Exploration

I have recently been spending a lot of time exploring three dimensional worlds. Both the post apocalyptic wasteland of Bethesda's Fallout 3 and the open sea in Nintendo's Wind Waker. While being two drastically different games, in some ways optimizing the difference between western and Japanese game design, they still offer the same sense of exploration. In Wind Waker you will always see at least one island off at the horizon tempting you to continue your exploration of the uncharted seas. Likewise in Fallout, the wasteland is filled with interesting looking landmarks spaced out in such a fashion that there is always something cool not too far off in the distance, just begging you to check it out. Of course once you reach that cell shaded island or that dust covered relic from pre-apocalyptic times there will always be another one just close enough that you have to see what experiences it has to offer. Maybe there will be a treasure chest or container in Fallout's case, maybe there will be some exotic enemies to slay or some new NPC to interact with.

This type of gameplay keeps me always wanting to stay just another ten minutes in the virtual world, delaying whatever chore I really should take care or just a little longer. It is a shame I don't get the same feeling walking along the streets of my home town, or any town for that matter. Life would be so much more interesting.