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nycgamer

What are the coolest in-game worlds you’ve ever seen?

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I really love the look of MYST but the game itself is very dull. It's probably safe to say that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will have some of the coolest looking in-game environments ever. Same with Far Cry, DOOM 3 and HL2. I’ve been playing through TRON 2.0 as fast as I can because I can’t wait to see the next level. The levels are brilliant!! For anyone who hasn’t played it, I highly recommend the gold demo (http://www.tron20.net). Morrowind, Mafia, and Vice City also all have remarkable in-game worlds for sheer size and things to explore. Max Payne 2 has a lot of interactivity with environmental objects which lends realism to the experience. What do you think makes a gaming environment great and which games do you think set the standard?

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I'll interpret coolest as impressive or perhaps just very satisfying from an aethestics standpoint. From FPS games:

Unreal (second level, outside the ship): Awe-inspiring view, unforgettable, though the rest of the game had a hard time matching it (the alien ship looked neat sometimes but was confusing as hell).

Unreal again (the run up to the Sunspire): I dunno how this affected other people, but when I reached it, I had to look up.... then look down.... and really hoped this gargantuan tower didn't have too many stairs. (BTW, falling off the top of this thing takes about 20-30 seconds).

Half-Life (first trip to Xen): I'd say first seeing the alien world is what the great majority of the game built up to, and when you get there, it's just amazing... I found actually playing through it was hell, which was the only downer of the game, IMO.

Alice (numerous areas; the void-like areas near the beginning, the ant worlds, and the run up to the Queen's Castle): Simple amazing, though the gameplay was simple and unimaginative (don't I have anything positive to say? :) the vast majority of the game was a work of art in terms of atmosphere and design.

EDIT: Serious Sam 2 (the ice castle on level 11, and the final run to the cathedral with fire raining from the sky on the last level): The first was a pretty wild surprise at the end of the lava caves, the second is self-explanatory.

BTW I limited myself to FPS games because I'd go on forever otherwise... Onerios from Undying was pretty sweet too. :)

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The Silent Hill 1 alternate world and the Fatal Frame Himuro Mansion.

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Max Payne 2 - Never have I seen the degree of Detail in a game, ever. Linoleum peeling, stains, good god, this is the absolute closest thing to being in a real environment as I have ever seen. I actually believe I am in a slum or hospital.

Super Mario 64 - I'll admit, I never really played this game, and I still hold a few grudges against it. But when this game was released in 96 was it, I had never seen anything like this before. 3D accelerators had yet to hit the PC market and I was floored by this georgeous 3D world where Mario could go anywhere and do anything.

Aliens vs Predator - When the original came out, I honestly felt I was libing an Aliens movie. The smart gun, the dark corridors, the motion tracker... it was so eerie, I had seen it all on screen, but now I was in it!

Alice - Never, even to this day, have I seen such gorgeous immaginative levels. The architecture is all so surreal, it's immaculate, almost as if it came straight out of my dreams (or nightmares)

Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis - I don't think any Adventure games have ever made me feel as though I was actually in the areas I had gone to. When Dr. Jones is in the bowels of Atlantis or exploring a Myan Temple finding Orichalcum beads, it all feels so perfectly Indiana Jones-ish. Add "talkie" and this game is truly part of the Indiana jones film saga.

Super Metroid - This game OOZES atmosphere. When you descend down the elevator in the beginning into the escape from Metroid 1 and then emerge from Mother Brain's case... Jesus I thought I was going to lose it, it was all too perfect. THEN even when I thought it could get any better, you descend to the BEGINNNING of Metroid 1 and retrieve the morph ball in the same place. It was all too perfect, and the rest of the game does not dissapoint. It truly is one of the greatest games ever.

Alone in the Dark - My god, I owned this game back in 1994 when I first bought a PC, a 486DX. The game holds up as well today as it did 10 years ago. The game blends Action, Puzzle solving and Story telling all into a perfect Lovecraftian environment with occults, pirates and Voodoo. The game could almost be one of the most frightening experiences in my life.

...Jesus, I could go on...

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Scuba Steve said:

Super Mario 64 and Super Metroid

Hell yes! But don't forget every other Mario game... and Metroid Fusion. Other titles that come to mind are Ocarina of Time and Doom (of course).

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Zelda 64 is #1.

Others that come to mind are Magic Carpet 2, Diablo, SimCopter, Mario 64, Hexen, Donkey Kong Country, and Doom2 MAP27...

Maybe I'm confusing in-game-world-coolness with atmosphere.

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AndrewB said:

Zelda 64 is #1.

Indeed. It's obvious in retrospect that the game as a whole has some flaws, but it did deliver the most engrossing world ever depicted in a video game.

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This is kinda a vague question, but I'll answer it the best I can.

Well, for one I get into the Black Isle games a bit too much. It's mostly my damn overactive imagination though. I always get chills when playing Icewind Dale or IWD2, but maybe thats just because of all the wasted potential on those games.

Half-Life had those awesome lab levels at the beginning and near the end. It would have been cool if there were more of those, and nonlinearly laid out.

Thief was cool, but since I only got to like the 2nd level, most of what I saw were in those cutscenes. And those were some damn cool cutscenes.

The first two episodes of Doom of course. It was just awesome to be running around in some kind of dark military base with demons coming at you.

Quake. I know its brown as fuck, but the first time I played it it was just awesome. Half of it had to do with the 3-D shock, the other half was the eerie ambient nosies everywhere (first time I played was with a warezed version, so no Reznor).

And last but not least, GTA3 just because you have a whole city to cause mayhem in. :P

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Like Vile, my first thoughts are Unreal and Half-Life. So many great moments there, where you look around and think "OMG!".

Half-Life: the central area in Blast Pit with the tentacles; the cliff area in Surface Tension; inside the asteroid thing in Xen with the weird teleporters.

Unreal: the whole of Na Pali Haven, Nali Castle and Bluff Eversmoking.

Hexen: Darkmere. That even looked fanstasic in the low-res original game.

Blood: lots of good areas, but perhaps the fairground/circus is most memorable.

Blood2 and MDK 1&2 had some really memorable moments, I think, but I've forgotten the details. :)

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Oh, how could I forget the thief games! The medieval/industrial revolution setting mixed with the odd maw of chaos or forest maps. It was all good.

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A lot of these games have been mentioned already, but I'm going to say Hexen, MDK 1 and 2 (the sheer vastness of the environments is what really drew me in, and the attention to detail in some areas was great, though was lacking in other areas, but it was still beautifully executed), Alice (never played the game, but I watched my brother play it, and man, did the game world look sweet), Alone in the Dark, Ecstatica, Magic Carpet 1 and 2, and Dungeon Keeper.

I still have to play Halflife, Unreal, and Serious Sam (I own Halflife and Unreal I really want to get Serious Sam 1 and 2).

I guess I could throw Diablo (the original) and Myst in there, but it was more the atmosphere and ambience of Diablo, rather than coolness or originality, because let's face it, you were going into hell, which has been done before. Myst only deserves a special mention because it was one of the first games to do what it did, but by no means is it on my list of coolest game worlds.

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I think Postal2 had some really nice worlds, despite the load times (which are now virtually gone thanks to the 1337 patch), and I loved how open-ended and nonlinear it was.

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Hmm

Silent Hill 1: Both the regular and alternate worlds were excellent.

Unreal: For reasons already mentioned.

Messiah: The areas were impressive and believeable, especially the labs. Too bad the game is so short.

Shenmue: The manner in which the world was constructed and the characters behaved was very engrossing. It really felt like a community. Too bad it's so short.

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Morrowind, because the world is so damn large and there are so so many things you can do.

(At least it seems really large when you first play it :P, once you get to a high level and can run fast the world gets much smaller :P)

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Ecco the Dolphin on the Dreamcast had some beautiful worlds. The sky tube one was probably one of my favourites - it was pretty annoying, but the music and the trip out factor made up for it. But the game just scores even more points for having such large variations on worlds.

I'd also like to mention that I'm one of the two people who actually enjoyed Xen...

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The other one being the level creator. Anyway, most of the old Squaresoft games (SNES) had some nice places, especially Final Fantasy 4, 5, 6, and Chrono Trigger.

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SlayeR said:

Morrowind, because the world is so damn large and there are so so many things you can do.

(At least it seems really large when you first play it :P, once you get to a high level and can run fast the world gets much smaller :P)

Yeah I agree with that selection too, my only problem being despite the epicness of the huge island it's kind of the same all around. i haven't played it since i beat bloodmoon 3 months ago :P

That said add Ultima VII and VII part 2 to my list. Those were more interesting game worlds to me.

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Yeah, Morrowind is awesome, the sheer size of the place and some of the places you see are cool. I've been playing around for quite a while without even touching any of the three stories......perhaps I should :D

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Some of the levels of Jazz Jackrabbit were pretty disturbing.

Prince of Persia (Sands of Time) looks to be promising in coolness.

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