The freedom to do it all.

[ArcWinter]

Oblivion, because of a couple reasons:
Short List Commence
1. It seemed like such a huge and detailed world. You knew you could never explore the whole thing.
2. You can easily dodge magic, arrows, and traps if you are smart enough to put points into Speed.
3. You can shoot lightning out of your hands.
4. LIGHTNING
5. Sheogorath's Realm, and Sheogorath himself, are so awesome they are almost better than the original Oblivion.

Yeah, actually, Shivering Isles is better than Oblivion. But Oblivion is the main game, so we'll call it that.

 

[Baron Von Evil Satan]

AssCreed 2. I love stabbing innocent people, and then fleeing from the hordes of guards that come after me for it.

 

[Totenkopf]

Prototype. You can do what you want, and if someone tries to show you the consequences of your deeds, you RIP HIM APART.

 

[-Drifter-]

Fallout 3.

Mainly because it takes place in a nuked DC. I basically lived there, and its interesting to see what it would be if it were nuked.

I can see what you mean, though it'd have to be a pretty weak-ass nuke to do that little damage to a city.

 

[Generator]

InFamous: It was tons of fun exploring Empire City as a superhero/villain. I also liked the way that most of the objectives were set in pretty linear environments despite the main game taking place in an open world environment; seemed to give the game a nice sense of balance.

EDIT: Oh, actually, I'm gonna say Jak II. Even though it's mostly a platform game, it does have an open-world. InFamous still comes in a close second though.

 

[Pingieking]

InFamouos and Prototype. I just hated everything except for the free-roaming parts of Prototype. InFamous was cool, but the powers could have been more inventive.
And Yakuza. I cannot express in mere words my love for that game (and my utter despair upon hearing the news that not only is the English versions a full dev cycle later than the jap ones, but the hostess club was removed from the English version). It's like GTA, except awesome because I destroy people not with guns and cars, but with fists, roadsigns, bikes, nun-chucks, and my overpowering amount of honour and Japanese manliness.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I played inFamous over at my Uncle's, and it was super fun. He said he'd let me borrow it when he's done, so I can't wait.

Other than that, I haven't actually played any sandbox games. Unless Burnout Paradise counts, in which case, I logged nearly 100 hours in that game...

 

[Dexiro]

LittleBigPlanet's create mode!

I love game-designery things, and that was perfect for it. It's all simple stuff until you realise how bloody hard it is to made a good level. You just experiment and have fun, and with some luck and practice you'll make something half decent.

Other than that i'd say GTA:SA

 

[SturmDolch]

Fallout 3... So fun, so cool.

Saints Row 2 is nice... But it's buggy as hell! I can hardly move right, it runs like shit on my computer, whereas Bad Company 2 runs perfectly, and the Fight Club activities are practically impossible: The 1 and 2 buttons don't seem to work, the mouse buttons work sometimes, and today I was literally beaten INTO the ground, glitching me into an infinite falling loop so I had to restart the game. Saving didn't work from there, so I lost about an hours worth of playing.

And driving in Saint's Row 2 is pretty much impossible. This game is the best example of terrible console-to-PC ports. Some minigames even still have control sticks on them, and the Q-weapon selection interface has a D-pad on it... Ugh.


Spiderman 2 got boring after five hours, and GTA IV was just stupid. "Yo, Nico! We bad muthafuckas! And like all bad muthafuckas, we gonna do bad muthafucka things! LETS GO MUTHAFUCKIN BOWLING MUTHAFUCKA!"

 

[Dexiro]

Fallout 3.

Mainly because it takes place in a nuked DC. I basically lived there, and its interesting to see what it would be if it were nuked.

I can see what you mean, though it'd have to be a pretty weak-ass nuke to do that little damage to a city.

Are you serious? That place looked pretty devastated to me

 

[JRCB]

GTA 4, because I have spent a hell of a lot of time on it. And I love it, especially the helicopter battles.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

GTA IV, it still amazes me with its level of detail, even now when I know every little corner of the city.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Lately I've been playing quite a few free-roaming games, and having a hell of a lot of fun.

Whether it's playing Spider Man in Web of Shadows, or Niko in GTA IV, liberating Mars in Red Faction Guerilla or Paris in The Saboteur, or just saving inocents in InFamous or slaughtering them in Prototype, free-roaming games are my latest drug of choice.

Simply put, what is your favourite free-roaming game and why?

Assassin's Creed. I just loved the setting of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus. The sci-fi setting and main plot were pretty epic too. Everyone hated AC1, but I still prefer it to this day over the 2 one.

 

[9NineBreaker9]

Saints Row 2.

Hell yeah.

This, every day of the week and twice on Fridays. I get bored with sandbox games so easily, but this one has kept my attention for a lot longer than it rightfully should.

I mean, ninja gangsters acting like the Fonz while gunning down yakuza wannabes from a purple car with golden rims and hydrolics, all while listening to Minus the Bear or awesome 80s music. If there's a part of that that's not awesome, I'm not aware of it.

 

[oppp7]

Either Spore or Pokemon Platinum.
Shut up, they still count.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Dungeons and Dragons. Or did you mean video games? Nothing tops actual D&D with the buddies and the wife. I really like Fallout 2 though.

 

[spacer]

GTA 4. I swear no game makes you want to go "UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH FUCK hahaha" the most when you hit someone with a car.

 

[JamminOz07]

As of last week, there's no doubt that Just Cause 2 is my favourite. It reminds me of San Andreas, just with the amount of freedom it offers, but it's much larger than San Andreas..

 

[-Drifter-]

Fallout 3.

Mainly because it takes place in a nuked DC. I basically lived there, and its interesting to see what it would be if it were nuked.

I can see what you mean, though it'd have to be a pretty weak-ass nuke to do that little damage to a city.

Are you serious? That place looked pretty devastated to me

Absolutely, the artists even said themselves that they had to scale back the destruction quite a bit. There's not much left standing after a nuclear blast.