I'd like video games to be more about site-seeing.

[elfs]

It occurred to me the other day that some of the very best video games are about site-seeing. Publishing company ID has always been all about the action, but when it came to the Bioshock and Half Life franchises, sometimes the best time was spent just stopping and looking around. Whether walking through Rapture or Columbia or City Seventeen, it's nice to stop and think, "Someone made that. Someone drew that, thought it up, gave it a digital skin."

We don't walk into every building when we walk into a city. Video games are doing a very nice job of saying we don't have to. A lot of it is still weird and fake, especially things like interacting with normal citizens in "live" cities, but it's getting better. These might-have-been places deserve more attention, and I'd like there to be more video games that can sell themselves as both action/adventure pieces and as magnificent virtual museums for places that just aren't. Yet.

Comments

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've played or seen Kingdoms of Amalur, but this is something that I highlight about the game when I recommend it. The fighting system is awesome all by itself, but the sheer imagery and architecture that went into some of the dungeons, the sense of otherness that you get to wander around in, it's just lovely.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Half the fun of Skyrim and GTA V was just wandering around looking at stuff.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

DA Inquisition is unbelievably gorgeous in that regard. I'm getting homesick by playing a location called the Storm Coast. So far it is completely awesome and I had no plans to play it after the horror that was DA II