Pick 5: Captivating Video Game Worlds
/
A video game world is a key ingredient in any video game. It sets the stage for the story and the characters, and is essentially the playground for the player. Sometimes the world takes the spotlight more than any part of the game. Some developers take that extra mile to create a very captivating world that would tap your curiosity, making every bit of detail and information ever so sweet as you explore the game. With BioShock Infinite released this week, it was only fitting to make this week’s Pick 5 about those game worlds that really suck you in. There’s quite a lot that achieve this, some are quite iconic, but these five for me are game worlds that really got me invested in the game, taking it slow, taking in everything it has to offer.
Bioshock's Rapture
BioShock was a real shocker when it was first released. Rapture was a world not really seen before in video games, and Irrational Games really made this fantastic world a place worth exploring. From the outside, it looks like a busy city that doesn't sleep, but once you enter the city’s corridors, you find out the city has gone out of control, and its corridors now have crazed citizens and the iconic Big Daddy roaming its corridors. As you explore, you get a glimpse of Rapture’s good ol’ days, getting a good idea of Rapture in its prime. There’s a lot of mystery going on in Rapture - How the city fell in ruin, the Big Daddy’s and the little sister, the power giving plasmids, it’s a world worth investing and to this day, its considered one of the best game worlds to come out of this generation.
Fallout 3's post apocalyptic world
Bethesda did good in this one. The term post-apocalyptic was well imagined in the world of Fallout 3 making it an interesting world to get lost in. Not that I want to be in a world where the nukes have fallen, and now living in the aftermath. It’s just the way the game started. You, born and raised on an underground vault, now emerging from the ground, adjusting your eyes to the bright sunlight, and seeing the brutal wasteland for the first time spikes your curiosity since you yourself is very unfamiliar with this land. A land now filled with bandits and scavengers looking for any kind of food to stay alive, with many groups and organizations attempting to take power and some sort of order. Fallout 3 had a lot of interesting side stories, some are quite disturbing at times but it gave the sense of how bad the world is. With a game mostly focused about finding your daddy, going off course from the main path is the best way to play this game, and the open wasteland made it easy to do just that.
Elder Scroll's Tamriel
This is the mother of all high fantasy worlds when video games are concerned. Tamriel is one world you will most definitely get yourself lost for hours if your into RPG’s. With each game set in a different part, or continent in Tamriel, there’s always something different about each one. While each one is quite similar, the conflicts and issues are different. Tamriel is literally filled with lore if you bother to read a book every now and then. If you like, you can learn the history of a certain city or group. Stories of past wars, or the rule of past kings and queens that once ruled the land. You can actually spend hours on hours reading about this fantasy world. Its crazy how much content and effort was put by the developers making it easy for every player to spend more than 50+ hours just roaming around exploring. be it Skyrim or Morrowind, you’ll definitely not regret your time in Tamriel.
Welcome to Silent Hill
I had to include this. The first time I entered Silent Hill, of course I was terrified. The first game was scary as a kid, but I was really hell bent on figuring out what happened to this town. Why is it so foggy? Where did these creatures come from? What happened to the people in this town? Those questions are really what kept me going and it was great uncovering the mystery little by little as you move on. Silent Hill had those little details that make it memorable and iconic. The dense fog, the creepy static whenever a creature is nearby, and the oh so scary pyramid creature with the huge sword that gets introduced in the third game. The story of Silent Hill in general is a bit crazy, but I don’t think we’ll ever forget our first visit in Silent Hill, walking through abandoned schools and hospitals with a pipe and a flashlight, getting lost half the time.
Metal Gear Solid, and all its conspiracies combined
This is one world that just gets crazier and crazier each time a new game gets released. Ill have to admit that it can be a bit absurd at times thanks to the mind of Hideo Kojima, but I can’t help but absorb every little detail each game provides. A game that at first, was all about stopping the Metal Gear weapon, has become so much more. From Snake’s background, Foxhound, the conspiracies created by real events, all the way to the patriots manipulating the world, this world is madness. It was a wild joyride so far and as much as it has gone overboard in story, it’s definitely entertaining that you will be glued to the screen until the last bit of cutscene. Then, when the credits start rolling, you don’t quite understand some of it, thus the research via the internet starts.
