I really like sandbox game – except SimCity, it just bores me – there’s something great about being able to do what you want to do when you want rather than when the game tells you have to. Choice is always good, however a lot of games have trouble with this as the main story has to continue regardless of what the player does, so they make some NPCs non-killable or certain NPCs only visible during full motion videos when the player can’t control what is going on.

I’ve never really liked this as it sort of forces the player to play a linear game when they should be playing a non-linear game. I think games such as this, hell I think all games should be like this, should do is give the player multiple different ways (and I mean more than just two) do complete the mission or quest. Each different path should be completely nondependent on the other paths and a player should be able to move between different paths if one leads to a dead end.

By dead end I an event where they may have killed a important NPC in the past, or present, and they can no longer pursuer the goal on that path. Obvisly the game designers can’t cater to every possible thing a player could do but they should give enough options that a player doesn’t have to worry that killing that NPC or looting that house will prevent them from doing a quest in the future.