– Star Trek Into Darkness
I have always loved the Star Trek franchise. Though I
don’t consider myself a ‘Trekkie’, it was always a series
that made a lot of sense to me. Star Trek at its core was about exploring
worlds and people unconstrained by ‘these mortal coils’ and it was
a show that did it well for many years. These days due to business and
ironically mortal issues, there is no longer a show on television. Still as a
science fiction fan, I hope that one day a Star Trek television series will
return.
I am amazed that so many studios are taking the next
generation to explore the ‘Open-World’ format of video games, and
impressed even more that they seem to be doing it well. Open-World games have
long been solely the domain of derivative action games. While some have been
good enough to carve their own niche, it’s hard to say that there have
been any more than a handful of success stories. Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row,
Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and the Just Cause series take the top of the list with
a nod to the singular Red Dead Redemption.
More often than not Open-World games have had to sacrifice
story as the cost of being able to go anywhere and do anything. If E3 has shown
us anything it’s that the games that are receiving the most critical and
commercial buzz are the games seeking to meld the high-octane flavor of small
‘corridor’ influenced worlds with the ‘go anywhere, do
anything’ flavor of the open-world genre.
Destiny from Bungie, The Division and The Crew from Ubisoft, and even BioWare who went on record as saying their future games were going to be more open and fluid. With games like GTA 5 and Watch Dogs dropping later this year the bar will likely be set very high for future open-world games. As a gamer, I can’t help but think this is a good thing. Games have gotten shorter and shorter of late. Bringing more value to every single game should give developers a congruent bump in sales, and that is what I call the best of any world.
No comments:
Post a Comment