Hi guys, thanks for your responses - Good stuff ;).
I’ll try and keep this one short. Lord Crash, yes you are right about the way I play games and I understand your viewpoint, though it’s not for me. I’ve never had any interest in licensed games such as Batman and so on for for that exact reason (I don’t want to be Batman :)), but I get that they are popular and understand that many do like them.
I also get that they the differ from a movie by being interactive, but with a strong pre-defined character and relatively inflexible story they also offer fewer choices when compared to more open-world titles and therefor are closer to movies than their open-world counterparts (which are more interactive). Aside from the immersion aspect, an open-world game offers more to me from a game-play standpoint (see the H&D 2 e.g. and that’s not even a ‘true’ open-world game). Plus they often reward me more for using my intelligence than a linear story based game and give me far more varied options to deal with any encounter.
Couple of OTT examples:
The open-world philosophy for breaking into a room in a base: Model the entire base + setup good AI routines. Allow the player to freely choose his path, equipment and time of ‘attack.’ Shoot his way in, talk his way in, or a bit of both. Usually in first person for maximum immersion.
The story-focused philosophy for breaking into a room in a base: One route is planned, with possibly a couple of branches. Heavily scripted events play along the ‘corridor’ as the player progresses to build tension. AI is scripted for maximum ‘cinematic’ effect. Weapon load-out and time of day/weather restricted to both match the story setting and not break the scripted game-play. Shooting or talking as approaches are both handled by the game, no player choice. Third person is the usual viewpoint in order to show off ‘how cool’ your character looks, plus empathise with him/her.
(these two examples would be extremes, often there is an amount of crossover; though if you compare H&D2 to CoD they’re pretty accurate, barring the ‘talk your way in’ and ‘third person’ parts).
Reason why I used CoD as an example is as when taken to extremes, freedom of player choice is often seen as compromising the intensity of the story - Hence why so called ‘story’ based games are linear, heavily scripted and allow little real freedom. I personally find this type of game-play boring for the reasons previously mentioned. I call it ‘tired’ as it’s how games have been for a while and to me things have moved on since then - Just my opinion/preference. So even if I am playing as Batman, I want to choose what to do and when to do it; the linear story based game doesn’t allow that and so to me is less of a ‘game.’ I also have zero interest in games such as Tomb Raider or The Last of Us. I watched a Let’s Play of ‘The Walking Dead’ by Zemalf (whose other videos I really enjoy, great YouTuber BTW) but the ‘game’ left me totally cold, whereas I know many rave about it. These sort of games are not for me (not played TR or TLOU to be fair though).
I also much prefer first person over third, for the very reasons you pointed out - I feel more immersed in the game-world (plus it’s generally much better for shooters).
I understand that there’s plenty of middle ground between the two camps, certainly, and as I say there are some story based games which I like, though often ultimately the lack of control/freedom leaves me frustrated at some point. For me though I want to see the characters fleshed out more in the open-world environments (with more believable systems and reactions to the player’s actions) as opposed to a bit more openness to the linear games.
I said I hate hearing the “What am I meant to do now?” line as to me it’s often spoken by people who want to be led by the hand through a game and this isn’t a direction I personally want to see game design take. For 1: There are plenty of these games already and have been for years, 2: Player choice is what games are about IMO, I hate the some people don’t want that, and 3: It’s much harder to make this type of game and I find it frustrating when people don’t seem to, IMO, ‘get it.’
Finally, I can accept that in having to cope with so many variables open-world games are often lacking a bit in terms of story delivery (only so much budget and time to flesh out all the possibilities), but given all the choices I have at my disposal whilst actually playing the game, I’m OK to fill in the spaces myself. This is the sort of stuff I expect to improve with time. To mention the ‘tired’ topic again; not only does it seem like an older type of game design to me, but it’s one which I’ve become tired of personally. For e.g. I loved Half-Life 2 when it came out and whilst I’m still 100% behind Valve’s approach of keeping the player always in control and not having cut-scenes (wish it was the case for KC:D), I now want more from a game than just an on rails roller-coaster ride. I also can’t help but see scripted events as a cheap trick these days; if something’s happened and it’s totally unscripted/emergent than it seems a lot more real to me, and thus I feel much more satisfied when I emerge from the situation victorious ;).
I played a good few hours of the Witcher 2 (30+) and generally enjoyed it (I mean to return when I have more time…), but nowhere near as much as Skyrim or Fallout. Quite looking forward to the third Witcher, obviously it’s a lot more of an open-world this time ;). Another thing that might be of interest is the number of hours many of us open-world ‘fan-boys’ put into these games with the same save, for e.g. I have over 500 hours in Fallout NV and 600+ in Skyrim (still counting…). Obviously the linear titles are much less; Max Payne 3, completed, is at 21 for e.g. Also, it’s not just first person games where I prefer this freedom and player choice approach over story telling; I’m also a big fan of Total War, Civilization, Hidden and Dangerous 2, XCOM, Elite Dangerous (hopefully, fingers crossed!) and a number of hardcore flight sims, all of which promote the player’s own story, skill and freedom over a pre-defined path (XCOM maybe less so from the bunch mentioned).
I’m looking forward to playing Alien Isolation (which I presume is v. heavy on the story, though taking a different approach), but want to set aside a full evening for it and not got the time ATM… Soon… 
Looks like I failed to keep it short - Sorry!
).
). There was a long and fun chase across most of the town, eventually I managed to ram his car onto its side. He got out and started running again; I reversed and floored it, tyres screeching - “I’ll run him down,” I thought. Ahead was a pedestrian area, bollarded off from vehicles. It was going to be a close call; would he make it before I caught him… He was looking over his shoulder as he ran. With only a split second to spare he passed the bollards as my car crashed into them at top speed. I wasn’t killed; through badly wounded and the car totalled. He continued running, still looking behind him - I would not catch him now and we both knew it. There was a small road beyond the pedestrian area and as he ran across it, still looking back, an AI car hit him side on at high speed - The brakes squealed, but it was too late - I watched as he went flying and landed dead in a heap - Mission Complete! This was pure emergent game-play and one small inconsequential mission that I’ll always remember over many of the bigger ones.
