Disturbing on a Narrative Level (Episode 13)

Media Mavens

This week we talked to returning guest Dia Lacina about open world games. We cover everything from Fallout 4 to Dead Rising to Grand Theft Auto. Plus a whole bunch of Bioware games (surprise!).

What we've been up to (00:01:22)

Dia (@DiaLacina)

• X-Men The Animated Series (Standards & Practice notes, Loose Canon:Mystique)
• Grand Theft Auto 5
• Witcher 3
• Dragon Age: Inquisition

Riley (@Kaleri_)

• World of Warcraft: Legion
• New D&D game
• Nice Dragons Finish Last
• Geek to Geek Podcast: No Man's Sky

Pam (@Jasyla_)

• Overwatch
• Deus Ex
• The Neon Demon
• America's Next Top Model
• Not Your Mama's Gamer: Just too Canadian

Open World Games and listener questions (00:33:03)

• How do you define an open world game?
• What's biggest draw of OW games? Freedom to do things out of order? Exploration? Sense of realism/scale? @_Rades
• Thoughts on open-world survival games ie Rust, 7 Days to Die, compared to like Skyrim? @_Rades
• Different types of open world - is to best suited to a certain genre, or does it all depend on execution?
• How does one balance exploration with the potential loss of narrative drive? @Sheepthediamond
• Is there a place for an OW structure in games that are heavily focused on narrative? What's it look like? @soetzufit
• A common complaint (mine as well) is that the central story tends to pale in comparison to the world itself. Which games overcame this problem, and what suggestions do you have for others to improve? @The_Doc_Webb
• The Spatiality and Themes of Fallout New Vegas
• How Dead Rising started an open world pandemic
• How to present lore to players
• Do you ever make up your own stories when playing open-world? If so how strictly do you adhere to them/how does it affect gameplay? @DariaPlays
• How often do you play the evil side in your video games (i.e. picking the dark-side or all the evil choices in an AD&D game) & Why? @UrzasRage
• Why does everyone love Skyrim so much and I hate it? @SerrinneWoW

If you’ve got any feedback, questions, people or topics you’d like to hear on future episodes of the show, you can reach out at [e-mail] or on Twitter @_MediaMavens. If you like the show, please give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

Music: Vivacity by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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