Ross' Sandbox Recommendations

Ross Recommends:

Minecraft

The ultimate playground. Minecraft drops you in its blocky world with no task other than to shape it how you see fit. There really is no better expression of individuality than a gamers own, personalMinecraft world.

In my world I spent an age searching for a village to call home, so that I wouldn't be lonely. When I found one I built myself a nice little farmhouse on the outskirts and set about town renovation, adding new houses in the style of the existing ones to increase the village size and encourage some breeding amongst its inhabitants.

When I found another village further away I spent days gathering the materials to build a railway track between them, with enough powered rails that a cart could make it there without stopping. I even built an tavern at the half way point and took a few of my villagers there to staff it. I love my little world, but I bet it's nothing like yours!

Also Try:

Don't Starve

This game isn't even officially released yet, but having early access to the beta (through Steam's early access pre-purchase scheme) has shown me enough to be able to recommend the game in a heartbeat.

Don't Starve is equal parts highly enjoyable and brutally difficult. Playing as one of several available characters, you find yourself whisked away to a strange island full of strange creatures. Your first task is to gather enough food to fend of starvation and enough fuel to create a fire at night. After that, you start building up your camp with farms, plants, chests, walls, machines and more.

If you run out of food, you die. If you get stuck out at night without a light source, you die. If you are attacked and you unprepared, you die. If you stray too long from a heat source in winter, you die. If you've just about made it through your first winter and are attacked by the Deerclops and three hounds at the same time, you probably die: I know I did. And when you do die - and you will die - you dust yourself off, start a new game, and enjoy it as much as the first.

Far Cry 3

OK, this one is a little on contrast to the previous two but hey - it's an open world game that lets you do pretty much whatever you want within the confines of the game map. That's sandboxy enough for me. I've spend hours at a time ignoring the story of Far Cry 3 in favour of hunting animals, attacking outposts, even just climbing a mountain so I can enjoy the view from the top.

Far Cry 3 is a tropical adventure playground just bursting with things to do, guns to shoot and secrets to find. All of this is backed up by incredibly slick combat and some of the best graphics ever seen in a videogame. Especially the flames. Fire is so pretty.