[NeonAges]

Grand Theft Auto originally came out on the Sony Playstation many years ago, and made quite a splash with the gamer community.  Not just because it was violent and raunchy, but because you could pretty much go anywhere and do anything.  You wanna steal that car?  Go for it!  Shoot that guy?  Do it!  This type of freedom really hooked players and made them say "Wow, I'm never going to get tired of this game!".  Unfortunately for me, I did get tired of it. 
    Later on down the road, the Playstation 2 was released, and soon after, Grand Theft Auto 3 was released.  Grand Theft Auto 3 was everything the original Grand Theft Auto was, and more.  Now in complete 3D, you could drive anywhere, shoot anyone, and steal any vehicle.  I know I was hooked for a long time playing this game, just doing stupid stuff.  I would steal a car, run over someone, then have an ambulance show up, and then I would steal the ambulance, activate the ambulance mission, and save that same person.
    After spawning two more sequels on the PS2 and Xbox, Vice City and San Andreas, the game was more or less the same with some new things thrown in to keep it somewhat fresh.  I played Vice City quite a bit, but San Andreas even less.  But, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
    Let's backtrack a bit to two games called Arena and Daggerfall.  These 'go anywhere, be anybody' epic RPGs made a large splash as well, letting players play the game how they want to, and do whatever they wanted to.  The engine itself was basically all sprite work, but the sheer amount of things to do made the game what it was.  In 2002/2003, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was released.  I remember hearing Alec talk about this game and I was certainly excited about it.  The same premise of Arena and Daggerfall, only now with a full 3D engine and further customizability.  After I picked this game up, I was hooked playing it.  I played it for hours, just running around exploring, doing random missions, doing guild quests, finding loot, making a name for myself.  But after all that was said and done, really, all that was left was wondering around.  I quickly got tired of it and stopped playing.
    Fast forward to 2006, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is released.  Making huge headlines in the media for the epic scale of the game, yet still having state of the art graphics.  The game itself promised the same open-endedness of the previous Elder Scrolls games, all with the latest graphical bells and whistles.  Once again, I was excited and quickly picked it up after I had upgraded my computer.  In even less time, I got tired of it.  This time, I didn't even make it through the main quest, I completed two of the guild quest chains, got two characters to level twenty or so, and then just got tired of it.
    How could these 'go anywhere, do anything' games lose their value so quickly?  To me, it's because you have no real direction.  Sure, you're given small shoves here and there, giving you incentive on where to go, but you're still daunted by the fact that there is so much to do, and you have just started.  Or, 'I've done this much, I wonder how much left there is?  Will I ever find all of it?'.  I think this mentality tires out gamers quickly.  I know for me it did.  Which is why to me, grand scale games get tiring so fast.  There's millions of things to do, and millions of ways to do it, but you never know where to start sometimes, or where to go next.  Structured games tell you where to go, and force you in some of your decisions, some gamers like this, some appreciate it.  I for one, do.  I find that a structured, somewhat linear game, is a more enjoyable and less tiresome experience.  After you finish it, you feel accomplishment, and you may want to go back and play it again.  But with open ended games, you may never finish it completely, and you'll feel small experiences of short-lived accomplishment, before you realize how much left there is to do.
    Now I know some people love grand scale games, I do too, to an extent.  I just feel that games that are more linear and less open-ended are more rewarding to me in the end.

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