2008: The Year in Free-Roaming

ID:37252
 
Dec 11 2007, 1:39 am (Edited on Dec 11 2007, 2:52 am)
Most of these should come out for 360 and/or PS3 and/or PC sometime in 2008. Do you know any titles I should add? (Or remove?)

Asterisks indicate games that may feature free-roaming but I don't yet know for certain.

Grand Theft Auto IV
Mafia 2
Destroy All Humans! 3
L.A. Noire (PS3 only)
Alan Wake
Saboteur
Heist
Fallout 3
Borderlands
Mercenaries 2
Afrika (PS3 only)
Saints Row 2
Burnout Paradise
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Prototype
Infamous
Midnight Club: LA
Fable 2
Splinter Cell Conviction*
Spore*
Starcraft II*
Dec 11 2007, 1:42 am (Edited on Dec 11 2007, 9:35 am)
Starcraft II should come out in '08.

Whoops, nevermind.
Dec 11 2007, 2:32 am
Is it somehow a free-roaming RTS? I think there's a genre restriction in the list. =)
Dec 11 2007, 8:54 am
Mario cart wii.

Dec 11 2007, 3:10 pm
BurnOut will be free-roaming. Rugg: I highly doubt Mario Cart will be free roaming. If it is, it will be the first one. Diddy Kong Racing was simi-free-roaming though.
Dec 11 2007, 3:54 pm
Wii never gets any love :(
Dec 11 2007, 5:22 pm
I can't remember where I picked this up, but what one person called the genre -- and which I really, really like -- is "open world". It's more palatable to me than "free roaming" because it implies that you still have a sense of direction.
Dec 12 2007, 4:24 am
Jtgibson wrote:
I can't remember where I picked this up, but what one person called the genre -- and which I really, really like -- is "open world". It's more palatable to me than "free roaming" because it implies that you still have a sense of direction.

Yep, that's a good term too, though search-engine-wise it tends to produce a lot of stuff you aren't looking for. A term I thought was equivalent, but isn't, is "sandbox". A sandbox game lets you goof around however you like, but it doesn't necessarily provide a big world to explore -- e.g., The Sims.