The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date. Fast forward to and players rejoin Leon, who is now a U. He has been tasked to look into the abduction of the President's daughter and his investigation has led him to a mysterious location in Europe. As Leon encounters unimaginable horrors, he must find out who or what is behind everything. Down on his luck, Drake is lured back into the treacherous world of thieves and mercenary treasure-seekers he had sought to leave behind.
When a mysterious artifact propels Drake on an expedition to find the legendary Himalayan valley of Shambhala, he finds himself embroiled in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse against a fugitive war criminal who's after more than just the fabled riches of the lost city.
Caught in a web of deception and plunged into an increasingly deadly pursuit that tests the limits of his endurance, Drake will be forced to risk everything - but has his luck finally run out? Plot summary from Metacritic : "You are Bond. James Bond. You are assigned covert operations connected with the GoldenEye weapons satellite. M will brief you on your mission and objectives from London. Q Branch will support your efforts with a plentiful supply of weapons and gadgets.
Moneypenny offers you light-hearted best wishes and you're off! Look and shoot in any direction as you navigate 12 interactive 3-D environments. Use stealth and force as you see fit in matters of international security. Consider the military personnel expendable. You are licensed to kill! Plot summary from Metacritic : "Going beyond 'run and gun corridors,' 'monster-closet AIs' and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience.
After your plane crashes into icy uncharted waters, you discover a rusted bathysphere and descend into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Constructed as an idealistic society for a hand picked group of scientists, artists and industrialists, the idealism is no more. Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and genetically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn.
Take control of your world by hacking mechanical devices, commandeering security turrets and crafting unique items critical to your very survival. Upgrade your weapons with ionic gels, explosives and toxins to customize them to the enemy and environment. Genetically modify your body through dozens of Plasmid Stations scattered throughout the city, empowering you with fantastic and often grotesque abilities.
Explore a living world powered by Ecological A. Experience truly next generation graphics that vividly illustrate the forlorn art deco city, highlighted by the most detailed and realistic water effects ever developed in a video game.
Make meaningful choices and mature decisions, ultimately culminating in the grand question: do you exploit the innocent survivors of Rapture Plot summary from Metacritic : "By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, 'Half-Life 2' opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors -- even the emotions -- of both friends and enemies.
The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. And a lot of people -- people he cares about -- are counting on him. Plot summary from Metacritic : "Enter the mysterious world of Halo, an alien planet shaped like a ring.
As mankind's super soldier Master Chief, you must uncover the secrets of Halo and fend off the attacking Covenant.
During your missions, you'll battle on foot, in vehicles, inside, and outside with alien and human weaponry. Your objectives include attacking enemy outposts, raiding underground labs for advanced technology, rescuing fallen comrades, and sniping enemy forces. Plot summary from Metacritic : "Mario embarks on a new journey through unknown worlds, running and jumping through huge 3D worlds in the first sandbox-style Mario game since 'Super Mario 64' and 'Super Mario Sunshine.
Plot summary from Metacritic : "Players are put at the heart of their very own gangster movie, and let loose in a fully-realized 3 dimensional city with a cast of hundreds, 50 plus vehicles, ranging from sports cars to ice cream trucks and from boats to buses, 3 hours of music, including opera, reggae, house, drum and bass, pop and disco, and a huge array of street ready weapons.
Plot summary from Metacritic : "Samus returns in a new mission to unravel the mystery behind the ruined walls scattered across Tallon IV. In Metroid Prime, you'll play the role of this bounty hunter and view the world through her visor, which displays information ranging from current energy levels to ammunition.
Equipped with a Power Beam and Gravity Suit, you must shoot locked switches, solve puzzles, and eliminate enemies. It's up to you to explore the world and recover more power-ups and weapons, which gradually open more gameplay areas. Plot summary from Metacritic : "Step into the Dark As Carrington Institute's most promising new Agent, Joanna Dark must uncover the truth behind the dataDyne Corporation's recent technological breakthroughs - breakthroughs which could have serious consequences for mankind.
Take them on in both Trick Attack and Graffiti modes. Step into a world of discovery, exploration and adventure in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a boundary-breaking new game in the acclaimed series. Travel across fields, through forests and to mountain peaks as you discover what has become of the ruined kingdom of Hyrule in this open-air adventure.
Explore the wilds of Hyrule any way you like. Plot summary from Metacritic : "Los Santos: a sprawling sun-soaked metropolis full of self-help gurus, starlets and fading celebrities, once the envy of the Western world, now struggling to stay alive in a time of economic uncertainty and cheap reality TV. Amidst the turmoil, three very unique criminals plot their own chances of survival and success: Franklin, a street hustler looking for tangible opportunities and serious money; Michael, a professional ex-con whose retirement is less rosy than he figured it would be; and Trevor, a violent dude driven by the opportunity for a cheap high and his next big score.
With options at a premium, the crew risks it all in a myriad of daring and dangerous heists that could set them up for life. The game's vast and atmospheric world also provides the foundation for a brand new online multiplayer experience. America, The end of the Wild West era has begun.
After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang has to rob, steal and fight their way across the rugged heartland of America in order to survive. As deepening internal fissures threaten to tear the gang apart, Arthur must make a choice between his own ideals and loyalty to the gang that raised him.
Plot summary from Metacritic : "Super Mario Galaxy 2, the sequel to the galaxy-hopping original game, includes the gravity-defying, physics-based exploration from the first game, but is loaded with entirely new galaxies and features to challenge players. On some stages, Mario can pair up with his dinosaur buddy Yoshi and use his tongue to grab items and spit them back at enemies.
Players can also have fun with new items such as a drill that lets our hero tunnel through solid rock. Plot summary from Metacritic : "The ultimate Nintendo hero is taking the ultimate step Join Mario as he ushers in a new era of video games, defying gravity across all the planets in the galaxy. When some creature escapes into space with Princess Peach, Mario gives chase, exploring bizarre planets all across the galaxy.
Mario, Peach and enemies new and old are here. Players run, jump and battle enemies as they explore all the planets in the galaxy. Since this game makes full use of all the features of the Wii Remote, players have to do all kinds of things to succeed: pressing buttons, swinging the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk, and even pointing at and dragging things with the pointer. Since he's in space, Mario can perform mind-bending jumps unlike anything he's done before.
He'll also have a wealth of new moves that are all based around tilting, pointing and shaking the Wii Remote. Shake, tilt and point! Mario takes advantage of all the unique aspects of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller, unleashing new moves as players shake the controller and even point at and drag items with the pointer. Plot summary from Metacritic : "This is a tale of souls and swords, transcending the world and all its history, told for all eternity The greatest weapons-based fighter returns, this time on Sega Dreamcast.
Soul Calibur unleashes incredible graphics, fantastic fighters, and combos so amazing they'll make your head spin! Plot summary from Metacritic : "What does the American Dream mean today? For Niko Belic, fresh off the boat from Europe. It's the hope he can escape his past. For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has given those fans a reason for excitement thanks to its very large land area. The game is so large, the entire map from Skyrim could fit inside of it. In other words, it is not just the map that is large, it is the game. Some games have massive land area maps, but you can only explore a percentage of it.
This game allows you to free roam the entire map, corner to corner. The land area of video games are estimated sizes based on various types of measuring and scaling back and forth between other open-world games. Our numbers are not perfect, or exact.
They are guesses drawn from various sources and our own measuring. That brings us to Red Dead Redemption 2 , the prequel to the hit video game Red Dead Redemption , and it's impressively large gaming map that many have estimated to be around 29 square miles.
That is much smaller than earlier estimates, before the game his the shelves, that claimed that the map was the largest one ever created by Rockstar. But after measuring it, we come closer to the 29 square miles we listed above, which is a couple square miles less than GTA V. Although gamers are going to disagree, we have found that the largest game map in the Far Cry franchise belongs to Far Cry 2 , with a land size of 31 square miles. The other games in the series come close but are just a few miles short of this one.
To keep things in perspective, if you have the game then take a walk from one end to the other, see how long it takes. It could take close to an hour to walk the entire map, if our measurements are correct, and we believe they most certainly are. If you are wondering why Rockstar games have found so much success without shoving games in our faces just about every six months, it is because of who they are as a company.
They believe in being an original, not a follower. They go out of their way to create a game that can stand alone as a truly unique masterpiece. That is why GTA V is still one of the highest grossing games in the world even after nearly six years since it was released. The game was built using maps of Los Angeles and Southern California. This helped game designers create a map that covers 31 square miles and includes mountains, skyscrapers, deserts, and an army base that would make even the U.
Military proud. In order to truly test the size of this map, you need to get the game and explore. So, after some rigorous testing, we discovered that the time it takes to get from one end of the map to the other, at roughly three times the normal walking speed, it can take close to 20 minutes in real time. Can you imagine that? The video game evolution has come full circle now. Open-world games are so large in land size that they take you 20 minutes of real time just to walk across the map.
If you do not take on any side missions, or follow the main storyline, it takes nearly 20 minutes to do nothing but walking. The area map for the hit video game Fallout 4 is 43 square miles.
Of all the games to make our list, this is the only one that has been debated by gamers from all over the internet. The outdoor wasteland area is nearly four square miles but that is not the only part of the game that should be considered for square mileage because of how many inside and underground areas are also included.
Also, there were a couple of DLC packs that expanded the overall gaming area to reach almost 43 square miles. Since it is in the game, we decided to go with it and consider it part of the total area size of the map. With Electronic Arts becoming somewhat of a villain in the gaming world today, many people forget that just five years ago, they had created a very underrated open-world game called Dragon Age: Inquisition.
The game was, and still is, one of the hidden gems of EA's video game arsenal. The environment's were beautifully designed and the story itself was very intriguing. BioWare did a wonderful job creating a perfectly underrated game that gives gamers about 45 square mileage of land to roam around and explore.
Thanks to Black Flag , the Assassin's Creed franchise has been able to stick around this long. Although recent releases have been a bit of a disappointment, it was Black Flag that gave gamers something to hope for in the near future. They know that the Assassin's Creed franchise can produce something of high quality like Black Flag.
Besides the open-world setting reaching 55 square miles, the real success behind the game was the ability to become a pirate, set sail, and navigate throughout the open waters as if it were four hundred years ago and Jack Sparrow was out there leading his own crew.
Unlike most other game developers, CD Projekt has one philosophy: to create the best open-world gaming experience a gamer can achieve. They do not focus much on making as much money as possible off a video game so they end up focusing on creating higher quality games instead of simply making junk that they know will please a lot of people.
That idea led to the creation of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt , one of the greatest open-world games of all time.
The companies attention to quality helped them create something that has become an amazing game. This gave decisions true weight. BioWare is known for crafted narratives and diverse, intriguing characters. Its Mass Effect series sets these elements against a beautiful sci-fi backdrop filled with exotic alien species, each with their own interplanetary drama.
The franchise reaches near perfection in its second installment, Mass Effect 2. The bonds you form with your many crewmates throughout the game will have you replaying the game to make sure you save every, last, one. Mass Effect 2 is a master class in action-adventure role playing with a hero designed to appeal to, and inspire, a wide variety of gamers — making it one of the greatest video games of all time.
Though not as popular as its sequel, the Valve-developed Dota 2, Dota quickly became a multimillion-dollar asset to the esports industry. As it existed in the Warcraft 3 custom-games community, Defense of the Ancients was a gathering. Very few games have built identity, history and genre like Dota , and fewer have released "remastered" editions while maintaining such. Players embrace Dota 2 's semi-regular updates, endless depth and free-to-play draw, and it's a hit on Twitch and in the greater esports world.
Competitors have copied it and even paralleled its success, but Dota has thrived regardless, and its hardcore, tight-knit community may support it evermore. Shadow of the Colossus was more about the journey than the destination. Players spent a lot of time on horseback searching for 16 colossi — and sometimes even longer trying to defeat them.
A game as much about subtlety as it was grand scale, Shadow of the Colossus is an example of games as high art. Striving for a level of realism still pretty rare in games, the game combined classic adventure mechanics with an approach that would later be known as a survival sim.
Mother 3 took a lot of what made its predecessors so special and threw it out the window. Emphasizing familial pressures, Mother 3 had a level of seriousness other games of its time didn't, quickly making it one of the most beloved games of all time, even though it was never released officially in North America. Super Mario Kart is a great racing game. But it's a Nintendo racing game, and that distinction matters.
A mix of Nintendo's trademark zaniness and a highly-competitive racer, Super Mario Kart became a staple of couch co-op games, proving who was the best behind the wheel with a well-placed banana peel. Every wannabe rockstar finally had an audience in Guitar Hero.
As one of the most popular rhythm games, Guitar Hero launched a renaissance of music-based games. Though the genre fell off over time, the first Guitar Hero was a phenomenon. The Sims took decades of simulation game history and applied it to something everyone could understand: the human life. Free of all the complicated, obtuse angles of other simulators , The Sims ' accessibility, diverse character creation and variety of daily activities made it one of the most successful games in the genre.
Halo made Xbox. Without it, it's hard to say what Microsoft's game division would look like today. And that's thanks to the game's mix of scale, story and competition. The controls worked amazingly well on a console pad, too. Wii Sports was the rare game that found its way in the hands players who normally wouldn't think of touching a game.
Fusing easy-to-understand, easy-to-play sports minigames with Wii's accessible hardware and user interface, Wii Sports made many in the industry rethink what games needed to be.
Evolving the design set forth by Demon's Souls, Dark Souls continued the series' legacy of sadistic gameplay and accomplishment of learning. Dark Souls was a game always pushing back. You played by its rules, yet those rules were always fair. The first time I played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , it permanently changed my impression of what a video game can be, and what the medium can accomplish. Ocarina of Time made the transition from 2D to 3D look like the easiest thing in the world.
Everything you'd come to expect from a Zelda game was there, yet a host of new mechanics elevated the gameplay. Featuring the groundbreaking target-lock system and songs needing to be learned, Ocarina of Time stood out. Diablo 2 was one of the fastest-selling PC games — which makes sense. Following the immensely popular Diablo, this sequel didn't change too much. With more addictive hacking and slashing, and more loot and cows, Diablo 2 became one of Blizzard's highest achievements by being the only thing it needed to be: more.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is the game that just keeps on giving. Providing players an entire state to play in, the game's open world was light years beyond anything seen before in terms of world detail, depth and sheer number of things to do. Resident Evil 4 was a new perspective on an old genre. A change-up on the Resident Evil formula, RE4 introduced more action to the long-running survival horror series, and placed the camera over protagonist Leon Kennedy's shoulder — which fixed the series' legacy control issues.
Nintendo's first major success in North America and the first game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, Donkey Kong broke ground as one of the earliest examples of what a platformer could be — and it introduced Mario. W orld let Mario find new items, it changed how he jumped and traversed levels and it introduced Yoshi. Utilizing the expanded size of the Super Nintendo, World was a much bigger game than earlier Marios, shipping with 96 total worlds. Persona 4 's greatest achievement may just have been getting people to pay attention.
When released, Persona 4 found large fanfare in the west — and its deep story, meaningful social links and addictive procedural dungeon crawling established the series as one of the best in games. The vibrant graphics, spectacular soundtrack and finely-tuned JRPG combat are more than enough reason to adore Persona 4 , but the game's authenticity is what allows it to touch players' hearts.
The literal inner demons its teenage heroes must face are immediately recognizable, as the cast faces fears about their responsibilities to their families, their petty jealousies, their questions about their sexuality and who they want to become as adults.
Persona 4 's explorations of friendship aren't throwaway plot devices used to set up jokes or provide the conflict needed to advance the story; they're sincere invitations to the player to challenge their own inner demons and see what persona emerges.
One of the first interactive fiction games, Zork changed gaming when the game actually spoke back to the player in an intelligent way.
Utilising a "text parser," Zork was able to understand complex commands, recognizing some conjunctions and prepositions, which added a layer of depth and complexity to the world. He would show me the printouts of what he was doing in the game, and I would give him suggestions about how to solve some problem like opening a jeweled egg they found.
I still remember his excitement as he told me how he and his friends discovered how to move the carpet in the white house, open the trap door and descend down into the great underground empire. I was hooked on video games from that moment, even though I was only playing them vicariously by reading a printout and hearing my brother talk about what he was doing.
Gone Home scoffed at what a game "is. Spelunky is a 2D platformer you'll probably never master — or even beat. Its procedural nature ensures no two playthroughs are the same, and it's so masterfully designed, so full of mysteries and so addicting, that many players find themselves constantly playing through each new iteration as if it was a new game.
If Spelunky is a healthy body, then the player is its virus. Without human interference, the cutesy caverns and jungles operate without incident. A shop clerk waits to make a sale, a school of fish swim their daily laps, a bat quietly sleeps. Only when the player enters the fray does it become clear that every creature, person and object is a safeguard designed to impede their progress to the treasure at its core.
At first, the tools for survival — a whip, some rope, a bag full of bombs — feel lethally unpredictable. An explosion knocks a rock into your head. You dodge a booby-trap arrow, only for it to catch you on the ricochet. But slowly, you learn to turn the body against itself. You send a peaceful shopkeeper on a violent rampage or convert a spike pit into a burial ground for a pack of thieving monkeys.
Designer Derek Yu assumes an intellectual and emotional patience from his players. The magic of his design is that everything good can just as well kill you, and everything bad can become the one thing that keeps you alive. Given a more realistic setting than most games in the genre, EarthBound was developed to be enjoyed by people who don't play JRPGs — or even games in general.
Its goofy tone, cultural satire and genuine heart made it a standout. When Japanese RPGs were obsessed with fantastical settings, Earth B ound stuck out as an outlier for its cartoony, modern setting.
Why have a Phoenix Down when you could power up with something as relatable as a pizza instead? Ness was just a normal kid, living in a small-town parody of American culture. But the game held surprises at every turn, thanks to its sharp, surprising, hopeful writing that made us care about the bond its four heroes shared, not to mention one of the most unforgettable soundtracks ever.
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind took the series' history of open-ended gameplay and expanded upon it greatly. Putting less emphasis on plot, Morrowind made its titular world the star. And Morrowind 's world was a treat to get lost in — especially without waypoints constantly looming overhead. This game, in its sheer scale and fully realised ambition, manages to impress 15 years later. A vast island, with nooks and crannies aplenty waiting to be explored, where going off the beaten track was not only encouraged but required.
This was an RPG par excellence, explorable at every level, and its perfect balance of good graphics for its day with a truly open world environment has rarely, if ever, been bested.
Journey was a game about companionship and the freedom of death. Players weren't told who they were playing with, and only had the option to help each other, forcing players to trust one another. This competition-free approach to multiplayer combined with the game's beautiful allegory for life made Journey an instant classic.
With its over-the-top sometimes-on-fire gameplay, it ushered in new wave of arcade sports games emphasizing craziness over realism. But Jam 's precise gameplay made it a standout over imitators.
Metal Gear Solid gets credit for popularizing the stealth genre. Bringing the Metal Gear series into 3D, the game let players sneak around real environments, hiding from guards and hiding bodies. Using elaborate cutscenes and voice acting, Metal Gear Solid 's cinematic presentation made its deep story of top-secret infiltration rival Hollywood blockbusters. Nearly 20 years after playing Metal Gear Solid , I can still remember what my first time was like. It was my introduction to stealth.
It hadn't even occurred to me that not killing enemies could be a fun alternative. Even today, every time I see a security camera in the real world, my instinct is to remember it, just in case I need to sneak past later.
And because the game's story was designed and written for adults, it taught me that games had grown up just like me. It set the stage for my next two decades of gaming. Revolving around the construction and management of a Dwarf colony, Dwarf Fortress is a game you can't win — you simply play until you're done or defeated.
The open-ended gameplay and unique use of text-based visuals made the game an early example of an indie game becoming successful solely based on its unique gameplay and style. Rogue created an entirely new genre. Elements of this dungeon-crawler, like randomly generated dungeons, permadeath and collectible weapons and items, gave birth to a wave of games called "roguelikes.
FIFA 12 took the long-running sports series and turned it into something beautiful. The host of new features made it a faithful recreation of soccer, allowing players to not only play the sport, but manage their teams down to the sheer minutiae.
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