What are your favorite video game worlds?

[Original_Name]

Ever since video games pushed beyond simple presentations of gameplay structures in and of themselves and began to provide various contexts to the core mechanics of the games, environments have come to play a large role in defining the character of a game. "The Mushroom Kingdom" and "Hyrule", for instance, will spring into many peoples' minds as iconic game worlds -- but which ones struck you personally as the most compelling and interesting to explore (or, perhaps, made you wish you could explore them)? Here are just a few of the games which featured my favorite worlds:

Panzer Dragoon Series



These games present an absolutely astounding universe to explore -- or, rather, be rocketed through, gathering only fleeting glimpses of it, preserving its mystery. Every location in the Panzer universe screams with style, with a landscape composed of dilapidated, Nausicaa-inspired architecture buried deep under vast seas, deserts, flora, and time itself. Rudimentary outposts adorn ancient and majestic scenery, serving to illustrate just how far civilization has fallen as a result of the chaos wrought by these great creations. The intricate conflicts and conspiracies between the Empire, Seekers, and post-apocalyptic peasants who behave like fussy children or dumb primates in their selfish lust for technology which they cannot begin to understand adds even further depth to this fascinating world.

Rez



What an incredible mind it would take to conceive of such a place! An amalgamation of retro-futuristic Tron-like wireframe graphics melding with Kandinsky's concept of synaesthesia (the melding of senses in unorthodox ways -- seeing sound, in the case of Rez) and organically-evolving human architecture, all occurring within the all-knowing mind of an omniscient AI supercomputer. The game artistically portrays the growing cognizance of mankind via evolution and their fundamental desire to expand into all realms their minds will take them, from the deepest internal depths of their minds to the great cosmos. Wow! Truly fascinating... this is a rail-shooter that I can't even imagine taking the Panzer Dragoon Saga route and allowing for RPG-like exploration... the world is just too much to experience in anything greater than short, focused fragments.

Skies of Arcadia



I have a long and storied history of sailors and explorers in my bloodline -- nomadic pagans, vikings, pirates... you name it. The world of Arcadia then, as you might imagine, makes my heart swell... such an imaginative world, which could only exist in a video game -- all mine to explore! Sure, the random battles are a chore, but the very idea of sailing through enormous, bottomless expanses of sky, speckled with massive floating islands which house elaborate civilizations with beautiful architecture, colorful citizens, valuable treasures, and artifacts lost to time, crawling with all sorts of strange and charismatic fauna make the hardships of traversing Arcadia a toll I gladly pay. Plus the lead character looks like me, which adds a fairly subjective element of immersion. 'u'

NiGHTS into Dreams...



Really, this one's beyond words, but I'll do my best. Adjectives like "surreal" and "dream-like" are redundant here... this is simply one of the most (if not THE most) inspired video game worlds ever crafted, and everything oozes with a pure charm that I just don't think has ever been paralleled. The set-pieces in and of themselves are strange and wildly varied (the garden clock, junked-down automobiles which spring to life, the squishy grounds surrounding the animated museum, the roller coaster-like train, and the bizarre lairs of the Nightmaren), and are arranged in equally strange ways, such as the beach suspended above your head in Splash Garden. I'll never forget flying NiGHTS up to the tippy-top of the sky to see what would happen when I was very young, only to find trees and hills hanging upside-down to meet me. NiGHTS is in ways a quasi-spiritual experience... nothing makes sense, and there's no rational explanation for anything, but there's an almost euphoric sense of child-like wonderment and bliss.

Final Fantasy VII



Finally, a game that isn't by Sega! I include this game mostly because of Midgar, which is one of the most compelling video game locales ever. The incredible imagination and superb art direction displayed in this game, and particularly this city, is still one of the most affective worlds a video game has ever created in my eyes. Every city street is littered with dirty, depressed hoodlums squatting in broken-down, smog-emitting apparatus -- every avenue is a maze of dirt and ruin, reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra". The dumps look no different than the town squares; from Wall Market to the Train Graveyard the entirety of Midgar is a down-trodden, melancholy mess -- save for the towering Shinra Citadel and their massive Mako reactors which cough even more smog and soot into the desolate city. People make their way through their broken lives here like only the sorriest of Springsteen protagonists... life is rough, there ain't no dignity left, and there's a meanness in this world... and yet they keep on going anyway. Say what you want about how overrated Final Fantasy VII is, but Midgar can never get enough praise from my perspective.

I've got alot more, like Shenmue (which, upon further consideration, may even be my favorite), Ecco: Defender of the Future, Snatcher, Grandia, Xenogears, Phantasy Star, BioShock, Shadow of the Colossus, Half-Life, and to a surprising extent the early Sonic games, but I've typed enough, dammit! I'd like to hear you guys' opinions now!

[casterofdreams]

For me id say the two most compelling worlds for me to live in are the fallout universe and the mass effect universe. Both are future representaions of our future from opposite ends of the spectrums. Fallout taught me where to hide if a nuclear warhead were to go off, hide in a subway system. I live in new york city so some trainstations go deep underground. Mass effect is just a great place to explore for its ability to spark imagination like what star wars does for a lot of people myself included.

[ZeroAX]

Plus the lead character looks like me, which adds a fairly subjective element of immersion. 'u'

post pic please.

[Original_Name]

Plus the lead character looks like me, which adds a fairly subjective element of immersion. 'u'

post pic please.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- ... 7389_n.jpg

Perhaps a bit more pale (okay, ALOT more pale), but the anatomy and hair are close enough.

[Gamerforlife]

I like Brutal Legend's heavy metal world. Loved driving around, checking out the sights and getting involved in random skirmishes between my comrades and enemy factions

Mass Effect as well. The definitive sci fi universe in gaming in my opinion. It's gaming's equivalent of Star Wars or Star Treak

Any cutesy, cartooney world. It's one of the reasons I love platformers. I would love to jump into any cartooney universe for a day, like in the Roger Rabbit movie

Tomb Raider games exist in a fascinating version of our reality with lost, mythical, magical far off places to explore

Supernatural worlds fascinate me(I'm a fan of Buffy, Angel and the Supernatural tv series). So Castlevania comes to mind

[flamepanther]

My favorite worlds are probably Zebes, Tallon IV (both from the Metroid series) and the universe of Silent Hill.

[Flake]

The world of Tetris.

[YoshiEgg25]

The world of Tetris.

[J T]

[MikeyW]

I've always enjoyed the world of Nosgoth in the Legacy of Kain series. Even though the story line of the series became way to convoluted for it's own good, I found it enjoyable to see the demise and degradation of the land over a very long period of time.