Anyone who can claim themselves as fans of racing games must've played a Burnout game. Hell even the Amish have probably HEARD about Burnout at one point or another. I steadfastly refuse to play sequels I don't approve of and therefore haven't played one of the Burnout series ever since Burnout 3:Takedown (top 3 racing games of all time for me). So when I saw Burnout Paradise sitting on one of my friends' shelves, feelings of nostalgia overtook me and I asked to borrow it. I popped it in while mentally preparing myself for hours upon hours of carnage.

                However, after a couple hours, my nostalgia finally melted away and I stared horrified at the screen. Driving from "mission" to "mission"? Picking my own route to drive during a race? Not being able to restart a race? Yes, in the few years I had decided to forgo serious gaming and pursue sexual relationships and athletic ability instead, Burnout had sold its soul to sandbox gaming.

                I scanned release titles from the past five or six years and realized how many sandbox games/games with sandbox elements had been released. A few of them, like Mercenaries or Red Faction Guerilla, pull off the sandbox portion very well and their flaws are usually with gameplay mechanics or story or something else. However, a vast majority of these games like Just Cause 2 and Burnout Paradise just seem like games that don't need be sandbox at all.

                I think most of the problems are due to the fact that developers don't know how to USE the sandbox concept. There are several obvious yet overlooked issues with sandbox gaming to begin with.

1) Environment - every game strives to have a nice environment, but its penultimate in sandbox games. You can play for 2 hours of ruined city in Halo 2 and get away with it because you're usually too busy spilling purple blood to be concerned with how same-y it looks. However, when for hours on end you are treated to cookie cutter towers and buildings in Just Cause 2 while you're parachuting or driving, you really do get frustrated. The whole point of a sandbox game is to explore the world and we'd much rather have a tighter gameplay experience in ONE place if its all gonna look the same.

2) The Travelling - if the game-world is big, the developer will want the player to explore it. In order for the player to explore it, the objectives are placed far away. So the player will be FORCED to traverse great distances in order to progress in the game.  If  you want the player to travel great distances, it better be fun. This is where the good games, such as mercenaries and GTA, shine. Being able to hijack almost everything in sight and having clear paths to your objectives is great. In Burnout: Paradise you can't suddenly step out of your car if you see a nicer one on the street, and i personally found the next racing event more compelling than collecting shit around the city. I like sandbox games and even I didn't feel compelled to explore it. I mean honestly, think back to GTA 4 and think about how much time you actually spent driving around. A FUCKING LOT. But you really didn't notice because there were pedestrians to mow down, cops to irk, and trees to crash into and fling yourself through the windshield. Good sandbox games have so much to do that they make the travelling seem like part of the action.

3) Flow - This is a problem that all sandbox games have. Even the best sandbox games don't solve this problem, they merely make the rest of the game so good that we ignore it. It's no coincidence that the some of the best video game stories of all time have NOT come from sandbox games. As hard as they try, you never feel as close to sandbox characters because of all that running around and associating with anyone. I mean GTA 4 is one of the best sandbox games ever and I still loved Cpt. Price from Modern Warfare 2 more than any of the characters in Liberty City. Also, when there are long drives from mission to mission, it does interrupt the flow of the story and the best sandbox games seek to immerse you so well in its environment that you forget about the story till the next mission.

                Despite all this, I'm going to say sandbox gaming is VERY good for the games industry. Making the gameplay experience so varied that you can play it over and over again and never play the same thing twice means that you get more game for your buck. I mean the success of Rockstar speaks for itself. Yet there are so many problems with sandbox gaming, some that can never be solved but only covered up, that I don't understand why developers consider sandbox games a free ride to success. I mean (hate me if you will) GTA is a very flawed series, yet its considered one of the best ever. That's proof itself that sandboxing isn't as easy as it looks.

And hey, I still think Red Faction II is way better than Guerilla. And I still think Burnout 3 is way better than paradise.

But you know what else?

Grand Theft Auto kicks their ass. Long live the sandbox.