[General Discussion] Sandbox Games - Too Much Freedom?

Sandbox games: yes please. Sometimes it's just fun to play a game and not think about where you're progressing. MGS3, for example, started throwing gun duels and spelunking and hour-long sniper battles at me just when I began to enjoy sneaking around the jungle and breaking into small bases to steal stuff. Variety is good, but a little pointless fun never hurts either.

Most of these open-ended free-roaming games are pretty empty, though. Like Monkey King said, the meat is the key.

The gameplay just has to be as flexible as the game's open-endedness. I actually enjoy Daggerfall more than Morrowind because the latter's missions are a bit too directed for my taste. Every guild in Daggerfall is an endless source of random crap missions to do, and ridiculous as it may sound, a quickie mission like killing a couple of bears who broke into a private home is as complex as I want to get sometimes.

Jam it back in, in the dark.