The origins of open world games go back almost as far as the genre itself. However, the genre wouldn’t have its watershed moment until the release of Grand Theft Auto III in 2001. Players love the freedom that comes with exploring a full world, whether that means stealing cars, scaling mountains, fighting dragons, or cooking meals with whatever ingredients you’ve scrounged up from the forest.
In no particular order, here are a few of my fave open world games!
Randy and I return to an all-time fighting game classic! We reminisce on what made Street Fighter IV such a pivotal game for the genre. During the beatdowns, we discuss the likelihood of Street Fighter IV returning in some form, the Street Fighter V netcode controversy, competing in IRL gaming tournaments, and we indulge in our Animal Crossing: New Horizons hype!
View the full post to see the full stream and shoutouts!
Street Fighter Week begins on In Third Person! We begin with the game that changed everything: Street Fighter II!
The original Street Fighter sucked. Street Fighter II is one of the greatest video games of all-time. The turnaround between the two products is down-right fierce (see what I did there?). What changed between the two titles to make the latter a meteoric success? Let’s run down a list of factors that contributed to the rise of Street Fighter II!
Did you know that Left 4 Dead turns 10 years old this year? I bring back this blast from the past to get into the Halloween spirit! Special shoutout to Twitch user mythicallegend999 for hanging out with me and making my day with this wonderful comment! ❤
Apologies for the audio de-sync towards the end 😦
Hooked up the PS3 and tried out Skullgirls Encore for the first time! Neat game and I’m excited to play 2nd Encore on the Switch when that’s released!
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After watching Jim Lee draw Master Chief on his stream, we finally decide to try Halo for the first time! This set of videos includes a cameo appearance from Jascha’s dog Dusty! You can find Dusty on Instagram here!
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Jascha makes his streaming debut as we venture back into the 80s arcades with X-Men: The Arcade Game!
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My brother came over and we played this spiritual success to Contra! Hard Corps: Uprising is crazy!
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When Microsoft announced the inclusion of backwards compatibility into the Xbox One, I shrugged. It seemed to me like a half-hearted retort to Sony rapidly outpacing them in market share, combined with a band-aid solution to Microsoft not having enough exclusive games to make the Xbox One a more appealing product. On top of that, I’m generally not one to spend much time retreading games I’ve previously played or missed at their peak.
Recently though, my Xbox One copy of Far Cry 5 came in the mail, and I fired up the console for the first time in a while. Sitting in my queue were downloads for some awesome Xbox 360 games from my past that I could play right now without having to buy a remaster. It was the first time I really put any thought into the feature and in retrospect, it’s kind of cool.
There are hundreds of games from the Xbox 360 and original Xbox library that you can play right now on your Xbox One. At some point, I do want to make content relating to this “secret” treasure trove of games hiding right under our noses. Stay tuned!
On this day in 2007, the original Rock Band was unleashed on the world. Having been anxiously awaiting for that day for quite some time, I rushed into EB Games to pick up my band set. The journey I would go on with that series is one that left an indelible imprint on my life. It’s also one that I struggle to see myself coming back to in a meaningful way.
