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    Many video games cause you to be consumed by their world.  You feel like you are actually inside of the world in the game and you can make your way around it just like it was your world.  Three games that have mastered this are Zork, Myst, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andres.

     In Zork there are no pictures to show where you are in the world.  Instead there are detailed text descriptions that tell you where you are and what items are around.  The way you know where you are is how the game tells you.  It will tell you that you are on the north side of the house, in the forest, or in the kitchen.  It is a little bit harder to tell where you are from where you have been.  If you went east to go into the forest the to just back track you go west. But if you are in the kitchen and want to go back to the forest its a little bit more complicated because you have to remember how you got to where you are from where you were instead of just looking at a map.  After I explored the world of Zork I expected to find some mystical elements.  The name alone seems to have a futuristic mystical feel to it.  With some of the descriptions that I was given it seemed to have a Lord of the Rings theme to it.  Zork seemed to be organized into a blocked chess board like system.  You could move north one block east another and another until you came to the end of the board and could not go any farther.  You could move north, south, east, and west and any direction in between.  I tended to mostly move toward the more interest paths.  When it said something about a dark and gloomy forest is in front of you I wondered what encounters would happen if I went down that path so I went.  Anything that seemed like something would happen because I did it, like sneaking in the house through the window, I would do it.  The way that you get to interact by moving around in the space, picking up the objects, and the detailed descriptions makes it feel like you are actually moving around in a real place.

     Myst does the same thing that Zork does but a little bit different.  Myst is a picture based game in where you click to navigate around the space.  The pictures that are in the game are very pleasing on the eyes and seem realistic enough to believe that you are in the world as you navigate around in it.  The space that Myst creates seems to be in forms of layers on top of layers since you seem to go through one picture to another.  It is easy to tell where you are in Myst because you see where you are.  It is also easier to go to somewhere you once were from where you are now because you have pictures to remember where you went instead of having to remember if it was north, south, east, or west.  Myst has such a unique name that in the world after seeing around it seemed like I would have to find items and solve puzzles and sure enough I did.  Even though I was just clicking away it still felt like I was actually inside the world doing everything.  Having visual graphics in the game really consumed me more then Zork's text based adventure.  The pictures, solving puzzles, picking up items, and being able to move about the world makes it feel just like a static version of the real world.

     Grand Theft Auto San Andres is another evolution of these game types.  GTA felt real because it looked real and I had full control of the character.  The buildings, people, roads, and cars looked like ones I would see in real life.  Having the character get out of breath if he ran to hard felt real.  It did not feel as real as Zork or Myst because I was controlling a character instead of feeling like I was actually moving around in the space.  It is easy to know where you are, where you have been, and where you are going because a map and a radar are provided for you with blips of your current destination. It will also tell you in the screen what part of town you have just entered. Also just like a real city after you are there for awhile you get familiar with your surroundings and are eventually able to navigate through the area without the map.  In the game I expect to interact with everything.  Now while I can steal any car, beat up anyone, play video games in the house, get a hair cut, buy food, and spray paint walls not everything is interactive.  I can not go inside of every building unless it is part of the game.  The space in the game is organized like a huge city that you can move about freely in just like in real life that makes it feel real.  While the space is not infinite it does end.  The walls on the buildings that you cant enter are the end of the space but cleverly designed so it feels like its part of the city instead of just the end of the space.  Also down one tunnel you come across a sign that says do not cross construction ahead do not enter so just like in real life you have to turn around and go back.  You could move about the space freely from walking, running, biking, motorcycles, fire trucks, cars, and trucks.  So forms of transportation were faster then others making the game feel real.  While there was a good solid story line to the game the interactivity of the game often made me break from the story causing me to not feel like I was in the game and it was real.  Whenever I would see a path with a lot of people that I could shoot or beat up I would go down it or I would follow the blips on the radar to see what the mission would offer and follow the story.  The fun and entertaining thing about the game was that I could do what ever I wanted but it also made me not feel like I was involved with the story or game.