Best Video Game for Exploring?

[Double L]

What do you think is the best video game for exploring?

[cosmoboy]

Morrowind. Second only to the upcoming Oblivion.

[Hiromi]

I really can't think of any single player game that can even come close to Morrowind. GTA:SA in a distant second.

[Draconomicon]

What do you think is the best video game for exploring?
RPGS?
FPS?

[DrewTheXenocide]

The Metroid series and the later Castlevania games are good for exploring/

[Sanagi]

The original Legend of Zelda. I wish the later games in the series had retained some of its non-linearity.

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

The original Legend of Zelda. I wish the later games in the series had retained some of its non-linearity.
How many Zelda games have you played? Most of them are non-linear games, with tons of mini-games and side-quests that you can do.

[DrewTheXenocide]

This may seem like an unlikely candidate, but the MegaMan X games, especially the earlier ones, contained oodles of goodies in their leveles for some exploring goodnes.

[Shem the Penman]

The Might and Magic games, particularly VI and VII, have always had big maps with tons of stuff to find and do. (Avoid IX, though.)

[Mike Pothier]

Pretty much Morrowind, as mentioned earlier. Easily the most open-ended, exploration driven game there is. Calling its world big is like saying Lord of the Rings was slightly influencial.

Zelda games are also pure exploration games, as are Metroid game, though neither are as open-ended as Morrowind.

[Sanagi]

How many Zelda games have you played? Most of them are non-linear games, with tons of mini-games and side-quests that you can do.
Almost all of them. Those Gameboy ones that were made by Capcom, I never played. I haven't gotten around to trying Minish Cap, either. But anyways.

What I mean is, the non-linearity in the later Zelda games only goes so far. You can go exploring, but the bottom line is there's always one place you have to go in order to get the item you need to continue. In the original game, you could skip ahead. There were still limits, primarily the raft and stepladder, but you could start out the game by marching up to Death Mountain and getting the power bracelet if you wanted to. Having choices like that adds so much to the replay value of a game. And it gives you something to do when you're tired of the incessant dungeon crawling.

This is why I, for one, loved sailing in Wind Waker, because of the sense of freedom. But even then, you could only explore so much before hitting dead ends that could only be surpassed by going back and completing dungeon #X. Which makes the fun of exploration a bit empty.

[El Chupacabra]

Morrowind, GTA games, and if you want you can include some MMORPG games like Everquest, Anarchy Online, and so forth which have extremely large worlds and many different landscapes.

[MarZom]

It's strange how no one has actually brought up Daggerfall, since it's technically Morrowind x 10 when it comes to land to explore. Although a quite a lot more generic and boring.

[Valmore]

Deus Ex was always worth exploring, since one could find alternate routes to goals as well as hidden stuff.

[UncleBob]

It's strange how no one has actually brought up Daggerfall, since it's technically Morrowind x 10 when it comes to land to explore. Although a quite a lot more generic and boring.


I try to forget Daggerfall.

I bought it when it came out. Installed it. Ran it.

Fell through the floor right away, and just kept falling.

A couple months later they patched it, I wasn't all that interested then :D