Favourite setting(s)

[Arkham Noir]

While I'm not usually the kind of gamer to put much emphasis on graphics when it comes to the games I enjoy, I will say that the one thing the advancment in graphics has given us over the years is fuller and more captivating environments in games. I love the 8-bit Brinstar as much as the next person , but there is something to be said for an environment that looks and feels reals. So my question to you is: what is your favourite setting for a game? It can be something as vague as the entire Mushroom Kingdom, or it can be something specific like Phendrana Drifts in Metroid Prime.

My favourite setting for a game is actually based off of a real place; Venice, Italy in the 1400's , Assassin's Creed II. Of all the different places you visit throughout the Assassin's Creed franchise, this is the one city that I enjoyed the most. The canals you can traverse using the Gondolas is really the icing on the cake that takes it for me. Nothing really compares to traversing the water at night with the moon reflecting off of the water. The other big thing that attracts me to this particular setting is when the carnival takes over the city during the one memory sequence. It just brings the whole atmosphere to life for me.

So what are some of your favourite settings in video game history?

 

[JGlass]

My favorite setting is probably the New Austin area in Red Dead Redemption. You have the typical town of lowlifes in Thieves Landing, the modern Western city of Blackwater, the Indian trading post in Manzanita post, and then the rest is beautiful nature. The Great Plains are filled with buffalo, wolves, and all sorts of small critters. The Tall Trees area has... well... tall trees, and is populated by bears, elk, bighorn sheep, and many other big game animals. If you venture far enough North you can explore the mountains or the fort that Dutch built into it. The whole area is varied and breath taking, and you could spend hours of game play there before getting bored.

 

[bigdogstalfos]

Termina from Majora's Mask. It probably has the simplest set-up of any setting in a Zelda game, whether it be one of the many Hyrule variations, Koholint Island, Holodrum, or Labrynna. It's a town in the center with a region in each cardinal direction. The world doesn't even seem that big, especially compared with OoT's Hyrule. But Termina wastes no space. Every part of the game, from the poisoned swamps of Woodfall to the barren, haunted landscape of Ikana, has a very distinct character and all have some sort of purpose in the game. Most important of all is central locale of Clock Town, which I think is the largest town in Zelda to date and changes dramatically throughout the repeating three days. But what makes Clock Town, and really all of Termina, most notable is its cast.

Each person in Termina (especially Clock Town, considering you have to follow their schedules for the Bomber's Notebook entries) has a set routine. They don't just stand around day after day. They react to the events around them. They prepare for the festival which is supposed to occur the day after the Moon will eventually fall. They attend to errands. They eventually become much more leery of the Moon until day 3, when pretty much everyone has evacuated to Romani Ranch in the vain hope that the small amount of space that they put between themselves and Clock Town will be enough to avoid fiery death when the Moon hits the surface of Termina.

In other regions, the Deku Scrubs, Gorons, and Zoras are all worried about the various problems in their regions which only you can solve. You purify the swamp or bring spring to the mountains and the world reflects this. In the best part of the game, you lift the darkness from the fallen kingdom of Ikana by exorcizing the evil from the Stone Tower Temple, finally sending the souls of the dead to the afterlife (Link saluting the Skull Keeta in the graveyard has always been oddly heartwarming for me). The entire world feels alive. People have real routines and real problems which you, as the hero, must solve. Throw in the fact that most of the characters are expies of OoT folks and there's a creepy sense of familiarity about what you're experiencing. Majora's Mask is LoZ's Alice in Wonderland story (complete with chasing something down a hole) and like how Wonderland is one of the more beloved literary environments, Termina should be at the top for games.

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

I've always been a fan of Delfino Plaza from Super Mario Sunshine. Everything about it was awesome. There were so many places inside of Delfino that you could go to. You could jump inside a statue, or even a lighthouse to access a different world with different levels. Or, you could hop on your Yoshi and eat fruit being sold in the market on the street. You could use Flood to ride in the ocean. Doing that could lead to bonus levels, or even free stars. You could go down pipes, look up at the sun, go into caves, you could do just about anything in Delfino Plaza. Also, the music was fantastic as well. It was sort of a classic Italian/French music that you would hear in a movie. It gets stuck in your head, but it's so catchy, you don't mind. I loved Delfino.

 

[Chicago1989]

There's only one setting that sticks out the most to me and it's Japan. I love the natural settings and cities that light up during the nighttime. And Japan's also a place I wanna travel to before I die, but playing games that take place in Japan gives me a taste of it. Here's some of the best examples of games that take place in a Japanese setting.

From: Siren: Blood Curse

From: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

Image of Kamurocho from Yakuza 3

From: Shenmue

From: Tenchu: Silent Assassins

From: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

A honorable mention goes to Deadside from Shadow Man.

 

[Arkham Noir]

I've been replaying Batman: Arkham Asylum alot lately in anticipation for Arkham City, and I must bring up Arkham Island in this thread.

This actually trumps Venice in Assassin's Creed 2 as my favourtie setting. Even if it had nothing to do with Batman, I would still dig the look of the place. The different wards crawling with deranged inmates ready to jump you at any given second combined with the gloomy atmoshpere and dark presence that I've come to associate with the dark knight make it almost the perfect setting or a video game (I say almost because Arkham City looks like it is preparing to blow it out of the water). I think the best part of the whole thing though is all the little Batman related little things that pop up through the game. Seeing something like the Penguin's top hat and umbrellas on display or a cell filled with Harvey Dent campaign posters is the best part of it for me.

I'd love this place if, you know, it wasn't an insane asylum.

 

[911 JP]

I believe that the setting or plot of a game is the most important factor in a game, or for me it is any way. If i dont feel captured by the setting, feel like im there, love the place where I am playing or have an general interest then I get bored with the game very quickly.

One game that captured this quite well was grand theft auto san andreas, Los Santos, SanFiero and Las Venturas, these settings kept me glued to the game for months.

Ill try and post a list of great plots later on, if i remember.

 

[Stormtrooper]

For me this one is easy.

This game was the biggest launch game for its system. Boot it up, choose your file you wanted to open/start, and this is the image that first comes on your screen (likely the first gameplay image you see on the console):

That's right. Super Mario 64. Peaches Castle.

Prior to 1996, games were either 2 dimensional, or terrible attempts at 3 dimensions. Then with the launch of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo showed everyone that playing games in 3 dimensions was not only fun, but DAMN impressive looking.

The storyline was pretty basic (no different from any other Mario game, Bowser kidnaps Peach). However, the gameplay made the game great, and the visuals made the game an all-time classic.

Here's a look at the first level you were to play:

Spoiler

Now the best part about this is that he 15 levels looked vastly different from the others. There were snowy levels, grassy levels, desert levels, volcanic levels, a level in a clock, underwater, in the clouds, the trees, mountain tops, you name it, and it was there.

Finally, after a while, we get to play a Bowser level (and Bowser) for the first (of 3) times. What would Bowser and the level look like, and how do you defeat him? Well, here's your answer:

Spoiler

The level:

Bowser:

And a close-up:

Good lord, the first time I saw that, I got hard, and I'm not into beastiality, or animated shit like that. Then the battle was unlike any prior Bowser battle (here you threw him into a bomb to defeat him), and the whole scene was just amazing.


By today's standards, the game isn't such a graphical masterpiece. However, Super Mario 64 was the first game to really utilize a 3D engine to its fullest extent, both in terms of gameplay and visuals, and really set the standard to which every other game was visually compared at the time, and pretty much all of those games failed to live up to the lofty standards of Super Mario 64.


It took 2 years for Super Mario 64 to be visually equaled, and of course there's only one company that can do that, and that's Nintendo themselves. They created maybe the greatest game in the history of Video Gaming, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, whose visuals were just as stunning as Mario. I'd get into that game, but I'll let someone else do it.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Shame on all of you for not mentioning Rapture from Bio-shock, the greatest game ever made:

This game perfectly captures what a Randian metropolis would have looked like had it been built in the 1950s/1960s. Rapture is even more alluring (albeit morbidly so) when you first enter it because of its state of decay and disrepair. I usually hate replaying games, but I could literally roam Rapture for hours upon hours.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

For me it has to be Vice City from the legendary Grand Theft Auto series.

By far my favourite game in the series, I love everything about this setting. There are so many different sectors of the city, each offering something different. For example, you have Little Havana with all its natives driving their pimped out lowriders, there is the downtown region which is more of a regular city with skyscrapers, the "Sunset Strip" style area infront of the beach, where babes in bikini's mingle with the club-goers in their flashy suits.

Also, there is a golf course, airport, and pretty much anything you can think of. The icing on the cake for me was the big mansion in between the 2 parts of the island that Tommy Vercetti ends up taking ownership of, which is designed to look exactly like Tony Montana's mansion in Scarface. That was a great addition (also, incase you didn't find it...there was a house in the game with the chainsaw and blood all over the bathroom, just like the memorable scene in Scarface. I found that by chance one day, and had a private MTFO moment!)

What I also love about the GTA cities is that they are all like an actual city, with cars driving around, characters going about their own business, it really does feel like you are in a real world.

You can go and try and do the missions offered by the game or you can choose to go and collect your money from your businesses, actually become a taxi driver or just wander round at your own pleasure, doing whatever you please.

I love the GTA games, and although San Andreas and Liberty City in GTA 4 are bigger, and it could be argued better, I will always like Vice City the best. It was a phenomenal setting, the sleazy coked up 80s, and I loved it.

 

[Sean Valjean]

Renaissance Italy: Assassin's Creed 2​

Quite a few of the settings already listed are among my favorites, but this one is probably in my top 5 ever.

While I also loved the Medieval/Crusades setting of the first AC, I've always had a love of Renaissance culture and art so this game was a dream come true for me.

Environments are beautifully rendered and the amount of detail in each piece of architecture is breathtaking. I probably spent as much time traversing roof tops to admire each building, from famous landmarks to even simple market, as I did cutting corrupted lives short.

Thanks to the great NPC's the world feels alive and really feels like as good a reproduction of that historical period as any Renaissance fair or History channel special; probably better, actually.

 

[Dagger Dias]

My favorite setting would probably be the Tower of Salvation from Tales of Symphonia because it stands for so much in the story, as well as all of the epic events that take place there during the game. Each time you go there, something more epic happens than the last time you were there. The more you find out about it's purpose or what has happened there long ago, the more eerie it feels to be there. There has never been another location like that to my knowledge. Some come close, but not with this type of impact on both pre-game story and in-game events at the same time. It's an awesome location and my favorite setting of my favorite game.