Games where you can go Exploring

[11killer11]

I know i'm not the only one.

Are there any games out there besides missions and storyline driven that you could actually just explore the land (being cities or anything else for that matter)? Besides the obvious ones such as GTA: San Andreas, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I don't care if their first or third person view.

I bring this up because I'm researching Deus Ex for the PS2 and it just brings to mind that some games are not (you have to take this path) games.

EDIT:
I'm probably not that clear at the moment so let me explain it a little more. I mean a game where you can just walk around and see how things react to certain situations, see if things are breakable or not, see if you can do something that wasn't intended to do, find something odd.

[jcalder8]

If you jump the pole in Super Mario Bros you can go Exploring :-D

[Zthun]

I know i'm not the only one.

Are there any games out there besides missions and storyline driven that you could actually just explore the land (being cities or anything else for that matter)? Besides the obvious ones such as GTA: San Andreas, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I don't care if their first or third person view.

I bring this up because I'm researching Deus Ex for the PS2 and it just brings to mind that some games are not (you have to take this path) games.

EDIT:
I'm probably not that clear at the moment so let me explain it a little more. I mean a game where you can just walk around and see how things react to certain situations, see if things are breakable or not, see if you can do something that wasn't intended to do, find something odd.

Spiderman games I think. Jak 2 was another.

Do you mean games that give you everything from the start?

[11killer11]

Spiderman games I think. Jak 2 was another.

Do you mean games that give you everything from the start?


It could go either way on that question, I don't really mind.

[Rob2600]

Body Harvest and Space Station: Silicon Valley on the N64, and any Legend of Zelda game.

[StetsonGraves]

Jak 2 and 3 were like that.

Far Cry 2 has a ridiculously huge world but I wouldn't recommend that game to anyone.

Then there are the obvious Fallout 3, Morrowind, Oblivion etc. If you don't mind it being a little more closed off I highly recommend Psychonauts.

[PapaStu]

In going places you shouldn't be going, Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 all have nice little easter eggs in spots for your exploration above and beyond the call of duty.

If you're talking about the 'open world' game, you can also just go and sink a million hours into Just Cause is the first that springs to mind. God the world in that game is huge. Far Cry/FC redux / Far Cry 2 also fit the bill of ZOMG huge world to dabble in.

The Smugglers Run games on the PS2 have a big open drive area to them (not huge by todays means, but at the time, those were some big fields). The Burnout Series has that as well.

Red Faction Guerilla, Mercenaries 2, are both good 'at your leisure' open world games that arn't GTA.

[Zthun]

Jak 2 and 3 were like that.

Far Cry 2 has a ridiculously huge world but I wouldn't recommend that game to anyone.

Then there are the obvious Fallout 3, Morrowind, Oblivion etc. If you don't mind it being a little more closed off I highly recommend Psychonauts.

Fallout 1 and 2 had a lot of this as well.

[cityside75]

I'm gonna take this thread all old school and say Auto Racing for the Intellivision. You could go off-course exploring and find all of the other tracks as well as a dragstrip. I remember there was a specific spot I found that would let my car drive through the entire "world" without hitting anything.

[kupomogli]

I'm gonna take this thread all old school and say Auto Racing for the Intellivision. You could go off-course exploring and find all of the other tracks as well as a dragstrip. I remember there was a specific spot I found that would let my car drive through the entire "world" without hitting anything.

Reminds me of Test Drive 3. I haven't played 1 and 2, but on the third one, you could drive pretty much anywhere. If you hit anything your window would crack(as if you crashed,) or if you went into water your screen would fill with a sortof multishaded blue look. There was also a race track loop that had a car going around in circles on it that you could find in the middle of nowhere.

[DigitalSpace]

In True Crime: Streets of LA, you can explore a huge portion of the city, but there are some off-the-map areas you can easily break into (such as the downtown portion of the LA River, the UCLA campus, and a huge open area where the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena would be). Sneaking into off-limits areas on some portions of the map will quickly send you back, but in other areas, you're free to explore as much as you please.

In 4x4 Evolution, the areas surrounding the courses are huge (for that time, anyways), and in each course, there's a hidden treasure chest that will give you some extra cash. For example, the chest in the Arizona course is hidden in a small ghost town.

[BydoEmpire]

Morrowind is the king of that, in my opinion. No game ever made think "I wonder what's over that hill" and then actually delivered something cool and unexpected when I actually did climb over that hill like Morrowind.

Auto Racing on the Inty is a great suggestion - I used to love exploring around the tracks.

[SegaAges]

Wing Commander: Privateer was like that as well. You could choose to do the missions, or you could do just enough missions to get a hyperdrive and go exploring.

The space stage in Spore is also like that as well.

[The 1 2 P]

In Burnout 3 you can go exploring places you aren't suppose to be, thanks to a healthy supply of gaming glitches to get outside of the tracks.

[Rickstilwell1]

Don't forget the four old games that are becoming popular thanks to the new PS3 game Demon's Souls:

King's Field (Japan Only) (Playstation 1)
King's Field (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field II (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field: The Ancient City (Playstation 2)

[StetsonGraves]

To continue with the old school driving game trend, in Driver if you can get the cops to hit you over the barrier you can explore the ocean...by driving on it =)

Oh, and Brutal Legend just came out, you might want to give that one a spin also.

[Steve W]

Another one that I liked (on the driving topic) was Smuggler's Run: Warzones. I believe that's the name of the GameCube version, but the game also came out on the PS2 under a slightly different name. There were the missions you could try, and then there was the freeplay mode. That's the one I loved, driving a four wheeler across these massive levels and just exploring. The game designers put in a couple video game tokens per level that you could find which would unlock a new level or two when you collected them all. I never played the missions too much, I just drove all over the maps. I loved the GC version so I bought a PS2 game in the same series but with a different name, and it turned out to be the same damn game as the GC one. So I never bought any other Smuggler's Run games, being pissed off at them for that.

[bcks007]

^^^According to the back of the artwork for both games, ps2 version is 1-2 players, gamecube is 1-4. So something is indeed different.

[Sonicwolf]

EDIT:
I'm probably not that clear at the moment so let me explain it a little more. I mean a game where you can just walk around and see how things react to certain situations, see if things are breakable or not, see if you can do something that wasn't intended to do, find something odd.

I seem to remember something about a microwave casserole in Half Life. Something about blowing it up inside the microwave in one of the rooms.

There is the room in the castle in Zelda OoT in which you encounter young Princess Zelda. If you look around, there are photos of Mario characters in the courthouse windows and if you shoot your slingshot into the window, a guard will get mad at you and throw a bomb.

[BetaWolf47]

Pilotwings 64, one of my favorite exploration games.

[Ro-J]

To continue with the old school driving game trend, in Driver if you can get the cops to hit you over the barrier you can explore the ocean...by driving on it =)

I seem to recall that you can do the same thing in Crazy Taxi, you can drive around underwater and explore a little before time ran out.

[Vkmies]

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Best free world game ever. So much to do, see and touch!

[11killer11]

Spiderman games I think. Jak 2 was another.

Do you mean games that give you everything from the start?

I remember Jak 2, all you can do is annoy the cops right? If I'm right? Cause i remember the streets very narrow and a lot of villagers or pedestrians or whatver you want to call them.


Another one that I liked (on the driving topic) was Smuggler's Run: Warzones. I believe that's the name of the GameCube version, but the game also came out on the PS2 under a slightly different name. There were the missions you could try, and then there was the freeplay mode. That's the one I loved, driving a four wheeler across these massive levels and just exploring. The game designers put in a couple video game tokens per level that you could find which would unlock a new level or two when you collected them all. I never played the missions too much, I just drove all over the maps. I loved the GC version so I bought a PS2 game in the same series but with a different name, and it turned out to be the same damn game as the GC one. So I never bought any other Smuggler's Run games, being pissed off at them for that.

I was 7 or 8 when i picked that game up at Blockbuster, not even knowing what smuggling meant at the time. I'll see if I can pick it up now though somewhere. Isn't the game all desert though?


Don't forget the four old games that are becoming popular thanks to the new PS3 game Demon's Souls:

King's Field (Japan Only) (Playstation 1)
King's Field (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field II (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field: The Ancient City (Playstation 2)

I knew I should've picked that up when I saw it in a thrift shop sometime ago.

[kupomogli]

Don't forget the four old games that are becoming popular thanks to the new PS3 game Demon's Souls:

King's Field (Japan Only) (Playstation 1)
King's Field (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field II (US) (Playstation 1)
King's Field: The Ancient City (Playstation 2)

Don't forget Eternal Ring and the Shadow Tower games that play exactly like the King's Field titles.

There's also Evergrace and Forever Kingdom that play alot like Demon's Souls. Aside from leveling up, two different attacks types per weapon, and the obvious online aspect, these two games are pretty much Demon's Souls template.

I might try and find King's Field jewel case version, King's Field 2, and Shadow Tower again before the prices sky rocket and "rare" is posted on every auction imaginable.

[unwinddesign]

Smuggler's Run was epic. I bought it with my launch PS2 when I was in 6th grade...when I popped that in, the graphics just blew me away. That game was fucking huge. It looked damn nice, played smooth...you could explore the shit out of that game. Probably sucks by today's standards, though. Haven't played it in like 7 years.

Funny, even with all the production values and extra horsepower available, I haven't gotten that feeling with any recent titles.

I'd check out Assassin's Creed and Crackdown. AC in particular is huge, and the environs are beautifully detailed...there's just no missions or real meat to the game. If all you want to do is check stuff out and maybe look for hidden collectibles (of which there are a shit-load) then it would be a good pickup (although I enjoyed the main quest a lot...).

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

http://www.tycromedia.com/images/PS2-Dora-The-Explorer-Journ.gif

[kupomogli]

Well. No one else listed any yet other than the Elder Scrolls games, but pretty much any RPG.

The RPG Maker series makes for Infinite exploration. Create your own worlds and explore at your leisure. Alot of PC games have this feature as well.