I mean they are horrible.you walk around ,drive around,ride horse around for many hours to get to a point and even when you get to the point they give a boring mission. the whole thing is very unispired and almost empty.(not that the worlds are not busy,,,cause trust me they are busy)

let's see what games i played to get to this point:

GTA4

assasin's creed 1 and 2

Infamous

Far cry 2

Red dead redepmtion

mafia 2

etc

all boring and repetitive after a while.

what in the wolrd do you people like about open worlds?to me it is very over rated.

not to mention that the graphical hit(worse graphics due to rendring big parts of city) is the icing on the cake.

i feel like something is wrong with me.Every reviewer loves sand box games and yet when i hear the game is sand box it is a big negative in my book.

in linear games they throw many exilirating set pieces at you so you are constantly entertained . not the same case in open world games.

Yes, there is something very wrong with you! you contracted a serious case of Opinion!

i'm afraid it is not curable. the only thing you can do is live with it

but seriously what do you see in open world games???what is its attractivness for you??(if you like open world games :D)

Play GTA San Andreas

That is all.

I find the GTA games good to fool around, running away from the cops, killikg people and stealing cars, but aside of that it is pretty boring.

GTA SA aint boring, you can fly!

I'd say its down to what links the missions together. Strong stories and characters make open world games work, weak ones leave the games feeling like a bunch of checkpoints.

IMO games that I have played that do it well are GTA: San Andreas, AC2

Games I have played that IMO do it badly are GTA4, Oblivion

and of course there are many that fall in between but to say they are all boring is a very closed minded view.

I love them, I only like entirely open world games or entirely linear games, nothing in between really, because then I just feel like I am missing out on stuff...

But anyway, I have loved Assassin's Creed, Red Dead and inFamous because the worlds are interesting and you have interesting tools to play with and the sand box lets you have more fun. I would say inFamous is the least sand boxy game out of the 3, where I felt I spend most of my time just directly doing the missions, whereas in Red Dead, I spent ages just messing around hunting animals

In Brotherhood, I have spent 14 hours playing so far and while I have finished the story, I still just enjoy running around the rooftops and randomly killing guards (or better getting my Assassin babies to kill them {don't ask why they are my babies...}) because the world is interesting to explore and Ezio's abilities are fun to play with

I agree that Mafia II and Farcry 2 are horrible sandbox games. Other sandboxes are Jak II, Burnout Paradise, Oblivion, Fallout.

Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 I just don't like, but that doesn't have to do with the sandbox.

The sandbox games Rockstar Games makes are great though and so is Infamous. The first two Harry Potter games were great and so is Batman Arkham Asylum.

I don't really the "sandbox game" is easy to define as there are many different genres using sandboxes and I can't imagine you hate all of them.

It's like RPG elements that weave through all genres.

Maybe you just don't like Rockstar's games

I gotta agree . . . mostly. In games like GTA and Red Dead I felt that, after watching all these awesome cinematic trailers that made the game look like Uncharted 2's action packed set-pieces I could only be disappointed when, not only aren't they that cool in GTA and Red Dead, they are far and in between from each other. And in random encounters didn't feel like I gained anything after beating them. Not so with some other sandbox games.

But there are still many sandboxes I liked.

- Crackdown was cool, since it was the first sandbox I had played where you can jump over buildings, run faster then cars, drive cars up buildings, and throw dumpsters at people. Too bad it had to be the exact same game all the way through.

- Assassin's Creed was cool because, duh, you're playing like a ninja in ancient Italy.

- Fallout 3 was fun because of the loot system and story. Too bad about actual combat though.

- Borderlands was amazing because of everything-- even the random encounters in the sandbox were felt and exciting.