Castle
Ch!ld0fV!si0n
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2012
- Location
- Crisis? What Crisis?
- Gender
- Pan-decepticon-transdeliberate-selfidentifying-sodiumbased-extraexistential-temporal anomaly
Okay so visually rich virtual environments is the biggest reason I play video games. I'm not usually in it for the challenge, I often stay for the story and characters, but it's the prospect of exploring fantastic worlds that really draws me in.
Here's my Top 7 Favorite Video Game Lands/Settings/Worlds... in no particular order. What's yours?
1.) Myst Island - Myst
Myst was my first video game love affair, and like many people it was the first time it felt like you were really there in a video game. Because of its presentation, Myst offered visuals well ahead of its time and really garnered a lot of attention. Cyan World's "Surrealistic Adventure That Will Become Your World" is brimming with atmosphere, ambiance, and whimsy. While Myst Island is hardly a place that makes any sort of sense as a habitable space (where are the beds? the toilets? kitchen? - no! but there's a couple of giant gears and a spaceship!!) the strange whimsy of the environment is catching and exudes mystery around every corner.
2.) The 5th Age, Riven: The Sequel to Myst
So Myst took the world by storm for a while, and of course the sequel was inevitable. And boy did it deliver. Offering up visuals with astounding photorealistic quality, the sequel to Myst took us to Riven, a grungy steam punk desert island chain with impressive mechanical infrastructure and gorgeous natural scenery. The 5th Age is a sprawling massive expanse brimming with detail and drenched in surrealism. More than that, Riven feels like a home. It is lived in, and its environs tell the sad story of the people who live there. Riven is a world with so much character it sometimes feels more like a person than a place.
3.) Hyrule - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Hyrule's 3D debut took people's breath away. From the intimate whimsical environment of Kokiri Forest to the impressive sprawling expanse of Hyrule Field and the lands beyond, Hyrule is a land with secrets and wonder behind every corner. The thing I love most about OoT's Hyrule is it feels like an old land full of forgotten places. I just adore standing in the distant reaches of the land feeling like I'm the only person who's been there in ages. OoT's Hyrule makes me feel like a pioneer, an intrepid adventurer paving new trails, meeting new people and discovering lost places.
4.) Hyrule - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
I gotta say, even though TP is my all time favorite Zelda game, it's still less than half the game it should have been. TP's Hyrule is as vast and well realized as any incarnation of Hyrule to date. I'd rank it higher on the list if TP's portrayal of Hyrule had gone its length to show us so much more of the vast land of Hyrule, but what we do get to see incites the imagination. From the mystic distant slopes of Snowpeak and the haunting anomalous ruins upon it, to the magnificent grandeur of castle town, to the confounding fortress of Arbiters Grounds, the majestic waters of Lake Hylia, to the otherworldly mystique of the Sacred Grove which is seeped in memories of ages past, the expansive bridges, stark crevasses, rugged water ways and intriguing old ruins, Hyrule has a whole lot going on. And once again it feels like an old land with many forgotten corners.
5.) Rapture - Bioshock
What happens when you mix Art Deco with ruin porn and put it all under water? Awesome. Awesome happens. More specifically you get Rapture, Andrew Ryan's Objectivist paradise turned insane apocalyptic nightmare. Every wall, floor and corner of Rapture is dripping with Art Deco style, a magnificent metropolis fallen into ruin and decay. The underwater views and lighting all come together to make for one helluva heavy dose of the surreal. Rapture is a spooky, haunting place as far from civilized humanity as you can get on this earth, making for the perfect place to be stranded alone with crazed spliced up psycho killers.
6.) Arkham City - Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Escape from Gotham puts you in the role of Snake Plissken- I mean The Batman, recently interred on the streets of Arkham City, Gotham City's slum turned open air prison. This old stretch of Gotham's got olde timey bars, a gothic cathedral, the City's old upscale commercial district with its ruined walkways and covered plazas, the Monarch Theater where The Batman was born, a decrepit industrial zone, dank sewers, magnificent train stations and abondoned subway tunnels, Selina Kyle's humble walkup, and Oswald Cobblepot's swanky museum/lounge. Oh, and there's a whole forgotten city beneath this old part of town. Wonder City, where turn of the century world's fair goes underground - literally - to make for one of the most crazy surreal environments in any video game. Arkham City maintains Gotham's dark outlandish visuals, with spotlights and zeppelins and giant creepy cat faces while creating an extensively realized environment loaded with detail.
7.) Arkham Island - Batman: Arkham Asylum
Arkham Asylum has had many portrayal throughout Batman fiction, but my favorite is hands down the Arkham Estate from Batman: Arkham Asylum. 1.) It's on an island, lending it that extra special remote feeling that walls just cannot provide on their own. 2.) It was originally a residence- a family home. History practically drips off the walls of Arkham Island, within its expansive grounds, the vast halls of the Arkham family mansion and the various medical facilities, and the crypts, caverns and vaults beneath its surface. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies. One of the islands most interesting features is the ruins of a collapsed building in one far corner. The game never explains what the building was, but it really gets the imagination going. It's little details like that that give places like these their appeal.
EDIT: there are no longer 7 items on a top 5 list.
Here's my Top 7 Favorite Video Game Lands/Settings/Worlds... in no particular order. What's yours?
1.) Myst Island - Myst
Myst was my first video game love affair, and like many people it was the first time it felt like you were really there in a video game. Because of its presentation, Myst offered visuals well ahead of its time and really garnered a lot of attention. Cyan World's "Surrealistic Adventure That Will Become Your World" is brimming with atmosphere, ambiance, and whimsy. While Myst Island is hardly a place that makes any sort of sense as a habitable space (where are the beds? the toilets? kitchen? - no! but there's a couple of giant gears and a spaceship!!) the strange whimsy of the environment is catching and exudes mystery around every corner.
2.) The 5th Age, Riven: The Sequel to Myst
So Myst took the world by storm for a while, and of course the sequel was inevitable. And boy did it deliver. Offering up visuals with astounding photorealistic quality, the sequel to Myst took us to Riven, a grungy steam punk desert island chain with impressive mechanical infrastructure and gorgeous natural scenery. The 5th Age is a sprawling massive expanse brimming with detail and drenched in surrealism. More than that, Riven feels like a home. It is lived in, and its environs tell the sad story of the people who live there. Riven is a world with so much character it sometimes feels more like a person than a place.
3.) Hyrule - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Hyrule's 3D debut took people's breath away. From the intimate whimsical environment of Kokiri Forest to the impressive sprawling expanse of Hyrule Field and the lands beyond, Hyrule is a land with secrets and wonder behind every corner. The thing I love most about OoT's Hyrule is it feels like an old land full of forgotten places. I just adore standing in the distant reaches of the land feeling like I'm the only person who's been there in ages. OoT's Hyrule makes me feel like a pioneer, an intrepid adventurer paving new trails, meeting new people and discovering lost places.
4.) Hyrule - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
I gotta say, even though TP is my all time favorite Zelda game, it's still less than half the game it should have been. TP's Hyrule is as vast and well realized as any incarnation of Hyrule to date. I'd rank it higher on the list if TP's portrayal of Hyrule had gone its length to show us so much more of the vast land of Hyrule, but what we do get to see incites the imagination. From the mystic distant slopes of Snowpeak and the haunting anomalous ruins upon it, to the magnificent grandeur of castle town, to the confounding fortress of Arbiters Grounds, the majestic waters of Lake Hylia, to the otherworldly mystique of the Sacred Grove which is seeped in memories of ages past, the expansive bridges, stark crevasses, rugged water ways and intriguing old ruins, Hyrule has a whole lot going on. And once again it feels like an old land with many forgotten corners.
5.) Rapture - Bioshock
What happens when you mix Art Deco with ruin porn and put it all under water? Awesome. Awesome happens. More specifically you get Rapture, Andrew Ryan's Objectivist paradise turned insane apocalyptic nightmare. Every wall, floor and corner of Rapture is dripping with Art Deco style, a magnificent metropolis fallen into ruin and decay. The underwater views and lighting all come together to make for one helluva heavy dose of the surreal. Rapture is a spooky, haunting place as far from civilized humanity as you can get on this earth, making for the perfect place to be stranded alone with crazed spliced up psycho killers.
6.) Arkham City - Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Escape from Gotham puts you in the role of Snake Plissken- I mean The Batman, recently interred on the streets of Arkham City, Gotham City's slum turned open air prison. This old stretch of Gotham's got olde timey bars, a gothic cathedral, the City's old upscale commercial district with its ruined walkways and covered plazas, the Monarch Theater where The Batman was born, a decrepit industrial zone, dank sewers, magnificent train stations and abondoned subway tunnels, Selina Kyle's humble walkup, and Oswald Cobblepot's swanky museum/lounge. Oh, and there's a whole forgotten city beneath this old part of town. Wonder City, where turn of the century world's fair goes underground - literally - to make for one of the most crazy surreal environments in any video game. Arkham City maintains Gotham's dark outlandish visuals, with spotlights and zeppelins and giant creepy cat faces while creating an extensively realized environment loaded with detail.
7.) Arkham Island - Batman: Arkham Asylum
Arkham Asylum has had many portrayal throughout Batman fiction, but my favorite is hands down the Arkham Estate from Batman: Arkham Asylum. 1.) It's on an island, lending it that extra special remote feeling that walls just cannot provide on their own. 2.) It was originally a residence- a family home. History practically drips off the walls of Arkham Island, within its expansive grounds, the vast halls of the Arkham family mansion and the various medical facilities, and the crypts, caverns and vaults beneath its surface. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies. One of the islands most interesting features is the ruins of a collapsed building in one far corner. The game never explains what the building was, but it really gets the imagination going. It's little details like that that give places like these their appeal.
EDIT: there are no longer 7 items on a top 5 list.
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