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Killiana1a on 16 December 2010
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nitekrawler1285 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 one end of the sandbox even varying it up ordering you to crawl, jump, do a handstand, do the worm dance to the other side of the sandbox and on.

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.

Or maybe we just want more possible actions than shooting everyone and stealing cars.  Maybe those aren't that fun to everyone.  A lot of open world games aren't very  open in that respect and the mechanics on those actions generally suck worse than in other games with that gameplay.  Maybe if they added more interesting qualities to the world we would experiment more with the gameplay.  As it stands there are very large worlds with the only real things to being shoot someone or steal their car and screw whores and awkwardly at that.    

The key to having fun in a sandbox game is variety, and good gameplay from which emergent gameplay can come which a lot of open world games lack.  Maybe some of us look at the world as more than simply a place for wanton violence and would like developers to as well.

If you cannot have fun in a world designed for wanton violence and crime maybe that says something good about us as individuals. Or maybe even the developers have simply neglected to make these games open enough to engage us who want more than awkwardly cobbled together adolescent violence. 

For me sandbox games are a mirror for individuals because their loose structure and freedom gives the player the ability to create their own play. As such, when the play becomes unstructured as it will inevitably be at some point, individuals either love it or hate it because it is during this time individuals learn within a video game whether they are a fun, adventurous individual or a boring, need to have their hand guided individual.

As for the wanton violence aspect, it is human nature. If you don't believe me then go out drinking every Friday and Saturday and just watch people. Inevitably you will encounter individuals who are itching for a fight even if they seem fine and happy. You can usually tell by how they walk, how they address the bartender, and what their reaction is when someone bumps into them. Does the alcohol cause this? To a certain extent, but I believe it is more natural aggression just brought out by the alcohol lowering one's inhibitions.

In terms of video games, if you are looking for a real sandbox then I suggest an MMORPG.