Had I been born in another age, chances are that I would have been an explorer. Once upon a time, our world was wrapped in magic and wonder. Nowadays, an airplane ticket and a few hours time can span oceans. And, if you’re really ambitious, you might venture a mouse click and a keystroke or two to reveal the particulars of your destination on the flight over.

Perhaps, then, it stands to reason that the biggest draw of video games has been very much the urge and challenge to unravel the mystery of what waits behind the next door, inside of locked chests, or beyond distant mountaintops -- a sort of surrogate thrill in a world divested of secrets.

This seduction of exploration -- if only virtual -- caused me to slip out of bed at 4 a.m. on school days to sneak in a few extra hours of the original Zelda while my need to chart the unknown came up during parent-teacher conferences in the form of maps I had sketched of Metroid’s long shafts in the margins of my math homework. I doubt I’m alone here.

Clearly, games scratch a deep itch for adventure and discovery in an world now containing little opportunity for either. But what happens when the vistas and environments of video games become more familiar than the scenery outside our front door?

One might expect the opposite to have happened. Considering the technical limitations and relative poverty of viable platforms of the mid-to-late '80s -- coupled with the publishing strictures put forth by the market-share leader of this period, Nintendo -- the Nintendo Entertainment Systen library fares comparatively well against modern releases. Best sellers like Metroid, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Dragon Quest, and Kid Icarus (to name but a few) offer an impressive breadth of surroundings each distinct from the other.

Even between releases of first-party mainstays, such as the Super Mario and Zelda series, each sequel has a look and and feel all its own. There’s no mistaking the dreamy otherworldliness of Super Mario Bros. 2 from the imaginative and unpredictable domains of an updated Mushroom Kingdom while traversing the third iteration. 

Likewise, at the risk of alienating fans of the first Legend of Zelda, developers threw Link into a reconfigured Hyrule in which players spent most of their adventure scrolling sideways through a world altered so vastly as to seem a new franchise entirely.

How many modern sequels would risk such a shift?
 

By contrast, today’s software sales leader, the Xbox 360, has hosted little more than a series of brown-and-gray routes through near-identical landscapes lacking both personality and the ability to surprise. More often than not, what exploration does exist begins and ends looking down the ever-present barrel of an assault rifle -- a perspective that presents little nuance or range in its method of interaction.

To the uninitiated, or even many longtime fans, there is very little to distinguish one Call of Duty or Halo from the next. You’re either on a battlefield from World War II; in a steroid-amped modern time; or within some remote yet usually hackneyed, off-world future, depending on the trend du jour. 

Further, most of these games do little in the way of encouraging exploration, instead leaning heavily on their multiplayer modes at the expense of underdeveloped single-player missions. And as enjoyable as those online modes can be, they are no substitute for the gratification of an engrossing journey through truly original, wide-open lands and a field of interactions just as vast.

Of course, gamers seeking more variety may seek the slightly greener (or, at least, less brown and gray) pastures of the PlayStation 3. In fact, it’s my system of choice due in large part to a more diverse first-party library partly fostered by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studio as well as the ingenious work of Thatgamecompany, Q-Games, and others.

As we turn our attention to the best sellers on Sony’s console, however, we’re presented with an almost mirror image of their competitor's calling cards. Three COD’s make the top five, while the likes of Resistance and its sequel, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Killzone 2 -- none of which stray much from the same dull, rubble-strewn terrains -- round out the top 20.

Whatever happened to the impetus to build worlds using a full box of crayons and prodding the player to step beyond the lines? Is it that open, colorful environments have become less compelling today than they were 30 years ago? Or have habit and a sad lack of alternatives simply forced us to line up for the same old roller coaster no matter how diminished its thrills or memorized its twists and turns?