| Page 1 of 1 |
|
|
 Posted: Thu, 7th Jul 2016 23:23 Post subject: "History of the best immersive sims" |
|
 |
History of the best immersive sims
It may be a rarity, but the immersive sim is one of gaming’s great genres. We delve deep to find the best.
| Quote: | The immersive sim is one of the most exclusive of PC gaming genres. Only around two dozen such games have been developed in the entire history of PC gaming, but at least a quarter of these would be considered among the best games ever made.
This is not surprising. Immersive sims are complex and ambitious creations by their very nature. These games combine elements of FPS, RPG, platforming and stealth into one seamless whole. Each game varies the emphasis of these components, but there are some clearly identifiable qualities that mark them out. They are always first-person, they prioritise compelling environment design, and they encourage emergent play, providing the player with an array of tools to pursue open-ended goals.
This month, I’ve traced the history of this genre through ten of its best and brightest examples, games that epitomise, expand upon, and subvert its conventions. They include some of the PCs most celebrated games, alongside flawed yet fascinating experiments. |
| Quote: | 1992: Ultima Underworld
Best feature: Your game map only fills out if you illuminate new areas with a light source, compounding the feeling you’re inside a dingy dungeon.
1999: System Shock 2
Best enemy: SHODAN, who else? Brilliantly written by Levine and with a superb performance by Terri Brosius, the megalomaniacal AI remains one of gaming’s greatest adversaries.
2000: Thief II
Best level: Life of the Party is the mission that made everyone yearn (perhaps mistakenly) for an openworld Thief. It sees Garrett breaking into the tower of Angelwatch and is a masterpiece of 3D level design.
2000: Deus Ex
Best moment: Escaping UNATCO after being captured is a superb sequence, turning a familiar and friendly environment into a hostile and dangerous one, and featuring some gripping encounters with friends and coworkers who all react differently to your betrayal.
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Best quest: Whodunit is a Dark Brotherhood quest that tasks you with assassinating five guests at a house party and is probably the best example of Oblivion’s sim-like qualities. You can simply wade through the guests with a sword, but it’s equally possible to manipulate guests into moving to isolated areas or killing each other.
2004: Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Best class: Malkavian vampires are mad from the moment they’re sired, and if you choose to play as one, their dialogue options are completely different from any other class, just one example of Bloodlines’s tremendous scope.
2006: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Best ability: Dark Messiah’s ice spell is a purveyor of endless slapstick fun. It can freeze enemies in place, but it can also be cast onto the ground. Enemies that then step on this newly frictionless surface will slip and collapse in a pile of limbs, or stumble off a ledge if you cast it in just the perfect spot.
2007: Bioshock
Best level: Fort Frolic is undoubtedly the high point of BioShock. Mad auteur Sander Cohen sprinkled much-needed humour into the game’s absurdist-horror tones, and it exhibits some of the best environment design in the game. Fort Frolic was developed largely by Jordan Thomas, who was responsible for Deadly Shadows’s Shalebridge Cradle.
2010: Stalker: Call of Pripyat
Best feature: Pripyat is constantly under threat of Emissions, violent energy bursts that alter the situation within the zone, creating new Artifacts, killing NPCs and spawning Zombified Stalkers.
2012: Dishonored
Best ability: Although it’s the least spectacular ability in Corvo’s arsenal, Blink transforms everything about the game. This short-range teleport affects movement, platforming, combat and stealth, enabling you to dart across gaps between rooftops, flash into cover when noticed by a guard, or vanish away from a pistol-shot and stab your aggressor in the back. |
| Quote: | Games outside the immersive sim genre make use of some of its traits. Here are a few examples.
Hitman: Blood Money
IO’s best Hitman game has nearly all the hallmarks of an immersive sim, only differentiated by its third-person perspective. Its level design encourages exploration and experimentation, while you can quietly dispatch your targets with your fibre-wire, use pre-designed assassination methods to make your hit look like an accident, or simply waltz through the crowds with the biggest gun you can find.
Alien: Isolation
Isolation doesn’t quite posses the open-ended nature of true immersive sims, but immersion is a crucial factor in making the game work. It combines highly realistic environments with a convincing Xenomorph AI to really hammer home the tension and terror of being trapped in a closed space with one of those creatures, and there’s an array of tools to aid you in distracting and dealing with your chitinous nemesis.
Far Cry 3
The Far Cry series has always been a shooter at heart, but it has also placed a strong emphasis on emergent play. Far Cry 2 was the main innovator, but the third game masters the form, with its checkpoints providing dozens of little sandboxes to play around with. It also introduces dangerous predators to the food-chain and a wider array of toys, from recurve bows to wingsuits. |
http://www.pcgamer.com/history-of-the-best-immersive-sims
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Thu, 7th Jul 2016 23:30 Post subject: |
|
|
Immersive Sim? What the fuck is that nonsense?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 00:00 Post subject: |
|
|
| fawe4 wrote: | | Immersive Sim? What the fuck is that nonsense? |
Something the writer pulled out of his ass, obviously.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 00:25 Post subject: |
|
|
The clickbait level has been raised to hell
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 02:33 Post subject: |
|
|
What a BS term. Good list but could be a random selection of games.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 04:25 Post subject: |
|
|
This is just some list of immersive classic games mostly. Not sure about the sim part. I thought it would be recommending stuff like Silent Hunter etc heh
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 64945
Location: Italy
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 05:28 Post subject: |
|
|
| inz wrote: | | fawe4 wrote: | | Immersive Sim? What the fuck is that nonsense? |
Something the writer pulled out of his ass, obviously. |
Quite preposterous that they're omitting the best immersive Sims which is the third one  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 06:30 Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 06:59 Post subject: |
|
|
System Shock > System Shock 2.
Including Bioshock is a stretch. It was a linear corridor shooter more than sim, in my opinion.
Alien Isolation beats them all for immersion, though. I certainly crapped my pants every 15 minutes or so....
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 08:20 Post subject: |
|
|
Having a nostalgic preference is ok but you have to admit that SS2 is a game with great controls, great visual and physics for its time and more content, richer gameplay.
Admit it!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 08:29 Post subject: |
|
|
| VGAdeadcafe wrote: | Having a nostalgic preference is ok but you have to admit that SS2 is a game with great controls, great visual and physics for its time and more content, richer gameplay.
Admit it! |
You still have a long way to go before you're educated, young one.
SS had superior non-linear level design - and it had cyberspace. It had a better story and the goals were open-ended.
Primarily, though, it gets a lot of points for being first and doing everything in 1994. That's not nostalgia, that's pioneering a genre.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 09:24 Post subject: |
|
|
Well i agree ultima underworld is my fave game from that list, almost a decade earlier with the same if not more features than modern games today. I have a feeling ascension will not live up to expectations which i consider a crime against gaming.
- Figure out the lizard language.
- Find all the items without a guide, good luck. Some of those puzzles are evil.
- Has a physics system in game, you can throw all sprites that have differing weights.
- small things like making popcorn / cooking, portculis hammer down or using a pole to push buttons, poison nettles (fukU!!).
There are many huge budget games past 2010 that dont have half the features that UU had in 1992.
Edit: also agree clickbait article just making up genres and lists. I woupdnt really catagorize any of the list as simulation.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 10:09 Post subject: |
|
|
| Casus wrote: | SS had superior non-linear level design - and it had cyberspace. It had a better story and the goals were open-ended.
Primarily, though, it gets a lot of points for being first and doing everything in 1994. That's not nostalgia, that's pioneering a genre. |
+1
On a technical level, SS2 is a big step forward, but story-wise it quickly gets very disappointing IMHO. So, I'm glad Ken Levine is not part of this remake.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
tonizito
Posts: 51097
Location: Portugal, the shithole of Europe.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JBeckman
VIP Member
Posts: 34557
Location: Sweden
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 11:58 Post subject: |
|
|
Oblivion had many issues, but it was incredibly immersive to me.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 12:51 Post subject: |
|
|
Except the immersion breaking autoleveled enemies, Oblivion gave me an unprecedented feeling of freedom.
One of my most memorable moments in gaming was destroying a bunch of vampires in a cave and then realizing that the boss NPC was way overleveled, so I started running and running and running, couldn't fast travel because of enemy near me ... I ran and I ran, then I turn around and in the distance I see him, HOLY SHIT. And I ran and ran and ran.
But I digress.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Fri, 8th Jul 2016 14:13 Post subject: |
|
|
Gone Home is on the list on GB. What an immersive simulation. Talk about meaningless "genre".
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Page 1 of 1 |
All times are GMT + 1 Hour |
