Open World Games Aren’t Always Free To Roam.

Every game has it’s boundaries. Certain eccentricities that may prevent a player from fully exploring an environment. For instance a door that can’t be opened. A path blocked by seemingly innocuous and totally negotiable debris or an NPC stood in the middle of a road remonstrating the loss of an item or persons that will not step aside until you, a random stranger procure the missing trinket. In most cases these environmental concessions are logical impediments designed to moderate player momentum. That encourage you to engage with your surroundings. To really explore and embrace the vicarious pursuits of your character in a fully formed alternate world. The game doesn’t want you to rush things. It wants you to sample and sip, get a taste of its world. RPG’s are notorious for utilising banal abstractions as a means of corroling player impulse.

A great game however will give the impression of player autonomy, even though every decision is entirely predetermined. Skyrim for instance, despite its significant floors is a perfect example of a game that stimulates the prerogatives of its player. After escaping the games structurally confined opening, Skyrim emancipates the player, allowing us considerable latitude to embark on whatever journey we desire, without the manufactured limitations of its composed narrative. The Witcher 3 is another example of a game that conceals its innate scripted persuasions in an environment that feels organic. The objective is as always to save the world, but isn’t conceptually a time sensitive priority. You can amble from one errand to the next, lining your pockets with gold, or whatever a Witchers’s equivalent for a pocket is, some kind of pheasant lung I’d presume, without the guilt that you should be doing something more important.

Gaming is an inherently selfish hobby. It doesn’t lend itself well to an intimate pursuasions of the individual playing it. We each interact with these worlds in distinctly opposing ways that doesn’t always adhere to the limitations imposed by a games narrative. When there’s an emphasis on the severity of a particularly contentious, world altering cataclysm it kind of breaks the immersion of a fully functioning, open world map when it won’t let you explore the next area until you’ve completed some trivial errand. I’ve got a world to save here guys?! Finding a game that balances the fixed narrative with the spontaneous proclivities of the player without diminishing the formers regimented story arc into a benign, extraneous circumstance is a rare thing to find. And perhaps not entirely possible. Maintaining that engagement through the primary story as well as our own wandering curiosities is difficult to accomplish, but the duality I enjoy the most.

There’s a subtle, yet critical distinction between an open world and free roam. And it’s rather unfortunate that they don’t coincide as often as they should.

Wait, “The Witcher 3” Is Coming To The Switch?!

Honestly, at this point I’d be less surprised if the Nintendo’s bullish little hybrid couldn’t solve climate change, whilst performing heart surgery on a tic and burping Bethovens fifth. And yet here I am again, aghast, bewildered but throughly delighted to see that “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, through some mythical, Polish sorcery, will be coming to the Switch. Featuring not only the main game itself but the myriad of DLC’s, this ambitious iteration could well be the most definitive, despite the potentially compromising rendering limitations that are destined to burden the little console that could. But personally I think this is small price to pay for such portability. To embrace the true spiritual power of Nintendo Switch: as a mobile vessel that allows us to play games we already own, but on the toilet. This my friends, is the dream we all share.

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Winner of over 800 awards, including 250 Game of the Year awards, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an RPG set in a fantastic open world full of adventure, danger, and mystery. As professional monster slayer Geralt of Rivia, gamers must set out to find the Child of Prophecy — a powerful entity that may send the world spiraling toward destruction. Along the way, the witcher will find himself facing not only mighty foes, but also difficult choices, the consequences of which will ripple throughout the game’s epic narrative.

Ported to Nintendo Switch by Saber Interactive in close cooperation with CD PROJEKT RED, the game is set to launch this year both digitally and in retail. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition for Nintendo Switch comes with the base game, as well as every piece of additional content ever released. This includes both story expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, as well as all 16 free DLCs. In total, the Complete Edition offers over 150 hours of gameplay, for the first time playable truly on-the-go.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the first game from the franchise to be released on a Nintendo console, introducing the series to brand new audience, as well as giving anyone who already played Geralt of Rivia’s final adventure a chance to experience it again on the go.

Finishing With Games, Before They’re Finished.

Have you ever finished with a game before you’ve actually finished a game? Just naturally reached a point where you’ve been thoroughly engaged for many pleasurable hours but are now adequately satisfied with the progression you’ve made? Sometimes the effect is gradual, so barely perceptible that you probably don’t even realise that you’ve had enough. And then, just like that, your done. It could be 10 hours in, 20. You may even be close to the intended conclusion of the game and just exhale sharply and ask yourself what else you could be playing. It’s not necessarily a result of apathy or sudden loathing of the experience, but the opposite. As if forcing yourself to complete an arbitrary set of objectives would diminish your otherwise gratifying experience. This premature contentment I seem to have seems to be largely associated with RPGs, particularly open world one’s.

Whereas the linearity of some games keeps you focused purely on the tasks at hand, an open world game yields an expansive freedom where objectives can be approached at your leisure. You can indulge in extraneous activities, perform errands for some destitute farmer, viciously beat a random civilian or simply ramble through dense thickets and saunter through crystal clear streams, all to discover whether that huge mountain in the distance can actually be scaled. But when you eventually return to your capricious duties as saviour and anointed role as “chosen one”, maintaining that same immersion after such unrestricted freedom becomes a laborious exertion. Suspension of disbelief is harder to maintain when your characters dies repeatedly! Respawning back as if your embarrassing mauling by an oversized rat never occurred is jarring, as is the general repetition of any game.

I have taken deliberate respite from many wonderfully enjoyable games to assuage my own weary senses. “The Witcher 3” features one of the most enchanting open world environments that I’ve ever had the fortune to be consumed by. Adrift in flourishing meadows and dense woodlands, replete with various malformed beasts that impede your leisurely stroll. By the time that I’d returned from my extended recreational excursion I was throughly exhausted! Same thing happened to me with “Horizon Zero Dawn”. I’d wander off to survey some unfamiliar terrain for potential rewards, encounter some large robotic dinosaur that I could vanquish and loot their remains for valuable resources. Or discovered a camp full of incarcerated prisons that I felt compelled to liberate, completely neglecting my duties as a heroine for the people of this hostile world. Super Mario Odyssey, Breath Of The Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tales Of Vesperia have all been brushed aside because I experienced enough of it. I felt fulfilled, and admittedly regularly distracted by curiosity, side quests and shiny things.

I don’t think this is bad. They’re still great games that I played the way I wanted. I’ve experienced them in way that has satisfied my needs and left without remorse for my failings. Rather that than resenting being forced to complete a game I don’t feel inclined to complete.

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What about you guys? Have you ever stopped playing a game because you’d enjoyed it enough? Let me know in the comments below. Cheers.

Does Being Good At A Game Make It More Fun?

Does anyone really need to be good at a game to enjoy themselves? Isn’t fun readily derived from the distended comprehension of enjoyment? Is fallibility a reflection of enjoyment, or merely a complicit prescient that encourages progression as opposed to the practicality of having a good time? Logistically speaking these two exchanging factors are mutually exclusive, beneficial collaborators that enhance the defining ubiquitous of a games biological make-up. “Challenge” and “fun” are a curious necessity considering both provocations can be hideously polarising to each individual recipient. While some gamers are discouraged by the restraints of failure neutralising any enjoyment, others thrive on perseverance, tendering a resiliency that harnesses the encompassing affray. Competition is as attractive to some as it is arrant to others. The eligibility of procrastination is the very essence of gaming, with the insatiable capacity to learn from ones mistakes, then–at least in my case, make new more convoluted mistakes before finally correcting them. The retention of both fun and formatting competitive yet fair resolutions to contentions is something attributed more for congenial functionality, with recognition applied to both casual and seasoned participants that can adjust the variable difficulties more attuned to their singular specifications. Yet even useful calibrations that ease the enduring difficulties can negate your immersion by reminding you of your of how rubbish you are. So should immersion and by association fun necessitate an inherent talent?

If your anything like me then the egregious categorising of genres is nothing but furnishings, decorative miscellany designed to classify singularly distributed utilities into  indefinable titles suitable for commercial clarification. We are purveyors of nurtured apathy, we crave the passivity of having products, services or even people categorised for the benefit of clarification and ease. The substrate formality of identification is preferential guide that loosely defines whatever game you wish to acquire, but is largely negligible, explicitly applied to ease the tedium of choosing a suitable game. Or something along those lines? Personally genres have always inhibited my gaming experience, so I ignore such classifications, constantly adapting policies to accommodate the variant of gaming genres I play. But don’t let that fool you. Just because I enjoy a slew of variations shouldn’t suggest I’m versatile or even exceptional at any of them. It’s impossible to change from a frenetic FPS to a more austere RPG without incurring certain debilitations, with varying results. When it comes to FPS’s most button configurations are similar, with only minor aberrations such as environments or utilities that slightly elevates it’s distinguishing singularity, but only a little bit. It maybe a little quicker or slower but in most cases an adaptation of play-style isn’t really necessary. Chances are if your an exceptional Call of duty player then by extension your good at Killzone or Halo. But when your shifting from one genre to another then such transitions can expose your weaknesses. Sometimes I can persevere despite my latent proficiency and procure merited levity, yet other promoted instances of tenuous provocations can moderate that pleasure. There really isn’t a formula. But what I lack in efficiency and fluidity I compensate with effectual determination and veracious tenacity.

In The Witcher 3 for instance I’ve deployed a contemptuous means of progression, readily intervened with meandering tactical economy, slowly wearing down combatants with methodical application. I’ll back off enough that enemies revert back to benign stances while my health slowly regenerates before again initiating another attack. Of course such protracted concessions belies the overly cautious tedium many would deem too boring. But it works and not at one point did I think it would be more fun if I was better at it. In fact I think I’d enjoy it less! Is it really justifiable to reduce the level of debilitation to facilitate an expeditious victory? If that results in augmentation to your fun then sure, go ahead. But as far as I’m concerned there isn’t a inherent wrong or right way to play a game. I think that’s why I avoid competitive online players, the morally instructive protestations to observed inferiority. The kind of people that demand perfection, epitomised by furrowed ambivalence towards those that demonstrate skills below their requisite consensus of acceptable. The same people who scheme and ridicule those with abusive intolerance simply because we haven’t dedicated 10 fettered hours committed to self inflation and studying an environments gradient to the point that it becomes routine, or even work! You should never feel intimidated for having a life. Games are just distracting fun no matter if your casual or an ardent consumer, and with enough creative diversity applied to purchases you can be regularly assured that no matter how inept you think you are, ultimately it doesn’t matter.

Do you enjoy games more if your good at them? Or is like a 6 year old’s sports day? All about the taking part? Let me know what you think. Cheers.

2015’s Game Of The Year!

Did you have a good Christmas? Great! Oh wow! You received *insert expensive gift item here* for Christmas?! I’m so jelly. Me? Oh the usual you know, drunk too much, ate my weight in variously cooked meats, reflecting on another expeditious year. 2015 has certainly been an oddity in my tenure as an independent member of the community. The refractory ideologies that I’d adhered to since pubescent have had adverse effect on natural progression on obligatory maturity. But now I’m finally learning how to drive, we’ve begun excavating the spare room to transition the spacial anomaly, previously used as a dumping ground for extraneous items into a more accommodating residence for a new occupant due in April and I have a new hairdresser. Yeah, the latter isn’t all that exciting but it’s certainly emblematic of my life now. It’s also been a much improved year for quality gaming content, sadly lacking from this generations tenure. But what have been this year’s essentially performers? The coup de gra of interactive entertainment? Well I’ve conducted an admittedly brief surmise of this year’s most prestigious titles and decided to let you, the informed viewing public determine the appropriate candidate for 2015’s game of the year. Also I couldn’t be bothered to do it myself. It is New Years Eve after all!

Oh and if anyone votes Destiny: The Taken King you are immediately disqualified from, now let’s be fair, everything there ever was, is or will be! And with that in mind…..

Happy New Year! Cheers……….

Um, well I was supposed to be including a poll for you to vote on what you think is the is the best of my choices. As it happens the “poll” icon appears to of disappeared. So as an alternative here are my picks and you can instead let me know your favourites in my comment section. And perhaps let me know where I can find this surreptitious icon? Stupid WordPress update!……

And in yet another twisted fate of circumstance my WordPress dashboard has reverted BACK to where the poll icon appears, also restoring my published article back into a draft?! I think this might be a latent millennium bug! Anyway, vote away!….