The Open World Buyer’s Guide For June

by AXIS of Reality

©2009 Alex Baldwin

June has been a big month for games, almost like Christmas come early. Some amazing releases have left us spoiled for choice, with an unusual trend among the majority: open worlds. Red Faction: Guerrilla and inFamous kicked off winter in style followed closely by Prototype less than a week later.

While reviews have given these three a hearty dose of praise, with the best making sure to review each on their own individual merits, there is still a question remaining: if you can only afford one, which is right for you?

It’s evident all are quality games, and one can’t be simply hailed as ‘the best’ for everyone.

After all, different players have different values they look for in open world games. Where one wants an intriguing story, someone else may be in it only for messing up a city and feeling like a badass, while another wants the feeling of freedom from running and leaping through a giant playground.

This article is for those people who simply want to know how each measures up in the separate features of sandbox games, and can choose their poison from there.

For that purpose, you’ll find a rating of each in the individual categories to help you find the game you want. There’s no ‘winner’ here or replacement for the reviews – just a way to find which is more suited to your own tastes. So on that note, let’s dive into the first category.

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The World

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

As with the previous in the series, Red Faction: Guerrilla takes place on a future vision of Mars that’s now mankinds’ centre for mining. What this means is lots of red and orange dirt, rocks, small settlements and quarries. Luckily Volition managed to fit in some more variety than would be expected with clearly individual zones in architecture and colour filters (with some surprises too).

Everything is quite spread out with some distance between significant landmarks that gives more of a sense of a larger world you’re traveling across. It can’t be avoided though: if you have something against the colour orange, best to avoid this game at all costs. There’s only so much that can be done with mining equipment and dust.

“3/5

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• inFamous

Using the traditional city setting, inFamous gives it a twist with the majority being rusted, destroyed and generally looking like a bomb went off (which funnily enough, it did).

However, developers Sucker Punch have done an astonishing job of adding detail to every object and surface, making the city feel very organic and completely removing the ‘copy and pasted’ feel some open worlds can have. The placement of objects, the distance between rooftops and the height of buildings all feel perfectly planned and tested to match the movement of the player character ‘Cole‘. The world really is the strongest point of inFamous.

“5/5

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• Prototype

Unfortunately, it’s the weakest element of Prototype. Using a satellite-mapped New York, the game world is one of the most tightly packed and planned cities on Earth which has both its positives and negatives. While it’s great to have a real city, you can tell even from looking at the map that it’s not the most interesting place to play – streets and buildings in perfect grids that make almost every street feel like the next.

There’s no real need to explore, as most buildings appear just like they all have slightly different placement of windows. The height of the buildings can be very exhilarating though – unlike most open city games that use scaled-down buildings sizes, the sky scrapers in Prototype really are massively tall that make it a thrill to leap off.

However, this still can’t hide the mostly bland layout that gives no real sense of different areas or places you’re exploring. If you’ve seen one intersection, you’ve seen them all. This is a critical area for open world games and where Prototype shoots itself in the foot.

“2/5

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The Player & Tools

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

Taking the role of Alex Mercer, a regular human miner, RF:G doesn’t sound as exciting as a lightning-shooting superhuman or a shape shifting monster, but luckily this vulnerability is made up for in the tools at your disposal.

Developers Volition have given the player one of the deadliest arsenals ever seen in a game, letting you make up for your human weaknesses with the mother-load of explosives. Just make sure you’re well away before setting them off.

“4/5

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• inFamous

As an electricity-wielding superhero/villain, you’re let free in the city with basic powers that soon develop into abilities that can see you taking out dozens of cars and pedestrians in the space of a few seconds. While all electricity-based, the powers do fall into the traditional forms seen before in gaming- the ‘force push’, a ‘gun’, a ‘grenade’, etc. It doesn’t stop them being a hell of a lot of fun though.

Interestingly, player health is handled through electrical means as well – to recharge both your ‘ammo’ and health, the players must suck power from cars, traffic lights and even people (if you’re playing evil). This works surprisingly well when walking into a blacked-out section of the city.

“4/5

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• Prototype

Now this is where Prototype shines. Shoving in more different moves and powers than anyone thought possible, Radical have given players perhaps the most wide-ranging set of abilities seen in a game.

Everything from spearing tanks with spikes from the ground to shooting tentacles out in all directions through anything, to being able to consume anyone and everyone to shape shift into them. It’s truly astounding to see upgrades menu and the range of killing methods available.

And yes, this game makes no apologies about it – you are a killer, and people will run screaming from you. But hey, you may as well enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe slice a few in half with your arm as a blade before punching a hole through another’s chest with a tentacle?

“5/5

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The Movement

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

As a regular person, you are quite restricted in movement to running, sprinting and crouching. Luckily there are always different vehicles around the place to commandeer including a massive mech that will help you along when you run out of remote mines. The vehicles themselves handle well enough, with a satisfactory feeling of weight and grip without being anything particularly special.

“3/5

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• inFamous

Assassin’s Creed may have a lot to answer for, but in this case it’s rasied the bar for player movement in open world games. Sucker Punch were clearly watching close as inFamous has a similar feel as you scale buildings by climbing up windows and small ledges.

The addition of power lines strung between rooftops for grinding a la Jet Set Radio makes getting across the city a pleasure that is enjoyable enough even without the missions. Being charged with electricity, the protagonist Cole can’t use cars but he can ride on the roof as made popular by GTA3.

“5/5

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• Prototype

While as previously mentioned the world in Prototype isn’t the best, the same can’t be said for navigating it. Quite simply, Prototype gives you one of the most satisfying ways to get around. Simply put, the main character Alex Mercer can run straight up vertical surfaces, leap dozens of feet in the air and glide between rooftops.

This is a title that goes all out in making you, the player, feel as completely free and powerful as is possible in a game. It feels effortless and works almost flawlessly.

“5/5

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The Combat

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

Being an action game at heart, the focus is almost always on the combat which works very well. The combination of using destruction as a weapon along with traditional (if weak-feeling) guns and vehicles is satisfying and makes sure every mission is fun.

Situations allow multiple ways of engaging enemies with the most creative always being the most rewarding for the lateral-thinking player. The only real weakness is the severe lack of variety in enemies – it will always be foot soldiers or vehicles, with a lot of potential for imaginative enemies unfortunately not fulfilled.

“3/5

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• inFamous

Using the variety of powers, inFamous lets players take on enemies both near and far. It’s a lot of fun blasting out everything in your path or throwing enemies off the sides of buildings, as well as utilizing some environmental elements such as a puddle of water they may be standing in to simply touch and electrocute everything else in it.

There are a few problems however with the range that enemies can see you from. Often you’ll start taking damage as an unseen opponent a hundred metres away on top of an 8-story building snipes you mercilessly. This can cause annoyance quite frequently, as can a few poorly planned enemies that as a group can result in you being drained of your health in seconds without anything to recharge from nearby.

“3/5

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• Prototype

With all those abilities for tearing up absolutely everything into smaller and smaller chunks of meat, it’s no surprise that Prototype caters to even the most bloodthirsty of gamers.

Tearing through reams of soldiers, tanks and even helicopters is a ton of fun, improvising as you go and aided by an extremely well designed auto-lock on aiming system that prioritizes enemies intelligently.

Fights are fast and furious and can take place over multiple altitudes from the ground troops up to choppers circling the rooftops and infected monsters scaling buildings after you. Often it will be swarms of military and monsters both fighting each other and you with civilians caught in the middle trying to escape filling the streets, and it’s only after you’ve cleared it all into an eery silence that you realise the carnage left in your wake.

The only real issue is the sometimes schizophrenic camera that can block the action or hide a particularly nasty enemy from view as it struggles to work out what part of the bloodletting you want to be focusing on.

“5/5

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The Story

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

The story in RF:G is mostly just to move the action along. The characters aren’t memorable with the reason for doing anything less about motivation from the story as it is motivation from the gameplay. Most of the time you’ll either be unaware of the story or you won’t really care. Luckily it doesn’t hurt the gameplay at all.

“2/5

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• inFamous

With some stunning graphic-novel inspired cutscenes, inFamous does a great job of keeping you aware of the larger picture as you go. There’s nothing revolutionary about the plot, but the way it’s delivered works very well and it does a great job of keeping the game flowing at a good pace.

“4/5

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• Prototype

While initially boasting a deeply involving and unique story during development told in a unique ‘web of intrigue’ format, the end result isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds but does a good job.

Using the usual amnesia starting point, the player can increase their understanding and piece together the larger picture through consuming targets with some useful knowledge marked through the city.

The fragmented cutscenes received for each of these are well-edited and do slowly fill you in as a drip-feed, providing good motivation to keep seeking more down and advancing the story.

“4/5

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The Missions

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

Staying true to the central feature of the game, every missions has a tendency to be centred around destruction. Luckily it doesn’t get old like one may think.

There’s a decent amount of variety, from plowing through the bases of massive windmills pursued by dozens of tanks to inconspicuously following enemies to find a hidden base (which then is in dire need of deconstructing, of course).

There’s nothing subtle about your objectives, but it works great and stays fun all the way through. The side missions have a few different types marked on the map so you always know what you’re walking into, and use singular objectives such as destroying buildings within a time limit using only explosive barrels or taking out high-profile building targets.

There’s nothing that’ll knock your socks off in the missions, but it’s fast, fun and motivation enough for advancing the game.

“3/5

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• inFamous

The missions in inFamous use a similar style of having several set types dotted around the map. However, the completion of each is rewarded by clearing enemies from that small segment of the map to slowly gain ownership of each area.

There’s nothing revolutionary in the mission objectives, but they work fine for the style and often take you right across each island. There’s good variety with the main story missions being larger scale such as protecting and lowering two sides of a massive bridge.

A staple mission in each area is restoring power to the city section underground in the sewers which are very platform-based and a nice change from the all-out fighting of above ground (along with the reward of a new power each time).

“3/5

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• Prototype

Prototype mirrors the same mission structure as RF:G and inFamous with set story missions and other single-objective optional side mission dotted around. However, there’s one thing that can be guaranteed between all missions: you’ll end up wiping out more enemies and civilians than are contained within most full games.

It’s not uncommon to see on the handy statistics presented at the end of each mission upwards of 1000 in the number of deaths caused in a 10 minute challenge. While each story mission is different, they all revolve around combat which is great if you’re a fan of games such as Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, but may leave those seeking a more intellectual challenge cold.

“2/5

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The Extras

• Red Faction: Guerrilla

Out of the three, Red Faction is the only one with a multiplayer mode. For an open world game you might think this would be an afterthought but it provides a surprising amount of fun.

A lot can be attributed to the destruction, which is also unique to RF:G as absolutely everything man-made can be smashed apart and brought crashing down in a physically accurate manner without the preset manner many past games have presented for destruction.

These two elements provide a lot of replay value to RF:G and score a lot of bonus points for the game.

“5/5

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• inFamous

While very polished with exceptionally high production values and a fantastic world, there isn’t anything extra that it can hold up high above and beyond the competition.

The only extra element of note is the moral system, that doesn’t allow any room for shades of grey – you’re a hero or a villain, and you’ll get different powers and some different missions for each. Staying in the middle will just result in missing out on powers for both sides of the fence.

“2/5

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• Prototype

While Prototype is in the same sort of boat as inFamous for this category, it does have something extra to show for itself.

While it lacks any sort of morality (you’re evil and there’s no changing that), it has a great dynamic area ownership system. Basically, both the military and infected can have areas of the city under their control at any one time. These are marked on the map with blue or red circles, with either a military base or infected hive at the centre to remove the hold on that area.

This allows you to go looking for a fight if you ever just want to kill something outside a mission, and can be very entertaining when a military and infected area cross over into a purple zone.

All out fighting between them is great to watch and even better to participate in, and can provide a great distraction. These will also slowly increase in number as you get further into the game so you can see the city go to hell.

“4/5

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To Conclude

So all the games are fantastic, and hopefully this guide gives you a better idea of which is more suited to you should you only be able to get one or two.

I highly recommend all of them, but I’m sure you can tell from the multitude of opinions both for and against each of these games that there are significant differences, strengths and weaknesses for each.

So happy gaming, and enjoy what seems to be the golden age of the open world sandbox genre.

©2009 Alex Baldwin

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