Quote Originally Posted by Odin1199 View Post
I really don't get what you mean by many games taking a sandbox approach. Open world? The only open world games there out there are Bethesda ones, FarCry, Stalker,what else? Can't remember. Maybe ME, haven't played it.
Pretty much every WRPG out there (likes of Fallout 3 & New Vegas, TES series, Gothic series Dragon Age Origins, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Fable...), some JRPG's (Xenoblade Chronicles, Final Fantasy XII, Dragons Dogma, Dark Souls...), action adventure games (Assassins Creed series, Infamous, Batman: Arkham City, The Amazing Spider-Man, Prototype...), even FPS (Borderlands, Rage, FarCry...) and who can forget games such as Red Dead Redemption, GTA series, Saints Row, Mafia... in other words way more with each passing day.

If you see how many of those games there are vs the linear campaign ones, then I think you've got a very bad idea about sandbox games being on the rise. Yes, linear shovelware has always made up about 90% of the games, but the thing is that more of the good games are becoming more linear and mainstream nowadays.
Difference between linear games now and back then is shit load of content you can unlock along the way, meaning it may be a linear game, though it offers more than enough additional content to get you distracted.

Present console market has made a big impact on this as well. Games have to be simple enough not to be too taxing on performance and not too hard for the general masses. Maybe when the consoles improve, we'll see quality of games increasing more, but with 5 year old consoles trying to run games that "match" modern PC standarts is bs. This is why devs at GBX are moaning and bitching about even adding more backpack slots, because the memory of the XBox is too low. How pathetic is that? Pretty damn pathetic. And also as a bonus, we PC gamers have to suffer because of this as well.
Honest to God, you sound like a major PC elitist douche, and this comes from a huge PC gamer. Graphics wise, cu rent consoles do hold video game progression, but that's about it.

Also, don't want to derail the subject further, but if you go to Borderlands 2 forums you'll see how people complain about the not oh so improved gun system. Yes, the game is very good and is a big improvement in many ways over BL1, offers alot of fun, but the gun system is not really what people had expected. There may be abit more gun part combos, but gun stat variety and feel is way more limited. Won't babble about this more, just visit the forums.
In other words, it's a teriffic game with one, I honestly don't know if I should even call it an issue, ergo let's slam it. Honestly how do you people enjoy games anymore.