the Pokemon games set there. I think that Dunwall from Dishonored was a blast to explore as well - I especially loved the dark Gothic design of it, it's basically what keeps bringing me back to the game. And finally, I think I'd say the Great Sea from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was great fun to sail around and map out.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I seem to be one of the few who actually like the landscapes of Red Dead Redemption. I live in the American West, so seeing all the varied landscapes I've driven and hiked around in a condensed form was really quite neat. Plus, there was usually enough ambient quests and things to keep exploration interesting. I also have really enjoyed the scope of the Mass Effect series, if not the actual exploration of some of the worlds in the games (DAMN YOU, MAKO!!!) due to the depth of information presented.

I think I'll also cast another vote for the Infamous games, though 2 was much more interesting due to random encounters when compared to 1. I know a lot of people find the Elder Scrolls games neat to explore, but I've always grown bored with their forests, mountains, etc. rather quickly. I did like Fallout 3, despite the fact it's by the same developers as the Elder Scrolls games, for some reason. Maybe it was because of the whole "survival" vibe as opposed to a stroll through the woods or mountains, I don't know exactly why I liked it more.

 

[Kerric]

Myst Online, I'd say. Which is good, because the whole point of the game is to explore the game worlds.

Too bad it's stagnant, it could have been the best damn thing ever. As is, it's free and cool if you like puzzles, so give it a shot.

Is this still running? Is the client still available?