Were any of these world open games worth the time?

@humanity: absolutely. Beautiful game but garbage story and characters with a bland, repetitive open world and gameplay that's pretty unremarkable

None of those. To me, all of them could've been linear instead of an uninteresting open world and they would've worked better.

But I will open exceptions for two of them:

- inFamous Second Son since it's fun to traverse the city with the powers

- Just Cause 3 since the chaotic sandbox philosophy of the game works in an open world, it's fun to roam around and destroy stuff

The only one of these I played was Mafia 3. I never finished it, but I wish I had.

@tom_omb: Do you mean you wished the game kept your attention or other things distracted you and never returned to it?

@liquiddragon: I think what you're getting at is would I recommend it? Yes I would. I wish I had finished it for the story, and I really got into the collecting. I got a bit tired of the gunplay. Not that it was bad, but I kinda get tired of shooting in games in general. Maybe I will return to it one day.

I really liked the first half of both Mafia 3 and Mad Max, but both got pretty repetitive so I never finished them. Mafia 3 especially I might go back to because the story was so good, but the loop of taking over neighborhoods is pretty obvious.

Infamous Second Son was pretty good... it's on the shorter side and has a smaller world than most open world games, which is a plus in some ways. I also liked Watch Dogs 2 (despite not really liking the first). Watch Dogs 2 maybe went on a little long but it had a mischievous tone that kept me from getting sick of it too quickly.

Compared to.. Mafia 3?

@humanity: mafia 3 had an interesting story and while it was incredibly repetitive the gameplay was solid and the shooting was real satisfying. It was a much better game than Infamous

Not to me

Watch Dogs 2 has less votes than Mafia 3.... HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

*Raises eyebrow*

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

REALLY?!?! Watch Dogs 2 is comfortably the best game on the list imho. A lot of the other games (bar Just Cause 3 and Infamous Second Son) have a very 'it'll do' vibe to them. Watch Dogs 2 is probably the most well rounded and made game of the lot with good mission design and surprisingly likable characters (yeah I know right?) it's probably the second best open world game of the generation (that isn't an RPG) behind GTA V.

Just Cause 3 is fun to prat around in and I enjoyed my time with inFamous: Second Son (I believe it'll be free this month anyways) but I actually enjoyed the expandalone more. The other ones EHHHHH save your time, they aren't bad just have too many flaws.

I finished Mafia 3 twice, the 2nd play through I put it on easy and gave all the territories to Vito. That story is really well presented, just a really spectacular looking game. The latest DLC was pretty good, it allows you to rebuild Sammys.

The shooting was very mediocre and the definition of unremarkable, with the only other system in the game being some half baked stealth mechanics. Everything about Mafia 3 seemed like it was just kinda there without any passion of substance behind it. I understand you may prefer the more down to earth story of that game compared to the fantastical superhero styling of InFamous, but it seems very reductive to say the gameplay of having several unique powers and a ton of really fun traversal options at your disposable is "unremarkable" compared to point and shoot of Mafia 3. This isn't even taking under account the, as you mentioned yourself, extremely monotonous and unrewarding gameplay loop that remains unchanged from start to finish. It is some of the laziest game design I've seen in years - even Ubisoft games present you with objectives in a more varied and satisfying way than Mafia did it.

It also performed terribly on the PS4 with constant framerate drops while also somehow looking very outdated in the process.

Make no mistake, I'm absolutely fine with you liking Mafia 3 over InFamous becaue thats your prerogative, but to say that InFamous is a garbage game not worth looking into just seems disingenuous in a crude way. I don't really like DOTA2 but I wouldn't go out of my way to tell others it's garbage with no substance and they shouldn't even bother.

Flying around in Just Cause 3 is better than any part of any of the other games. The game could be a lot better but that part of it is legit amazing.

Once I played through Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild every other open-world game was rendered obsolete for me. :(

Mafia 3 plays great in terms of shooting etc, and has fantastic presentation but has incredibly boring and repetitive structure and missions, even by open world standards. Watch Dogs 2 is a good game.

Just Cause 3 is ruined by framerate issues for me, ymmv.

I didn't play Second Son, which looked interesting, but I did play most the others. Wildlands gets boring as hell after a few days (even with friends) since you're just raiding bases/outposts. It had potential but falls flat, I was surprised this site rated it so high. With the right game mode it could be fun, like with The Division adding survival, I'd love to see them add something similar.

h

I didn't enjoy my time with Infamous, I found the character control to be sort of poor, its like he skated around everywhere and jumping up buildings (not using Neon) make the character look like he was glitching out. I especially didn't like the combat, the enemies were unresponsive the powers not exciting to use.

Its a good launch game and was a great graphical showpiece at the time, and I actually don't hate the story. Its not garbage I was very underwhelmed by Infamous when it came out and I don't think it would hold up today. Personally Id prefer to play SR4 again.

I also dispute your statement that the shooting in Mafia was mediocre, as I think its the best shooting in a GTA style open world game. It might be personal preference but I'd take the weighty brutish close combat in Mafia 3 and the good to great driving (if you set it to sim), which is a mechanic BTW, over Infamous any time. I also loved the way Mafia 3 looked especially just before rain, and I had solid 30fps and after patch a pretty solid 60 frames but I played on PC and I have a decent rig so I have no point of comparison between the two games on PS4.

@ninnanuam: Then I guess it's different strokes for different folks. Max Payne 3 had good shooting if we want to compare games with actual guns. GTAV I also thought had good shooting mechanics. Mafia 3 fell completely flat for me and I'm actually a fan of the series. InFamous, for what it's worth, was always very floaty but I guess you either like it or you don't. I still think it is way more interesting both mechanically and from a narrative perspective but I won't force the issue since it seems different people can experience games in radically different ways - I find it hard to believe that anyone would find Mafia 3 interesting after having beaten it, but I guess I'm projecting too much.

@yesiamaduck: It's fine if you can get over the "Daaaaaayummmm!! in yo face!! ROFLCOPTERZZZZ!!!" garbage it has going for it, I can't

Meh, I loved the weighty feel of the shooting in Mafia. Guns actually felt like they had some impact. I didn't think any of the powers in Infamous were all that interesting. Neon looked pretty and zipping around the city was kinda fun(which was the only good movement ability) but the combat in that game is pretty awful and super hero powers are done better in other games. Its made even worse by only being able to use one power at a time which severely limits your options. Add the God awful story telling and repetitive missions that aren't any fun on top and I don't really see a point in playing it when there are much better open world games out there. But hey man, if you dug it thats cool, personally I think its a bad game.

I don't think this was a burn on witcher 3 as that is widely accepted as an extremely enjoyable open world game

Watch Dogs 2 does a lot with its cast of eclectic protagonists and really won me over because of it. Wound up being my game of the year last year. Mafia 3 starts out strong, but there are a lot of weird little design choices that wind up making it feel like a slog. I adore the crap out of Mad Max because I think the core of the gameplay is fun, but whoo boy, that game is a bunch of checklists, so be warned going into it.

I will say, InFamous: Second Son plays really well. It suffers from weird pacing and repetitive design just like most open world games but it's still very solid. Also free on PS+ so WOO!

Really tried to like Mad Max and just found it SUPER boring. Didn't bother with any of the others.

I enjoyed the movement and the powers in Second Son a lot when it launched. Played the Watch Dogs 2 demo on PS4 and i was better then I was expecting, but I didn't feel the need to play more.