[General Discussion] Sandbox Games - Too Much Freedom?

Some of my favorite games have sandbox style gameplay. Most notably is Fallout/Fallout 2. It was very fun being able to do pretty much whatever you want whereever you want without the game restricting you. Want to kill that NPC and steal his items rather than doing a quest for him? Go ahead! Don't want to find the key for a door? Lockpick it! And you're free to make your character however you want as well. Not EVERY game hero has to have a gun-toting shoot-first-ask-questions-later personality. Sometimes it's fun to be a smooth talker, or a hacker, or a thief. The recently released Oblivion is also a good example of how sandbox gameplay can be done well.

For other game types, I think most games should at least give the player a little bit of freedom, unless the game requires a very linear, strict path. Not every game needs to give you the option of breaking the storyline of course, but at least let the player see that there's a world outside of the typical hallways you end up running through for most of the game. Maybe a branching path or a few blocks of the city you can run through. Not a full blown sandbox game, but at least a bit of flexability rather than having every player end up playing the game the exact same way.

Jam it back in, in the dark.