Sandbox style games

I sat playing through Crackdown with a couple of guys a few nights ago trying to get my outstanding Achievements and trying to drive up the Agency Tower in the SUV (as shown HERE ) and the conversation turned to what licenses would work well with this particular game type.

Now Crackdown isn' t unique and much of the stuff has been done before in games like the GTA III series, Saints Row (which i' m finding fantastic after deciding to give it a chance), Mercenaries and Just Cause [:' (] etc, ...but Crackdown does it better than them all. The game is unbelievably solid and the sense of scope and verticality is undeniably driven home.

Until recently i' ve not been a fan of sandbox-esque games. I' ve always recognized GTA III and San Andreas as massive technical achievements on PS2 and Liberty/Vice City Stories on PSP, but i' ve never enjoyed playing them. I almost enjoyed Vice City but got bored of it after the first 10 or so hours. Mercenaries did nothing for me and Just Cause is laughable, even if it has some interesting mechanics and an extremely well done game world.

So with Crackdown blowing me away i posed the question; why is this any different?

The answer lies in the games premise. I mean i' m still in awe of the games technical merit and on some levels i find it much more impressive than Gears of War and Lost Planet, but the concept of leveling up skills by collecting orbs and taking out bosses just works [for me]

The only other sandbox game i' ve enjoyed, ...or rather am currently enjoying, is Saints Row. It' s buggy, has a dodgy framerate and is very in-your-face-crude but it' s immense fun because the gameplay mechanics are implemented so well and the physics system is so robust.

Anyway. So the conversation turned to what licenses would work well with this particular game type [whoa, deja vu!] and two sprung to mind instantly. Judge Dredd and Blade Runner.

Judge Dredd lends itself perfectly to the blueprint laid out by Crackdown. There are tons of gang-like sects, sub-bosses and bosses heavily detailed in the comics/graphic novels. Everything from weapons, vehicles, locations etc would work perfectly in a sandbox game as long as it was handled properly. Hell, Mega city One is even enclosed in a dome and split into Sectors (305 of them). You could, if you had to limit the game to just Sector 301 (The Pit).

The Judge/Criminal ratio works and there are hundreds of other aspects that easily lend themselves to a game like Crackdown.

Would you even need a linear storyline. I mean, There are no cutscenes in Crackdown and while Judge Dredd would have to be structured differently, the player could simply be tasked with ridding the streets of gangs and taking out bosses.

Now i think that' s too similar. It' d work but it' s not exactly plausible to rip off Crackdown and stick Dredd in there and i think fans of the comics would see it as a cash-in on somebody elses successful IP, but it' d work. Ideally though there would be a GTA-esque mission structure and a main story arc, but using Crackdown as a technical base for the game. If implemented properly, and faithfully then it couldn' t fail, ...and it' d be so easy too as much of the work has already been done in the comics.



Then i mentioned Blade Runner and how you could have a game set apart from the film, in the same world but with different characters, playing as a blade runner, finding and taking down replicant separatists.

Now Blade Runner wouldn' t work quite as well using Crackdown' s blueprint but a game similar to say Omnikron would work well. It' d probably have to be much more linear though but i think it could work as a sandbox game, even if it was less action orientated and more neo-noir detective than sci-fi shooter.



So are there any other licenses that would translate well into a sandbox style game?

Ha I knew you' d have to give into Saints Row sooner or later!

Anyhow Im obsessed with " Sandbox Games" despite bad reviews I always take the time to give the game a try. The list is rather vast these days and Im loving it.
The list off the top of my head inculdes so far:
Spider-Man 2
Crackdown
Mercenaries
GTA series
Elder Scrolls
The Godfather
Just Cause
Saints Row
Driver (one that I actually havent tried yet...)
Hulk (havent played this one either)
Dead Rising (tho a bit more confined then others)
That one desparado knock off over the top game...
That one UFO alien game from THQ

Now for licenses that I think would work well:
Hitman: This game NEEDS to be sandboxed some day. With its vast openess in methods to take out a target why not open up entire locals. I can see a few places itd be a bit hard to work around, but I still think it can work somehow.

Dead Rising: Yes I know in sence its a sandbox game but its rather confined with the timer and the Mall only setting.

The Matrix: First before hand tho this license needs a better more worthy developer/publisher. This game in sandbox form would probably start to mirror Crackdown in a way (the high flying acrobatics at leasst).

Fable: They need to oust those portals and allow you into the woods...from the sounds of it however it seems Fable 2 in on that track.

Hulk is a really great game!

I' m really looking forward to Mercenaries 2. Has anybody else watched the GDC presentation yet?

Nope you got a link? Saints row is so buggy its actually funny, I have pics of my favorite glitches. I finished the title, just couldnt be arsed with any of the sub missions all that much (except when they held back the main campaign) But I felt I had achieved somethign finishing it, shortly before returning it to the student i borrowed it from!!

Anyways, forgetting secret agents per say, I always thought that a Bourne Identy / Supremacy / Ultimatum style game would work well, render a city somewhere in europe, but just scare teh s**t outta the player with gangsters chasing / hounding you, from apartments, to rooftops to crazy street chases, but all looking very pretty - heck I' d play it if it was a rollercoaster of a game..

Unfortunately, it would come out with " missions" and " side quests" and they would all look wooden, and the cut screens would pi** me off etc.. but at least in my head there is a movie franchise which could work.. I suppose int eh same vein you could make a Terminator stlye game too - althuogh if it followed the plot, or had missions (like King Kong) that would also stress me right out.

Bout time (Crackdown excluded) that sandbox games stepped narrative and multipath up to the next level....

I would link you to Gametrailers but there are currently " too many users"

Anyway, i think you' re right about the need to step up the level of narrative structures in Sandbox games, because although GTA does an admirable job of keeping everything together it' s not as cohesive as it could be.

In comparison Crackdown, Saints Row, Just Cause, Mercenaries and even Oblivion are very loose. The missions may progress an overall story but there' s no sense of actually getting anywhere. In Oblivion i can understand it as the idea isn' t to make you follow a linear storyline it' s giving you the choice to decide what you ultimately want to do. That would be fine if not following the storyline would have a detrimental effect on the world and ultimately you as the player. But it doesn' t, everything just kinda sits in limbo and there' s no sense of urgency or impending doom. It' s OK to do nothing.

Crackdown' s emphasis is on fun. Collecting agility orbs is actually one of the most enjoying and rewarding things you can do in the game. It' s very back-to-basics and some of it feels more like a platform game than a shooter/whatever. The more you do stuff the quicker you level up and the more you can do the stuff you were doing effectively. Then you move to another island and face taller buildings and harder enemies and have to level up even more, etc, etc... It' s repetitive but fun. It' s a shame there aren' t more side-quests but i' m, happy with what they' ve achieved and see it as the best example of a sandbox game so far.

Narrative adds a linear element to games. There' s a beginning a middle and an end, but it also allows you to gauge your progression and feel like you' ve accomplished something.

For games based on licensed properties a strong narrative is necessary or the license becomes redundant and the trick would be to set the games structure up in such a way that the story is linear enough to " feel" like the story is the games main vein but detached enough for the game to " feel" like an open ended playground where ' choice' exists.

Now Dead Rising does what i' m getting at quite well. The story must progress whether you follow it or not. It must have it' s own timetable and it' s up to you to choose to follow it or to ignore it and go about your own business.

I think any licensed game must avoid relating directly to other pre-existing media using that license. If it' s a game based on a film then it mustn' t follow the events of the film. Blade Runner for example would suck if you played as Harrison Fords character - through the events that play out in the film. Either play as the character during another period in his life or play as a different character in the same world.

Sin City would work well, but the world would have to be super persistent, with so many story arcs and independent events going on that there wouldn' t even be the merest statistical possibility of you seeing everything the first time around.

I also like that Blade Runner idea.

ORIGINAL: Die_Hounderdoggen

Sin City would work well, but the world would have to be super persistent, with so many story arcs and independent events going on that there wouldn' t even be the merest statistical possibility of you seeing everything the first time around.

I also like that Blade Runner idea.

Sin City would be awesome!

I can' t believe i didn' t think about that. The possibilities there are absolutely endless!