The most immersive video games you've ever played?

[Retrology]

Here I'm talking about games with an atmosphere that is so good it makes you want to explore every little inch it has to offer. Every nook and cranny, every idea this game comes up with, just because the world the developers created is so convincing you could get lost in it for hours and never get bored.

Here's my picks.

Breath of the Wild

Bioshock 1

Donkey Kong Country 2

Super Mario 64

Wario Land 4

Resident Evil 4

The First Two Paper Mario games

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Chrono Trigger

Jet Force Gemini

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Thoughts? What are your picks?

[Herschie]

MLB The Show is basically the game I can play and never get tired of.

[matmico399]

Bully on the PS2. I also have the 360 version with more gameplay but I just didn't enjoy it as much. The schoolyard setting and the towns around the game I could search forever and find something interesting to do. Plus there's a chance to beat up some obnoxious students.

[Zack Burner]

Great Topic! Here's my list:

Donkey Kong Country

Final Fantasy VII

Sly 2 Band of Thieves

Gauntlet Dark Legacy

Legend of Zelda - A link to the Past and Ocarina of Time

[noah98]

Skyrim! Still playing it and I always get immersed in that world. With mods it can even compete with modern games.

I also can't get enough of Gotham in Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. Halloween and Christmas themes are so well done!

[Mpls_Vato]

Earthbound and Mother 3 are good choices for me in terms of just wanting to talk to everybody and get immersed in the quirky and bizarre dialogue.

I got immersed in Secret of Evermore and had to play through the game multiple times in order to see and do everything in the game. The ambience-heavy soundtrack and exploration of different time periods with your dog companion really sets the mood and makes you feel like you’re in the game.

More modern games that were immersive for me were State of Decay, GTA V and Fallout IV.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

Immersion used to be easy.

A 2600 and a sea of stars was all I needed. Anything beyond that, was like stepping into another dimension.

As a kid, I believed in ET's race to the woods, to meet his ship. And when he missed it? For just one second, I caught a small bit of that sense of abandonment.

Underneath a night sky that was only implied instead rendered, I felt just as small and alone as his sprite.

Or take ShadowRun on SNES/Link's Awakening GB/GBC: Something as simple as NPCs reading newspapers or two children playing a ball game together went a long ways towards helping me forget that they were just a basic hardware function and a few if/then statements.

I wasn't ready for Link to end that tiny world, even if it was all just a dream inside a fiction.

Other times, immersion was as simple as two characters being in love. The real kind.

The kind you can see in little details like Megaman casually serving a dinner he cooked or Roll giving Megaman a discount if he accidentally walks in on her naked. Yes, that last one's a bit perverted, but so are most relationships.

if you're going to convince us that the characters are actually a couple in the early stages of a long term commitment? Then they shouldn't behave like total strangers. There's nothing more immersion breaking than a Shenmue style relationship, where one character claims a wood carving of a robot loves her back despite all evidence to the contrary.

So yeah, like I said, losing myself in the game used to be easy. Back before the graphics became more realistic. Back before games tried to compete with reality.

And yet...

The most immersive game I've ever played went for realistic graphics, on a system that was nowhere near powerful enough to support that style.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. This is the first game I've seen that's just as curious about the player, as the player is about it. Being asked about yourself by an in-game psychiatrist is just the surface layer. There's more going on, beneath that surface. It even goes so far as to track your camera, when deciding which of the bad endings you'd most enjoy.

Your real life battle with temptation is a gameplay mechanic.

I've never seen that done before or since.

It's a shame that all of this immersion is immediately destroyed whenever an action scene decides you'd rather play Dragon's Lair instead.

[CaptainCruch]

Honestly, I found video games more immersive when I was younger. Nowadays, not so much. I think I played too many.

Anyway if I have to pick some "recent":
BioShock 1 (better than the sequels)
Gears of War 1 (better than the sequels)
Final Fantasy Tactics (GBA)/ Tactics A2 (DS)
Sushi Striker (3DS, this game is addictive!)