Sandbox Games are the most BORING and OVERRATED things in gaming

[Killiana1a]

Doobie_wop said:

Killiana1a said:

For those who dislike sandbox games let me ask you a simple question, did you have a sandbox when you were little?

A sandbox in of itself is nothing more than a box on the ground filled with sand. When a child plays in a sandbox they may be supervised from afar by a parent, but it is not the parent telling them how to play; instead the child is creating his own play with his green army men, toy cars, toy dinosaurs and the like. The adult is not telling the child how to play other than advising him not to eat the random piece of cat crap AKA cat almond rocca every once in a while.

A sandbox video game is only as fun as you. If you are the type who likes objectives, going from point a to point b like a Mario game, and constraint, then sandbox games are not for you because you are a boring person who cannot have fun unless the developer has created the game in very specific constraints where the fun you are having was designed by the developer, not you.

Lets take a Mario game and put it into a sandbox. A real sandbox. Imagine Miyamoto and a crowd (the development team) towering above you when you were little. At Miyamoto's command you will go from one end of the sand box to the other. As you complete his dictates, he will throw in more complicated order to get from point a to point b.

See, Mario and linear games do not work well in a sandbox, thus forth they are not sandbox games.

The key to having fun in sandbox games is you, if you cannot have fun in a world designed where you can create your own play, then what does that say about you as an individual?

I would say you are boring and would probably find military bootcamp "fun," but that is just me.

That's not true at all. All sandbox games have a set of limitations that steer you towards a variety of ways to play the game. An example would be Red Dead Redemption and Infamous, in both games your ability to swim is taken away. A sandbox was only as fun as the materials placed in it, an empty sandbox limits the things you can do to entertain yourself. In a game like Red Dead Redemption, I can't swim, I can't fly, I can't shoot and kill the main characters, I can't finish the game without following the given quests, I can't get trophies without following the set objectives, I can't dig a hole and set traps for my enemies, I can't use squad tactics to control my partner AI, I can't kill everyone in a town without being punished and the list of limitations goes on and on. 

Some games are better than others at hiding these limitations, some are also better at giving you a significant amount of one type of freedom (Just Cause 2's gameplay and travel), but then it limits other types of freedoms (Can't enter every building or talk to random NPC's, also a lack of interaction with AI).

These limitiations are one of the main reasons why some people love modding games on their PC's or using cheats on their older consoles. Those two things aren't allowed on a PS3 or 360 today and so that basically means that the fun to be had in a game is dictated by what the developer see's fit to make available and how they design the world and missions. The people in this thread believe that some sandbox games are either limited or they are badly designed in the way the developer wants you to play. Red Dead Redemption was boring because it was limited and the mission structure was badly paced and designed

The only true sandbox games by your definition would be something like Minecraft, Garry's Mod and to a limit, Little Big Planet 2

Of course every game has limitations or boundaries. I agree every game has boundaries, but it is a matter of degrees when one says sandbox games are boring, Final Fantasy games are fun. My main point is that if you cannot have fun in a sandbox game then can you have fun on your downtime that is unstructured.

When I was little, my grandparents built a house and retired in South Lake Tahoe. A gate leading out from their backyard went into a forest. The forest was enclosed by other backyards at the opposite end and roads on the sides. My play area was limited, but the amount of fun I could have within those confines was up to me and myself alone. I had great fun out there even with the constraints.

Sandbox games like the World of Warcraft and the GTA series win great praise because they allow for emergent gameplay albeit limited by the design of the world and, in the case of MMORPGs, to what the moderators will tolerate if it becomes predatory on other players to the extent they may drop their paid subscriptions entirely.

On the other end, FPS single player and many other games tend to be very linear. The recent and most linear being Final Fantasy 13. For these games to be fun, the developers have to be top notch storytellers, create a fluid, rewarding combat system, and pay attention to the details in the graphics.

The most fun games I have played are the World of Warcraft followed by Earthbound and 1990s Squaresoft JRPGs.

I love the World of Warcraft because how far I go and how successful my toon becomes is up to me. It is up to me to make those relationships, put in the time, be polite and respectful to players over Vent when I really want to ream them a new one, and play to my best during a raid.

In contrast, games like Earthbound and Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan) will be forever memorable because the gameplay was solid, addicting and the story told and world created by the developers was top notch at the time.

On one hand, I love the freedom of a sandbox game, but on the other hand I am always down to sit around the proverbial campfire and listen to and engage in another's tale. Two different kinds of fun, but I like them the same for very different reasons.