Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Games
Oct 17, 2008
In most games, the developer decides where the story goes. Yeah, sure, there are plenty of RPGs that let players choose good, evil, or some other middle ground on their way to saving the kingdom. And branching missions are nothing new. But when Grand Theft Auto III demonstrated in 2001 how games could create open worlds, with them players wanted open stories. They wanted to decide what happened, when it happened, and to whom it happened. Like those classic Choose Your Own Adventure books -- "If you kill the goblin, turn to page 6; if you run away from the goblin, turn to page 17; if you try to make friends with the goblin, turn to page 132" -- videogames started adopting a very pro-choice attitude to storytelling. Here are some of the best examples.
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 is the latest in a long tradition of choose-your-own adventure open-world games. The setting is a wide-open swathe of Africa where you have the freedom to go wherever you want. Instead of a story leading you around by the nose, you lead the story itself around, which is determined based on which factions you help and which mercenaries you win over to your side. If there's another shooter this open-ended, that offers players this much freedom, we have yet to see it.
Mercenaries 2: World In Flames
One of the reasons you play videogames is because they let you break things. Don't deny it. So when it comes to an open-world game, Mercenaries 2 takes top honors for putting you in a breakable world and giving you the firepower you need to break stuff spectacularly. Collapse buildings with air strikes, destroy bridges with rockets from a helicopter, and if a wall is in your way, just drive a tank through it. And along the way, your actions will make a big difference in the fate of this South American city.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
This dark and moody game set in the radioactive wastes around Chernobyl is one of the most open of these open-world games. In fact, you could say it's open to a fault. It can be tough to get going in the bleak and hostile world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., where the very air can be dangerous, much less the heavily armed mercenaries and bloodthirsty mutants. It's mostly a shooter, and partly a horror game, but it's also your own post-apocalyptic choose-your-own-adventure.
Crackdown
Wait, a game about fighting gangs in a city? This sounds awfully familiar. How could this be one of the best open-world choose-your-own-adventure games? It's all in the execution. In this slickly streamlined futuristic city, you were a superhero-caliber new sheriff in town. As you got stronger, faster, and better, you could reach more areas of this city, climbing around skyscrapers with superhuman jumps and agile Parkour style freerunning. You got better cars, more guns, and the power to just throw a car at anyone who got on your nerves. Crackdown didn't really bother with any story other than how your superhero got more and more super. And in a playground like this city, that was plenty of story!
Saints Row 2
This is the pinnacle of the Grand Theft Auto model. In addition to the flexible approach to tackling missions in whatever order you like, it's full of activities, exploration, challenges, and collectibles, all with some sort of reward. If you were to make a list of what you want in a GTA-style game, it's a safe bet than anything on your list is in Saints Row 2. And with the seamless co-operative gameplay, this is the best way to enjoy an open-world choose-your-own-adventure game with a friend.
Star Control 2
Before Star Control 2, there was a long tradition of choose-your-own-adventure games set in space. Elite was probably the first, in which you flew your space ship around trading goods, fighting pirates, and trying to stay on the right side of the galactic law. Then there was the cult favorite Sun Dog, in which you gathered refrigerated colonists. But no space game had the personality and charm of Star Control's alien races. This is one of the most memorable open-world (open galaxy, in fact) games you could ever play.
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