Why Open World: Linear Progression Sucks

• "Hey why is this called a Sonic blog if you aren't gonna talk about Sonic!" Shut up, free speech. So because I was bored and for some reason topical events are SO amazing here's something inspired by Egoraptors, "gloriouis" Ocarina of Time video. I too tend to hate open world games with linear progression. Sly 2, 3, &4; Infamous games, and the Arkaham games, are all examples of this like Ocarina of Time. I owned Ocarina of Time on my N64 at one point, but got stuck at Death Mountain and never played it again. I did finally go back and beat it a few years ago, but only with the help of my friend Tom. If he didn't help me I probably would have needed to look a lot of stuff up. With Kingdom Hearts 1 being a sort of exception which I will explain, games should either have closed, confined, linear worlds with either linear or non-linear progression, or open worlds with non-linear, and NEVER open worlds with linear progression.

  Okay so first up, the games I mentioned (You could probably place the Jack and Daxter games and Ratchet and Clank along with the rest too, but I haven't played any of them much so I don't remember). Sly 1 was fine. Like you said it was basically Super Mario 64 except with linear levels; Great, fun, fantastic! But then we get to Sly 2 and it's an "Open World with a...very...specific...things...to...do.... " That's not the only problem though.

  The hub areas in Sly 2 and onward, are big, dark and everything in the environment blends together. Big: Needing to figure out a specific thing to do can become an overwhelming chore when the area you can run around in is huge. Dark: doesn't help me find and differeniate specific details in the environment now does it. Everything looks the same: Everything intuitely looks similar unless you really scrutinize it. Basically the only way you know where to go is if you follow the stupid arrows or the stupid map! How is it exploring and how is it fun if I need arrows and/or a map (*cough* Dream Derp Derpence. I'm looking at you Tron Legacy World!)?! So, it's hard to figure out what to do and where to go, but that's not the end of your problems, now you have to put up with the annoying tasks they give you.

  I have three perfect examples of beyond tedious and frustrating tasks that you have to do in this list of "open world" games. First, is basically the first mission after the intro in both Sly 2 and 3. In these missions you must slowly follow around an NPC who slowly walks around and take pictures of him while he does stuff! In Sly 4 the first mission is almost exactly the same except you at least aren't following some slow NPC. I get that it's supposed to be a stealth challenge, but who cares? From a gameplay perspective is it fun to slowly and tediously walk around and take pictures with an awkwardly controlled camera? Sorry, I didn't know I was playing boring tourist the video game. Good grief. My second example is Infamous 2.

  In it, you must accompany this stupid helpless NPC girl (not that that's why she's stupid) to the place where you need to be, and if you get too far away from her you have ten seconds to get back or else you have to start over from the beginning. What The Fruitcake!!!! What kind of bull crap is that?!! You have all this amazing climbs and ways to get around, that are so much fun to use and explore with, and you're telling me I have to slowly follow this stupid NPC around?!!! It's like having having a super fast and amazing dirt bike with nothing around you but miles of jumps and open land to ride around in, but just as you are about to leave your mom stops you and says, "Now, hold on a second young man. Take your little, 4 year old, sister, Suzy with you." Now Batman.

  Arkahm City has many of the same problems as my previous examples: Darkness, big open area, need map or arrows, tons of fun to explore and climb stuff, but you need to go to a specific spot and way to trigger a specific event. I'm interested in a story centered around batman and I'm interested in an open world, but it's like blending pizza into a smoothie. The two on their own are great and fine, but put them together and you get someone horribly nasty. That analogy sumes up all the problems with open-world-specific-task games, but there is a way you can have booth your shake and pizza, and eat it too.

  Kingdom Hearts is an Open World game with linear progression and the need to trigger specific events in specific places to progress. As we've discussed, normally this is a problem, but the good old designers at Square soft thought ahead and got into the players mind. First, they segmented the worlds into rooms and areas, a brillant and necessart idea. Added up and it' just as big as the open areas in the others games, BUT not we
• BUT now we have focus. Now have the ability to grasp and logically exclude areas. "Alright, I'm suck and don't know where to go. Hmm well I've checked everything in the "1st and 2nd Districts, so maybe I'm supposed to go to that there 3rd District. Do do do walking along, Hey! What do you know?! It worked. Thanks Square Soft!" See, segmentation and area titles (another brillant idea), give the player, an easy way to conceptualize the world and understand where they need to go. It's a very helpful organizational tool. Like, instead of having this big open plate where your mash potatoes and peas mix together, you have this perfect wonder microwavable dish tray or bowl with different segments that can be used to hold different things. The mash potatoes and peas can be all cozy in there own bunker without there personal space issues being violated. You can really appreciate the individual tastes of the foods when they have touched and their juices mixed. Another example I thought of is the difference between Sonic Adventure and 06.

  Sonic Adventure uses similar desgin philosophies to Kingdom Hearts and Mario 64, while Sonic 06 has similar design philosophies, if you can call it that, to the other games. In Sonic Adventure 1, the areas are segmented and thus kept small there are: Set-pieces (Tails Workshop, a casino), an excellent use of bright and dark contrasting colors, titled areas, and theirs even a guide to tell you where to go in case you get lost. Sonic 06 on the other hand, has 2 or 3 big open areas, that are either filled with too much pointless open space, or has building that all look the same and blend together. I got lost and couldn't figure out what to do the first time I played it. Huh, what a weird coincidence. As soon as Sonic moves away from Nintendo it's plagued with bad open world design. All the other games I talked about were for the ps2 or 3 so it's as if those developing for those consoles are cursed to make bad decisions. It's like developers for the man's gaming console are encouraged to misplace their values and design money and time. It's like they are putting all there efforts into the wrong things like pixel perfect graphics and realistic design. Huh, what an odd thing.

  Oh well, NINTENDOMINATION!!!! except I hate Nintendo now too. PC MASTER RACE!!!! No, I hate PC gaming too. READING RAINBOW!!!! Uh, not quite. WORKING! I don't have a job. SCHOOL! Just ended. Drat, it appears everything sucks and I'm all out of options. I guess it's the meth lab for me.

Random Argument Extra Credits, "Beyond Fun" "Differeneces in Kind" Sonic Heros SA2.

The point I'm supporting is what I said. Games don't have to be narrow mindedly be limited to light-hearted pleasure, and arcade-like gameplay. Actively doing something while taking in the story is something movies nor books can deliver on. It's arguably the best way to experience a story.

As defined in this video and by me Engagement does mean the same thing as fun. Engagement is having your interest kept and mind stimulated. Fun is light-hearted, thrill based pleasure. Are puzzles fun? Is a mystery novel fun? No, but they keep your attention, and thus engage you. Something that's only fun is not even a tenth as rewarding as something deep and meaningful.

When I think of games that had the cencept of "fun" in mind, I think of the every Mario game Nintendo has made since Super Mario Galaxy 1. I think of Sonic Colors, and Lost World. By focusing on "fun" as the only and core objective, developers end up making a game that provides a shallow experience, and often isn't even that engaging.

Extra Credits makes a lot of keen observations, and puts a lot of abtract concepts into easily understand terms. The writer for the show James has actually spent many years as a developer and observing other developers. Whether or not they accurately sum up individual franchise is not important. Those are just examples and opinions. The design priciniples they establish are far more important, and that's where they excel.

The principle of "Differences in Kind" in this video explains why Sonic Heroes is boring, yet SA2 is fun. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I)
In Sonic Heroes everything in one level feels the same, visually and indiviual action wise. There are almost no set piece moments  and few dynamic camera angle shots. Mechanically, you're doing the same tasks in the same way over and over. Punch blocks and enemies with Knuckles, switch to tails to slowly platform, switch to Sonic on straigh aways and to spin around poles. The music is flipping repitive too which only makes the experience worse. Shadow's game basically has the same problem.  Unleashed and even Colors are less boring then Heroes because at least in Unleashed the visuals and tasks are dynamic and diversified. One of  Color's problems actually is that it put too much diversity into a single level which resulted in a severe lack of flow.

In City Escape of SA2..I start with.boarding down a city street while jumping off jumps and avalanching cars. Then, I'm running around normally, then I'm running on the side of a wall, then I need to go up stairs where I hace to be careful because enemy are blocking my path and shoot at me, then I'm rail grinding done a corridor, then I'm in a park that I can explore and run around in, then I'm doing tricks off of pull up bar, then a giant truck is chasing me with a backwards facing camera. Each moment feels different  Unlike in Heroes.